Karrigan'Xalda
Daughter of the Karishzar
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Intent: Sub a fun Xioquo unit.
Image Credit: Here.
Role: Sappers, miners, earth mages.
Permissions: Access to Firemane gear since I'm the owner and Liavondra is a Firemane ally. ARGH gear available to Firemane per this thread. Permission for all ArmaTech gear and all other subs made by Laira Darkhold's writer here and here.
Links: Firemane, Order of Fire, Twilight of the Goddess, Seekers of the Sky.
GENERAL INFORMATION
Unit Name: Raiders of the Earthen Sea
Affiliation: Liavondra, Xioquo.
Classification: Sappers, Miners.
Description: The Raiders of the Earthen Sea are a special unit of Xioquo miners, combat engineers and sappers who serve Queen Liavondra of the Xioquo, a Firemane vassal. Under the ancien régime, they were indentured servitors pressed into service and treated better than common slave-soldiers due to their expertise, but now they are free people. Xioquo are children of the soil. For millennia they have inhabited a subterranean realm called the Underealm. This has made them very well-adjusted to darkness, as well as surviving on little and making the most of scarce resources. For Tygara the Xioquo have always been quite advanced technologically. With the coming of the sky people, they have eagerly adopted modern technology. However, living in the darkness so long has made the sun and other bright lights painful.
The Raiders reflect many of these traits of their people. Indeed, they are even more troglodyte than regular Xioquo. They tend to have ingrained dirt on them. Their job requires a lot of strength, so they are bigger and stronger than the average Xioquo. One of their habits is to shave or clip their hair. In the past they were forced to do so to display their status as indentured servants. This stood in contrast to the elaborate - and often impractical - hair styles of the mistresses. Now they do so out of choice, having embraced what was once a mark of oppression as a symbol. Moreover, it is simply practical. The Raiders take pride in their work and have embraced their reputation as tunnel rats. It used to be an insult their mistresses heaped on them, but has now become an affectionate nickname. It is another way for them to mock the aristocrats who once lorded lorded over them.
The Raiders are extremely skilled tunnellers, miners, and sappers. They have a knack for navigating even the darkest, most labyrinthine tunnels without the aid of technological gadgets. These traits make them ideal to conduct surprise attacks and lay traps. They are very good with explosives. This makes them the ideal force to crack a bunker, blow a hole in an entrenched fortification or sneak up on and blow up an armoured vehicle such as a tank. Head-on confrontation is not their way. Instead they use their stealthiness, tunnelling and mining skills to get close to the enemy, and then cause a big bang when they least expect it. Every operation is preceded and accompanied by thorough reconnaissance. This means they prize subterfuge, discipline, and creative problem-solving. For this reason, their training is very intense. The type of work they perform requires more than a little daring, but also a teamwork and a knack for improvisation.
The Raiders are loyal to Liavondra. Though an aristocrat, she turned against the dark side slavocracy that oppressed the Xioquo people. They have also been given a good paycheck to use their experience. Many members of the group are Force-Users, though particularly talented sappers who have not been 'blessed by the spirits of the earth' are accepted, too. Their Force alignment varies. For obvious reason, the tend to associate the dark side with the practices of their former overlords, so its use is not encouraged, though dark side adepts exist. A few have converted to the Light and joined the Seekers of the Sky, a spiritual group founded by Liavondra to spread her teachings. However, many follow what one might call a grey Force alignment, venerating the spirits. Some of them have received additional training from the Order of Fire, Firemane's Force-using branch.
The leader of the Raiders is a Xioquo alchemist, inventor and sorceress called Xora'Vazkar. For alleged transgressions against the state and the dark goddess Myrou, she was sent to the mines to perform forced labour. Deprived of her powers by a collar, she was expected to be worked to the death. However, she managed to raise the miners and collapse a position of the ancien régime during the final battle. This gained Vazkar her freedom and a place in the new order the Xioquo started to build after Myrou's fall. Vazkar and her people have sometimes worked with Firemane, assisting the humans in their operations. They have built ties with the Disciples of the Stone, a special unit of Kar'zun combat engineers and sappers.
COMBAT INFORMATION:
Unit Size: Medium
Unit Availability: Unique
Unit Experience: Elite.
Equipment: They obviously do not carry all of this simultaneously. Rather it is what they have access to. Typically a soldier will carry a sidearm, tools, a melee weapon and a bunch of explosives. Many will carry one rifle, too.
Armour:
Ranged Weapons:
- DC-15S Blaster Carbine
- Scattergun, for close-quarter combat.
- DC-19 Stealth Carbine
- Mk II Boltgun
- MGL-1. Used by grenadier, often mounted on another rifle.
