RK IG Armies - network entities

From the foregoing you can see that a RK army takes about a week to form, requires the co-operation and co-ordination of upto nearly sixty players, march slowly around the countryside, cause some trepidation every time they are near the walls of a town, can have kill lists that mean if they bump into named indiviuals on the road (whether in an army or just travelling) that they will attack that person and their group, or that if they meet anyone they'll attack, or ignore, as the case may be. They are major elements within the landscape.

Each fully equipped soldier will have eaten meat for a hundred days, have sword and shield and hopefully supplies for the campaign. Ideally, there will be spare swords and shields - these things have a tendency to break in combat. When you think that a sword takes a blacksmith six days to produce and a shield requires a weaver, the complexity and expense of the whole operation becomes something to marvel at.

A fully functional army is not something to be undertaken lightly. Few organisations are upto the task. So far in Scotland the only armies successful in combat so far have been composed of regiments of the Royal Scottish Army (Muirkirk, Dumfries, Girvan) and the Clan Forbes army (raided over the border into England during the Caledonian Crisis). Other armies have had a strong impact on events. These include 'The Fury' (hodgepodge of the MacGregor Clan and Snow family, and associated criminal gangs), Campbells, 'Caledonians' (Campbells), Galloway Ducal Guard (mainly Campbells), Galloway Ducal Navy (mainly members of Fury), as well as Wallace clan army ('The Sleeping Giant'). Munro clan has also an army at present, though it remained in their hometown of Muirkirk during the recent crisis 'just in case'.

Under the Scottish Constitution, the Royal Scottish Army (under the Steward) is the only national army. Clans have a right to form their own armies (under regulation by the consitution regarding feuds, to serve under the Steward in time of war). All other armies are illegal unless given dispensation. This sets up a structural problem within the world as the Ingame functions of each County include forming a County army under the Captain (a member of the ingame elected county).

Thus, fully functional armies require functioning social organisations to operate meaningfully. They are subject to the machinations and power structures of political life in scotland as it is played out in forums, town halls, council chambers and pubs across the land.