Nar Mat Kordh-Ishi - The Orcish Mercenary Saga

"It ain't easy being green."


TL;DR Summary

- Fantasy/Medieval
 - Characters are members of an Orcish mercenary company called "Nar Mat Kordh-Ishi" (Orcish - "Do Not Die In Bed") formed by a variety of orcish outcasts that served as the dregs of the mercenary community and decided that enough was enough.
 - Company has a nefarious and unique reputation -- it's the only Orcish free company out there, and will fight for whomever hires them, except that until just now, they've been hired for campaigns that amounted to nothing -- sent to forage, but never depended on to fight a battle. The company is eager to prove themselves as reliable, if brutal, mercenaries that can hold their own in a real battle.
 - The Company, is of course, betrayed by an employer, set up to be responsible for the killing of a bastard heir of the dead king of the kingdom they are serving in. That fails, and the girl is alive. Now she and the Company have common enemies.
 - The RP is about an outsider's point of view of humanity and dealing with the way their employers constantly try to get them killed, assuming them stupid or totally brutish or otherwise regarding them as total louts.
 - How much of that reputation the characters live up to is the decision of the players.
 - The idea is to have some fun with this RP and be creative with the tactics; inevitably, the company is expected to fail and is often working for real scumbags. The fun is proving them wrong and chasing them down for payment.
 - Players will have a hand in developing and creating the culture of the company.
 - Company colors are blood red -- because Red Goes Faster.
 - All characters must have orcish blood to get into the company; they don't trust others. There is only one exception, she is listed below.
 - See the list of character requests.

In Character Info

The lot of an orcish outcast in the human world is often rough -- orcish life in general, even as an accepted member of a tribe is nasty, brutish and short. The politics are cutthroat -- literally. It happens that intra-tribal politics have their winners and losers, and the change of a regime often means an outcasting for family and supporters of the deposed (inevitably killed) warlords. These orcs have a stark choice -- make it on their own somehow, isolated from everything or find their way in the outside world filled with enemies including humans, elves, dwarves, and just about every other race there is.

Regarded as brutes and scum, often with some reason, the orcs find that their employment options are highly limited. The trade most find, and welcome, is that of violence -- tavern bouncers, criminal muscle, pirate crewmen, and, of course, sellswords. But even in these jobs, orckind are not appreciated for anything more than their violent tendencies and brute strength. They are often swindled, mistreated and used for fodder by other races that deride them. 

About six years ago, a group of orcish veterans decided to change that -- they decided to put aside the enmities of tribes that exiled them and started to recruit other outcasts into a frighteningly organized mercenary company patterned along human lines -- a blend of their brute strength and high endurance for hardship with military discipline that was unknown in the wild warrior society of the tribal orcs. They figured that if they were going to make it in this world where all hands were turned against them, they might as well at least watch each other's backs. 

Of course, displaying a degree of gallows humor and self awareness that other races would be shocked to find among orcs, they named the company "Nar Mat Kordh-Ishi" -- Do not die in bed.

They're a small army. Now they need a battle.

Out of Character Info

As above, the RP is about orcs operating in the human world -- the founders of the company, having learned their trade in human mercenary companies (to the shocked surprise of their 'teachers') decided to form an orcish company of mercenaries, but taking the elements of human warfare that they deem effective. They know, for example, that orcish tribal warfare is ferocious, but not particularly well suited to fighting an organized force in the field. As veterans of warfare against humans, the high officers and veterans of the Company know that discipline counts, and bank on the idea of harnessing orcish ferocity and love of warfare while teaching their recruits the lessons of discipline that seemingly come easier to Humans and other races. 

The employers, however, think they're hiring a violent rabble, and the other human mercenaries do not like the Company. Hell, even orcish warlords, if they were to hear of the Company, would consider it heretical and set their hands against it. Alone in this world, all this fraternity of outcasts has is each other. Everyone else is against them and it's their lot to survive. On the other hand, it's a virtual certainty that they won't die in bed.

There will be Warg (wolf-ish beasts that the orcs ride) cavalry and that all recruits of the company will start out in the pike formations of the company, learning the hard lesson of discipline under stern drillmasters that exhort them to all work together. 

Characters will be part of an elite group of orcish soldiers chosen for prowess (over rank) that are deployed into the most desperate situations. Specialists, skilled warriors and so forth. Of course, these characters are chosen for their skill as well as their ability to follow orders (they all served in the pikes) but they are an elite within the Company. That way, we have the characters all together.

