User blog:Ilniaj/Lescatie

Lescatie is a land of honor and martial tradition. Its knights are the epitome of chivalry, brave and resolute and prepared to mete out justice to evil doers with lance and sword. Religious worship in Lescatie is mainly towards the Chief God, who they call "The Lady" who grants her blessing to her beloved champions. Lescatie itself is a feudal, traditional land of knights and peasants. The knights of Lescatie live by a series of vows - these vows uphold the virtues of honor and chivalry. To lose honor is about the worst thing imaginable to a Knight of Lescatie, who would rather die with honor than live without it. Individual heroism is very important to a Lescatien knight and tales of Paladins fighting dragons and heroes facing off against countless foes are the kind of things the people of Lescatie dream of. In contrast to the upper class nobles, the lower class peasants are a downtrodden underclass. Despite sharing an eastern border with the steadily advancing Empire, the nobles have tried and been somewhat successful in insulating Lescatie from technological changes and by relation, the social changes that come with it. Lescatie is primarily an agricultural economy and most of its population consists of subsistence farmers. While urbanization in other realms has brought great prosperity due to economies of scale, the people of Lescatie regard urban living as distasteful and rather dishonorable. Even those that do live in cities stubbornly stick to a rural mindset that prevent maximizing the gains. Many urban buildings are made of wood and thatch rather than stone, livestock run free in the narrow lanes as if in a farmyard and houses are built as close to the walls and castles as possible, resulting in far more overcrowding than necessary. Generally, Lescatiens tend not to invest in the future, having an attitude that failing to do the best you can now in exchange for having reserves for a future that might never come is little more than an excuse for shirking.

Lescatie does not have an army. That is, there are no soldiers serving a career as paid warriors in service of the state. Instead it relies on the feudal service of its knights. When a lord must take the field against an enemy, he summons his vassals to provide their military service. They, in turn, summon their vassals, and most lords bring peasants as well. Lescatie lacks a central chain of command but their military tactics are sufficiently simple that they can work together nonetheless. The feudal levy’s main weakness comes in long campaigns. Lords and knights must return to their fiefs to serve as rulers or to defend their own homes, and most lords can only hold the levy together for 40 days. Of course, things are different if it’s the lord’s own lands under attack in the first place. When an important place, such as a mountain pass or the route to a Goblin stronghold needs defending, the King or a Duke grants a fief in that place to a powerful warrior and makes him a Marquis. The lord is then responsible for constructing fortifications, raising troops, and dealing with the menace. The Lescatien knights are a highly mobile force with a predominance of heavy cavalry, from the basic Men-At-Arms to the demi-godlike Grail Knights. The nobles also have a large variety of peasants to call on such as Bowmen, Militia and war machine operators. The leaders of this noble force are pious lords and paladins with damsels blasting foes from a distance with powerful spells. Entire armies of knights carry minor blessings of the Gods, so long as its leader is virtuous and his warriors pure of heart. When so many honorable Knights go to war, swearing to fight to the death to uphold their ideals and defend what is right, no matter what the odds, then great amounts of virtuous magic are attracted to them. Small numbers of melee strikes are turned aside at the last moment and cowardly ranged weapons have their effectiveness hampered by the protections of the gods.

Lescatie folklore is replete with the mighty feats of famous knights as they battle against the odds to defeat their foes. In these stories and poems, noble knights seek out and slay ferocious dragons that terrorize the realms, battle and defeat evil warriors and destroy entire armies of orcs single-handed. It is every knight's utmost desire to have great deeds of their own to be sung for years after their death. Despite these high standards the knights have set for themselves, there are mighty individuals who live up to these goals. They are the heroes who have performed great deeds on the battlefield and defeated particularly dangerous foes. Their reputation precedes them, and their names and heraldry are known throughout all the dukedoms. Many of these mighty heroes are Grail Knights, having drunk from the grail and become the epitome of chilvalric knighthood. However, there are many other legendary individuals who have never attained the status of Grail Knight, but are in no ways lesser heroes for that. Sometimes the responsibilities of governing will hold a knight back from that quest, though it will bring him great pain to do so.

