#Siege Engines

[victusinveritas]

In case you need it for your D&D games or siege actions— here's what the ballistic trajectory of a flaming pumpkin fired out of a trebuchet looks like.

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

"GROND THEY NAMED IT, IN MEMORY OF THE HAMMER OF THE UNDERWORLD OF OLD."

PIC INFO: Spotlight on an illustration depicting Sauron's host during the Siege of Gondor, bringing up the hundred-foot long battering ram, Grond, to smash the Great Gate of Minas Tirith and burn the White City. March 3019 of the Third Age.

"Great engines crawled across the field; and in the midst was a huge ram, great as a forest-tree a hundred feet in length, swinging on mighty chains. Long had it been forging in the dark smithies of Mordor, and its hideous head, founded of black steel, was shaped in the likeness of a ravening wolf; on it spells of ruin lay. Grond they named it, in memory of the Hammer of the Underworld of old. Great beasts drew it, orcs surrounded it, and behind walked mountain-trolls to wield it."

-- "The Siege of Gondor," Book IV of "THE LORD OF THE RINGS: The Return of the King," written by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Source: www.instagram.com/tr.middlee_earth/p/CxtNQ_0Nknh.

[ohgodwhatamidoing]

[asoiafreadthru]

A Game of Thrones, Tyrion III

He passed a massive catapult, as tall as a city wall, its base sunk deep into the Wall. The throwing arm had been taken off for repairs and then forgotten; it lay there like a broken toy, half-embedded in the ice.

On the far side of the catapult, a muffled voice called out a challenge. “Who goes there? Halt!”

Tyrion stopped. “If I halt too long I’ll freeze in place, Jon,” he said.

A shaggy pale shape slid toward him silently and sniffed at his furs. “Hello, Ghost.”

Jon Snow moved closer. He looked bigger and heavier in his layers of fur and leather, the hood of his cloak pulled down over his face.

“Lannister,” he said, yanking loose the scarf to uncover his mouth.

“This is the last place I would have expected to see you.”

He carried a heavy spear tipped in iron, taller than he was, and a sword hung at his side in a leather sheath. Across his chest was a gleaming black warhorn, banded with silver.

“This is the last place I would have expected to be seen,” Tyrion admitted.

“I was captured by a whim.”

[cyallowitz]

7 Tips to Using Siege Weapons in Fiction

Google Image Search Siege weapons are rather restricted in its use, but that doesn’t mean one shouldn’t think about using them.  If you just toss them in, you might find that they don’t make sense or fail to get a decent impact.  There isn’t anything necessarily wrong about just mentioning them being there, but readers tend to expect such things to serve a purpose.  So, what are some things to…

[a-book-of-creatures]

I always thought this was a siege engine of some sort

Some sort of siege weapon(?), woodcut from an illustrated edition of Vegetius' De re militari, German, 1511

[oldschoolfrp]

Defenders pour into the gap after a siege tower pulls down their castle wall (Jim Holloway, Dragon 154, February 1990)

[age-of-moonknight]

“Reborn,” Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu (Vol. 2/2024), #2.

Writer: Jed MacKay; Penciler and Inker: Alessandro Cappuccio; Colorist: Rachelle Rosenberg; Letterer: Cory Petit

[we-are-siege-engineer]

You don’t gotta do like engineering or even a trade job or whatever. Comment in the tags what and why as you wish, and lemme know if I missed any

[captain-price-unofficially]

A US Army M728 operated by the FBI reverses from the burning compound of David Koresh's Branch Davidians, Waco, 1993.

[bsptourist]

gm_the_emil_residence

created by shortnamesalex

[victusinveritas]

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

STRAIGHT OUTTA SOUTHERN HARAD -- LIVING, BREATHING, RAMPAGING SIEGE ENGINES.

PIC(S) INFO: Spotlight on the War Mûmamkil and their Haradrim riders, scenes from the War of the Ring and the Battle of the Pelennor Fields as depicted in "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" (2003), directed by Peter Jackson.

"New forces of the enemy were hastening up the road from the River; and from under the walls came the legions of Morgul; and from the southward fields came footmen of Harad with horsemen before them, and behind them rose the huge backs of the mûmakil with war-towers upon them. But northward the white crest of eomer led the great front of the Rohirrim which he had again gathered and marshalled; and out of the City came all the strength of men that was in it, and the silver swan of Dol Amroth was borne in the van, driving the enemy from the Gate."

-- "THE LORD OF THE RINGS," "The Return of the King," Book V, Chapter VI, written by J.R.R. Tolkien

Source: www.novelforfree.com/the-return-of-the-king_chapter_book-v-chapter-6_1735_199.html.

[pratchettquotes]

"I can't leave the city now of all times!" said Vimes desperately. "There's so much to do!"

"That's exactly why Sybil says you ought to leave the city," said Vetinari. [...]

Vimes knew that he had lost. He had lost as soon as Sybil was involved, because she was always a reliable siege engine against the walls of his defenses. But there was such a thing as going down fighting.

Terry Pratchett, The Fifth Elephant

[airyairyaucontraire]

Further thoughts from my LOTR audiobook listen:

Orcs talk about picnics.

Orcs also talk about cats and kittens.

There are aspects to orc culture we may never know* but count me intrigued.

Also, I and Sam Gamgee are as one in hoping that the oliphaunt that ran away in Ithilien was okay. Maybe he found his way home eventually. Maybe he decided Ithilien was nice actually and stayed.

*There were also, I thought, a few hints that there might be rebellion or resistance within Mordor. One of a pair of orcs that Sam and Frodo overhear bickering says that the other's complaints are "rebel talk." Different factions of orcs are being played off against each other in a way that could backfire against their rulers if they realise they're being manipulated. There's a culture of reporting on each other for any perceived disloyalty within their military (it's also a more modern and bureaucratic military than Gondor's or Rohan's, given that every orc has a number) that, again, could backfire if some orcs realise it's a way to keep them from organising together for their own good.

And apart from the orcs, we know there were humans working in Mordor, both men who chose to because they liked power (like the ambassador who speaks to the Captains of the West) and abducted slave labour, which we're told as an aside produced pretty much all the food in Mordor in a somewhat more attractive and healthy region of the country near a lake, which Sam and Frodo didn't see because they were travelling through the heavily polluted shithole regions such as Gorgoroth, and of course enslaved people will run away and/or rebel, often organising together for the purpose, when they can.

It's natural that no one outside the country would know anything about it, but I like the idea that there was nevertheless some anti-Sauron sentiment within Mordor, perhaps strongest amongst those orcs with a nostalgic hankering for the good old days of picnics and kittens.

[cyallowitz]

How To Defeat Siege Weapons

Google Image Search I was thinking about listing ways to take out various siege weapons.  Then I thought that would be too specific and boring.  Not to mention many of my ideas involved fire.  Instead, I’m going to talk a bit about why you should figure out a way to destroy a siege weapon even if it won’t happen in the book. First, this requires that you either do some research or at least take…