Archie
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Fantasy Skyworld Lorebuilding
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Captain Hesperus
Harbinger of the End Times and Apostle of Ghan
Aeternian 3rd Corps of Sky Marines ‘The Fancy Men’
In Aeternia, military prowess has been the watchword since the kingdom clawed its way up from a pirate haven to an established political and military power. To this end, it’s navy and by extension it’s Corps of Sky Marines, have had to work hard to be a credible threat to the superpowers of Zhong and Rodolfo. Aeternian Sky Marines are well-drilled, well equipped and well motivated as both an offensive and defensive force in the air and on land, using tactical advantage and strict discipline to send their foes fleeing before them. But even in an army like that, certain elite units rise above the already expert soldiers about them. The Fancy Men are one such Corps.
Corps Structure
The Third are an elite Corps in that they do not regularly draw troops from civilian enlistees, instead inducting seasoned troops from other Sky Marine Corps who must be recommended by a senior officer from the inductee’s Corps or any member of the Third who witnessed his actions first-hand. No amount of money could be offered to grant an inductee admission to the Third, such is the renown of the Corps. The Corps‘ official motto is ‘Sans Pariel’ and the men and women work hard to make the motto a reality. Each and every member, from the Corps Colonel to the youngest Private works to make themselves a paragon of personal and military excellence. The rank structure of the Corps is the same as it is for all Aetherian Sky Marines, in order of seniority: Colonel, Major, Captain, 1st Lieutenant, 2nd Lieutenant, Master Sergeant, Sergeant, Corporal, Lance Corporal, Private. It is an established fact that promotion to a Commissioned Officer rank can happen for any inducted Marine, regardless of their background and upbringing. Truly every Private carries the Colonel's bicorne in his cartridge case.
The Third consists of twelve companies, ten active duty companies which can either be deployed en masse across a fleet or as individual sections aboard lone vessels. The eleventh company is comprised of artillerists, engineers and sappers, while the twelvth is the inductee company, where newly inducted Marines are tested and trained. The twelvth is also known as the Garrison Company and is expected to provide troops for the ships that patrol Aetheria's borders. Each company has a specific color to differentiate them, the first company being yellow, second being forest-green, third being mid-orange, fourth being sky-blue, fifth being grey, sixth being brown, seventh being pale green, eighth being purple, ninth being red, tenth being dark blue, eleventh being black and twelvth being white.
Each company consists of approximately 130-170 enlisted men and officers, depending on active duty, and a section is a unit of 10 Sky Marines. In deployment, a number of sections will be deployed to a ship, this number being determined by the size and importance of the ship as well as what sort of duties it will be expected to perform. A vessel tasked with long-range patrol duties may carry up to 4 sections with a Lieutenant as officer commanding, while a pirate interdiction ship may have six or seven sections with two 2nd Lieutenants and a 1st Lieutenant as officer commanding. The Third is very rarely deployed as naval garrison troops outside of the capital.
Appearance
The Sky Marines of the Third Corps did not gain the moniker 'The Fancy Men' entirely by chance. They wear distinctive uniforms that, while using the same color schemes as the rest of the Aetherian Sky Marine Corps, have details and additions that make them stand apart from other Corps, even to a layman's eye. Alongside this, the Corps also exemplifies personal self-discipline and deportment, moral rectitude and a higher standard of dutiful attendance to the ideals of Aetherian superiority.
Personal Appearance
The unofficial motto of The Third is 'Keep It Neat, Keep It Right', which they apply liberally to their appearance. As an elite Corps, the Marines of the Third are given liberty to wear facial hair and eschew the close-cropped hairstyles of other Corps. Well-kept and trimmed beards, mustaches and sideburns are commonplace, as are ponytails, braids, cues and cadenettes (long braids that hang down forward of the ears, either side of the temples) in the style of elite cavalry units.
Sky Marines of The Third are given leave to have tattoos, so long the designs do not extend beyond the collar or cuffs of their jackets, and are regularly given by members of the Corps or less often by land-living tattooists. The manner of the tattoos are entirely of the owner's choosing, though most take the same aeronautical themes of the sailors they travel and fight alongside. Some few of The Third also get the Corps own sigil tattooed somewhere prominent on their body's but this is not expected of anyone.
