How would Sparta fare if dropped into Faerun?
>Real historic Sparta
>Not the Americanized 'muh freedoms' 300 version
Would Ares actually answer their call?
Or would another war god give them patronage?
Would their sheer Chad-ness BTFO the setting the same way they did Athens?
Just how many drow matriarchs would they take as slaves?
They would fit right in 5e with their sodomite tendencies
Take a break before you have stroke. Just leave the internet. Go away from your computer. Your endless, impotent screaming into the void is killing you, and even now that would be something of a shame. Maybe.
Are you ok there buddy? Did that anon struck a nerve?
I'm actually worried about you and your shitposting. No one should ever be as basic of a basic b***h troll as you are.
Maybe you need some diversity? Find some other popular thing on some other board, and rush into every thread to troll about that instead? Might do you some good to get a fresh perspective on what you look like to everyone.
Are you mad about the fact that ancient greece was full of boy lovers or are you mad he shit talked 5e,which is undeniably pozzed?
He's right, Sparta was notorious for sexual abuse. I mean, he's 100% accurate about that, it isn't even controversial.
In Athens, at least, most of the slang referring to 'boy lovers' were meant to be detrimental insults. Sparta? Oh no. Sparta made Epstein Island look like a firecracker.
Cringe historical subversion.
Sorry but Greeks are never beating the gayboy allegations.
Don't know anything about Faerun, but the Spartans would mostly sit on their asses at home. They did this even after beating Athens, which is why Athens rose back to power 5 minutes after losing.
>drow matriarchs
None. Greeks didn't breed with barbaroi, Dorians especially. Hell they barely bred at all.
>but the Spartans would mostly sit on their asses at home.
I mean, after they conquered their surroundings and turned them all into tributes absolutely.
I can imagine their minds would be blown actually being able to have an entire servile race of gobbos
>Hell they barely bred at all.
They did, but they just didn't grow their pops fast enough to keep up with their conquest.
Warrior aristocrat class and all
Its why Rome never copied their training procedures, too inefficient.
They don't have mages or clerics. They're not conquering a damn thing
>They don't have mages or clerics.
Mages no. But they did have a priesthood.
Tell me right now that they wouldn't immediately worship any of the settings' war god and get massive boons
They would have very powerful clerics and paladins in short order.
Their diviners and seers are not going to get spells. Even if we assume to Greek gods of Faerun are going to give the priesthood spells, all the clerics are going to start as shitters in a military that was ALREADY historically slow to adapt to new innovations.
Add to that the fact that everyone has better tactics, cavalry, better weapons, better armor, wizards (which they wouldn't even come close to getting), sorcerers and the like and the Spartans are getting their ass kicked to hell and back.
Their priests will definitely get spells, their "magicans" won't
>Add to that the fact that everyone has better tactics,
Sir this is a forgotten realms thread
They have priests and the "greek" pantheon already exists in FR. They would have clerics in no time
Greek gods exist in Faerun so if they got teleporeted suddenly their priests would gain instant cleric powers.
>They don't have mages or clerics
They had priests, with powers that modern materialists consider myth but since this is fantasy tabletop they already have clerics.
They had diviners and seers (the more important mages of all for any army or organized society), like all ancient Greeks and peoples in general.
The ancient Greeks also had mages, hex spells (hypnosis, curses, insanity, all sorts of things) and other spells are found in ancient texts and archaeology.
They would come in faerun with clerics and mages, an army and lots of slaves.
Fortune tellers and "seers" arent suddenly going to become d&d wizards as Arcane magic requires specific knowledge that they don't have.
>They did, but they just didn't grow their pops fast enough to keep up with their conquest.
Spartiate citizens dropped from 8000 to just below a 1000 in just 150 years buddy, that is not just not keeping up, that is a very fast decline. Especially because the spartiates were the core of the armed forces.
Pretty much in this. Everyone remembers Spartans as kick ass warriors, but the facts are they were pretty much near the peek of their force projection capabilities for all of their history.
They had a very small warrior population that was responsible for maintaining order over a very large number of vassal states and a large helot population. They might be able to kick anyone's ass, but they couldn't keep occupying forces anywhere for any period of time because they were constantly occupying their own territory. It's a problem that most slave heavy societies have. In fact the whole reason why they have two kings is so one can leave and there is still a supreme executive at home to take care of uprisings, revolts and unrest.
If they were dropped in a fantasy setting, they would pretty much do what they did historically keep to themselves and form a violent rivalry with any power that tried to get their vassals/slaves to rise up. At least until they may find some fantasy method to magic away their problems.
