Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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Approved NPC Caerith Darin

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soldier_by_hokunin_d67v9ij-pre.jpg

OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Intent: To sub the basic soldiers of the Shadow Knights and thus flesh out their ranks.
Image Credit: Here. 'Soldier' by Hokunin. Found on hokunin.deviantart.com.

Role: Frontline soldiers and marines of the Eldorai renegades. Their duties encompass raids, frontline battles and protection of the Eldorai migrant fleet and Eldorai settlements affiliated with them.
Permission: They have access to Firemane gear since I own the Company.
Links:
Naesala Faethyra. To Hell and Back.

GENERAL INFORMATION
Unit Name: Caerith Darin (Eldarai for Shadow Guard)
Affiliation: Kaida Taldir, Eldorai, Shadow Knights, Court of the Shadows.
Classification: Infantry, Marines.

Equipment:
Armour:

Rifles:
Sidearms:
Melee Weapons:
Misc:
Vehicles and Starships:
Support Weapons:
Description: The Caerith Darin are the common soldiers of the Shadow Knights, a group of Eldorai renegaded and dissidents that was formed in response to the desolation of Kaeshana. Their name means Shadow Guard in Basic. They are the largest coherent fighting force the Shadow Knights can field. The basis of the Shadow Knight society is a heavily militarised nomad fleet. The Caerith Darin are charged with protecting it against foes. They can also carry out raids to obtain resources.

They have evolved out of individual war bands of Dashde Eldorai militias as well Naesala Faethyra's personal paramilitary force. Dashdae - or Dark - Eldorai is a catch-all term for Eldorai renegades who oppose the Matriarchy. It encompasses rebel forces who want to install a theocracy, magocracy, republic or simply put a different dynasty on the throne. In the case of the Shadow Knights, they are a coalition that espouses a form of military republicanism.

In Shadow Knight society, service guarantees citizenship. Only those who have performed military service are considered full citizens and have the right to vote, and only those who have served with distinction can run for high office. This has produced a highly stratocratic society and makes military service very prestigious. The Caerith Darin are the military force the common soldiers find themselves. The Shadow Knights are focused on the protection of their migrant fleet, and lack the resources to conquer large planetary domains. So the Shadow Guards focus more on unconventional warfare rather than large set piece battles.

They are administrated by the Court of War, the Shadow Knight institution responsible for regular soldiers, pilots and naval personnel. The head of the Court of War is indirectly elected by the soldiers, who vote for a body of electors. This is standard for all of the Courts of the Shadows. Ultimately they answer to Strategos
Yseult Faerin and Archon Naesala Faethyra. Yseult Faerin is a bastard child of the House of Evora, which used to rule Kaeshana before being deposed and forced into exile by Tirathana VI.

Her family was obsessed with reclaiming the throne. This drove them to ruin. As a bastard Yseult was excluded from the succession, but fought as a footsoldier and then officer for her family. When her half-sister Taenarys Evora's crusade ended in disaster, she abandoned the Byzantine power plays instead decided to make her mark as a sellsword. After a long career as a soldier of fortune, she ended up supporting the Republic against the One Sith, reaching general officer rank. She has joined the Shadow Knights for the paycheck but also because she believes in the cause.
Hot-tempered, direct and stern, she does not tolerate incompetence or nepotism, but encourages critical thinking among her subordinates.

Integrating various disparate paramilitary forces and war bands was not easy, and so the Shadow Guards have introduced rather draconian punishments to punish cowardice, desertion and treason. However, they also offer incentives to their members. Service in the corps comes with full citizenship rights, which cannot be revoked unless the soldier is dishonourably discharged. However, the efforts to integrate Shadow Guards from different Dashdae Eldorai factions and faiths can also produce tensions and manifest in form of unfortunate rivalries on the battlefield.

The symbol of the Caerith Darin is the Eldorai eagle, which is also on the flag of the Shadow Knights. The renegades only have a limited manufacturing basis, so a good deal of their gear tends to be older. It is still effective, but not the newest. Their newer pieces of equipment tend to be Firemane designs. This is no coincidence since the armed forces of the Eldorai Matriarchy were equipped by Firemane. The Shadow Guard is more numerous than Shadow Knight units such as the Caerith Tyari or the Espatiers, but as a tradeoff they have access to less exclusive equipment.