Perhaps the greatest deed a knight can perform is to go on a crusade in the name of the gods. Templar Crusaders are knights who are veterans of crusades, having earned great glory for their deeds in foreign lands. They are world-wise soldiers, skilled in fighting all manner of soldiers against all manner of enemies. Unlike most other knights who dream of glory and wish to become grail knights, the Templar Crusaders take more solace in serving the Chief God as scholars. Whereas most knights would rather spend their time training and fighting, the Templars consider their knowledge being their greatest power. They are powerful orators, so gifted that they can move entire armies with their persuasive words, and the gods blessing makes them even stronger at this.

Sometimes, young children will have strange and mystical powers. Their eyes might be different colors, milk may sour in their presence, they can predict events before they occur, they can see ghostly apparitions or are heard talking to beings that others cannot see. Before they reach puberty, most of these children will be taken away to a coven of Damsels to learn to become Damsels themselves (Gallants for the occasional male), a sort of mix between a priest and wizard. In their years of training, they become powerful individuals and have their innate abilities honed and tempered. Riding into battle, they use their powers to lend protection to the noble warriors, warding away the foul magic of the enemy while casting down the foe with their own powerful spells. They are able to mystically encourage the landscape to fight the enemies of Lescatie, and the trees themselves lash at their foe; flocks of birds descend on the enemy at their call and some can even draw lightning from the heavens to strike down in devastating arcs. When not in battle, they serve as advisors to the dukes and king. They use their powers to scry into the future, protect sacred places, detect truth in others and lend healing. As a combination of priest and wizard, they also maintain shrines to the Chief God and lead devotions and prayers.

The worship of the Chief God, known as "The Lady" is not the only religion present in Lescatie. Worship of other gods are practiced and second to the Chief God is Eleos, the god of mercy, compassion, clemency and pity. These priests of other gods sometimes fight in the armies of Lescatie, ministering to the faithful, offering spiritual and tactical advice and smiting the enemy. The gods channel their divine power through their priests, allowing them to use divine magic almost equal in potency to the spells of wizards. The kind of divine magic they use can vary wildly based on the god they worship.

Should a Champion survive the endless battles while still finding favor in the eyes of their gods, they may attain the ultimate reward for their decades of dedication. Their patron will elevate the Champion to their side as an Archangel, a being of godlike power. They are mighty beyond compare, lordly creatures of awesome might. There are few who don't seek this metamorphosis where they shrug off their mortal shell and become a being of divinity but for every champion who roars their triumph as a newborn Archangel, untold thousands perish on the field of battle or simply fail to gain the acclaim necessary before their mortal form breaks down. Archangels are vast in stature, their gigantic forms twisted into new shapes. They wield powerful magic items and strange abilities and the variations between these beings are uncountable. Nonetheless, it is common for the Archangels to retain their intellect and memory. Some are awesome warriors full of martial discipline and pride. Others are master magisters with the ability to reshape reality itself. Others are peerless marksman, wielding bolt throwers like crossbows or small cannons like rifles or enormous bows. While most of Lescatie considers missile weapons to be dishonorable, they have to grudgingly respect an Archangel that uses a Missile weapon for that Archangel has clearly proven their worth through having been elevated to become one. Upon ascending most Archangels go to heaven, leaving the world behind so that there is room for others to attain greatness. Sometimes, an Archangel is sent back to the mortal world to serve as the commander of a faithful army. At other times, a newly transformed Archangel continues to lead their followers who view their leader as a demi-god, which is not far from the truth. In fact, some of the oldest and most powerful Archangels are worshiped as deities becoming local gods for villages, tribes or even countries, acting as an intermediary for their patron deity.