>At least until they may find some fantasy method to magic away their problems.
Teleportation magic OR shadow walking.
Spartans were limited by the speed at which they moved soldiers.
Spartan men needed to do three things
-bang their wives
-keep the slaves in check
-kill Sparta's enemies
They spent more time marching between these tasks than anything else. So, if you can just portal them to wherever they need to go, Sparta can breed faster, and be wherever they need to be at a moment's notice.
I could see it. But it would still take a long time for Sparta to go from magical nobodies to those sort of magical solutions. Generations at least without some fantasy catastrophe fricking them up, like a dragon burning everything down.
See this
Their clerics would instantly get powerful magic and guidance from Apollo, Ares, and Athena.
I didn't know mass teleportation was a cleric thing. I assumed it was wizard only.
Seems like some low powered fertility blessings would get them to a similar point. Sparta suffered from a perpetual shortage of Spartans.
>Sparta suffered from a perpetual shortage of Spartans.
Which is funny considering that they were all given state mandated tomboy waifus and told it was their duty to make kids.
The reason Sparta fell off was entirely their moronic gender dynamics. Aristotle talks about this, basically the men leaving all the time and letting women decide how property and economics would be handled while they were away resulted in women forming a pussy cartel where only Chaddicus with lots of inherited land (most land in Sparta was held in common among the patricians, very few had sizeable private estates and most familial wealth came from dowries if not looted in battle) could get betrothed. So nobody was fricking and the birth rates collapsed.
>They might be able to kick anyone's ass
their ability to do even that has been massively exaggerated
Well, considering how they conquered their neighbors enslaved the Reddit of the time and made them helots, you didn't laugh at them. Plus, being able to take on Athens in war and not only beating them back but winning is one hell of a feat.
Sparta was full on Lawful Evil
As in, Lawful Evil enough likely to attract the attention of Infernal powers.
>Secret police that murders any and all dissent
>Enslaving 95% of their surrounding
>Brainwashing their sons into being child soldiers
>Killing babies if they didn't look strong enough
>Regular accounts of genocide
>All coin spends the same (Taking money from Persia)
>Taking money from Persia
Surely you mean the Athenians
Sparta took money and naval support from Persia after the Greko/Persian wars in order to BTFO Athens.
Persia then financially supported Sparta's enemies when they expanded past their force projection and led to Sparta's demise while the Persian empire kept on trucking.
They really lost in the long run.
They did take money from the persian king of kings during the peloponnesian wars, since persia wanted to minimize the greek presence in Asia Minor (or at least weaken its power).
Though sparta also launched what was essentially a huge raid on Asia Minor to get funds for their war against athens.
Whole war was a mess of switching sides and launching expeditions for cash
babies if they didn't look strong enough
this did not happen, its a myth. The children that would not survive were placed in the apothetes (repository, which something almost everyone did) and not thrown anywhere.
I imagine the other gods would get pissy immediately that Ares is mixing settings and dropping his mortal cousins to cause trouble.
Remember, the Spartans are said to be distant descendants of the Olympians, so in D&D cosmology they might be something more than just human.
>I imagine the other gods would get pissy immediately
Okay, let them throw one million of their soldiers.
I'm sure Sparta wouldn't mind sending out one personal bodyguard squad...
>strong martial traditions
>refusal to maintain flexibility in combat
>relied on noncitizens and helots for literally everything besides the heaviest of melee combat
>couldn't into cavalry
>thought ranged stuff was for pussies
iirc some of the biggest contributors to their decline were their inability to adapt to changing tactics, having a relatively small pool of warriors with a really long turnabout time for producing new ones, and an overreliance on slave labor on the homefront for everything but security leading to increasing numbers of their warriors needing to remain at home to keep the helots in line. If they could find a new god (or if Ares could somehow reach across realities to bless them there when he wouldn't here) they might have a chance to eke out survival enough to solidify their new borders, but i can't imagine that the same people who thought that ranged combat was for the slaves and the best way to fight was to sit in dense, slow, heavily armored blocks of infantry without much cavalry support would perform very well against any group of comparable size in a magic setting. unless they could hire a bunch of mercenary mages i can't see them succeeding very well.
that's an interesting idea, a warrior culture all with varying degrees of divine blood running through their veins would be a neat concept
>A well thought out, historically literate reply.
This is why I love /tg/
I can see them actually being viable IF they do two things.
1-Get the patronage of a war god and begin incorporating defensive/healing magic into their phalanx
2-do as the Drow do and use slave auxiliaries to support their hyper specialized combat units.
Interestingly, the Drow shove their slave soldiers into the heaviest melee fighting while they do ranged combat and sneak attack operations. The Spartans would be doing the exact opposite.
