Locations: Garnoc’s Gloves

Locations: Garnoc’s Gloves

Garnoc is one of Trizol’s premier gloves makers. His shop is located in the city of Newhaven Crossing. His clientele are mostly nobles and rich military officers. He has experience in making a wide variety of leathers into functional and good looking gloves.

Garnoc himself is getting on in age and currently has two apprentices working for him, twin brothers named Markoos and Harkoos. These apprentices stand to jointly inherit the shop when he dies. Although both are very skilled and handle the bulk of the orders coming through the shop, Garnoc has not yet sponsored them to the Guild.

The shop is on the corner of Dragon’s Rest and an unnamed alleyway. It’s a small two story affair that is well kept up. In the back it shares a common area with several other shops and houses. It also shares a dirty stable with the inn next door, although Garnoc does not have any animals at this time.

When entering from the front door, gloves are neatly arranged on shelves. They are sorted by material, size and color. Each pair is left unfinished so that they can be custom fitted to the customer. A glass case against one the interior wall also serves as a sales counter. Displayed inside are some of the more exotic materials, including a set made from black dragon leather. All gloves are masterwork in quality but confer no other game stats unless created to do so by another NPC or PC at DM’s discretion. Prices range from 7gp for basic leather riding gloves to 600gp for the black dragon ones.

A door way covered with a simple curtain separates the front from the workshop in back. It is about twice the size of the front showroom, about fifteen by thirty feet. Bolts of leathers of all types are neatly shelved (about 6000gp worth) along one long wall. A work bench lines the other side. All tools are in their place and the only scraps are from projects currently in progress. At the far end is a small stove for heat. Closest to the door is a comfortable chair for clients to sit in while their hands are measured for custom orders.

Small stairs near the stove lead to the upstairs. It has been divided into four rooms. The twins share one, Garnoc has another and the other two are full of miscellaneous household supplies and broken tools from the shop below.  Garnoc has about three hundred gold hidden in his room (search 15) in various sized coins. It is protected by a magic trap (disable device 25) that freezes (DC:30 save) any would-by thieves.

Garnoc is about 65 years old. He has a full head of greying hair but walks with a slight stoop. He is always immaculately dressed in one of six nice suits that he owns. All are several generations out of style. Over this he wears a leather apron when working in the shop.

Stats: male human commoner; CR 3; HD 3d4+3; hp 11; Init +0; Spd 30 ft; AC 10, touch 10, flat-footed 10 BAB +1;  (1d10+3/x3); AL LG; SV Fort +2, Ref +1, Will +0; Str 8(-1), Dex 10(+0), Con 12(+1), Int 11(+0), Wis 9(-1), Cha 14(+2).

Skills and Feats: HIDE+0, SPOT+2(3), LISTEN-1, MOVE SILENTLY+0, climb+6(4), craft(leatherworking)+6(6), appraise+4(2), use rope+3(3).

Markoos and Harkoos are identical twins. Both are dark haired, about five and a half feet tall. Their age is somewhere between fourteen and seventeen, but they’re not sure. Their parents were killed by bandits and the twins found themselves in a strange city with no support. Even Garnoc is not sure why he took them in, but they have proven to be well worth his trouble. He looks upon them as the sons he never had and is extremely proud of them, although does not show it, merely commenting upon their skills and efficiency.

Twins stats: Human Male, Com1; CR 1; HD 1d4+1; hp 5; Init +0; Spd 30 ft; AC 10, touch 10, flat-footed 10 BAB +0; Melee club +3 (1d6+2); AL LG; SV Fort +1, Ref +0, Will -2; Str 14(+2), Dex 10(+0), Con 13(+1), Int 12(+1), Wis 7(-2), Cha 16(+3).
Skills and Feats: HIDE+0, SPOT-2, LISTEN-2, MOVE SILENTLY+0, craft(Leatherworking)+6(4), escape artist+2(2), heal+1(4),  swim+4(2); simple weapon proficiency(club), track.

