Creative Exercise - The City

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

The city guard has recently been restructed by Antiox Belcallus, a half-orc warrior of great reknown and a veteran of several wars. Despite the nobilities initial scoffing, the guard has become a force to be reconned with, and several nobles are thinking of assissinating Antiox due to his popularity with the gaurd force and the power it brings him with the Soots.

Chain shirts, bucklers, hand axes are the standard armor and weapons, and while this does not really change all that much, it is the tactics and the way guard squads are organized and trained that does.

Each gaurd patrol has 2 archers, four men with large tower shields and short spears, a cleric, two rogues, and a psychic warrior or psion among them. The men with the tower shields use bullrush to pin thier foes against walls and stab them down, while the archers cover the back of the shield wall creators. The clerics are on hand to take care of any wounded bystanders, provide fire support, and take care of anything within thier range.

Many of the squads have been equipped with sorcerers, at Antiox's demands. Both to pay for the sorcerer's training in thier arts, and to put them under his watchful eye.

The fact that he recently managed to ram a proclamaition that guardsmen and thier immediate families were exempt from taxation did NOT make the nobility happy, who had managed to tax the guardsmen at 115% of thier pay.

Retroactively.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

Well..it was fun, then got munckinized somewhere along the way

One man's munchkin game is another man's minimalist game.

 

[GreyShadow]

The Jade Tower is the main church of the goddess of nature, Valerasby.

 

[Sarellion]

Ships on the river use bound elementals for propulsion.

 

[smilinggm]

Reciently there have been several deaths from a waisting disease, the priests that were called in to cure the disease were unable to cure it. Those same priest have been showing the first signs of the disease. Rumors of plague are starting to spread.

 

[SALADIN THE JUST]

In light of the dim view that the church of Xom in the capital has taken of recent developments in the City and the impending arrival of the dreaded Wardens, in the hope of mitigating this negative perception the local church in collaboration with the City's Guardsmen have organised a special unit known as the Inquisitors whose job it is to flush out and condemn dark elements within the church and the City, particularly sorcerers, especially gnomish sorcerers at that, who they suspect as being responsible for the recent woes afflicting the City. The Inquisitors have been empowered to carry out summary justice where it is deemed necessary and appropriate without the need for due process. This unit is led by an Aasimar Paladin-Cleric, Lady Tatianna Pendragon.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

In light of the dim view that the church of Xom in the capital has taken of recent developments in the City and the impending arrival of the dreaded Wardens, in the hope of mitigating this negative perception the local church in collaboration with the City's Guardsmen have organised a special unit known as the Inquisitors whose job it is to flush out and condemn dark elements within the church and the City, particularly sorcerers, especially gnomish sorcerers at that, who they suspect as being responsible for the recent woes afflicting the City. The Inquisitors have been empowered to carry out summary justice where it is deemed necessary and appropriate without the need for due process. This unit is led by an Aasimar Paladin-Cleric, Lady Tatianna Pendragon.

The Inquisitors, while being led by Lady Tatianna Pendragon, were trained by Antiox, who was ordered to apply the lash as he felt necessary. Of the five hundred Church Soldiers that the church of Xom sent, less then 200 survived Antiox's combat training.

Inquisitors are trained in urban, tunnel and squad tactics, excell at identifying and eliminating magic users who face them, and are profiencent in hand to hand fighting, unarmed or armed, in some of the most difficult urban terrians imaginable. The graduation exercize, wiping out a sizeable nest of assassin's located in the tunnels beneath the docks, killed over a quarter of the 250 that were left, but over two thousand assassins, thier retainers, thier supporters, and those they sheltered were tracked and killed in a four day running battle through the twisting tunnels beneath the city.

Lady Tatianna and Antiox do not get along too well, the half-orc willing to be publically brutal, and believing that dead enemies are less dangerous than ones who have been granted mercy through bribing Lord Judges. Antiox views Tatianna as dangerous weak, too easily influenced, and blind to the real evil of the world. Lady Tatianna believes the half-orc to be racially typically paraniod, seeing darkness and shadow where there is none.

Sadly, it is Antiox who is correctly estimating the threats arrayed against the city itself. Antiox understands what drives the under-class in thier dissatisfaction against the nobility, he understands that the greater and greater laws and restrictions placed on the underclass just make them that more eager to throw off the yoke.

While the Inquisitors are a force to be reckoned with, a force to be feared, the summary execution of lord Benditoni and his heirs for smuggling black dust into the city and trading in underage sex-slaves has caused the nobility to realize that in having Antiox train the Inquisitors, they may have delivered them out of thier own control.

Lady Tatianna oversaw the summary impalement of Lord Benditoni, her faith that the ruling class knew what was best and were destined to rule through divine birthright seriously shaken.

