Harvey
First Post
They come from across the far corners of the Material Plane and beyond, a lethal fighting machine whose mere presence on the field of battle is sometimes enough to drive an enemy army away in terror. Hated by its opponents and feared by its allies, the Nameless Legion cares little for respect, love, or courtesy so long as its employers pay on time. Assembled from among the most dangerous creatures known to exist amongst the various planes, the Legion is a mercenary fighting force consisting of many different races.
Recruiting
The Nameless Legion recruits warriors from across the known worlds, allowing any mercenary into its ranks who is willing to undergo the psionic conditioning that purges the applicant of much of his past memories. Recruits keep their knowledge of combat, magic, and other marketable skills, but the rest of their memories are forever erased. This alteration extends to a creature's alignment and personality, literally leaving the recruit a new person.
The Legion's name derives from its members' conditioning: They lose their names along with their memories, gaining new names only after proving themselves in battle. Recruits rarely socialize with non-legionnaires, a state of affairs the Legion likes, and it actively pushes its members to avoid mingling with locals. Thus, to most commoners and even some of their customers, the Legion is an army of nameless warriors. Legionnaires are named for deeds they accomplish during their service or traits that set them apart from others. A perceptive elf might be called Hawkeye, while a lumbering, fat ogre might be dubbed Gutslosh.
The Legion's members are marked by extensive tattoos that symbolize their allegiance and serve to soothe the fears of commoners who normally regard trolls, hill giants, and other monstrous creatures as enemies. These tattoos are magical in nature and give a creature improved abilities in social situations.
The Legion Recruits from various cosmologies and various planes and demiplanes: Their membership ranges from the Elves of Greyhawk to the Air Genasi of Faerun to the Warforged of Eberron. It is not unusual to see a shifter barbarian from the Stone Breakers fight alongside an eletum hexblade from the Blood Feasters.
The Paymasters
A cabal of 12 elven, changeling, and doppelganger wizards, known as the Paymasters runs the Legion. They have mastered the art of journeying between the planes. Using a secret process of psychic surgery, these wizards render their charges obedient to the Legion and train them in the art of war. One can recognize a legionnaire by the intricate tattoos marking his face, which serves as a symbol of his training and obedience.
Originally concerned with cataloging the planes and their inhabitants, they quickly found they could garner tremendous profits in trade, mercenary recruitment, and other business ventures. The Paymasters' long life spans and business acuity have allowed them to amass a tremendous fortune. When a vacancy opens in the cabal, the remaining Paymasters vote in an apprentice or henchmen of the departed member.
The Paymasters are both neutral and greedy. They care more for maintaining their integrity as businessmen than becoming embroiled in local conflicts between good and evil. As experienced planar travelers, even those Paymasters with a benevolent streak have trouble thinking of any issue confined to a single world as one worthy of risking their business ventures.
The Paymasters intentionally cultivate a mysterious image. They wear voluminous gray robes that serve to conceal their faces, hands, and feet, while masks of the Paymasters alter their appearance and voice and help repel the effects of Enchantment spells. Each mask is fashioned to resemble a different animal, and a paymaster goes by a name relating to her personal mask. By merely trading masks, the Paymasters are able to assume new identities, a situation the cabal uses to its advantage in negotiations, dispatching emissaries with radically different styles of negotiation and debate to hammer out contracts with customers.
The Paymasters rely on their assistants, apprentices, and henchmen to handle most of the Legion's day-to-day business on a particular world, preferring to keep themselves busy with magical research or travel to exotic planes.
Organization
The Legion makes its headquarters among the ancient stone ziggurats of a ruined civilization hidden deep within the dense jungle of a small demiplane. It was within these ruins that the Paymasters discovered the secrets of psychic surgery and the magical gates that transport their warriors across the cosmos.
Here, amongst the rebuilt ziggurats, is where the Legion is barracked until sent on missions. Housed in the sprawling master complex is an armory, training grounds, mess halls, taverns, blacksmiths, libraries, and any other service that the Legion could require. There are 12 ziggurats reserved for the Paymasters. Each of these ziggurats is home to a particular Paymaster and his personal servants and apprentices, and legionnaires are strictly prohibited from approaching or entering these structures. Defying this edict means instant death for a legionnaire.
Legionnaires are sent on missions to various worlds via Worldgates: large portals that are created and maintained by the Paymasters. Worldgates can open onto almost any area of any world or plane. However, once sent on a mission, the legionnaires assigned must fend for themselves, relying on their commanding officer to decide on extraction requirements.
