Indirect Conflict

A major theme of Kingdoms of Kahara is the nature of indirect conflict.

To use it as an example, Atria is more of a region than an organized country, and is subject to intervention from the more powerful groups in the setting. A major facet of this, however, is these groups can't send armies to Atria and use direct force largely due to how inhospitable the region is, as well as its relative isolation. There is enough in Atria of value for others to want, so they must go about their objectives indirectly.

Many conflicts on Kingdoms of Kahara are such that the main orchestrators will rarely, if ever, show up on screen and they will act through subordinates. While it may not be possible to defeat the person in charge, with sufficient effort the plans of the subordinate can be thwarted.

Gray Conflict

Illicit tollbooths, raids, burglaries, 'missionaries', and such are tools of indirect conflict. It is not outright warfare but they are actions designed to degrade the capabilities of adversaries while limiting justification for retaliation. This is to say in gray conflict entities often respond to the use of the tools of gray conflict against them with their own gray conflict capabilities rather than aiming to escalate.

Levels of Conflict

While explaining different types of conflict is a rather complicated topic, for the purposes of Kingdoms of Kahara this can be simplified to the idea of a continuum of full cooperation on one end and existential conflict on the opposite end. For the purposes of this page the word "entity" is used to describe a country, influential person, or organization. The nature of power in most of Kahara is decentralized and so there are many potential actors who can instigate varying levels of conflict.

1. Full Cooperation - The entities in question are fully aligned with each other and provide active supporting in achieving each other's goals. This level is not realized in practice.
2. Mostly Cooperative - The entities in question support each other in most aims though in some areas this may not be complete support and there may be areas where the entities do not work together.
3. Somewhat Cooperative - The entities assist each other when it is advantageous for the one providing support to do so.
4. Mildly Cooperative - The entities provide occasional assistance. In practice this may be seen as two entities more agreeing to not step on each others' toes rather than real cooperation.
5. Apathy - The entities do not care about each other for whatever reasons.
6. Mildly Antagonistic - The entities have opposing aims and will occasionally act against each other in mild ways to prevent someone from achieving an aim the actor sees as disadvantageous. Often this kind of conflict appears to be a lack of cooperation than outright opposition. A practical example may be refusal to extradite an alleged criminal.
7. Somewhat Antagonistic - Entities have opposing aims which are significant enough to warrant active measures against each other. This generally takes the form of gray conflicts described on this page. This is where most major conflicts on Kingdoms of Kahara reside. Occasional military skirmishes may take place if circumstances warrant but at this level the aim is to degrade an adversaries capabilities while limiting retaliation.
8. Mostly Antagonistic - Gray conflict may still take place but it is often in preparation for escalation. Conflict at this level often means limited aim warfare where the objective is to compel the other party to comply through sufficient application of military force.
9. Existential Conflict - At this point the entities are either at war or in between the last war and the inevitable upcoming one where the aims of one entity against another are not to achieve an objective or two but the complete destruction of the opposition. This is the extreme end of conflict and is not realized in practice at the country level anywhere in Kahara.

On Assassination and Murder

For most in Kahara, even in the less organized regions such as Atria, there are strong religious and community prohibitions against assassination and murder. As a practical matter, it is an understood rule between those in conflict through their proxies that injury and property loss to subordinates is simply part of the nature of conflict and it happens; there will be retaliation but it will be proportional to the damage done rather than a desire to outright kill those responsible. Intentional murder by those conducting the raids however is deemed to justify far stronger responses, usually against the ones conducting those raids or similar activity. This is one major reason most adventurers want little to do with wet-work since so long as they merely raid or burglarize most consequences can be survived, but a retaliation for wet-work could warrant a lethal response in turn.

Wet-work and kidnapping type operations are rare, and when done there is a conscious effort to obscure who is responsible so that there is plausible deniability. One issue with these kinds of operations isn't just that most adventurers consider them odious, and most reputable adventurers avoid them, but because the targets are often subordinates to someone more powerful who resides far away from the actual conflict, it rarely makes the problem actually go away since a new subordinate can always be dispatched, thus necessitating the gray conflict rather than an outright hot one.