I have an unreasonable desire to see Spartans and Drow fighting.
>1
See
>2
They already did this, and in fact late era sparta was a completely different beast than what your probably imagining
Late era Sparta began incorporating non-Spartans into their actual phalanxes while the wealthy began robbing the treasury and making off with all the cash.
They then began getting shrekt and invaded from all sides once people figured out what was going on and the Romans steamrolled them.
By that point in time they were so corroded as a civilization Rome didn't even bother taking up any of their techniques or equipment.
>By that point in time they were so corroded as a civilization Rome didn't even bother taking up any of their techniques or equipment
The Roman's were aware of hoplites and phalagnties well before the fall of Sparta, anon. Helots were already used as auxiliaries and the Spartans were using the same reformed troop types that everyone else was during the Peloponnesian war
3- Boros-like shenanigans could work too. I don’t remember the name of it, but Yoon-ha Lee’s sci-fi where the infantry get different nutty effects based on the formation they’re in, up to the point of being able to absorb weapon fire, etc
>Interestingly, the Drow shove their slave soldiers into the heaviest melee fighting while they do ranged combat and sneak attack operations.
Because the drow are for once the less moronic people in the room. They use the less valuable resource in the more dangerous position to protect the more valuable resource and let it perform to its fullest potential. The spartans meanwhile put their hard to replace social and military elites in harms way.
>I have an unreasonable desire to see Spartans and Drow fighting.
It would go embarrassingly badly for the spartans, even if we somehow ignore that on their technological level a crossbow would be seen as a borderline wunderwaffe or that phalanxes are about the worst formation to adopt vs someone who can cast fireball or even just cloud of daggers. Or that any kind of fantasy monster would be utterly beyond them.
Youre going to have the spartan phalanx get bogged down fighting slaves, have its supporting elements crushed, get surrounded and then slowly (or quickly, depending on things like morale) cut down because thats what happens when a phalanx gets surrounded.
Let's also add to this
So the gastrophetes was a thing, so maybe not wunderwaffe level but they would straight slice through Spartan armour, since they're built to go through like 16th century level plate
In a stand up fight against other humans, casualty rates were between 5-15% before breaking, so including nonhuman, magic using freaks from the underworld with demi spider cavalry, you can be sure that it would end badly, and quickly. Realistically one fear spell would cause chaos. Any magic would really.
A phalanx might do okay in a tunnel, but would be torn down by missile fire, or in an open field, it would tend to rotate, and leave the right flank exposed to getting fricked
>A phalanx might do okay in a tunnel
On some level. although it may encounter the first instance of darkness mattering in DnD. People generally dont like doing war at night, doing war in underground tunnels against a race with nightvision sounds like a primitive cultures idea of hell.
Any sort of uneven ground or roughh terrain (so irregularities in the tunnel) would also be a killer. But if they can get a phalanx "up" properly then yea it becomes a nightmare to deal with in a position where you cant flank it or even effectively shoot it.
Spartans and drow are quite similar in that they're both martial slave states with an infamous reputation for brutality, repression, and backstabbing.
However, the Spartans would be utterly massacred at any time other than the day - they'd be ambushed at night and even if they could form a phalanx, they'd be facing an army of monstrous slave soldiers led by a bunch of incredibly skilled biological immortals with magic powers and wargear that the Spartans would have no chance of matching. Plus I'd think drow could into combined arms with missile weaponry and cavalry.
>However, the Spartans would be utterly massacred at any time other than the day - they'd be ambushed at night and even if they could form a phalanx, they'd be facing an army of monstrous slave soldiers led by a bunch of incredibly skilled biological immortals with magic powers and wargear that the Spartans would have no chance of matching. Plus I'd think drow could into combined arms with missile weaponry and cavalry.
Spartans are real and dark elves are fictional (and have a huge chunk of their organization from Sparta and other historical sources). Since myth would be real the Spartans that ended up in Faerun would have all the mythical powers, pre-cataclysmic divine weapons, mages, clerics, gods aiding them, monsters sent by the deities and everything you could possibly imagine.
Spartans conducted night operations every night, in real life not in the imagination-land of playing sexy dark elf bawds and homosexuals in orgies, murdering and killing slaves, each-other, enemy soldiers, raiding enemy camps and everything you can and cannot imagine.
Drow would be utterly annihilated and conquered and so would Lolth, slain and thrown in a pit. Athena is called also Arachne (Spider), a real all powerful deity and not some piece of vomit of to the mind of some american cocaine sniffers that made up a stupid game so we can spend our free time laughing with our friends.