Unit Organization

Nar Mat Kordh-Ishi 
Warlord: Radush "Eye-Drinker" born an outcast, had the idea of starting the Company after finding himself leading units of Orcs being paid less by other mercenary captains, decided 'screw the middleman.' Radush carries himself like a warlord and the Tuskers of the Company see him that way.
Drillmaster: Koloch "the Butcher", a ferocious human-trained half-orc that oversees the training and discipline of the Company. He is a Tusker that every other Tusker comes into contact with, and he's got a reputation nearly on par with that of Radush Eye-Drinker. 

Favorite Color: Red, it goes faster. (Everyone has at least a sleeve of their armor painted red. You can tell who is higher up in the organization by how much red they've got.)

Banner: Black with red orcish runes upon it. Also, the honored dead's tusks are carved into shapes and affixed to the banner of their company by chains. Being orcs, of course there's a skull on top of the flagpole. It's tradition.

Structure:

Companies:
Each company has a chief (equivalent of a captain), and and is composed of a number of smaller warbands.

- The Chosen (First Company - Elite warriors, scouts and specialist fighters as well as a reserve for when things get rough in a fight)
- Pikes (~200-300 orcs broken down into smaller units as necessary for manuever)
- Spikes (~160 orcs - Longbows)
- Wargs (~100 orcs and their warg mounts, cavalry)
- Blades (~100-200 orcs wielding bladed weaponry for close-combat and assaults)
- Campers (~450 or so orcs - Camp, Supply Train and other logistic specialties, including families.)

Warbands: 
- Within each company, there are a number of warbands of 15-30 tuskers per unit under the command of a warleader, the fellow that calls the shots for that small unit, which is the company's equivalent of a sergeant.

The favored weapon of the orcs is a large, curved sword akin to a falcata or kilij with a forward curvature and a cleaver-like cutting surface, akin to a falcata. Large and heavy, the Company's swords are a little too much for a human to handle one-handed, but the orcs manage just fine. It can block a blow because it's built thick and it can cleave more than a typical human sword, but wasn't designed for deft parrying. Surprisingly, halberds are also favored weapons with the company, as they provide a degree of flexibility to orcish warriors in a fight for engaging a variety of targets. Veterans brought this weapon into the ranks of the company -- tribal orcs would sneer at something more complicated than an axe, but smart warriors understand the versatility of the weapon, and the importance of mastering it.

The armor is generally so thick that they don't worry about shields so much -- it isn't pretty stuff like elven and human armor, and it isn't expertly forged like the dwarven stuff, but orcs are big, and they can carry more weight. It means their armor is more dense, and the Company's smiths use that extra weight tolerance to slope and angle the plates to deflect arrows and bolts, where a human or elf would crumple under the sheer weight. Anyway, even disciplined orcs aren't big on hiding behind shields. The typical suit of 'company steel' tends to be a suit of chain and plate, though the legs are chainmail alone and the forearms are often exposed, at least in the Pikes n' Spikes. The Blades tend to wear full suits, because they've scrounged or purchased the additional armoring on forearms and legs and because their fighting is closer in and less maneuverability based. No one bothers with engraving and enameling the armor, because the Orcish 'aesthetic' is to paint it red and stick a skull on a spike and fringe with fur. The company doesn't bother with much in the way of heraldry like a human army. Red, fur, skulls. Got it?

The pikes are counterbalanced with a weight on the end to make them more easily handled, barbed with a crosspiece behind the head and long-bladed. Orcs aren't naturally inclined to form pike squares, but Nar Mat Kordh-Ishi's drillmasters use methods designed to appeal to the Orcish mentality -- it's beaten into headstrong (all of them) recruits. The Pikes are the training ground of the Company, it's where recruits learn the fundamental lessons of fighting in the world outside the tribes of the orcs. It doesn't matter how high one was in a tribe, how experienced a warrior outside the Company, all recruits go through the Pikes as a rite of passage.

Longbows in the company are much larger than a human or Elven equivalent. What the orcs lack in the subtle sophistication of the elves, they make up for in being able to draw far more weight. Orcish archery isn't typically pinpoint, but some tribes have a long history of hunting with bows for survival, which makes them surprisingly good in addition to these other advantages. Bow companies tend to wear heavy enough armor that makes them pretty decent in a close in fight, and they carry blade weapons...and heavy hammers used to pound spikes into the ground, which gives them a defense against cavalry that comes too close or infantry that tries to charge them. They're also good for pounding a head in.