- MSD-32
- Holdout Bolter
- DC-17 Hand Blaster
- M9 Boomer Heavy Pistol
- Magnetic Revolver
- Shatter Pistol
- Sonic Stunner
Misc:
- Plasma Drill
- Fusion Drill
- Plasma Torch
- Hydrospanner
- Power Shovel
- J-7b Beamdrill
- Misc. mine detection and removal equipment. Misc. mining, digging and drilling tools.
- Taozin Amulet
- APE Boltgun Ammunition
Explosives:
- Detonation Pack
- Sapper Charge
- Demo Pack
- Cave Cracker
- Pyro Denton Explosive
- Thorium Charge
- MM-40 Thermal Charges
- Devastator Multi-Purpose Mine.
- Grenades
- Thermal Imploder
- Sonic Imploder
Many of the Raiders are Force-Users, who specialise in elemental earth abilities that support their tunnelling and mining as well as efforts to undermine enemy fortifications. Needless to say they excel in combat in mountainous terrain, tunnel warfare and so on. The Raiders are very good at laying mines as well as detecting and disarming them. Their sapping and elemental Force abilities make them perfect for siege operations, as they can dig covered trenches to approach an area under siege, thereby bypassing enemy fire, and damage enemy walls, creating gaps for their allies. Conversely, they can also conduct counter mining to thwart enemies who are using these tactics against their allies. They can also place mines and other explosives beneath enemy lines. Tunnels are narrow and fights in them tend to be conducted at close range, so they have access to powerful close quarter weapons. This also means that they forego long range weapons, as they are not meant to engage in sniping duels from afar.
Xioquo have very good reflexes and excellent coordination. Moreover, living in the Underealm means the Xioquo are able to see much further in the darkness than humans or Eldorai. Thus they do not need tech to see in the dark. They also have excellent hearing and sense of smell. Their dark skins allow them to blend into the shadows. The Raiders are very motivated, well-trained and brave in a fight.
Force Abilities (Force User Units Only): Most, though not all, Raiders are Force-Users who specialise in elemental earth abilities. One can roughly compare them to Earth Shapers. Their powers enable them to shape the earth, as well as rock, metal, mud, mineral and clay. This gives them strong defensive and offensive abilities. It also supports their tunnelling and mining. Their powers allow them to shift and manipulate the ground, creating passages for themselves and their allies as well as obstacles and traps for the enemy.
Adepts can levitate stone or earth, as well as use the Force to create earthen barriers, create furrows in the ground, raise pillars or spikes of stone, and even with effort bring stone from a ceiling down or break down walls. However, such intense use of their abilities requires them to focus their abilities as a team through ritual, which can leave them vulnerable to ambushes and distractions. In addition, they are also skilled in using physical enhancement techniques, such as boosting their strength or speed, using breath control and Force jump. While they wear proper helmets, suits and the like, breath control is a useful backup if they're underground with low air or are in space if they have to go in to disarm booby traps in a low air situation. Force jump is beneficial if they have to get away during a cave-in, cross dangerous areas or over laser-wire. Furthermore, these adepts can use Mechu-Deru, which boosts their ability to manipulate technological devices. Moreover, aside from its standard usage, they employ telekinesis for tasks such as setting off mines, clearing rubble or testing for unstable ground.
Strengths:
- The Raiders are very stealthy, excellent miners and sappers. Perfect for ambushes, laying traps, tunnel, siege and mountain warfare. Courage, improvisation and skill are common characteristics of the members of this unit.
- Force adepts who are very skilled in mechu-deru, using the Force for concealment as well as earth shaping.
- Forego long range weapons and lack combat vehicles.
- Suffer in pitched front-line combat. They rely on skill and subterfuge, not force of numbers and are lightly armoured. They are not suited to play the role of assault troops that attack the enemy head-on.
Xioquo society was built upon bloodshed, the Dark Side and slavery. A small clique of noble families used terror and propaganda to keep the under classes in line. Many Xioquo were kept as slaves. Xioquo society had always been steeped in the Dark Side. For centuries, the drows were governed by a ruthless mageocracy where only those who pursued the path of Darkness ended up on the top. Thousands laboured as slaves to serve the whims of the mistresses who sat on the top of the pyramid. The disobedient were brutally punished and often sacrificed in ghastly rituals to power war machines or be turned into abominations.
Generations of Xioquo were raised to worship and fear Mystra or, as the Xio knew her, Myrou. She was (correctly) regarded as the mother of their race. Though the dark oddess had slumbered in a tomb for millennia, it was believed that she would one day awaken to lead them to conquer Tygara, and judge her children. Thus her children regarded her with a mixture of awe, fear and dread. Believing that Tygara was theirs by right, the Xioquo warred against their neighbours and rivals, the Qadiri and Vashyada. While the technologically most advanced of Tygara's natives, their low population, incessant power struggles and the constant need to be on their guard against slave revolts kept them from fulfilling their potential. The Raiders of the Earthen Sea came into being as one of the military formations that served the oligarchic council of mistresses that governed the Xioquo since their undying Queen Myrou had gone into seclusion in her tomb. In those days, the Raiders were indentured servitors. Slavery was a fact of life across all of Tygara, even among the Light Sided Vashyada.