Members of the Inquisitors fall in the following class arrangements:

Heavy Infantry: Fighter/Psychic Warrior
Light Infantry: Psychic Warrior/Ranger
Scout: [psion/mage]/rogue
Light Support: [psion/mage]/rogue
Combat Support: [psion/mage]/fighter
There is also a heavy mix of Paladin/Mage, Cleric/Psion, Paladin/Psion, Cleric Mage in the ranks of the Inquisitor.

Inquisitors gain the following as Class Skills: Gather Information, Sense Motive, Knowledge (Tactics) --(Taken from d20 Modern)
Prerequisites are as follows: Faithful member of the church of Xom in good standing, combat veteran, must have passed Antiox's training course.

Typical character level is 10-15. Stat block of 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 10 with 5 points to spend within is standard.

All Inquisitors are garbed alike, with no rank insignia's. Only the holy symbol of Xom displayed on the right breast and right shoulder of the armor. Even spellcaster wear the armor, putting up with the penalty to spellcasting.

Chainmail Shirt +2 of Freedom
Short Sword +2, Bane Evil, variable substance
Medium Steel Shield +3
Battle Helmet: These helmets allow any who wear these to speak to one another at distances up to 500 feet. They also provide darkvision 30' or add 30' onto current darkvision. The helmet's communication cannot be blocked by anything but lead totalling a greater thickness than 12" or a dispel magic zone.
Light Crossbow +2 with 20 bolts +2
Cloak and boots of the Elvenkind
Bandoleer with 4 potions of cure moderate wounds, 2 potions of invisibility, 2 potions of barkskin.
Rings are left to the Inquisitor's discretion, but are often used to bump up magical or psionic power.

The Inquisitors have become a force to be feared, and even nobles in the capitol are beginning to search thier souls for heresy or sin that might deliver them into the hands of the Inquisitors.

 

[Captain NeMo]

The gnome & dwarf teams mining at the rock face have recently come across pockets of unknown substance. They tend to be towards the top of the waterfall and are also rather explosive....

 

[Arkhandus]

One of the few groups offering aid to the poor and destitute in the city is the Caracini family, a large extended family of tieflings, the only tiefers in the region in fact. The Caracini family is currently based in the old, rundown, Carpenter's District next to the Soots. "Papa" Caracini is himself an old, retired tiefling carpenter who still remembers when his district was one of the most prosperous in town, before the blasted dwarves and gnomes migrated here in force and fortified the town with stonework. Papa Caracini is supposedly the son of a half-demon from the plains, but came to the city as a boy and always seemed like a stoic and kindly fellow. Papa Caracini has innumerable tiefer children and grandchildren, though his human wife died decades ago, and his human son-in-laws and daughter-in-laws are all getting on in age as well. The old man seems fairly spry though himself, and continues to invite poor folks into his home for meals and, when they're in need, a spare cot in the den for a night or two. Papa Caracini's soon-to-be heir is his first child, Nimalli Caracini, a tiefling lass now in her middle years but still spunky and without a husband, though her father keeps trying to arrange a marriage for his devoted daughter.

The Caracini family is liked by many of the town's poorer elements, though that doesn't stop said poorer elements from talking about the family's supposed fiendish connections and plots. So far though, no one's been lost or hurt at the Caracini's small manse, and in fact the tieflings have sheltered criminals and the wrongly-accused from time to time, even when city guardsmen are pounding at the door. Papa Caracini seems to have some pull with one noble or another who has ties to the guard, and generally gets the men to back down. The sight of his very large family looming menacingly behind him helps too. Caracini tiefers wandering in the nicer districts tend to be ill-regarded, and roughed up by guardsmen or others, but they rarely travel outside the Carpenter's and Soots districts alone, usually going around in threes or fours.

Caracini tieflings seem to practice some kind of meditative art form that also includes dance and a savage yet disciplined fighting style. They say only that The Art keeps them tranquil and positive, though in truth it's just the only way they manage to keep the demon within them barely contained. Papa Caracini hasn't been seen practicing The Art, but might well be a practicioner considering its uniqueness to the family. The tiefers are known as nasty barroom-brawlers, but generally try to stay out of trouble, though this reputation as brawlers keeps guards and watchmen on edge. Since the Caracini family's appearance and growth over the last century or so, guardsmen have accumulated a few intimidating and disturbing rumors about the Caracini and those who mess with them.

 

[Sarellion]

It´s Xon, not Xom.

Contribution:
The finest bakery of the city belongs to the gnome Priggle. He is rarely seen as he labors ceaselessly and people tend to overlook him. His wife Miona is doing the sales.


I hope Piratecat doesn´t mind the cameo appearance of his NPC.