Arboreal Warfare
What it is like to fight over the ground among the treetops and limbs in a low-tech environment?
Arboreal warfare is a hallmark on the Lashunta of Castrovel, hearkening back to the inspiration from ERB’s Carson of Venus series, and has often been a stock assumption of Elves, going back to JRR Tolkien’s roots. I would like to spend some time to imagine what this would likely be like.
First, a definition: arboreal warfare is military operations conducted primarily within and among tree-forests, which may occur either exclusively above the forest floor, or as an assault from the tree-limbs to the forest floor. In any case, the primary mode of traffic is by movement over tree limbs.
For Lashunta and Elves, which are roughly close to Human body size and weight, arboreal movement is dependent on the Megadendra, a variety of giant trees that make real-world Redwoods and Sequoias look cute and shrubby by comparison, and which form the backbone of Castrovel’s jungle rainforests. They create a vertically stacked array of biomes, from the mist-shrouded treetops, to the reinforcing ~Shoamealu~ Treepaths, whose cask-girth limbs feel like roads hundreds of feet above the forest floor, all the way down to the shadow-shrouded ~Zellavya~ - the Darkfloor, which shrewd travellers avoid when given the opportunity. These formidable giant trees support Lashunta riding horse-sized Shotalashu lizards over these boughs and up these beams, these need to be formidable trees indeed.
Even with the ~Shoamealu~ Treepath’s convenience allowing traffic from one tree to another, two physical skills hold a premium in arboreal movement and in Lashunta military training: climbing and leaping, since arboreal traffic does not occur at any single height within the Treepaths. One cannot dictate the direction whereat any given tree grows its boughs. A military force thus must contemplate movement within all three spatial dimensions, up, down, and all around. On one level, the closest real-world analog to this kind of combat may be aerial warfare, maybe helicopter gunships seeking to surprise each other in a canyon (wasn’t there a Nick Cage movie about this?), except only really slowed down from miles/kilometers per minute to yards/meters per minute. Instead of swoops and banks, movement becomes a series of transitions from platform to platform. Effective range also gets much closer, down to tens of yards/meters, or even closer, wherein the prospect of grappling into melee range becomes a dizzying prospect when perched on a piece of wood high above ground.
Fortunately in climbing and leaping among trees, Lashunta have some advantages. Korasha are gifted with impressive upper-body strength that they put to good use with these skills, while Damaya rely on their Shotalashu’s steeds’ climbing and leaping prowess (though they undergo a lot of this in basic training as well) and the security of their combat saddle harnesses. Mastery of this arboreal mobility becomes key, for while the trees offer three degrees of movement, they also create peculiar constraints. Combatants have little choice but to follow where the trees’ growth lets them go, making movement predictable and creating limited fronts on which combat can occur.
Missile weaponry draws a premium for ability to strike over gaps and in any direction, but is also constrained by portability, since an archer needs to stow bow and quiver while quickly climbing. Thus I have been assuming that most of my Korasha footsoldiers are archers brandishing shortbows, possibly with Zulu-style shortspears or smallshield and axe as backup weapons. Archery still holds a premium even for Damaya-Shotalashu cavalry, for while Shotalashu are highly effective combat assets in their own right, even they have limits to how far they can jump.
With fronts limited even in three-degrees of movement, when two opposing forces were to meet on the same tree-path, they would most likely need to engage each other in single-file, which creates a problematic strategic scenario. While heavier-armored Outriders may relish this chance, the outcome of two Shotalashu-steeds launching themselves at each other while the Outriders thrust and twist their glaivelike spears at each other, all while trying to keep balance from a fall to sure doom, presents a high-risk endeavor that more prudent combatants may wish to avoid. Instead, such an engagement may likely turn into a broader-front skirmish at range, where both sides seek to outflank and find advantage over each other, seeking freedom of movement.
A couple other problems present in arboreal warfare. First, while climbing to gain altitude on an enemy provides advantage, it also limits mobility, for further up in a trees’ height the boughs are slimmer and weaker, and allow less opportunity to cross to another tree (which thus creates the Lashunta idiom: ~ealamura-yoe~ - to be up a treetop). Correspondingly, when fleeing an enemy, it is faster and safer to flee and leap downward - until one reaches the bottom rung of the Treepaths, where one contemplates either an unpleasant fall to the Darkfloor or a very hasty climb down a tree-beam...much like a Shota and its rider trying to scurry down-trunk like an oversized, unbalanced squirrel. (Thus another Lashunta phrase: ~voea-nazassi~ to take the fall).
The skirmishlike nature of such warfare, along with the need to keep weight low to facilitate Ninja-Warrior style movement through the trees, makes light armament, both in weapons and armor. Outriders wear nothing heavier than medium armor, while most other cavalry is lightly armored (bamboo/leather breastplates and smallshields, plus a helm) and no barding. Foot-soldiers bear a shield with a baldric for ease of carry, plus helm, shortbow, and a quiver.
The lightless ~zellavya~ - the darkloor below the trees' limbs is a lightless, dangerous play, full of horrors both fungal and lurking.
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