The backbone of the Lescatie military are the Men-at-Arms, who are heavy cavalry lancers. These warriors are either nobles or peasant members of a nobles retinue. A landed noble is duty bound to defend his land and people until death. He may call upon his retinue, peasant militia and bowmen to assist him but unless the threat is larger than he can handle, must do so with his resources. Unless the domain is isolated, other knights will tend to come to the aid of an outmatched knight without being called by that knight. The landless nobles and peasant Men-at-Arms are bound to serve their lord who possesses land. Every midsummer, commoners flock to their lord's castle to present their sons and daughters in the hope that they will be trained as Men-at-Arms. It is a great honor to be accepted and some young peasants will have been guided to this goal their entire life. The reasons this is an honor are several, but the most common is that the peasant has impressed his superiors, will earn money to improve their lot and even a chance of royalty for sufficiently valorous deeds. A popular tale in Lescatie is of a noble disowning his craven offspring and adopting his peasant Men-at-Arms into nobility after his life was saved by those same peasants while his children ran. While the Men-at-Arms consist of both peasant and noble, nobles prefer to fight side by side rather than rub shoulders with peasants. Because of this, wealthy and influential landed nobles will have their retinue consist entirely of other nobles without land. As one moves farther down the noble hierarchy, those nobles will have a higher proportion of peasants in their retinue over other nobles. In a similar manner, it is rare for someone purely of peasant blood to be elevated to nobility, most tend to be bastard children of nobles. In the rare case that a noble line is started by a former peasant, the established noble lines will often try to snuff it out.

Unlike the Men-at-Arms, the role of Questing Knight is exclusive to the nobility. When a noble embarks on a quest for the grail, they relinquishes all worldly possessions and ties to his domain and in return, are accorded honor and increased physical power as heroes. To symbolize this, he lays aside the Lance because it is the weapon of loyal service and takes up a Greatsword. Roaming far and wide, questing knights have met the Lady and been granted a sip of the grail in a variety of places so the quest is not a search for a place, rather it's to prove oneself worthy. Only once a Questing Knight has endured many perils and hardships can they expect to find the grail.

A Grail Knight has attained the ultimate order of chivalry, for not only have they undertaken the quest for the Grail but have succeeded. An angel has appeared before them and has offered him the grail so that he might sip its contents, reaping the greatest reward of a noble life. Those who drink are changed forever, gaining lifespans several times longer than normal humans, his willpower will harden into iron, the blessing he carries as a knight will become equally protective against ranged and melee attacks and his attacks will carry a touch of magic allowing him to strike down even ethereal beings. Grail Knights sometimes re-enter the feudal hierarchy. However, no Grail Knight would swear fealty to a lord who was not a Grail Knight and the only lord they would serve as a simple household knight is the King himself. Others, choose to live a little apart from normal society, instead becoming a hermit knight residing in a Grail Chapel. These sacred Grail Chapels are the resting places of slain Grail Knights and are where powerful relics full of magic are stored. As due to the nobility, the peasants will feed and serve a hermit knight. In return, they can count on the powerful knights protection. Other Grail Knight wander much like the Questing Knight they once were, righting wrongs where they find them. Though rare, their tendency to travel means that most Lescatiens have seen one at least once. Many of the peasantry treat them as living saints and the attitude of the nobles is not far behind.

The blessings of the gods carried by Questing and Grail Knights will spread to their horses as well, causing them to sprout wings and fly. Their blessings have made them considerably smarter and they share such a strong bond with their master that they seem to be able to anticipate commands before they are uttered. While they may appear to be graceful beasts, they are every bit as sturdy as well-trained warhorses. When carrying riders they are fearless, and will employ their mighty hooves with deadly accuracy, capable of staving a soldier's head in with a well-placed blow. The transformation into a Pegasus is far more common in Lescatie so they have been known to field entire units of Questing and Grail Knights mounted on these magnificent beasts.

While other lands developed the Opinicus as a creature similar to the Griffon, the mages of Lescatie had their own similar project in parallel. The fruits of this project are the Hippogriffs, creatures with the head, forequarters and winged feathers of a bird and the rear end of a horse, complete with tail. Hippogriffs are vicious and savage making them a favorite mount of Grail Knights than the gentle tempered horse or pegasus. Taming a Hippogriff is a mighty challenge, they are territorial and even their master can't just take one of their eggs, so the task is often left to the knight wishing to own a Hippogriff. His eventual rider must raise the Hippogriff by hand from a very young age, and after training, won't accept any other in the saddle. Due to both the strength and time required, only Grail Knights tend to do so but occasionally there are Knights and Questing Knights who do so. The Hippogriff Knights are a mighty unit, both mount and rider being formidable fighters. The Paladins and Lords ride an even larger breed known as Royal Hippogriffs, which are larger than the "common" counterparts. They also tend to have unusual but beneficial traits like sharper talons, a serrated maw, be far fiercer or the ability to give themselves a burst of speed on the charge.