Warg riders are the only Company forces that really use the shield much, but they avoid lances -- warg cavalry work differently than horse-based cavalry -- because they do not frontally charge, but turn faster, and fight on the flanks and the rear, as a wolf pack might. The Company's warg cavalry are designed to kill other cavalry, as a wolf might take a horse, by nipping at the flanks, hamstringing and otherwise crippling the enemy's maneuverability in order to finish it at leisure. They go in for slashing attacks, nets, bolos and javelins as a typical tactic. Warg cavalry sits lower than horse cavalry, because wargs are lower-slung to the ground, and a favorite tactic of the wargs is to get in close and strike at the underbellies. It is a surprisingly close-combat oriented group. The wargs themselves are armored to protect from strikes hitting from above while engaged in this sort of fierce combat of gutting and crippling.

The Camp, Supply Train and Specialists is a concept unknown to orcish tribal warfare, but a necessity -- Nar Mat Kordh-Ishi is often on its own to feed itself, and humans and others won't always do business with them. It is a collection of orcish and half-orcish (a chunk of the company are halfies) ex-merchants, cart drivers, blacksmiths, fletchers, herbalists and other sorts, skilled but exiled from orckind and humanity alike, that help build the camps, raise the siege engines and keep the company in food and equipment. A lot of them are orcish women. Tribal orcs often have a disdain for those that do not fight, particularly women, but Nar Mat Kordh-Ishi has strong orders and punishments to prevent this -- the Campers are protected from hazing out of recognition that these people are vital to the functioning of the Company. A new recruit disdains them, but the veterans of the company recognize that some campaigns, they survive only because the Campers found food and keep the recruits well in line. It is also a place where maimed veterans go when they can no longer serve, and serves to tell recruits that they will always have a place in the company, rather than being discarded to die when too old to fight.

Company discipline is harsh; the new recruits are sent to the pikes because the typical orc is a headstrong know-it-all and the only real way to teach them is to establish dominance first -- inevitably, a Nar Mat Kordh-Ishi drillmaster is a tough son of a warg that spends a lot of time punching down recruits that act up and talk back, not out of mindless brutality, but because the warrior spirit needs to be harnessed. Orcs are fierce, and establishing the disciplines of the ranks can be hard to do with such headstrong specimens. It may seem unbelievably brutal to humans and particularly to elves, but it's an approach tailored to how an orc thinks -- occasionally a leader has to smack his subordinates into line. The natural orcish instinct is not to stand in a line of pikes, shoulder to shoulder, and work together to defeat a charging foe through superior defense, and that's precisely why every tusker in the company has to serve there to learn that peculiar form of discipline. Even after the pikes, the discipline continues, if it is necessary, but it's not as brutal or arbitrary as tribal orc society, and the warriors of Nar Mat Kordh-Ishi are compensated -- the rest of the world, as they know, is much worse for a Tusker on their own. To humans, there is a scant difference between one orc and another, but no one that's ever heard the bass drums that time the march of the Company, or the growled, grunted chanting that accompanies the drums, forgets the chill such a spectacle brings. It doesn't matter if they've fought Orcs before -- they haven't fought these orcs.

As a result, the Tuskers of the Company tend to start embracing ranks and titles because they often are outcasts without any right to tribe; a typical name might go "Drillmaster Koloch the Butcher" which is a position of high regard within the company. Titles come with deeds, and are bestowed by comrades or, better, a Chief or a Warleader, if not the old Eyedrinker himself. Some recruits come with titles already, if they were (in)famous with even non-orc society for a deed before joining the company. Rank is often important as well, with Warleaders often squabbling over little things like whose band gets which piece of ground, something that a good chief has to contend with in leading headstrong and competitive orcs; the typical solution is decidedly novel for orcs and disputes between members of similar rank are decided by seniority unless there is a clear right and wrong involved.
Glossary/Sayings
- Everyone Starts in the Pikes -- anyone joining the company does time in the pike line, learning discipline, and likely having some bad attitude and stubbornness beaten out of them by the orcish drillmasters. The company believes that all the advantages an orc has are for naught without actual discipline. It's also one of the Company's biggest surprises for their enemies. Also, it imparts a new sense of rank structure to the orcs in the Company -- they learn the new hierarchy and to put aside old tribal rivalries, because the Company is their new tribe.
 - Red Unz Go Faster - It's a classic orc rule, the Company likes the color red. Those serving in the Pikes get their arm painted red...but veterans paint more to symbolize the blood they've seen.
 - Fresh off the Warg - An orc that just left the tribes and isn't very aware of the outside world. 
 - Smack the green off you - Common threat employed by drillmasters dealing with recruits fresh off the warg.
- Tusker - Slang for Orc. Used ironically by the Company among themselves and as self-reference, ie 'The Tuskers" because some people can't even pronounce the Company's orcish name.
 - Halfie - Like their half-elven counterparts, half-orcs tend to take a lot of social abuse and have a chip on their shoulder from it. The difference is that knife-ears do a lot of passive aggressive little word games and giggling behind their hands, the orcish version tends to be more direct. Because there are so many halfies in the Company, this sort of thing just doesn't last long. 
 - Knife-ear, Pixie, Fairie, Daisy-chewer...etc - Elf
 - Stumpy - Dwarf
 - Bunny - Human
 - Ugly - Approving "Ugly work, Tusker," is the equivalent of 'good job, buddy." Also means, 'fun.' So when a Section Leader says, "Looks like we got some ugly work ahead" and sounds gleeful, it means something enjoyable, like torching a glade of thousand year-old trees that a bunch of knife-ears sculpted as art.
The Setting, the Kingdom of Ceril

