Igni Irae
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Intent: Expand on the Republican Guard.
Image Credit: Here. Krogan are a little more hunched than Houk, but look quite similar.
Role: A strike force of assault troopers, specialising in terrorism, raiding and ambushes.
Permissions: Can use Firemane gear because I own the company.
Links: Dominion of Light, Disciples of the Vader, The Republican Guard is the Strongest, Into Darkness, After Darkness, Tephrike, Prosperity Quarter.
GENERAL INFORMATION
Unit Name: Butchers of Serenity Reach.
Affiliation: Republican Guard, Tephrike.
Classification: Infantry.
Description: The Butchers of Serenity Reach are an infamous assault unit that serves the Republican Guard, a rebel insurgency that seeks to overthrow the Force theocracies and unite Tephrike under a government of Non-Force-Users by Non-Force-Users for Non-Force-Users. The foes of the Guard have unintentionally made the unit infamous by giving them this name after a particularly brutal strike. The Butchers have embraced it, and revel in their grim reputation, having recognised it as a tool they can use to their advantage. The Butchers are a unit of assault troopers, specialising in terrorism, rapid strikes, raids, and ambushes. They are dedicated to the cause of the Republican Guard.
While the Guard has noble intentions and indeed the only major group on Tephrike that is not controlled by space mages, it is morally rather grey. They are not plucky rebels. For a long time the Guard has been on the backfoot and it still finds itself at a disadvantage when it comes to territory, industrial capacity and material. As a result, they have often utilised the methods of a terrorist insurgency. The Guard rejects this label and characterises its struggle as a war of national liberation.
In terms of composition, the Butchers are dominated by various alien species. Many of their members are Houk, who are well-represented among the population of Prosperity Quarter, the ironically named alien ghetto of Adlerberg. These aliens have a physical strength that is rivalled only by a few species such as Wookiees. The unit does not have human members.
The Butchers favour hard-hitting slugthrowers, bowcasters, explosives and melee weapons. They have access to machine guns and mortars to give them some heavy fire support. Slugthrowers are more common than blaster weapons on Tephrike. Not only are they easier to manufacture, they are also more practical in the jungle due to being easier to maintain. Aside from these conventional weapons, they make use of tamed war beasts. They are particularly fond of Akk Dogs, using them to scout, ambush and run down foes.
The Disciples of the Vader spread lurid stories about the Butchers devouring human flesh. This is completely untrue, and a reflection of the human supremacist ideology of the Vaderites, who regard non-humans as lesser beings that must be disenfranchised and enslaved or eradicated. However, while not savages or cannibals, the Butchers can be quite brutal, as the name implies. They bank on their notoriety, and are fond of leaving calling cards of sorts. This includes hanging enemy soldiers from trees or lamp posts.
Unlike the members of Viper Company, the Butchers are not Force Dead. The unit is led by Captain Skarrok, a Houk. He is a radical revolutionary driven by a deep hatred of the Dominion and the Sith. He has a habit of branding captured Vaderites with an Aurebesh R. He considers this just retribution for the atrocities committed by the Sith. Skarrok is a survivor of the Prosperity Quarter Uprising, which sought to free the ghetto's population from their Sith oppressors. Unlike the typical Houk stereotype, Skarrok is intelligent, disciplined and cunning rather than being a mere brute.
The battle has left him viciously scarred and with an unyielding determination to get revenge. He has a high reputation among the soldiers under his command. The Republican Guard high command ordered its cells not to participate in the uprising, though many did, because it correctly judged it to be hopeless. He bears a grudge against the generals who gave this order, but still believes that siding with them is the most practical way to accomplish his goals.
Torana is a friend of Skarrok and a fellow Houk. Like him, she is from Prosperity Quarter. She was able to escape the ghetto with the help of a criminal gang that operated in the docks of Adlerberg, but this indebted her to a crime lord, who indentured her and used her as a pit fighter. She was eventually able to rebel and reclaim her freedom, joining the Light Sith and then the rebels.
Torana harbours a, in her opinion, dark secret, for she is Force-Sensitive. However, she has deliberately foregone the chance to develop her preternatural abilities and refuses to use them, though she may unknowingly do so passively. Having seen the havoc both Sith and Jedi have wreaked across Tephrike, she regards her Force affinity as a malevolent curse that she must resist.
Skarrok knows about it, but has not told his superiors because Torana is a comrade who saved his life and he does not trust the 'Extraordinary Commission for Preternatural Regulation and Control,' the body responsible for enforcing the Guard's anti-Force-User policies. Torana is a tough fighter and one of the assault team leaders. Brave and fearless in a fight, she acts as second in command of the unit. She has not developed her Force abilities and takes drugs to suppress them. So they only manifest themselves in low-grade precognition, improved senses and an affinity for animals. She is a highly skilled animal trainer. The Houk was 'offered' the chance to join the Dominion's Jedi Order, but refused. The realisation that she would not be given a choice was a catalyst for her decision to turn on them.