Spartans vs Drow = Total Drow eradication.
Drow are Spartans as dark elves underground anyways.
>is called also Arachne (Spider)
in some hymns (not just the Arachne of myth, daughter of the dyer Idmon)
>Spartans are real and dark elves are fictional
Which is unfortunate for the spartans, because their reality isn't actually very impressive. Even their created fiction in which they were some super elite breed of warrior ultimately falls short of what fictional races of superhumans have and can accomplish for the simple fact that even the spartans never tried to pretend they can shoot fireballs or throw a pit fiend at you.
>Since myth would be real
Lol, lmao. But sure, if you want to use fantasy spartans the loincloth wearers from 300 would also be defeated, as far removed from reality as they are.
>a real all powerful deity
That wouldnt be true even in the paganlarp where the greek gods are real, because all the rest of them combined arent as strong as zeus.
>Drow are Spartans as dark elves underground anyways.
The similarities essentially start and end at "dysfunctional slave-state that no one likes"
Spartans wouldn't have a chance in hell against the drow, even with their priests being upgraded to clerics. Kek
most moronic post in the thread probably
Fareun Thebes would pound them again like they did in real life.
>Molon Labe
This dude comes by and easily kills all of them
but only after getting SUPER angry
then he gets all emotional about it
So we're dropping a mundane early iron age city state into a medieval world with magic and dragons and stuff? The Spartans get rolled over quickly.
I mean seriously, they were a city state that had an edge over the other city states because their guys with shields and spears practiced on a semi regular basis unlike the spear and shield guys from other cities which did not even bother much with formalized training. What are the spartans going to do when the first Dragon flies by and breathes fire on their phalanx? Their options on that front are either Run Away or get Barbecued.
>because their guys with shields and spears practiced on a semi regular basis unlike the spear and shield guys from other cities which did not even bother much with formalized training.
Your inane downplaying of Spartans is actually somehow worse and more ignorant than Hollywood's overly glamorizing them.
Spartans weren't supersoldiers, they just bothered maintaining a martial culture in a time where everyone else just formed a militia when the time came and hoped for the best. And a lot of that martial culture was specifically for young unmarried men; middle aged Spartans were of the same leisure class lifestyle as middle aged Athenians just a lot more ripped.
Wait till you read a primary source and find out there way more than 300 men at Thermopylae.
This. I just read a pretty decent biography of Phillip and Alexander, and the reason the Macedonian army kicked so much as is because they were basically deployed nearly full time for 20 or 25 years. Sparta was an outlier in a world where most of your soldiers are just farmers for 9 months out of the year.
Yep. That was part of the lightning in a bottle.
One exceptional army over the course of two kingships.
Up until late in the classical period the official training policy of most poleis was "your dad will show you how to use a spear and shield, if you need more than that your an idiot".
Wouldn't even necessarily need the magic. There are a couple of occasions where a Spartan force, over-reliant on heavy infantry, gets it's arse handed to it by a peltast-heavy opponent. And that's with largely javelins and slings, now imagine your typical fantasy's faux-medieval levels of archery, to say nothing of cavalry. In fact, you see it even at Thermopylae.
Granted, we should be fair and give them 'Fantasy' Sparta too, fierce, unbreakable super-athletes steamrolling forwards, but even then they're not likely to be much more than a local hegemony at best, and probably little more than a particularly truculent city-state.
>Sparta BTFOs Athens
>the slave population trebles overnight
>trade and theatre fall away as free people avoid Laconia and its possessions so they can stay free people
>Spartans killing their young and fricking each other's arses* so hard it generates electricity and births a Chaos god
SPARTA was always Athens' gay moronic hillbilly cousin Chet. That is why Frank Miller had to rape it. Zealots and helots
Obliteratied by cats and brambles, just like anybody else without levels.
Dumbest comment in the thread
>How would Sparta fare if dropped into Faerun?
Poorly, especially if you remove it from the context of slave-states it desperately relied on.
Its primitive compared to everyone else (both technologically and socially), doesent have magic, doesent know anything about the world, and has a culture and ideology that makes them incapable of being "good neighbours".
Theyre going to invariably start shit with someone and then get blown out of the water by the first dude who casts fireball or even just "some guy in plate armor and a couple crossbowmen", laconicisms dont work on dragons and the spartan PR machine did not reach faerun.
>"BTFOs" Athens
>wouldn't have happened without the sicilia expedition
>starts getting victories by copying athens
>still got embarrassingly fricked in Sphacteria
>had to get Persia involved to actually get any peace
>gets fricked by Thebes so hard they fade into obscurity
>breed themselves out of existence
Yeah they'd do great, sure
>Would Ares actually answer their call?