However, the Xioquo took it to lengths considered extreme even by Tygaran standards. Slavery was not a necessary evil, it was the bedrock upon which their society was built on. It was a brutal, savage institution. Cruelty against slaves was encouraged and manumission was all but impossible. Becoming a slave was easy. Even a free Xioquo could be enslaved if they fell into debt or ran afoul of courtly intrigue. Those slaves who possessed special skills that made useful for combat were conscripted into the military, forming units of slave-soldiers.
This especially applied to Force-Sensitive slaves, who served their mistress' noble house as janissaries. Though treated better than slaves who were worked to death in mines, factories or the fields, they were always reminded of their status. This is how the Raiders came into being. While technologically superior to their foes, the Xioquo had low numbers and so they had to rely more on finesse, cunning and tech. Having miners fit the Xioquo's penchant for staying out of the light, and they were very useful against the fortresses of the Qadiri.
Tunnelling has always been a part of sieges. In the case of the Raiders, their trial by fire was the siege of a Qadiri fort. It was controlled by a knightly order of Cataphracts who were devoted to the Goddess Kashara and allied with the Saoshyant, the supreme religious leader of the Qadiri. The fortress had been built on a mountain and was immune to regular assaults. Well-stocked with provisions, it could withstand a long siege. The fortress had to be taken as it prevented the Xioquo from interdicting certain trade routes. With this in mind a group of miners was pressed into service. They used alchemised drills to cut under the cliff face, and whilst bombardment and attacks were conducted as a cover they packed more and more gunpowder into the chamber. When the time was right, the miners set off the explosives. In doing so, they brought down an entire wall and the face of the hill came crashing down, thereby allowing this new ramp to be stormed by the waiting troops.
The Qadiri knights fought bravely, but they were overrun and slaughtered. Qadiri who had sought refuge in the fortress were enslaved. In the aftermath of the battle, the Xioquo matriarch who had commanded the assault rewarded the surviving miners with wealth and indenture into the new unit. This established the tradition that certain mining families had to provide a child for the Raiders. This was a gilded cage. On the one hand they were relatively well-treated due to their skills because bullying them would do no good, but they were still indentured. And they could easily lose their privileges and fall from grace. They were always feared by the Qadiri for their ability to besiege even the most difficult fortresses. Xora'Vazkar was a child of one of the mining families that had to provide recruits for the Raiders. From an early age, she was identified as Force-Sensitive and drafted. She displayed a talent for sorcery and alchemy and was a bit of an inventor. Indeed, she designed a new cannon shell that was adopted by the Xioquo for their artillery. She participated in the Xioquo's successful defence of the Underealm, when the Mirza of Lakish launched a fool-hardy assault.
During the early stages of the conflict with Firemane, the Raiders managed to tear down a Firemane border fort. The Firemane commander had been warned by the megacorp's Qadiri allies, but ignored them. The Raiders had a special trick of, as they called it, 'awakening the earth spirits' to crumble the walls of fortifications. What the rest of the galaxy would call a strong vibrating Force ritual. The Qadiri knew what was coming, as one of their adepts felt the tremors in the Zari. They tried to persuade the commander to disrupt the ritual, but the foray came too late. Led by Vazkar, the Raiders did not totally bring the walls down, but the vibrations triggered some of the Firemane defenders' shells, causing a big explosion inside the fortress' ammo depot. Taking advantage of the chaos, Xioquo cavalry riding war beasts hurled satchels of smoking explosives designed by the Raiders into the fortress. Xioquo warriors stormed the base, and though the garrison defended itself fiercely, it was slaughtered.
However, Vazkar ran afoul of courtly intrigue because she was too popular among the soldiers and was sent to the mines to be worked to death. She managed to turn on her captors during Firemane's assault on the Underealm. In the aftermath of the fall of Myrou, a new order was imposed. With the blessing of Firemane, Liavondra abolished slavery and broke up the old patronage network. This emancipated the lower classes. Indentured Xioquo were freed as well. Vazkar agreed to serve the new régime and brought the surviving Raiders to her side. Some Raiders had refused to give up and continued fighting in the secret catacombs of the Underealm. Firemane troops and Sepoys suffered heavy casualties trying to pursue them, but she was able to persuade most of them to put their arms. They would continue doing their old jobs, but under better conditions and with a good paycheck. The Raiders saw action when a force of Kraal assaulted the Underealm, intent on claiming booty and slaves. They used their skills to selectively collapse part of the cavern system on them and tunnel beneath them to launch surprise attacks. Their intricate knowledge of the Underealm's many hidden tunnels paid off.
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