While most Lescatiens prefer to fight on a mount, sometimes circumstance makes it impossible and the heavy cavalry has to dismount. These Foot Knight may be either dismounted Men-At-Arms or Questing Knights. Some mounted knights look down upon them, but they are unquestionably useful in battle where militia lack the skill. Foot Knight are used to hold important positions, defend castles and assault fortifications. Whereas the mounted knights are usually limited to a lance charge followed up by drawing their swords, Foot Knights can be found wielding all manner of weapons in combat, be they swords, morning stars, axes, pole-arms or great swords, making them very versatile troops indeed.

While Men-At-Arms are the backbone of the Lescatie army, peasants tend to be the bulk. All land owning knights are required to equip and train a peasant militia. Their equipment tends to be basic, light armor for protection and either a spear and shield or polearm to wield. While not terribly strong and skillful, this Militia provides a body of troops to which the Knight can safeguard his domain. Since these are Militia and they are needed to work the fields, they are rarely used for offensive purposes but when a Knights land is under attack they can be sent into battle with impunity.

Though the tenets of chilvalric honor forbid a noble from wielding a missile weapon, there is no such restriction on peasants. As such, those peasants owning longbows will instead serve as Peasant Bowmen, firing volley after volley of arrows into the enemy. Like Militia, Peasant Bowmen are not very reliable if left alone but under the stern gaze of their lord, can aspire to adequate though not exceptional deeds. Peasant Bowmen are deployed where they can lend the force of their longbows to the knightly charge, softening the enemy with a continual volley of deadly arrows. Another common practice of Peasant Bowmen is to place of line of deadly wooden stakes in front of them to hamper a charge.

Peasants will support themselves with packs of well-trained dogs, mostly owned by the shepherds. When outside of battle these packs aid in patrols and guarding, sniffing out intruders or tracking targets through the wilderness. When in battle, the hunting hounds harry enemy flanks, chase down routing opponents and guard against opposing fast cavalry or hounds. Sometimes, a Yeomen on a horse will lead these hounds, making them slightly more reliable in combat.

The Yeomen are the elite among the peasants, either wealthy merchants or land-owning farmers. In war, Yeomen are a cut above the militia, being able to afford their own warhorses and having more time to practice for combat. The knights commanding Yeomen tend to have them scout ahead and provide information to the main army. There are plenty of melee cavalry in Lescatie so mounted Yeomen tend to be missile cavalry, but when it's favorable, they can level spears and charge into a units flanks and then retreat. Unmounted Yeomen tend to be an ambusher unit, sneaking into a position ahead of the battle-line to pick off missile troops and war machines.

While worship of The Lady is chiefly centered around the nobility, the peasants do not ignore her. It is true that most peasants give their primary devotion to other deities but a few are as devoted to The Lady as any Grail Knight. As these peasants cannot become Grail Knights or Damsels, they try to be as close as possible to those who have. Damsels are more feared than loved by most peasants and would try to drive off almost all who start following them around so the vast majority join the entourage of a Grail Knight. Such people are known as Grail Pilgrims. Most try to be of service to their knight, whether cleaning his gear, preparing his food, or even serving as guards whilst he sleeps. A Grail Pilgrim, as long as he follows his Grail Knight, accepting the hardships of life on the road, is deemed to be on pilgrimage and thus cannot be seized by his lord. Few join purely for this independence, however, as Grail Knights seek out dangerous places, and the life expectancy of Grail Pilgrims is not long. Grail Pilgrims consider all the cast-offs of a Grail Knight to be holy relics but most holy of all is the Grail Knights body. In fact, many bands of pilgrims cart around a reliquae wherever they go, with the corpse of a departed knight resting at its centre. The corpse is dressed in armour, placed on a skeletal horse, and carried on the shoulders of Grail Pilgrims. The outside of the reliquae is a gaudy mélange, adorned with trinkets gathered from many Grail Knights from across all corners of the realm. The pilgrims devote themselves to this construction, supplicating themselves before it as if it were a living Grail Knight, praying for its blessings and drawing strength from the presence of their saint. These groups can last for decades and tend to contain more Grail Pilgrims than most groups that follow a living knight. The Lescatian nobility view them as pests in peacetime. Some dukes may see wandering bands of pilgrims on their lands imprisoned or killed. In times of war this attitude changes, for the fanatical pilgrim bands make doughty fighters and their presence on a battlefield is viewed as a boon.

