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Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part III: Paying For It

Bret Devereaux

This is the third part (I, IIa, IIb, III) of our honestly-who-knows-how-many part series laying out some general guidelines for how pre-modern armies are recruited, raised, equipped and paid. In the last part, we looked at the various ways pre-modern armies might mobilize their armies, a process...

Welcome To Summer 2026! Here’s The Thursday Beery News Notes That I Dug Up

Alan

Taking a break from the TV and all the fitba, I was out and about this week doing a bit of visiting and looking for ice cream. Fields of grain. Sunny skies. I heard Indigo Buntings on separate country roads. Had me a mango sugar cone, thanks for asking.  And no brain melting heat like the reports...

Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part IIb: Officials, Contractors and Professionals

Bret Devereaux

This is the second half of the second part (I, IIa, IIb) of our honestly-who-knows-how-many part series laying out some general guidelines for how pre-modern armies are recruited, raised, equipped and paid. While I hope this will be of great interest to the history nerds out there, I’ve opted to...

Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part IIa: Mobilization without Administration

Bret Devereaux

This is the second part (I, IIa) of our honestly-who-knows-how-many part series laying out some general guidelines for how pre-modern armies are recruited, raised, equipped and paid. While I hope this will be of great interest to the history nerds out there, I’ve opted to structure this...

Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part I: Why They Fight

Bret Devereaux

This week I want to try something a little different. Rather than taking apart a particular fantasy military system, I thought I might try to lay out a more general sense of how military systems tend to map on to societies, both because such general historical frameworks are handy for thinking...