Eldorai society is traditionally matriarchal. Women hold all top positions, while men are second class and expected to be subservient. Men cannot join the clergy or the Angelii and the idea of a 'Star King' is unthinkable. Recently, the Matriarchy has started to liberalise, but the commanding heights are still occupied by women. The Shadow Knights have given men more rights. This is partly for ideological reasons, but mostly out of pragmatism because maintaining the old misandrist policies was unsustainable on post-apocalyptic Kaeshana.

Men are allowed to serve in the Shadow Guard alongside their female comrades and can attain officer ranks, which also paves the way for a career in politics. However, there is still a glass ceiling. Most officers are women and units are generally gender segregated and integrated at command level. The Shadow Knights have enshrined freedom of religion into their constitution, and so the Shadow Guard does not preach a specific gospel. The renegades do not limit their membership to Eldorai, but also allow their cousin races to join. Thus service in the Shadow Guard is open to Vashyada, Qadiri and Xioquo. Most non-Eldorai are Qadiri, as the Eldorai's style of combat is closest to the way they are used to fighting. However Vash and Xioquo can often be found among the more specialised units, such as scouts.

COMBAT INFORMATION
Unit Size: Medium
Unit Availability: Uncommon
Unit Experience: Veteran
Combat Function:
The Caerith Darin excel at being mobile infantry, but this can turn into a disadvantage when facing armoured enemy units. They have access to some specialised weapons that can be useful for countering Force-users and are trained in their use, but not to the level of elite Force hunters because this is not their focus. Soldiers also receive training in hand-to-hand and meelee combat. All in all, they are solid, experieced soldiers, but not at the level to make them truly elite or give them access to exclusive pieces of equipment or rare gadgets.

They are not special forces, cybernetically or genetically enhanced supersoldiers or Force warriors, they are grunts who want to protect their people and do that job well. They work alongside the common militia that maintains order on the vessels that make up the migrant fleet, but are also deployed planetside. The standard equipment of a soldier consists of a rifle of some sort, a sidearm, a couple grenades and a vibroknife. As in any military unit, variations exist based on the roles a soldier plays, such as heavy weapons specialist, designated marksman, demolitions expert and so on. Sappers tend to be assigned to each unit, so that they can bypass enemy fortifications by tunnelling under them or using explosives to blow a hole into them. Typically each soldier is taught to the point where he or she is able to do the job of the soldier directly above them in rank. Their training and tactical doctrine empathises mobility, use of terrain and surprise.

Overall, the Caerith Darin are very good at improvisation. Many of their soldiers are Forsaken, who are stranded on Kaeshana after the Exodus. Having been forced to survive in a blasted wasteland, they know how to make the most out of very little. There is a withdrawal scheme for all operations whether defensive or offensive. The Shadow Knight soldiers show no mercy to slavers or other opponents considered similarly heinous. Such enemies tend to be killed on sight, as surrenders from such individuals are not accepted. Or tossed out of airlocks into the cold vacuum of space.

Strengths:

  • Dedicated and zealous. Skilled in urban warfare, boarding and counterboarding operations. They also have an aerial element, which gives them fire support and augments their mobility.
  • Training emphasies disciplined fire over blazing away. The Shadow Knights' resources are limited, so their soldiers are taught to make the most of what they have and make every shot count. They are also good improvisers.
Weaknesses:
  • Common soldiers with no superpowers or genetic/cybernetic enhancements. They bleed and feel pain like normal mortals, they have no special defences against preternatural powers.
  • Light infantry. Lack of heavy combat vehicles can put them at a disadvantage on the ground, particularly in prolonged battles. Armour is decent, but only has limited resistance to lightsabres. It is also vulnerable to heavy blasters, high calibre firearms, explosions and the like.

Historical Information:

The Shadow Knights were born in the hour of cataclysm, namely during the devastation of Kaeshana and the Eldorai Exodus. Composed of Eldorai rebels, survivalists and dissidents, they sought to build a new future for their race unbound by the three pillars of crown, temple and nobility. Electing to stay behind on war-ravaged Kaeshana rather than flee to Tygara, they provided protection to surviving Eldorai communities, defending them against slavers, warlords and other menaces. The events of the Kaeshana Rebellion and the subsequent First Order takeover of the planet forced the rebels to leave the ancestral homeworld and seek out a new home in the stars.

