I'm sure the Howardian-Cimmerian purists among you will label me a heretic saying blasphemy....
...but I think that Vanir raids can go quite deep into Cimmeria hinterlands if they have:
- reason for doing it
- logistical support (food & water) or ways/skills to get it
Why do I say so?
Well, the reasons are multiple and it has possibly something to do with my view of the world as a complicated system....
We know that the Hyborian Age is a fictional world and we know that REH did not write enough on these details, but if we take into consideration what really happened in the real world we could find inspiration.
It is worth remembering:
1) CIMMERIA IS NOT A UNIFIED COUNTRY
Cimmeria has no central government, no unified army, nobody caring for every Cimmerian.
So each Cimmerian clan must usually deal all alone with most problems.
So, sometimes, as long as you protect your clan/tribe territory, who care if the Vanir raid your neighbor tribe, especially if you have feuds with that tribes?
Seeing what happened between ancient Germans and Gauls (Caesar' De Bello Gallico) I see nothing wrong in some Cimmerian tribe occasionally allying with Aesir or Vanir in order to pillage another Cimmerian tribe.
Somebody among you could say: "Hey man, Cimmerian united at Venarium to fight vs the Gunderlanders!"
However, to me that was an exceptional cause.
My interpretation is that Gunderlanders were not stupid building a settlement there, possibly they did it believing that Cimmerians will never unite, since they never do that...
Furthermore Venarium is something different from a simple "Vanir or Pict Raid".
Venarium was an insult to Cimmerian pride, since it was supposed to be COLONISATION, not a raid.
2) CIMMERIA IS NOT A THICKLY INHABITED COUNTRY
My image on Cimmerian's land inhabitation is a rural based one, the opposite of a Classical Mediterranean inhabitation theory.
No main-center theory application here, not urbanisation at all.
Simply small villages/centers spread over a country.
A single clan should have been spread among 3 or 4 minor centers over a land the control.
Sometimes there should be a focal center for the tribe (e.g. an historical cemetery or a circles of stones)...but the tribe is spread among the hills.
On one hand this could mean that more land is controlled....
...but on the other hand it also means that the invaders can go on inside Cimmerian territory only as much as the single small centers collaborate in stopping the invaders.
I'm sure there is no "Inter-tribal" or "Inter-clan" border watching organization.
And sometimes the hilly topography means that small local feuding centers can be mixed with their positions.
Comunities can be quite small and sometimes you do not care whether Vanirs damage a neighbor, as long as Vanirs do not damage you.
Comunications can also be troublesome.
For example the Cimmerians tribes "A" and "B" are always at feud.
A Vanir warband hits a small village of Clan "A"
The survivors of this small "A" village report to the other warriors of Clan A.
However, cellphones do nto exist and so by the time the "A" Warriors come, the Vanir warband is already in clan "B" territory.
And nobody informed clan "B" beause they were enemies of clan "A"....smart Vanirs can exploit such situations...
Read Caesar's De Bello Gallico.
The smart Roman always exploited such things vs the Gauls.
3) CIMMERIAN LANDSCAPE
Furthermore these hills are rough, thickly forested.
No intensive Mediterranean agriculture here to modify the natural landscape.
Cimmerians should survive on a very simple economy based on:
- Hunting
- Herding
- Vary basic survival agriculture
Intensive Agriculture exploit small space to its maximum.
However, Cimmerian economy is just the opposite.
This is a kind of economy which requires wide spaces.
Comunities with "Evolved" economies (e.g. Aquilonians) need less land per person for surviving.
Comunities with Primitive economies (e.g. Cimmerians) need more space per person.
And wide spaces means a lot of wilderlands.
And you cannot accurately control wide lands without an organized control system/organization, which Cimmeria has not since it has no central organized national government.
A smart group of Vanirs can go quite deep into Cimmerian land exploiting the coverage offered by thick forests inhabited by nobody!
CONCLUSIONS:
I think that a small group of very smart Vanir can go quite deep into Cimmeria (even 200 miles or more!) as long as they do not bother raiding the first tribe they meet.
The only issue is: why should they want to go that deep?
If their focus if just to loot and pillage there are enough Cimmerians on the border for that....
But maybe there's some special reason for your Vanir warband to go that deep...and that's to me is a good starting point for an epic Conan campaign!