The harsh laws of Lescatie turn many peasants into outlaws, the acts that many nobles commit with impunity turns many outlaws into avengers. Herrimaults hold themselves above both groups by keeping to a strict code of morality. While they operate outside the laws of Lescatie, they do so because those laws are unjust. Of course, most nobles see no difference and hunt Herrimaults just as enthusiastically as other outlaws. A Herrimault's ethics do bring popularity among peasants and the braver souls seek to join up. Even a few nobles that are shocked by abuses they are unable to prevent have taken up the bow of the Herrimault. Joining a Herrimault band is simple, walk into a camp where they hide and loudly declare your intent to join. An applicant who survives doing this is clearly competent enough to join; the chances of avoiding being attacked by beasts or monsters through dumb luck are tiny. Herrimaults that hold to the code appear to have a divine patron of some sort. Their arrows phase through armor, highly useful against the heavy cavalry of Lescatie. When peasants are under threat from non-nobles, such as during a monster attack, Herrimault bands will make common cause with the nobles. Their skill at infiltrating behind enemy lines and ability to slay even the heaviest armored opponents are invaluable.

All bands of Herrimaults have a leader, if the group gathers by chance, either a leader arrives or it fragments once more. Successful bands of Herrimaults are always led by a Faceless, an individual highly experienced in the pursuit of right and justice by unconventional means. Faceless rarely have to worry about being stabbed in the back by their own followers. Similarly, most encourage potential Faceless in their band to develop and then establish their own group. Ethics have their advantages. On the other hand, they have to keep their band fed, find shelter, and right wrongs, all without stepping over the ethical lines that they set for themselves. In addition to being leaders, the Faceless are even better fighters than a typical Herrimault, being able to pick a target in the chaos of battle and wound him with a well aimed arrow.

Lescatie lacks major use of War Machines. The few they have tend to be primitive in nature. While no noble would sully their hands with operating one, there is no code against peasants doing so. Lescatie war machines are the Ballista, Mangonel, Trebuchet and Bombard. A Lescatien War Machine is crewed by 3 to 4 peasants and one of the peasants may be a Wall Warden. Wall Wardens are the peasant craftsmen responsible for the construction and care of siege engines and fortifications of Lescatien nobles, especially the massive castles that protect their power.

The ballista is a giant crossbow designed to hurl spear-sized missiles with incredible force and speed. They are so large that they are mounted on their own stand, often with wheels so they can be pivoted easily. Most have wooden arms, from which ropes made of Human hair or animal sinew attach, acting as the bolt thrower’s springs. Winches pull the bowstring back. A crew of two or more is required to wind back the powerful torsion arms and position the huge bolt ready for firing. Though accurate and compact, they do not match the range of the stone throwers.

The Mangonel is an early version of the stone thrower compared to the Trebuchet. It is a torsion weapon, flinging stones by bending back and releasing the arm, and includes a bucket or cup to hold the projectile rather than a sling. The mangonel throw projectiles on a lower trajectory and at a higher velocity than the trebuchet, with the intention of destroying walls, rather than hurling projectiles over them. Its principal use is in siege warfare to damage a castle or city's walls and infrastructure, or to harm or harass defending troops. Mangonels are smaller than the field trebuchet and constructed with wheels to allow for easier transport into battle. This also allows them to be moved and pivoted when needed; making them more versatile, but at the cost of firepower.