A land in strife, Ceril is ruled from a throne, but never easily with so much that needs to be balanced -- the noble houses against the Church of Issad against the ambitions of the merchants that rule the guilds. Noble against peasant, baron against earl, family against family and the king seemingly set against all. Though civil war has been a mercifully distant memory in the last century or so, Ceril seems poised on it again, after the king, Stephen of Orenth, fell in battle during a border dispute with the neighboring nation of Samon.

House of Orenth
The Royal house, it recently lost its brash young king to battle with a foreign enemy over border lands. Stephen had no legitimate heirs, merely a daughter, and she is rumored to have inherited her mother's dark prowess at witchcraft. Her whereabouts are unknown.

Lord Arad
The Lord Arad has a strong claim to the throne by marriage, but no direct bloodline claim. Nonetheless, he is powerful and looks like the eventual winner of Ceril's succession crisis. He has, for the moment, retained the services of the Orcish mercenary company, Nar Mat Kordh-Ishi.

Druskel family
The Druskels are not one family, but two families each headed by a brother; Ren Druskel and Bant Druskel have a long running dispute among each other, especially as the old Lord Hon Druskel still draws breath and the brothers constantly skirmish with one another to position themselves for the favor of their dying, often demented, old father.

Brenton family
To be determined. I'm looking for suggestions.

Madjun family
The Madjun are a family that believe in a greater restraint of the crown's powers; while they can count many supporters among their number, their alliance is the most fragile. Lord Waus Madjun has managed to establish an alliance of smaller noble houses, guilds and, potentially, the Dwarves of Darazum into a powerful faction...that is so large that it can't agree on anything.

The Church of Issad 
The Church of Issad, for a long time, was the sole church of Ceril, until the reign of Jeren the Apostate. A man of a philosophic bent and himself an initiate in a religion besides the official state religion, he issued edicts restraining the power of the church and fought a series of bloody wars to make it so. In the end, Jeren prevailed and his heirs maintained the religious edicts, though the Church always remained powerful and influential in the Kingdom, a force to be reckoned with. Now with Jeren's line extinguished, the Church sees an opportunity to support the dynasty that will give it what it wants...

The Elves of Torceleblas
There was a time when the elves were a powerful empire, but time and catastrophe has reduced them to much smaller numbers of fractured enclaves throughout the world; near Ceril, the elves hail from the Torceleblas (the Silver Forest). The history of elvish-human relations is fraught with strife and conflict, though a wary cold war prevails for the moment, though the Elves seem to be taking sides in the recent rebellion for reasons of their own; their Queen, Iraphel, is a younger one, and is rumored to believe that the words of human are not enough to ensure the safety of the elven kingdoms.

Also, they like to sculpt trees as art. This sort of pretension makes orcish tusks hurt just thinking about it.

The Dwarves of Thorazum
The Dwarves of Thorazum are their own separate nation, some of which actually extends to beneath the lands of the Kingdom of Ceril; this created tension between the court at Cerilnay and the Kingdom of Thorazum, though these differences were worked out during the reign of Jeren, also known as the Apostate with a unique recognition of borders and rights that included drawing the lines for elevation as well as location.

Dwarven culture has an extensive system of guilds and craftsmen and tends to support their human counterparts in Ceril.
Role Requests
(Not to be taken as the only open roles -- invent your own!) 
- A bastard daughter of Stephen of Orenth, heir to the Cerilian throne. Just recently fell into the hands of Nar Mat Kordh-Ishi. It's entirely possible that -her- heritage isn't pure as the driven snow either. In any case, just like the Tuskers, she was betrayed and wants some payback...and her kingdom.
- Jagath Eye-Drinker - Radush's son, the leader of the Chosen and a very powerful warrior in his own right. But there's a lot riding on him and a dynasty to come. This character should be a full-blooded orc or half-human at most.
- An orcish (or whatever) magic user, probably female, powerful and scary as all get out. Half demon? Sure.
Nar Mat Kordh-Ishi - The Orcish Mercenary Saga

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