>Or would another war god give them patronage?
Historically the protector deity of Sparta was Athena (Athena Pallas) and not Ares, they just had a statue of him in chains so he would never leave them. They worshiped all the ancient greek deities, honoring some more than others.
They are an utterly, totally and completely militarized society.
Their priests would start also getting spells and they woudl eventually get mages (which they had with another name, some seers, mantes, diviners etc)
If they survived the initial shock of a world actually full of monsters, they would love it as it would given them more opportunities to die heroically honor the gods and gain fame and honor.
They would probably become the strongest kingdom in all of Faerun if they expanded and not do the same thing they did in ancient Greece. Stay in the Peloponnese.
>Historically the protector deity of Sparta was Athena (Athena Pallas)
Athena was not only the patron goddess of Athens, but also of Sparta (Schmitt, P. 2000, "Athena Apatouria et la ceinture. Les aspects féminins des apatouries à Athènes", Annales: Economies, Societies, Civilisations, London, England: Thames and Hudson, pages 1059–1073)
>and they woudl eventually get mages
Because sparta was famous for its scholarly pursuits. Sparta is not reverse-engineering the weave and figuring out how to cast that shit, and even if someone offered to teach them their culture isnt equipped to actually train up mages. At best they would be forced to hire them from more powerful neighbours, except being sparta the idea of neighbours that like them is far fetched.
>They would probably become the strongest kingdom in all of Faerun if they expanded and not do the same thing they did in ancient Greece. Stay in the Peloponnese.
Actually delusional. They were (for a time) a regional power in greece through the effect a martial culture has on morale and the low standards of warriors in ancient times. They have absolutely no advantage over any kingdom in faerun. Some random city state would steamroll them through nothing but knights and longbows.
>Because sparta was famous for its scholarly pursuits.
Uh oh, someone's never read the works of Lycurgus
go on anon, what great scientific discoveries did he make, what mathematical theorems did he prove? Because from where im sitting he was little more than a politician
I agree with most of your other points, but Spartans specialized in the one formation that were knights' direct counter. You're going to need fireball to dislodge them.
>if they expanded and not do the same thing they did in ancient Greece. Stay in the Peloponnese.
Anon sparta got too big to effectively manage itself irl, it could not survive expanding.
Historical sparta that didnt stretch very far already had issues with the slave population percentage to the spartan population meaning most of its force had to be used on making sure there was no revolts. It didnt grow because it couldnt.
An iron age Greek army would not be as effective as you think they would vs a more technologically advanced high medieval army, much less one with access to magic.
You have missed the part where drow are nocturnal, have a well-deserved reputation for stealth, and can see into the infra-red spectrum. Last I checked night vision goggles didn't exist in the 7-4th century BC. Drow are just as capable as the Spartans at fighting if not more so given their far longer lifespans.
Kaidas was for criminals and not for infants or children. This practice of killing babies in this throw them off a cliff did not exist.
Many respected Spartans like poet Tyrtaeus and King Agisilaos, were blind or lame.
Αποθετες "repository", is somewhere in Taygetos, so that the sick infant would die from exposure (so the gods would do it and take care of it and all Greeks did this and other peoples as well). Only those severe deformities would suffer this fate and not minor disabilities.
Καιάδας / Kaiadas = cliff and pit where the worse criminals were thrown in
Αποθέτες / Apothetes = repository for severely deformed newborns, missing limbs etc teratogenesis
Spartans throwing babies in Kaiadas = never happened
Sparta made steel in large quantities (the secret weapon of the Spartans) as early as 650 B.C.
>real historical sparta
Absolutely assraped, it would cease to exist within a year
>le ebin badass 300 sparta
Still gets erased, but at least puts up a fight, maybe manages to keep existing as a city state or part of some confederation.
>literally mythical sparta from the illiad or something
Wandering heroes have a good track record in DND so while its actual military will amount to very little, it would keep existing and integrate into the setting fairly well.
Too many gays are making a historical analysis when they should be making a dnd analysis
>priesthood all become clerics
>entire army all become low level fighters using pikes
>due to their love of the phalanx will 100% be taking polearm master
>have a special pike which also allows them to wear a shield, INSANE AC
Anything a phalanx walks into is instantly killed
It's already been acountted for and that's not how a phalanx works
But that's how dnd works.
No it's not
a lot of the opinions on sparta in this thread makes me feel like a lot of fa/tg/uys were probably the type to assign very grandiose properties to the katana back in the day, only updating their language to fit in the current year jaded cool kids club, without actually updating their ability to think about anything.