Trebuchets are immense wooden-structured war machines recently introduced into the armies of Lescatie. Through a series of levers, cogs and winding mechanisms, the large arm of the trebuchet is drawn down into a firing position, with immense masonry counterweights attached to the other end. A large sling is attached to the arm of the trebuchet that can hold rocks, masonry or even dead cattle. When the trebuchet is fired, the extra impetus that the sling adds to the firing arm means that it can fire further and with more power than a regular catapult. The trebuchet is an essential piece of equipment when Lescatie engage in siege warfare, and smaller versions of these machines are sometimes deployed on the field of battle. Indeed, since the king himself commissioned a number of trebuchets to be built their popularity has increased. Still, most knights universally put on a show of disdain towards them, and some dukes refuse to make use of them at all. Nevertheless, it is a sign of particular opulence to be in possession of a trebuchet, for they are time consuming to create and are individually hand crafted.

The bombard is a large calibre, muzzle-loading artillery piece mainly used to fire large stone balls at opponents’ walls. The primary use is to break down the walls of the enemy so the army can get to them. Most bombards are made of iron and use gunpowder to launch the projectile through the air. Unlike the Empire however, whose cannon foundries have existed for many years and have been improved upon many times, the Lescatie bombard is of much simpler design, being a large long tube mounted on a wooden platform on the ground, and unable to be turned or moved quickly once assembled. When they work, bombards can shatter the most determined enemy, pouring deadly shot into his massed formations, leveling his cities and toppling huge creatures. But bombards often go wrong. Weaknesses in the casting methods can leave minute cracks or other deficiencies which cause them to explode when fired, or gunpowder can fail to ignite or may explode prematurely. At best, it could be said to be unreliable (which any longstanding crew can attest to, usually with a missing limb as proof). At worst, it can be a death sentence, a position usually given to those peasants who have caused a slight against their commanding officer. That said, the firepower a bombard can bring to the battlefield can more than make up for this restriction – provided it does not blow itself up first.

Lescatie is steeped in ancient magic, seeping out from the very earth itself. Strange are the legends of fey spirits appearing from the forest, lakes and other natural places to aid the Lescatiens. They appear when Lescatie is in need, attacking those who seek to despoil the fair forests and lakes. These Spirits of the Fay are the spirits of noble grail knights from ages past, summoned forth to protect Lescatie from harm. The Spirits of the Fay appear out of nowhere and strike without warning, usually from within the forests or lakes of the land. Having no real physical form, they cannot be harmed by mundane weapons, and having no life, they cannot be broken. While they remain in Lescatie’s sacred forests and lakes, they are virtually indestructible, as more and more spirits emerge to take the place of those dissipated by enemy magic.

Throughout Lescatie, grail chapels dedicated to the Chief God can be found. These contain holy relics from heroes of ages past, and often serve as a sanctuary for Questing Knights searching for the Grail. Many of these grail chapels are warded over by a Grail Knight, who is sworn to defend it against any would-be invaders. In times of war and hardship, Damsels take an Altar and mount it on a cart, forming a Sacrosanctum of the Lady. They then take the abbey’s holy book and travel around the area bringing hope back into the lives of its inhabitants. In times of war the altar, is taken into battle inspiring knights to achieve even greater feats of bravery and heroism. It is ridden by a solitary Grail Damsel or Prophetess of the Lady who reads prayers from the abbey’s book, protecting knights, renewing their valor and blinding the enemy.

A mount available to the Prophetesses and Damsels but no other is the Divine Steed. Once an ordinary horse, when the steed transforms, it turns pure white and it's shifts, growing a set of horns or a single horn, similar to the horns on the unicorns and bicorns of the previous age. These Divine Steeds move with a graceful ease that hints at their true speed and swiftness. In battle, they can rear up, delivering blows with their hardened hooves, but is most dangerous when it can charge with its horn(s) lowered. These Divine Steeds are also highly resistant to magic and can convey their resistance to those they allow to ride them. This unusual ability provides a mage who rides them with a measure of protection against hostile magics, with a devastating spell often resulting in little more than a slightly inebriated and emboldened steed.