Legionnaires are organized into 12 large units called cadres. Each cadre is given a distinct name such as the Blood Feasters, Storm Howlers, or Shield Breakers. Each cadre is broken down into smaller groups called lances.
The 12 cadres that make up the Nameless Legion are:
• The Blood Feasters. Made up of assassins and slayers, usually undead in nature, this cadre specializes in eliminating specific targets such as generals, nobles, and adventurers. Its symbol is a fanged mouth that drips with blood.
• The Crashing Waves. This cadre is made up of underwater races, such as sahuagin and sea elves, that specialize in amphibious and underwater assault. Its symbol is the gaping maw of a shark.
• The Forest Walkers. This cadre consists of nature walkers, such as druids, treants, and awakened plants and animals. They are called in for anything from espionage to holding a perimeter in combat. Its symbol is a large oak tree set on a green field.
• The Mounted Nightmare. This cadre consists of the best mounted combat fighters of all races, as well as centaurs, bariaurs, awakened unicorns, and the like. Swift and furious, its symbol is a black lance.
• The Rune Bearers. This cadre is made up of sorcerers, wizards, and monsters who possess innate magical talents. Its symbol is a circle inscribed with magical runes.
• The Shield Breakers. Warriors who rely on strength and toughness, this cadre specializes in siege warfare and assaults. Its symbol is a greataxe with the shattered remnants of a shield piled beneath it.
• The Snow Serpents. Geared towards combat and missions on arctic and frostfell worlds, this cadre includes ice giants, uldra, and cold-based spellcasters. Its symbol is that of a large glacier on a sea of ice.
• The Sons of Shadow. Drow, derro, duergar, dwarves, and other creatures of the subterranean realm serve in this cadre as night fighters and underground specialists, as do creatures skilled in stealth and thievery. Its symbol is a dark cave mouth from which two red feral eyes glare.
• The Stinging Sand. Bitter rivals of the Snow Serpents, this cadre specializes in desert warfare. Asherati, sendasti, and their brethren make up this cadre. Its symbol is a dark-brown sandstorm.
• The Storm Howlers. Flying creatures are grouped into this cadre and are used as scouts, messengers, and aerial assault troops. Everything from awakened owls to mounted griffonriders can be included in this cadre. Its symbol is a winged lightning bolt.
• The Thoughts of War. This cadre is made up of psions and mind flayers, as well as other creatures that are particularly skilled in the tactics of war. It specializes in providing tactical and strategic counsel, and its symbol is a golden skull set on a blue field.
• The Unspoken Ones. This unique cadre is made up of deep cover infiltration agents. Dopplegangers, changelings, ethereal creatures, and even quasits make up this cadre, whose tasks involve deep cover assignments that might last for years. This cadre has no interaction with the other cadres, and is so clandestine that it does not even have a symbol.
As the cadres each fulfill a specific role, most operations involve lances drawn from multiple different cadres. Rivalries between the cadres can run high, especially among those that fill similar roles such as the Blood Feasters and Sons of Shadow. Each cadre believes itself the most skilled and deadliest in the Legion, a belief reinforced during training, as the Paymasters use these rivalries as a motivational tool. Each lance consists of anywhere from 4 to 6 members, depending on their job requirements.
Once assigned to a cadre, a creature serves in it until his contract is up, usually 5 to 10 years. Members have their cadre symbol tattooed on their upper arm, and many opt to have a second such tattoo scribed upon their forehead or other prominent part of their body. A minotaur in service to the Shield Breakers could serve with eight different lances over the course of eight different assignments.
Within the cadre, the uppermost levels of command are reserved for the Paymasters and their direct minions. Each cadre has a commander. Beneath the commander is a captain, who serves as a field commander. The captain is a legionnaire selected for his discipline, intelligence, and loyalty. Warchiefs are ranked below the captain and are officers assigned to command units of up to 20 lances. Each lance reports to its warchief for assignments, whether on the field of battle, or on special assignment.
Training
Legionnaires gain access to training and magical resources that grant them talents and abilities unique to the Legion. Within the Paymasters' jungle domain lies many daunting obstacle courses and training halls overseen by the toughest, most demanding instructors the Legion can find across the worlds on which it operates. With this training and the Paymasters' considerable arcane skills, the Legion never wants for unexpected advantages to use against its opponents.
Rewards
As part of a Legionnaire’s mission, that legionnaire receives any loot or booty obtained during that mission. Oftentimes, the Paymasters will send lances of legionnaires for special “retrieval” missions, which end up being quite lucrative for those selected.