Suhnei Baglil is a Duros and a long-time veteran of the Republican Guard. She was not part of the original group that rose up in revolt against the Sith and tried to liberate the people of Prosperity Quarter. Instead she was involved in organising their defection to the rebels after their relationship with the Dominion of Light soured. She has now been assigned to the unit as a political officer/minder. In other words, a commissar who is supposed to help the junta exercise some control over its disparate cells.
To her credit, she is very brave and fights instead of just giving speeches. However, she is also an orthodox follower of the Guard's principles. This can lead to tension between her and Skarrok, whose priorities may not be in line with the strategic directives of the rebel military junta in Red Coral City. Suhneil has been a partisan since she was a child and has a lot of experience in sabotage, revolutionary agitation and irregular warfare.
She is quite tech-savvy and good at salvaging pieces of tech and getting them to work. But her background as a child soldier has also made her disturbingly desensitised to the horrors of war. For a while she was involved with a revolutionary tribunal that investigated cases of profiteering, banditry and counterrevolutionary activity. Suhnei has started to bond with the members of the group. But so far she is unaware of Torana's Force-Sensitivity. Should she learn of it, the law dictates that she report it to the Extraordinary Commission.
Parnap is the head scout of the unit. He is a Gungan and a fellow survivor of Prosperity Quarter. His ancestors came from the Gungan settlement that was wiped out by the Sith after they had occupied Almopia. Like the rest of the survivors, they were deported to the ghetto. Gungans are often stereotyped as clumsy, dim-witted fools. He used this to his advantage during his time in the ghetto, where he acted as a courier and logistician for the resistance. Pandering to the prejudices of the humans made them inclined to dismiss him.
He delivered secret messages, smuggled in weapons and set up secret caches. He helped lead the escape when Skarrok was injured. Beneath the facade, he is very cunning and observant. He also speaks proper Basic, with only the occasional 'weesa'. Parnap leads the Butchers' scouts and tends to wear lighter armour than his compatriots. Red Coral City has a significant Gungan population, so he has integrated better into it than his comrade Skarrok.
COMBAT INFORMATION:
Unit Size: Medium
Unit Availability: Unique
Unit Experience: Elite.
Equipment:
Armor:
- Camo-painted Katarn Armour
- Vibro-Shield
- Outland Rifle (with scope)
- Bowcaster
- MK2 Boltgun (including APE rounds).
- Scatter Gun
- Imperial Heavy Repeater
- MGL-1. Often mounted on another rifle as an under-barrel grenade launcher.
- Stouker Concussion Rifle
- J-301 Pulse-Wave Saboteur
- FC-1 Flechette Launcher
Support Weapons
Explosives:
Misc:
Melee:
Combat Function: The Butchers of Serenity Reach are a force of assault troopers, skirmishers and terrorists. They have a preference for hit and run tactics. The ambush opponents and seek to catch them in crossfires between sharpshooters. Where necessary they will make use of war beasts to disrupt enemies and throw them into disarray. They have a reputation for brutal competence and ruthlessness. A good number of the Butchers are Houk, who are particularly strong and ferocious fighters.
In terms of armaments, they have a preference for high powered slugthrowers, bowcasters, harsh melee weapons, garrotes, and daggers. They tend to wear suits of light armour. The Butchers also carry explosive charges, and have an integrated force of sappers. This is helpful for bypassing enemy strong points and fortifications, such as by tunnelling under them. However, they would suffer in a direct assault on strong enemy fortifications.
Being a rapid strike force, the Butchers suffer in pitched combat against heavy armour formations. They are also vulnerable to long range bombardment, such as air and artillery strikes. In such a situation their best move would be to retreat and hide, taking advantage of their ability to blend into their environment. They are well attuned to nature and thus perfect for fighting in Tephrike's forests. The Butchers have access to mortars, which can be used to bombard infantry, light vehicles as well as for terror bombings.
Strengths:
- Strike force. A crack unit that is very skilled in rapid strikes, ambushes, skirmishes and terrorist attacks. They are a highly mobile unit and very good at blending in to their environment.
- Houk are extremely strong, ferocious and tough. They can carry heavy weapons with ease and are particularly deadly in melee, but also cunning. The group also has Akk Dogs, whose hide is tough enough to resist lightsabre strikes.
- Suffer in direct combat against heavily armoured vehicle formations or entrenched fortifications. They lack integrated heavy support that goes beyond mortars, machine guns and blaster cannons.
- Vulnerable to long range bombardment, such as aircraft. They have portable missile launchers, but this is pretty variable and they only have a few.
- Small unit, and thus easily outnumbered in large engagements.
On Tephrike, the Four Hundred Year Darkness never ended. It is a broken planet, characterised by impoverishment, superstition and strife. Three large factions vie for dominance, the Jedi-led Dominion of Light, the slavocratic, human supremacist Disciples of the Vader and the anti-Force-User Republican Guard. The Dominion of Light is a radical, totalitarian Jedi theocracy that believes only total control and the guidance of those who can divine the will of the Force can save Tephrike.
