History of the Arms

### **A call for an expansion of the Arms (1422)**

A strong defensive system was necessary – and they had one. Two garrison battalions were holding their own, but the pendulum of defense was wearing on the support town.

There was no good “Sweet Spot” for an area as contested as North Point. The best defense was a good offense, so there were active patrols, but there still had to be walls to retreat to, if anything just to buy time as they create a Plan B response.

The problem was that the walls represented a physical commitment to a strategy. *It was either:*

* Build walls protecting a small area and not everybody fits, *or*...
* Build walls protecting a wide area and foes find a way in.

Hence the necessity of a very active, mobile defense. Find the foe and meet them before they reached the vulnerable civilian population.

Regardless if the marquisate expanded or not, the threat was deep enough that they needed to be able to rapidly respond. This meant patrols further from home and when necessary, applying pressure at the source. It meant an expansion of the arms – with forces designed and equipped to operate independently for more extended deployments.

Some 13 years after the North Point groundbreaking, 16 years after the northern battalion was commissioned, 125 years after the Stonehearth Arms were chartered… The House was about to commission their first major military unit that wasn’t assigned as a defensive garrison. This future outfit was *Expeditionary*.

#### **Commissioning the 3rd Battalion, Expeditionary**

Recruited from both Baldur’s Gate and the North Point area, the new battalion took the proven ConOps of 1st and 2nd battalions, and adapted it to the changing needs. Everything was worthy of analysis and consideration, including best practices and lessons learned from other successful organizations.

Among the source material was the Zhentarim, who was well practiced in deploying units far from a base for an extended period. Half the practices simply weren’t sustainable in the long run, depleting local resources and political support, but there were plenty of tactical and strategic lessons in Logistics, especially keeping supply linesopen.

The lessons learned rolled in from all over Toril in this respect…

The nominal base would be at a temporary fort, some 60 miles east southeast, in the upper northeast portion of the expanded peninsula. This was roughly 30 miles beyond the claimed marquisate borders and wouldn’t function as a defensive keep so much as a supply site for constant armored patrols. Just across the river from the mid-Troll Hills, it was an area identified as a regular region for “safe” troll crossings. *Given the troll crossing, the fort was named “Rivergard.”*

#### **The Rolling Thunder**

The unit insignia was symbolic of the operating concept: putting heavy firepower on wheels.  They would be the first to incorporate the new post-steam magically-driven motors.

3d Bt, Rolling Thunder, was recruited, indoctrinated, educated, trained, conditioned, equipped and deployed within two years. By 1424, they were operating out of their designated fort – getting into an immediate series of skirmishes. They arrived just as there was a rising tide of incursions, and prevented more sustained troll attacks against the marquisate itself.

There were five combat companies and a command company. Each infantry company included a dedicated logistics platoon that doubled as artillery support when parked, including light cannons and howitzers.

* Mobile Infantry
* Mobile Infantry
* Mobile Infantry
* Cavalry
	+ Cavalry logistics was exceptionally expensive, utilizing bags of holding for heavy armor transport. They traveled as light cavalry, but could quickly re-equip to heavy cavalrywhen the fight called for close encounters.
* Artillery

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### **Roll Call of the Stonehearth Arms (1461)**

The Nether-Shade attack reinforced the value of the system that supported the standing army. It also sparked a call for a second and potential third battalion to form an expeditionary Brigade(or Regiment) – largely because the sustained nature of surrounding threats and the fact that none of the vassaljurisdictions wanted to lose the full power of their defensive units (as they did during with the provisional battalions). It was simply too great a risk.

Reference: the total force of Baldur’s Gate “Flaming Fist” Company varied between 1400-1750, itself weighing in just over a single Stonehearth battalion but without the benefit of artillery…

The limiting factor was money. There was a tax base plus there was direct SMC income that supported the Arms, but another full expeditionary battalion (or two) was expensive. There was already an extensive support structure for the regular training and maintenance of the standing units (with the CoA and so on). Given the current tax structure, Stonehearth would have to expand at least two counties worth, defend those counties with their own garrisons, populate and tax those counties – *then they could afford another expeditionary battalion*.

* 1st Battalion, Baldur’s Gate (Garrison)
* 2d Battalion, North Point (Garrison)
* 3d Battalion, Fort East Bend (Expeditionary)
* 4th Battalion, Manchester (Garrison)
* 5th Battalion, Rivergard (Garrison)
* 6th Battalion, Adlington (Garrison)
* 7th Battalion, Durham (Garrison)

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#### **Combat Tested, Battle Proven…** (1465)

The unveiling came about three months after soldiers of the Stonehearth Arms were issued individual wands as sidearms. The outside world wasn’t sure if every soldier had been trained to be a caster, but the new military-grade metallic wands replaced other dedicated wands, including the “truth wands” utilized by soldiers on sheriff duty.

These were, in fact, Wands of Casting, but the military grade version was rapid-fire (allowing three attacks per round in game terms). Magic missile, fireball and lightning were all regularly cast, as well as mage hand, light and repair spells.