Legionnaires who engage in missions or assignments that do not normally yield treasure, such as defending a holy site against attack, are paid for their services depending on their level. This amount usually equals about 3 sp per level per day, but greater rewards are given to legionnaires who provide exceptional service.
Members
Once the final members are decided, they will be posted below...
Recruiting
The Nameless Legion recruits warriors from across the known worlds, allowing any mercenary into its ranks who is willing to undergo the psionic conditioning that purges the applicant of much of his past memories. Recruits keep their knowledge of combat, magic, and other marketable skills, but the rest of their memories are forever erased. This alteration extends to a creature's alignment and personality, literally leaving the recruit a new person.
The Legion's name derives from its members' conditioning: They lose their names along with their memories, gaining new names only after proving themselves in battle. Recruits rarely socialize with non-legionnaires, a state of affairs the Legion likes, and it actively pushes its members to avoid mingling with locals. Thus, to most commoners and even some of their customers, the Legion is an army of nameless warriors. Legionnaires are named for deeds they accomplish during their service or traits that set them apart from others. A perceptive elf might be called Hawkeye, while a lumbering, fat ogre might be dubbed Gutslosh.
The Legion's members are marked by extensive tattoos that symbolize their allegiance and serve to soothe the fears of commoners who normally regard trolls, hill giants, and other monstrous creatures as enemies. These tattoos are magical in nature and give a creature improved abilities in social situations.
The Legion Recruits from various cosmologies and various planes and demiplanes: Their membership ranges from the Elves of Greyhawk to the Air Genasi of Faerun to the Warforged of Eberron. It is not unusual to see a shifter barbarian from the Stone Breakers fight alongside an eletum hexblade from the Blood Feasters.
The Paymasters
A cabal of 12 elven, changeling, and doppelganger wizards, known as the Paymasters runs the Legion. They have mastered the art of journeying between the planes. Using a secret process of psychic surgery, these wizards render their charges obedient to the Legion and train them in the art of war. One can recognize a legionnaire by the intricate tattoos marking his face, which serves as a symbol of his training and obedience.
Originally concerned with cataloging the planes and their inhabitants, they quickly found they could garner tremendous profits in trade, mercenary recruitment, and other business ventures. The Paymasters' long life spans and business acuity have allowed them to amass a tremendous fortune. When a vacancy opens in the cabal, the remaining Paymasters vote in an apprentice or henchmen of the departed member.
The Paymasters are both neutral and greedy. They care more for maintaining their integrity as businessmen than becoming embroiled in local conflicts between good and evil. As experienced planar travelers, even those Paymasters with a benevolent streak have trouble thinking of any issue confined to a single world as one worthy of risking their business ventures.
The Paymasters intentionally cultivate a mysterious image. They wear voluminous gray robes that serve to conceal their faces, hands, and feet, while masks of the Paymasters alter their appearance and voice and help repel the effects of Enchantment spells. Each mask is fashioned to resemble a different animal, and a paymaster goes by a name relating to her personal mask. By merely trading masks, the Paymasters are able to assume new identities, a situation the cabal uses to its advantage in negotiations, dispatching emissaries with radically different styles of negotiation and debate to hammer out contracts with customers.
The Paymasters rely on their assistants, apprentices, and henchmen to handle most of the Legion's day-to-day business on a particular world, preferring to keep themselves busy with magical research or travel to exotic planes.
Organization
The Legion makes its headquarters among the ancient stone ziggurats of a ruined civilization hidden deep within the dense jungle of a small demiplane. It was within these ruins that the Paymasters discovered the secrets of psychic surgery and the magical gates that transport their warriors across the cosmos.
Here, amongst the rebuilt ziggurats, is where the Legion is barracked until sent on missions. Housed in the sprawling master complex is an armory, training grounds, mess halls, taverns, blacksmiths, libraries, and any other service that the Legion could require. There are 12 ziggurats reserved for the Paymasters. Each of these ziggurats is home to a particular Paymaster and his personal servants and apprentices, and legionnaires are strictly prohibited from approaching or entering these structures. Defying this edict means instant death for a legionnaire.
Legionnaires are sent on missions to various worlds via Worldgates: large portals that are created and maintained by the Paymasters. Worldgates can open onto almost any area of any world or plane. However, once sent on a mission, the legionnaires assigned must fend for themselves, relying on their commanding officer to decide on extraction requirements.
Legionnaires are organized into 12 large units called cadres. Each cadre is given a distinct name such as the Blood Feasters, Storm Howlers, or Shield Breakers. Each cadre is broken down into smaller groups called lances.