They are the dominant faction on the planet and view their struggle as a conflict between Light and Dark, a war of total annihilation which there can be no compromise. The Vaderites are an extremist Sith cult that espouse an extreme form of Social Darwinism, worship Darth Vader as a Dark God and endorse human supremacism. Non-humans are enslaved or exterminated in their territory. The Republican Guard rose in opposition to both these groups. It regards itself as a progressive, egalitarian force that fights to rid Tephrike of the tyranny of Force-Users and restore power to the people. Ironically, it is ruled by a de facto military junta. It is radically opposed to Force-Users, regarding their powers as a curse.
The Butchers of Serenity Reach, also known as the Red Coral Marauders, are one of the armed groups that support the Republican Guard in its struggle against the Sith and the Dominion. In contrast to say Viper Company or the Fury from the Deep frogmen, the Butchers are a fairly recent unit. They came into being in the closing stages of the Netherworld War, though they have their roots in older partisan groups.
When the Vaderites drove the Dominion out of the city of Almopia, they sought to 'humanise' it. Their first order of business was to rename the town, calling it Adlerberg, and wipe out a nearby Gungan settlement. The few surviving Gungans were deported to the ironically named Prosperity Quarter, a ghetto. The same happened to the alien population of Adlerberg. Those able to work were interned in Camp Promise, where they toiled as slave labourers.
Disease was rampant in the ghetto and its inhabitants suffered from malnutrition. The Sith authorities were solely responsible for the survival of food aid, but the rations were extremely low. Those deemed incapable of work were considered useless eaters. As a result, the only real means of survival was the smuggling of food and the bartering of goods. The ghetto was sealed off from the outside world and those who tried to escape it or were caught smuggling were enslaved or murdered. However, resistance groups were formed. Some focused on preserving the culture of their people, smuggling people out and acquiring supplies. Others promoted armed resistance, preparing for the day when the people could rise up against their oppressors.
These rebels backed the Light Sith, who promised to set the slaves free. A young Skarrok was one of them. At the time he was a forced labourer. However, many Sith who had bowed to the new régime had not really changed their ways and did their best to hinder the emancipation of the alien population. Moreover, the Light Sith were soon distracted by war after declaring a Crusade against the Dominion.
After this ended in defeat, the 'Light Lord' was murdered by conservative Sith, who declared the restoration of the old ways. However, the most radical Light Sith and the rebels had risen in revolt, taking control over most of Almopia. For a while the oppressed were free. However, unity was undermined by competition between Dominion and Republican Guard backed rebel groups, both of which jockeyed for influence. Skarrok lead a squad of partisans, and later a platoon.
He distinguished himself in an ambush against Sith forces that tried to enter the ghetto. The insurgents fired and tossed fire bombs and hand grenades from alleyways, sewers, and windows. Several Stormtroopers died in the engagement, and two of their combat vehicles were set on fire by the bombs. But at the command of Darth Furcht, the Vaderites attacked in full force. A number of Republican Guard cells backed the partisans, but their high command refused to lend official support, considering the uprising to be a lost cause.
Fierce house-to-house fighting took place across the town. The Vaderites ended up systematically incinerating entire houses block by block, using flamethrowers. They also made use of nerve gas. Parnap suffered severe burns during the fighting. He was one of the partisan commanders who led a failed attempt to breach the Vaderite cauldron. He was temporarily blinded by gas.
After the resistance lost its top commanders, the remaining fighters escaped through the tunnels into the wilderness. Some of their Light Sith allies, mistakenly hoping that the old guard would pardon them, turned on the rebels. At first Skarrok's rag-tag band of partisans conducted raids on Sith slave transports and prison camps, seeking to liberate captives who had been seized after the failed ghetto uprising. They also conducted raids on Sith-controlled settlements. To this end they shelled human population centres with mortars, laid roadside bombs and targeted supply convoys. The Sith spread lurid stories about Houk eating the flesh of Imperial Stormtroopers. Captured Sith and supposed collaborators were often brutally slaughtered.
For a while they received the backing of the Dominion. They could not fight the Sith legions on their own, and the Dominion was eager to set the territories of its foes ablaze. In that capacity they also fought the Guard. However, the Dominion tried to exert total control, and Skarrok came to regard it as just as totalitarian and tyrannous as the Sith. Thus the partisans betrayed the Dominion and orchestrated a defection to the Guard. For this they were vilified by the Ministry of Enlightenment, the Dominion's government agency responsible for propaganda. It declared them to be 'right deviationists' and called them the Butchers of Serenity Reach for their 'vicious and cowardly terrorist attack on the Serenity Reach rest centre'. All 'Skarrokists' were thereby condemned. The partisans embraced the moniker with pride.
Thought still resentful of the Guard for what he perceived as their lack of resolution during the uprising, Skarrok came to regard them as the closest thing to a faction that could allow him to prosecute his campaign for retribution. However, he bickered with several members of the military establishment. The Butchers grew close to some of the particularly radical factions of the Republican Guard's Popular Front, which supported a total war policy against the Force theocracies. When the Republican Guard entered an alliance of convenience with Firemane against the Dominion, the Butchers were among the forces that fought at Fortress Purity. The battle ended in victory for the allied forces, but despite the advanced technology of the outsiders it was still a bloody, hard-fought struggle.
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