What, do you think those sorts of people left the hobby? No no anon, they just have different autistic fixations and spergfits now
Some fa/tg/uys did search out information to get better opinions.
Katanas for instance are well designed weapons for kind of warfare they were used in.
Aside from being a tad on the short side for their weight, they are also the best cutting weapons aside from the Indian tulwar
Are they DA BESTEST EVAR??!11! No.
Are they garbage sticks made out of pig iron? also no.
Spartans produced exceptional fighters and soldiers, most of it had to do with creating a mindset of discipline and lack of empathy for enemies combined with extreme athleticism and resilience to discomfort.
That being said, the rate at which they produced and trained soldiers historically speaking was not enough to keep up with demand or their expansion.
>>Real historic Sparta
Can't comment sorry, it's obscured by the Spartan mirage.
Don't worry Helot. Some day Achilles will give you a funkopop for being such a good catamite.
>gay fantasies projection
why are all fascists like this
Watching people online discuss anything about ancient Greece is funny.
>Sparta is fake and gay. They never did anything and if they did it was actually these other people.
>nuh uh! Sparta was an army of 10ft tall gigantic Chads with muscle mommy GFs!
>the Greek city states were GAY!!!
>1000 % GAY!!! Every one I Greece was so gay they didn't even have kids for like 7k years because of how much ana lsex they had!!!!!
>that's a lie! Gay sex hadn't even been invented yet!
>hurrrdurrrr Rome!
>Pikes are OP!
>heh. You idiots never even read Homer. I bet you think there were only 300 Spartans.
Correct. Greeks only become worth discussing when they start wearing the Roman Empire as a skinsuit.
They'd get BTFO by a few hundred gayboys just like IRL
>how would faction without magic fare in the world with magic
Poorly.
>Nation of 1st level Warriors used to bullying 0th level NPCs
VS
>Literally entire kingdoms of 10th level Fighters
>Archmages
>Ancient dragons
>A nation of aboleths
>Beholders by the dozens
The long version? They're finished. The short version? Bye.
Seriously, the Simbul alone is probably going to take one look at them, decide "Yeah, no, this has to go", and then burn the entire nation to the ground. Except maybe a few she decides to polymorph into her bimbo lesbian sex slaves.
>Properly trained warriors that understand tactics and have never relied on healing magic
>Immediately get massive buffs from their now very real gods
Sparta is going to steamroll all their neighbors and get a bunch of new Helot tributaries.
>they'd be ambushed at night
Woowee! No one ever thought to do that!
Except they did and failed.
Night ops were literally part of Spartan education. They could kill fully grown men at night as pre-teens.
Drow would get bent over backwards and run through by Spartan steel.
>Bad equipment
Maybe initially?
but Spartans put effort into getting the best equipment for their soldiers.
In no time we're talking trained from birth warriors (with divine bloodlines and blessings) decked out in full adamantine gear.
>Knights
Would get spear fricked while reciting poetry on the battlefield. This ain't jousting kiddo.
They wouldn't take over the setting, but they would carve out a nice piece of land until they got to a good, easily defended geographic border the same way they did with Peloponnesia
>muscle mommy GFs!
Correct.
Spartan women were required to be wrestler gymnast singers who could also do math.
Oh, please, they are going to get JACK just from ending up in Faerun. Even IF the gods do finally pay attention to them, all that MAYBE does is turn their priests (who are, literally, one in a thousand) from "NPC with Religion skill focus" to "1st level cleric". Why would the Greco-Roman pantheon pay any attention more to them than they already pay to the people in the Realms who ALREADY worship those gods?
Their magic game is shit, their tactics are literally nothing special, their baseline equipment is inferior. And that's compared to the most basic b***h-tier militias of the Dalelands.
Cormyr alone has better armor, better fighting skills, access to a literal sub-army of war-trained wizards, and, they're still pretty b***h-tier compared to the really crazy shit in the Realms, like Thay and its literal armies of zombies and liches.
Seriously, this is even less than Mulhorand and Unther got, because THEY had THEIR gods show up in avatars personally to protect their people... and they still got b***hslapped into irrevelance by orcish armies.
>army of militia is better than a group of men who've been training since they were 7
Okay Helot
Please explain to me, oh wise armchair general, how wars are fought then? Why do countries bother building militaries? If small and highly trained forces are so much better, and major countries these days have special forces, why do they still have a regular army?
>how wars are fought then?
However they can
>Why do countries bother building militaries?
>If small and highly trained forces are so much better
Because it takes limited time and resources to train people to do things.