Adventure seeds:

  • Garnoc had a falling out with the guild sometime ago. Due to his skills and Noble patronage it has not affected his business much, but with his increasing age and closing retirement the Guild is looking to change that.
  • The twins recognizes one of the bandits who killed their parents in a nearby tavern. The man has recently moved into the city, reformed his ways and taken up an honest trade. But the twins want revenge for what he did.
  • A single glove was found at the scene of a horrific crime. It is clearly one of Garnoc’s creations. The problem is he never sold that pair. Or perhaps he simply does not remember who he sold them too.
  • The night before Garnoc is set to sponsor the twins to the Guild, he dies. Some of the more jealous Guild members see this as an opportunity to take over the profitable and reputable shop. Markoos and Harkoos are distraught over this news and vow to fight however they can, but being merely apprentices, they have no standing in the Guild.
  • A mysterious woman brings in an a piece of extremely rare leather and asks for a pair of gloves. She does not give a name, but leaves an address in the Mage’s district to deliver them too. That night the shop is broken into and only that piece of leather is stolen. The Constable reports that magic, rather then thief skills were used.

The failure of Modern Combined Force Tactics

The failure of Modern Combined Force Tactics

I am by no means a tactician or even taken a class on Tactics. I have played plenty of war games, both table top and computer based, studied history (and thus war,) quite extensively, and able to apply a healthy dose of common sense.

Every military unit from the pikeman to the modern Unmanned Aerial Vehicles both has it’s strengths and it’s weaknesses on the battlefield. As such one unit may have advantages over another, especially in certain situations. For instance Knights on horseback can easily win against a superior number of swordsmen due to their speed and weight.

But pikemen with the long reach of their weapons can easily blunt a calvary charge, removing the Knights advantage. In turn, without the advantage of shields, Pikemen are extremely vulnerable to the various types of bowmen, especially those wielding the English Longbow.

In Combined Force Tactics, each element lends it’s strengths while it’s weaknesses are covered by the other elements. In the example above a typical army would consist of one of each of the elements. The Knights on horseback would be used as flanking force instead of initial charges. Pikemen on the front would have either swordsmen or bows directly behind them depending on the terrain and the forces available to the enemy.

Basically the swordsmen with their shields would be at the front of the battle. The brunt of any bow attacks would (mostly) bounce off their shields. As the armies closed, the swordsmen would pass through the front lines behind the pikemen and then counter attack from the side. In the meantime the Knights would be circling around to the rear or the other side to encircle the enemy and hopefully defeat them.

During World War I, troops with machine guns faced each other across open land and dug themselves into trenches. Artillery that had been so useful in previous wars did little when the infantry was dug in. The introduction of airplanes added little to the battle itself, but quickly became an important component as commanders were able to better see where the enemy troops were. The introduction of the tank changed trench warfare again as the tracked vehicles simply went through and over defenses designed to stop humans.

In the modern Military there are many more elements, but the essence is the still same. Soldiers on the ground can only carry so much firepower and see so far. Tanks can carry vastly more firepower, but are limited by the terrain. Airplanes carry less firepower, but have the ability to provide an extremely fast response to threats, and provide superior suppression fire with their speed and height above the ground. There are many more elements in a modern Military force, but for now these three remain the main ones.

The UAV or Unmanned Aerial Vehicle is both one of the most hated and most loved weapons currently in use. It’s a great weapon to keep soldiers and pilots out of direct harms. The UAVs original purpose was to be an intelligence gathering mechanism only. With the added ability to carry missiles and coupled with a lack of proper tactics, we now see failure and tragedy.

The current over reliance on UAVs the US Military is failing to properly utilize Combined Force Tactics in Afghanistan, Iraq, and especially Pakistan. They are being used to gather intelligence correctly, but then attack targets with. This often leads to devastating results and loss in innocent lives.

While the terrain in such areas makes tanks and wheeled vehicles extremely impractical, the lack of a human component on the ground leads to mistakes that have effects far beyond the initial consequences. Instead of changing tactics, more technology is thrown at the problem.

Now, the loss of one UAV doesn’t even compare to the loss of one human life. But the UAV’s indiscriminate ability to kill, and worse, misjudge a situation that is only viewable from the air above, seems like it leads to just as much innocent life lost.

On a normal battlefield between two armies, UAVs would probably stand out fairly well as extremely useful weapons, especially combined with other elements such as Infantry, Tanks, Missiles, and other Aircraft. But with an enemy that uses the terrain, innocent people, misdirection and local knowledge to hide, they become fairly useless in their secondary role as weapon platforms. Doubly so when they’re the only weapon deployed.