The 12 cadres that make up the Nameless Legion are:
• The Blood Feasters. Made up of assassins and slayers, usually undead in nature, this cadre specializes in eliminating specific targets such as generals, nobles, and adventurers. Its symbol is a fanged mouth that drips with blood.
• The Crashing Waves. This cadre is made up of underwater races, such as sahuagin and sea elves, that specialize in amphibious and underwater assault. Its symbol is the gaping maw of a shark.
• The Forest Walkers. This cadre consists of nature walkers, such as druids, treants, and awakened plants and animals. They are called in for anything from espionage to holding a perimeter in combat. Its symbol is a large oak tree set on a green field.
• The Mounted Nightmare. This cadre consists of the best mounted combat fighters of all races, as well as centaurs, bariaurs, awakened unicorns, and the like. Swift and furious, its symbol is a black lance.
• The Rune Bearers. This cadre is made up of sorcerers, wizards, and monsters who possess innate magical talents. Its symbol is a circle inscribed with magical runes.
• The Shield Breakers. Warriors who rely on strength and toughness, this cadre specializes in siege warfare and assaults. Its symbol is a greataxe with the shattered remnants of a shield piled beneath it.
• The Snow Serpents. Geared towards combat and missions on arctic and frostfell worlds, this cadre includes ice giants, uldra, and cold-based spellcasters. Its symbol is that of a large glacier on a sea of ice.
• The Sons of Shadow. Drow, derro, duergar, dwarves, and other creatures of the subterranean realm serve in this cadre as night fighters and underground specialists, as do creatures skilled in stealth and thievery. Its symbol is a dark cave mouth from which two red feral eyes glare.
• The Stinging Sand. Bitter rivals of the Snow Serpents, this cadre specializes in desert warfare. Asherati, sendasti, and their brethren make up this cadre. Its symbol is a dark-brown sandstorm.
• The Storm Howlers. Flying creatures are grouped into this cadre and are used as scouts, messengers, and aerial assault troops. Everything from awakened owls to mounted griffonriders can be included in this cadre. Its symbol is a winged lightning bolt.
• The Thoughts of War. This cadre is made up of psions and mind flayers, as well as other creatures that are particularly skilled in the tactics of war. It specializes in providing tactical and strategic counsel, and its symbol is a golden skull set on a blue field.
• The Unspoken Ones. This unique cadre is made up of deep cover infiltration agents. Dopplegangers, changelings, ethereal creatures, and even quasits make up this cadre, whose tasks involve deep cover assignments that might last for years. This cadre has no interaction with the other cadres, and is so clandestine that it does not even have a symbol.
As the cadres each fulfill a specific role, most operations involve lances drawn from multiple different cadres. Rivalries between the cadres can run high, especially among those that fill similar roles such as the Blood Feasters and Sons of Shadow. Each cadre believes itself the most skilled and deadliest in the Legion, a belief reinforced during training, as the Paymasters use these rivalries as a motivational tool. Each lance consists of anywhere from 4 to 6 members, depending on their job requirements.
Once assigned to a cadre, a creature serves in it until his contract is up, usually 5 to 10 years. Members have their cadre symbol tattooed on their upper arm, and many opt to have a second such tattoo scribed upon their forehead or other prominent part of their body. A minotaur in service to the Shield Breakers could serve with eight different lances over the course of eight different assignments.
Within the cadre, the uppermost levels of command are reserved for the Paymasters and their direct minions. Each cadre has a commander. Beneath the commander is a captain, who serves as a field commander. The captain is a legionnaire selected for his discipline, intelligence, and loyalty. Warchiefs are ranked below the captain and are officers assigned to command units of up to 20 lances. Each lance reports to its warchief for assignments, whether on the field of battle, or on special assignment.
Training
Legionnaires gain access to training and magical resources that grant them talents and abilities unique to the Legion. Within the Paymasters' jungle domain lies many daunting obstacle courses and training halls overseen by the toughest, most demanding instructors the Legion can find across the worlds on which it operates. With this training and the Paymasters' considerable arcane skills, the Legion never wants for unexpected advantages to use against its opponents.
Rewards
As part of a Legionnaire’s mission, that legionnaire receives any loot or booty obtained during that mission. Oftentimes, the Paymasters will send lances of legionnaires for special “retrieval” missions, which end up being quite lucrative for those selected.
Legionnaires who engage in missions or assignments that do not normally yield treasure, such as defending a holy site against attack, are paid for their services depending on their level. This amount usually equals about 3 sp per level per day, but greater rewards are given to legionnaires who provide exceptional service.
Members
Once the final members are decided, they will be posted below...