Efficiency dictates you don't spend any of either more than you need.
So for most military tasks you need a slightly above average joe that will do as he is told
These guys are cheap.
For other jobs you need alpha prime hyper competent individuals that are so far above the norm they might as well be a different species.
These men (yes, men) are possible to train but its a huge investment.
Having men like that guard a commissary outpost during a war would be like buying a brick of gold to use as a paperweight when you are severely in debt.
>If small and highly trained forces are so much better, and major countries these days have special forces, why do they still have a regular army?
Specops are state terrorists. You need more than your own brand of Hajjis to win a war and that's either everybody elses' job or the job of the local fifth column your Hajjis are training up.
Also victory in war is, unless you are actually serious about paying for a proper genocide, always political.
This. They aren't Romans, so they clearly fall short in piety and fanatism.
>but Spartans put effort into getting the best equipment for their soldiers.
And were bronze age morons who got out teched by their poor bumfrick northern neighbours. They couldnt keep up with macedon on the tech tree, they arent catching up to people thousands of years more advanced than them.
>Would get spear fricked while reciting poetry on the battlefield
lol, lmao. Knights would rape sparta so hard they would have to invent new words for that level of war crime.
Its a legitimate warrior elite going up against a bunch of inbred morons who had the distinct advantage of being told "dont run away" while the other guy didnt and then got assraped by some theban homosexuals, a knight is also functionally invincible to anything a spartan can do to him, if he needed the extra help, some bronze spears arent getting through full plate armor. Not to mention the fact that a lance has the reach advantage on a spear.
>but they would carve out a nice piece of land
They would get rolled over by the first bandit group who had a guy who can cast fireball. Or someone with 3rd level in barbarian.
Also, unrelated to anything but thats some truly hideous slop art.
>And were bronze age morons who got out teched by their poor bumfrick northern neighbours. They couldnt keep up with macedon on the tech tree
In that case it was all of the greek world and their neighbors that got "out teched"
Absolutely deranged post
> understand tactics
Anon tactics in the day and age of the spartans were "we are going to stand in a big group on that hill and shout at the guys on the other hill, and then theres a big shoving match in the middle and the guy who runs away first loses". The concept of sealed communications, cyphers and other basic shit literally hadnt been invented yet.
>properly trained
kek
Spartans were well trained by the standard of greek city state armies, meaning they werent random farmers who showed up with their own spear and shield and went off to do their best, they were just the step above that. Your average fantasy soldier is a space marine in comparison.
You are putting a city state that couldnt even remain top dogs of ancient greece up against people who can defeat ancient dragons and demonic hordes. No amount of propaganda spin or laconicism is saving sparta. The random cultists that constitute a biweekly threat in the sword coast have the military might to remove Sparta off the map, let alone any regional or even minor power there.
>calling people from the bronze age stupid
The sheer hubris of modern day people is astounding.
Yes, you have a cell phone, congrats. That actually makes you dumber than the average bronze age human because you rely on tech to basically prop up your lack of attention span.
You didn't build your phone, car, or any of the tech you rely on to just exist.
Bronze agers survived a time that you likely would have starved to death or if you were lucky made someone's servant boy castrati.
My dude, you are talking about Spartiates. These guys were literally legally prohibited from doing basic subsidence stuff. They are as far as one could get from being able to survive on their own. These guys were literally reliant on state owned slaves for basic sustenance.
Mental incapability or simple ignorance, it doesent actually matter. Trying to appeal to the acumen and skill of people for whom the most basic trick in the book would be a groundbreaking discovery because they predate the book being written is moronic.
An imbecile from napoleonic times would put the most wizened generals of ancient akkad to utter shame because he simply knows a lot more, even if by the standards of his day he is lacking. Knowing everything there is to know means nothing when there are three things to know and one of them is "water important"
And your ignorance is astounding. Do you get all your historical education from 4x games and pop history youtubers?
>Yes .
What do you mean? They already exist. They are the city-state of Akanax in the nation of Chessanta in the southern coast of the Sea of Stars.
Smh at these nuDnD players who only know about the sword coast.
How is this thread still going?
I remember a good 10 years ago people didn’t keep spamming their own threads with “nuh-uh” when told to stop with their historical fan fiction.
But I’ve seen it increasing common that once they have a take that has been demolished, they just keep at it and get more incoherent as the thread goes on.
Or the Janitors get sick of it clogging up the board.
Nuh-Uh!
Having actual gods who are going to springboard off of or and manifesting from them? Sparta might be able to overcome the systemic failures that led to the decline and collapse of Sparta. If only because the gods will be doing a lot of pulling. But you know what? Let's actually consider the impact of the gestalt pantheon of these invading Lakedaimonians and how them actually being able to wrench the heads from the asses of the Diarchs might work.
