Walking Coffins

The below passages are from the book “The Evolution of Magical Tactics During the War of Dawn”, Authored by Cronin Abanna, Retired Colonel of the Turangar Air Force, Professor of Military tactics at Rodosem University in Luvelli, and contributor to the National Turangarian Historical Archive (NTHA). The book was published in year 28 of the Third Era, and was part of a wider ranging NTHA project chronicling the War of the Dawn.

The opening stages of the War of the Dawn, vividly defined by the Battle of Tiirgard Crossing and the Voskite’s triumphant yet fleeting Glorious Parade towards Tassendrel’s capital, exposed the Imperial Tassendreli Military’s inability to counter Voskgardian advances in ballistics and artillery. This period marked the emergence of defensive fortifications, with elven defenders urgently erecting barricades and laying the foundations of modern trench warfare. On the elves' part, there was a near immediate recognition that in these new conditions, being caught out in the open was a death sentence. This new paradigm of war sparked the creation of a range of strategic philosophies within the Imperial Army, each aimed at countering the formidable technological edge of their human adversaries.

The first school of thought harnessed the elven arts of illusion and invisibility. By weaving spells to render themselves unseen or to distort their positions, elven soldiers could evade detection and confound human marksmen, nullifying the effectiveness of rifles, artillery, and other conventional weaponry. These spells, however, were not without cost. Mastering illusion magic required years of disciplined training, limiting its use to specialized spellcasters known as Veilweavers. Voskgardian forces, quick to adapt, countered with brutal ingenuity; infantry grenades, grenade-launching rifles, and flamethrowers designed to flush out hidden foes, as well as barbed wire entanglements, tripwire traps, and landmines designed to disrupt unseen movements. Additionally, Voskgardia produced doctrinal innovations, such as the use of hounds trained to detect elven scents. In summary, the specialized skills required, and inherent risks to casters, confined illusion magic to specialized units, rendering it a potent but limited tool in the Imperial arsenal.

The second approach focused on altering the physical environment to create impregnable defensive strongholds. Elven earth mages transformed solid ground into treacherous quicksand, stored poison gas underground and then brought it to bear to kill invaders, or sculpted vast trench networks to channel Voskgardian troops into kill zones where entrenched elven defenders held the advantage in close-quarters combat. These tactics, which became known as Trenchshaping, proved highly effective in stalling human advances, particularly during the defense of the Great Rukeli Forest, where entire Voskgardian battalions were ensnared in magically altered landscapes. Yet, as any military historian will attest, defense alone cannot secure victory. The inherently static nature of Trenchshaping limited its strategic impact.

The third and most revolutionary school sought to bridge the gap between defense and offense by enhancing physical protections to allow elven infantry to cross contested battlefields and engage the enemy lines directly. This philosophy was best demonstrated by the Ronalon Offensive. Tassendreli Air Cavalry, shrouded in cloud-conjuring spells for stealth, launched surprise bombing raids on Voskgardian artillery emplacements, crippling their long-range capabilities which allowed for hulking golems of stone and earth, animated by earth magic, to safely storm the Voskite infantry positions. These constructs, nearly impervious to riflefire, routed Voskgardian troops, albeit at heavy cost. In the end, the Imperial Army pushed the majority of the human forces back across the Tiir River.

Golem warfare, however, faced significant constraints. Crafting and animating golems was a resource-intensive process, requiring rare minerals, intricate runes, and skilled mages, which prevented their deployment in large numbers. As a result, golems were reserved for surgical strikes to breach Voskgardia’s lines rather than for attacking along entire fronts. Moreover, earth mages needed to maintain close proximity to their creations to sustain the animating spells, exposing themselves to enemy sharpshooters and artillery, a vulnerability Voskgardian infantry quickly picked up on. The scarcity of skilled earth mages further compounded these issues, leading to chronic shortages and relegating golems to specialized combat roles as the war progressed. While golems proved a formidable weapon, their limitations prevented them from decisively altering the war’s trajectory.

Enter the first pause in the War of the Dawn, where both sides glared at each other across the Tiir river. While Voskgardia focused on improving its existing technologies and bringing new ones into production, Tassendrel’s imperial military focused on countermeasures. They quickly realized that unenchanted steel plating could stop human bullets, but that armor made out of plate thick enough to do so would be too heavy for a soldier to move in. For a human nation, this would be the end of this line of research. For the elves, it was merely the start.

Take an elven soldier, strap as much steel plate onto him as needed to stop human bullets, then enchant the steel to be as lightweight as possible and the soldier to be as strong as possible, and you have yourself a new kind of heavy infantry. Over the course of the war, these would be known as “heavies”, “tin cans”, “iron devils”, “man openers”, and many other titles by the Voskgardian military. To the elves, they would simply become known as “walking coffins”. 

Early prototypes were plagued by flaws: poor ventilation caused overheating and exhaustion, cumbersome designs required entire teams to don or remove the armor, and gaps for mobility and vision left exploitable weak points. Claustrophobia was a persistent issue, with some Elven soldiers refusing to wear the suits. Yet, even in their crudest form, these steel plated warriors proved devastating in combat, as recounted by Voskgardian Private Hugo Drosk

“We all thought the elves had grown desperate, sending a small line of metal infantry at us. We laughed at first and shot at them with our rifles and revolvers. We stopped laughing when they didn’t drop dead. Then we started dying when they hit our lines. I watched one cut a man clean in half from head to feet, right through his helmet. Our line practically disintegrated after that.”

The enhanced strength of these “heavies” allowed them to wield oversized weapons such as greatswords, warhammers, and maces, with devastating effect. Literally cleaving and smashing their way through human formations. Over the course of the war, continued innovation addressed many of the armor’s shortcomings. Air mages developed spells to improve ventilation and protect against Voskgardian gas weaponry, which had become a growing threat by year ten of the conflict. The entry of Dwarven allies brought advanced metallurgy, enabling the creation of articulated joints and lighter components that enhanced mobility. Refinements in anti-weight enchantments further reduced the armor’s burden, allowing soldiers to operate for longer periods. Finally, a couple of spells from Red Mountain removed the need for eye holes. Based around fieldic sight spells and animal echolocation, a wearer could use them to effectively see, even while fully enclosed in steel. 

Now fully jacketed, the wearers of these walking coffins became a massive threat, without easily discernible weak points. These advancements transformed the heavies into a psychological weapon as much as a physical one, sowing dread among Voskgardian ranks. Soldiers spoke in hushed tones of the relentless advance of these steel plated soldiers, their glowing runes and eerie silence heralding slaughter.

Voskgardia scrambled to develop anti-armor weaponry, including high-caliber rifles and explosive shells designed to penetrate their steel plating. However, production bottlenecks and the complexity of these weapons meant they were never fielded in sufficient quantities to completely counter the walking coffins. Human troops grew accustomed to the terror of facing these heavy infantry, whose assaults could shatter morale well before landing a blow. The cultural impact on both sides was profound. Voskgardian soldiers began to depict the heavies as demonic entities, while elven society grappled with the ethical cost of fielding soldiers in such dehumanizing armor, where survival came at the expense of everything else.