From then onward, their efforts would be centred on a nomadic migrant fleet. It was apparent to the leaders of the survivalist movement that they would need to rebuild their military forces, which had taken significant losses during the conflicts back on desolated Kaeshana. Composed of hardened partisans, ex-soldiers who had deserted from the Eldorai army, volunteers and conscripts, the Caerith Darin represented the common troopers of the Eldorai exiles.

The Shadow Guard came into being during the Long Night on Kaeshana. Disparate forces of Eldorai insurgents, Naesala's personal strike force, deserters from the Eldorai army and militias formed by the Forsaken were brought together to create a protective force. They were supposed to protect surviving Eldorai communities against warlords and raiders, as well as launch attacks to acquire resources their people needed to survive in the wasteland Kaeshana had become.

The Shadow Knights firmly adhered to the principle that service guarantees citizenship, meaning that only those who prove themselves willing to make sacrifices on behalf of the community should have a say in how said community is run. This was, of course, a rather idealistic goal that created problems of its own, but it was one they pursue with vigour. Service was the only pathway to citizenship and only citizens had full legal rights. Those that choose not to do so, called civilians, still possessed an expansive set of rights, but they did not have the right to vote or run for office. This produced a highly stratocratic society, especially since high office was open only to those who had served the Shadow Knights with 'distinction', which largely applied to officers.

This made the Caerith Darin an important component in the society being built by the Eldorai exiles. Lacking preternatural powers, the women and men who served in these units must rely on skill, ingenuity, tactics, discipline and tech to prevail in battle. Their primary duty was the defence of the Eldorai migrant fleet, but also of settlements under the protection of the Shadow Knights, though they could also perform offensive operations. In the light of the fact that the Shadow Knights were a nomadic group, it is no surprise that the Caerith Darin became proficient in Zero-G combat, boarding and counterboarding operations.

The Shadow Knights were not a monolith, rather they were a merger of Eldorai rebel groups had become disillusioned with the Eldorai Matriarchy, but were still adamantly opposed to the First Order and other powers considered to be inimical to Eldorai interests. As a result, a number of citizen-soldiers in the Caerith Darin hailed from factions that until recently might have viewed the other as rivals or even fought against each other. Moreover, there was an understandable degree of awkwardness and suspicion when it came to getting former enforcers of the Crown and 'rebel scum' to cooperate.

Individual Caerith Darin units acted more like loosely organised war bands than a centralised military. Friction between commanders made coordination difficult and resulted in unnecessary losses. As a result, the Shadow Knights suffered in engangements. This became apparent in several skirmishes with Archangel. It spurred the Archon and the Citizens' Council into implementing reforms. These were spearheaded by Yseult Faerin, who appointed as Strategos in the aftermath of the failed Kaeshana Rebellion. As Strategos she answered only to the Citizens' Council and Archon Naesala Faethyra. The Caerith Darin came under the administration of the Court of War. Training programmes and tactical doctrine were streamlined and standardised. In some cases the new administration had to use coercion to enforce its authority, suppressing munities and breaking up individual units to ensure obedience. Combat action against Kraal raiders, rival Eldorai factions and Rogue Sith spurred the process of modernisation and streamlining.

Initiative was rewarded, but disobedience is punished harshly. The maxim 'with great power comes great responsibility' was applied in their their criminal justice system. Thus when an officer commited a crime she was supposed to receive a punishment far more severe than an enlisted soldier would because as an officer she should have had a better understanding of her crime and its consequences. The Caerith Darin diverged from Eldorai orthodoxy on the matters of gender and religion. Here it should be noted that exposure to the outside world had already causes the Eldorai Matriarchy to become more liberal in these areas by abolishing theocratic persecution and giving men more rights, though these still fell short of equality.

Men were allowed to serve in the Caerith Darin and could even become officers. This was partly the result of the fact that some factions in the Shadow Knights espoused the unorthodox concept of male rights. It was also a pragmatic concession because it would have been impractical to continue the old sexist policies on post-apocalyptic Kaeshana, as the survivors needed all hands on deck and could not afford to exclude people due to their gender. Nonetheless, women still tended to dominate the upper ranks. Moreover, individual units were gender-segregated, and only integrated at command level.
 
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