BillGarrett/CityDefense

Now that your Solar has conquered his first city, how is he going to defend it from attack, either internal or external?

Physical Security

Methods for securing your city that don't involve magic as their central focus.

Guards and Soldiers

Soldiers can be drawn from the ranks of the populace (either in the form of an existing standing army, or through the use of Tiger-Warrior Training Technique) or they can be hired. A mercenary company is a Resources 3 expense per month; a crack company, or regular army, is Resources 4. To actually raise your own legion is a single Resources 4 expense, 3 to maintain.

Fortifications

Walls are a Resources 4 expense. This cost can be reduced if you can compel large numbers of earth elementals to perform this task. Similarly, a moat offers basic defensive benefits as well as a source for water for magics such as Torrential Cascade. Excavating a moat and then temporarily diverting a nearby river to fill it is a large-scale engineering challenge that can be eased with the support of elementals and spirits.

Supplies

Lay in a large supply of foodstuffs. Spells such as Purifying Flames, or specific wards against decay, can keep them fresh over long periods of time, in the event of a siege. Eternal Crystalline Encasement can very reliably ward up to 80 man-days worth of food per casting.

Magical Security

This encompasses the specific techniques for guarding a city against magic, or using magic.

Thaumaturgy

The Art of Wards are a must, and are easy to establish if you have Occult, time and considerable resources. They will protect you from most mundane and lesser magical threats. A typical city-sized ward is a difficulty 5 roll, requiring 5 days per +1 to strength and 4 days per +1 to durability, and Resources 5. A strength 6 ward will obstruct any being of Essence 4 or less completely; a durability 7 ward will last for a single year. Maintaining such a ward is a Resources 2 expense and will take 100 man-days over the course of the year. Wards can be vulnerable to counter-magic.

The Science of Geomancy is useful, if you have a trained and skillful geomancer. Bringing about a blessing of money on the residential area of your city, and good crop yields in the fields, can increase a city's overall prosperity and hence its happiness. Proper hygiene and geomantic alteration of a city's water supply can fend off disease.

Solar Charms

• Bureau-Rectifying Method - multiply the effectiveness of a city's existing bureaucracy dramatically.
• Deft Official's Way - a valuable tool for policing your bureaucracy.
• Durability-Enhancing Technique - used against city gates to make them impervious to conventional assault.
• Heroism-Encouraging Presence - useful when leading the city's defenders.
• Seasoned Criminal Method - a day of sweeping the streets and taverns can produce an impressive "who's who" of crime in your city.
• Tiger-Warrior Training Technique - elite guardsmen and soldiers can be produced quickly and easily, even if your city had no standing army.
• Underling Promoting Touch - to delegate authority.
• Understanding the Court - a quick and easy way to keep tabs on the economic and political strata of your city.

Dragon-Blooded Charms

• Benevolent Master's Blessing - for speeding the wheels.
• Revelation of Associates Hunch - an aid to surveying the mercantile or criminal subcultures of the city.
• Testing the Waters - a useful adjunct in democratic cities.
• Voices on the Wind - for surveillance of likely targets.

Lunar Charms

• Courage-Building Address - a Valor booster for troops in battle.
• Glorious Battle Presence - a battle-leadership Charm.

Sidereal Charms

• Demon-Blocking Battle Pattern - a strong defense against the undead in battle.
• Essence-Draining Battle Pattern - a strong defense against magical opponents in battle.
• Implicit Construction Methodology - a very fast way to accomplish public-works engineering.
• Neighborhood Relocation Scheme - useful for rearranging small areas of your lands.
• Predestined Triumph Practice - small penalties for the enemy in battle.

Sorcery

• Demon of the First Circle - bound demons, while perhaps socially unpopular, can provide effective defenses at critical entry-points into the city.
• Mercury's Deliverance - though it lasts only a single night, it can obstruct distant magic. The radius is probably not sufficient for more than a single sanctum or fortress.
• Mirage of Protective Shelter - probably the ultimate in city-scale defenses, this will protect you from large-scale invasions, leaving your other defenses against individual intruders.
• Ritual of Elemental Empowerment - a quick and easy way to equip your city guard with semi-magical arms and armor.
• Solar Sanctuary - cover the city in overlapping sanctuaries for a dramatic "home court" advantage.
• Torrential Cascade - a sufficiently large moat can serve as a source for this spell, as well as a mundane defense.
• The Violent Opening of Closed Portals - knowledge of the spell presumes knowledge of the countering wards that prevent it from being used on you.

Allies

These are general types of allies, spirit or otherwise, that any master of a city will find useful.

• The City Father - using spirit Charms such as Lend Authority and Sense Domain, the City Father or Mother is an invaluable asset in managing the day-to-day, social and military affairs of the city.
• Ifrit - cities in the south will find these beings useful as diplomats and leaders.
• Road Spirits - making pacts and alliances with the spirits who provide access to and from your city can be an effective early-warning system and tool.
• Terraserpents - cities wishing to make extensive use of underground channels as aqueducts, subterranean storage areas or escape-tunnels can summon such beings to dig them very quickly.