Obsidian Agent wrote:Actually, Nagyasced was also a Halme kingdom. Hermionnes were the ones who were attacking Ys, and who had also eventually conquered Nagyasced. On the whole, the Drow also seem to fear the Hermionnes somewhat, as Kyo'nne mentioned that they could clear forests in very little time, and - if left unchecked - would destroy all of the Drow surface colonies.
Which raises a whole lot of questions as to what Hermionnes are doing that's so scary. I mean their equipment is sub par and they travel in groups too small to pose a real threat to a population in any real battle. I suppose it could be a decent Gurella situation if you can't sense them coming, but that's the extent of it. I mean even
Faen managed to hold her ground. The amount of damage they cause vs lives lost suggests a serious disadvantage at play to them.
Of course it depends on how many of them there
are. We've never seen an actual fighting force in full strength and it could just be that they never stop coming. If you grow at more than double the rate of drow and reproduce much more frequently it could just be a never ending stream of them with a death of a thousand cuts situation. After all, human lives aren't exactly worth as much in a numeric sense and their equipment has proportionally the same value. I'd guess that even wounding one drow at the cost of ten human lives is a fair trade to them. Drow are going to need that soldier for a hundred or two hundred or three hundred years, whereas the human would be lucky to get two decades of active military service in. Kind of like the vikings I suppose, thinking about it. Which also kinda fits in with their crazy useless ship in the middle of nowhere.
Though that reminds me of
viking arms and armor. Vikings may have used mail when they could but their designs weren't that complex, but at the same time the metal forging was reasonably advanced for it's day. It could be that their actual swords are physically tougher than one would guess, and may rate better than you'd expect in comparison to drow blades. I mean when you've got like a million tons of steel you don't necessarily need to get that complex with forging. In fact, just checking the designs again I'm seeing that drow blades may be more ornate and fancy shaped but there's no real use of grooves or ribs and most "cool" weapons just have a powerstone or whatever in them. It looks like they basically just bend metal into a convenient shape and don't really care about the physics behind it. Though it might just be that the artists don't care about the specifics of weapon designs so much as them looking cool.
Though to be honest I have no idea what some of the Hermionnes are wearing. I think Kite just kind of flubbed the material on a lot of the armor and while I'd guess a lot of them are wearing simple leathers, their elites look like they're wearing bronze or some other metal that happens to be of a similar design. The scaled design is really convenient in that you can scale it up or down with any material you have on hand, so it kind of makes sense in hindsight for a raiding force to use equipment patterns they can substitute materials for, while also being reasonably light and free moving.
Contrast this with the drow for a bit. Basically everyone who's everyone insists on having it done
their way. Their use their own hair dye, but also custom armor or customizing what they get if at all possible. That's way harder to repair and replace and maintaining it is a nightmare even before complex magical shit on top of it. The most regimented are the Sarghress, but even they clearly use way more unique parts and components than they should and but a large emphasis on personal glory.
It's less an upgrade or downgrade than sidegrade if this holds out. The arms and armor involved are built with wholly different philosophies in mind.