At any point in the 'heyday' you can take the existing Spartan governing system and transplant it elsewhere, and with a few alterations make it much more viable in the long term, expanding certain non-citizen freemen rights, opening the Agoge to ensure a higher quantity of Spartans and reforming the system to make it more flexible in what it actually informs. Though I have doubts it would get noticeably less brutal. Significantly reduce the number of Helots both to ease the threat of rebellion but also to ensure that this exile state needs to be constantly taking new slaves, and potentially using 'controlled release' of these exiled slave populations to spread the fear of this Faerunian Lakedaimonia. The position of women likely wouldn't change that much, though I'd imagine to boost the long-term population you'd see more emphasis on female physicality like in the Gymnopaedia and larger households. Spartan family structure and procreation were already kind of weird and you'd probably see complicated house systems developing, possibly with multiple marriages for one man, who'd expect his fittest brothers and sons to eventually replace him.
I imagine the Diarchy would remain, however beyond that and the caste system itself nothing is off the table and could be formed as possible. Lakonophilia would be hyper emphasized to compensate and harmonize the Faerunic barbarians whose sons will be Spartans. Overall forge a state and society that could endure the passing of ages and wars that are inevitable.
(1/3)
Now as for the gods of this Exile Lakedaimonia? The presence of existing Greek Gods in setting makes me think the Spartans are going to have something different develop, simply from the changes in time scale and culture. I'd propose them developing a sort of divergent Pantheon with roots in the old Sparta that allows them to meaningfully endure.
>Old Lakedaemon, the Dead King
Essentially the tie to old world that is acknowledged as inescapably fallen, Old Lakedaemon is dead, but still nominally occupies the title of 'supreme Pantheon ruler' as both a tribute to the world they cannot return to, and as a sort of common truce among the other gods of the Pantheon, preventing any one of them from seizing absolute power.
>Lycurgus, the Guide of Virtues
Perhaps the most active part of the new order all-together, Lycurgus was the mythical dispenser of the original Lakedaimonian constitution and what I'd charitably call 'Spartan Autism.' As an ascendant but lower power he'll become the middleman of the new Exiles Culture, Pantheon, and way of life as he attempts to drive the people to an apex while avoiding the corrupting influences of the world that would weaken them.
>Sparta, the God-Queen
The Widow and Regent of Lakedaemon, Sparta herself will technically sit atop the most powerful position in the pantheon, but will rarely use it. A hard and brutal queen who only steps in when the situation is dire or if someone directly provokes her. So to avoid the Spartans or even the other gods becoming reliant upon her. No doubt she would judge potential Diarchs, preventing weak and stupid kings from ascending to power.
(2/3)
>Areia, The Spear Giving
The anticipation of Aphrodite, Areia is the amalgam of a Love, Vengeance, Motherhood and Defensive war. Nominally aligned with Sparta she will likely be the most active women in the pantheon simply from the fact she is the expected role model for most women. Able to defend the hearth and to rip free a child from a weak body. Its hard to say where she'd sit in relation to the other gods.
>Thrax, the Warlord
The anticipation of Ares, Thrax is the amalgam of Murder, Slaughter, Courage, Glory, and Offensive war. He's significantly less hot-headed than old Ares but is much more vicious and cruel, and while he's likely to be the most active of all the gods in their outward actions, he's also likely to be self aligned. While he can't fully displace Lakedaemon, he will likely still be working to constantly prove the glory of himself and his people.
>Armorthia, the Stalking Goddess
The anticipation of Artemis, Armorthia is the Amalgam of Hunting, Ambush, The Night, the Forests, and female sport. Other gods present in Faerun would displace Artemis' old symbols, and result in a much more aggressive goddess that will be somewhat at odds with the Areia and Thrax. An outsider that is still a major pillar of Exile Lakedaimonian society.
>Virotutis, the Culture Teacher
The anticipation of Apollo, Vrotutis is the Amalgam of Farming, Light, Craft, Culture, Civilization and male sport. Like his twin Armorthia, Virotutis is going to be shoved into a new position just by virtue of Faerun's convoluted patronage system. He'll essentially be the orderer of domestic life and preparation for war, central but likely to be given less than his proper due, simply because of Thrax shadowing him. Still he'll be a major mover and a partner of Lycurgus.
No doubt there would be other gods but these 7 I find myself picturing to be the initial drivers and changers of this society. That's all I got for now, but I might return because this is a fun experiment.