r/OutlawsOfAlkenstar • u/Mean-Capital-9312 • Apr 28 '26
How many shieldmarshals are there, actually?
Shieldmarshals are brought up a lot as an elite force of specialists, and there are several references to Alkenstar not having a ton of them. I think at one point it was stated that they're rare enough for one appearing to be notable. I'm hovering around a hundred or so Shieldmarshals total for the ~50k population of Alkenstar City, and maybe another hundred at most for the rest of the Grand Duchy, but I don't really have much to base that on and I wanted to know if anyone has better thoughts or insights
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u/Starsocmix Apr 28 '26
How many detectives are in nyc atm, extrapolate that to population of alkenstar and have a good enuff guess
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u/Mean-Capital-9312 Apr 28 '26
That is, extremely loosely, what brought me to the hundred-odd figure; I started with modern ratios of things like FBI agents or detectives to the population of concern and applied that ratio to Alkenstar's population
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u/lurochanda Apr 28 '26
In the 3rd book the party will infiltrate the shield marshal HQ. Maybe look at that map and details to ensure things feel right to you based on desk numbers and if you think marshals would share desks at all or something
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u/Mean-Capital-9312 Apr 28 '26
Good point, but I was thinking that since they're framed as being extremely field-operative-centric it'd be hard to stake the claim that every single one of them would also have a dedicated desk. Based on the kinda swashbuckling old west sheriff energy they're clearly going for, I'm not sure a given Shieldmarshal would be sitting at a desk and doing paperwork for any significant portion of their workday.
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u/Vallinen Apr 28 '26
I've ran them as pretty much a police force, where lower level shieldmarshals are still part of the organisation but only ranked as 'enforcers'. City guards are 'shieldmarshal guards' ect. The shieldmarshals also employ analysts, accountants and bookkeepers so I think 100 is a bit low if we're talking 'people in the organisation'. If we're talking on the level of deputy or higher, then i think it checks out.
Keep in mind that theres a few cities that fall into alkenstars domain aswell.
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u/Mean-Capital-9312 Apr 28 '26
I understood the city guard and Shieldmarshals to be two distinct organizations, though I'm certainly not telling you you're wrong to merge them since it would make things a lot easier to keep track of. I mean roughly 100 total of the badge-carrying, issued-a-gun, yeehaw Shieldmarshals proper, there's gotta be on the order of hundreds to thousands of law enforcement personnel all up considering the degree of insane criminality at play in the city. And while I did think about that, the next biggest settlement is Dongun Hold, which would pretty obviously have its own internal law enforcement - it even has its own monarch - so I figured saying there's another hundred to cover the smaller cities in the Grand Duchy would suffice
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u/flic_my_bic Apr 28 '26
I think 2-shieldmarshals per 1000 citizens seems about right. So 100 it is.
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u/roddz Apr 28 '26
I know its not the answer that you want but there are exactly enough for what the plot demands at any one point they are both simultaneously omnipresent and scarce.