The physical fitness of a Marine of The Third is paramount and every man, from the rawest inducted Private to the Colonel is expected to maintain his own health and fitness. Everyone, regardless of rank, is expected to run the rigorous training and athletics course of The Third, commonly called 'The Razor', in a time of less than an hour and thirty minutes, the time set by the Corps' first Colonel. To this end, the Marines of The Third are all muscular to a man, not an inch of wasted fat seen anywhere. Even after a period of incapacity, following injury in battle or sickness, Marines are expected to train themselves back up to peak fitness as quickly as possible. For some, however, the level of injury or sickness is too much and they may regretfully find themselves being medically retired or otherwise returned to the Sky Marine Corps they were inducted from, often with a promotion.
Should an inductee not meet the strict physical requirements of The Third, they are usually return to their original Corps. There is no shame attached to such an event, the pride comes from being recognised and inducted and a greater indignity would be for a Marine who does not meet the requirements to remain in The Third's 12th company and receive permanent garrison duty.
Uniform
The Third Aetherian Sky Marine Corps wears the same uniform colors as other Sky Marine Corps, that being a headdress of black, jacket of sky-blue, trews of white or off-white and footwear of black. The Third has a number of deviations from this scheme which have been accepted by naval command in deference to the status of the Corp.
The majority of Aetherian Sky Marines wear a brimmed shako of black felt with a cockade and plume of white feathers for officers or woolen pompons for other ranks. The Third, in contrast, wears a 'busby', a cylindrical cap made of stiff black felt with a sky-blue 'bag' that protrudes from the top and draped over the left side. An earlier version of the headdress included a plume, an upright arrangement of feathers or a woolen pompon, but this was made obsolete due to the close confines found belowdecks on ships. This headdress is worn up to the rank of 2nd Lieutenant, with the Officer's headdress gaining a rope braid of sky-blue to denote the rank of the wearer. From the rank of 1st Lieutenant, a cockaded bicorne, wore 'fore and aft' and with an increasing number of lines of gold braid along the outer brim denoting higher rank, is worn.
The sky-blue jacket worn by The Third is different by the presence of navy blue braiding across the chest, around the tops of the cuffs and on the back at the waist. Company colors are worn on the collar and cuffs. Officers wear their sky-blue jacket as a pelisse over a coat in their company color.
Marines of the third wear black leather boots that rise to just below the knee, as opposed to the ankle boots and waxed canvas gaiters worn by other Corps.
Armament
Unlike other Sky Marine Corps, The Third use rifled muskets, carbines and pistols, as opposed to the smoothbore weapons of their fellows. The Marines are armed with muskets and a bayonet while sergeants carry either a carbine or a single-shot pistol and a sword. Master Sergeants and Lieutenants carry either a carbine and pistol or a brace of pistols with a sword. Officers of higher rank commonly carry one or more pistols alongside their sword.
It is common for Officers above the rank of 2nd Lieutenant to purchase their own pistols and swords, many preferring to buy percussion revolvers and ornately worked sabers in preference to the rougher single-shot pistols and swords issued by the Aetherian military.
Additionally, The Third employ what they call ‘Boarding and Breaching’ teams, or simply ‘Breachers’. These Sky Marines are trained in close-quarter combat and are equipped with alternative weapons to the other sections of their command. Breachers are equipped with rifled carbines and sword-bayonets, which can be fixed to the carbine to create an unwieldy but useable polearm or wielded like a short sword. One man in three in a Breacher section carries grenades, three fragmentation grenades, two smoke grenades and a single alchemical caustic smoke grenade, a so-called ‘pepper pot’. These weapons are often deployed below decks during a boarding action to attack enemies seeking refuge and tactical advantage in the cramped environment found on the lower decks. Finally, one man in five is equipped as a ‘breachmaster’. A breachmaster carries a heavy three-quarter length steel-faced wooden pavise shield with a cutout in the top right corner. This cutout is coupled with the two blunderbusses the breachmaster carries and allows him to fire the brutal weapons with minimal risk of taking return fire. The breachmaster also carries a two-handed ax for breaking down locked doors or smashing aside any obstructions that defenders might cobble together to delay the Sky Marines.
Discipline
Within the ranks of The Third Aetherian Sky Marine Corps, discipline is seen as a priority. A Marine of the Third is expected to adhere to the highest standards of the Corps at all times, even when off duty or on liberty ashore. Excessive drunkenness, wanton violence, theft, looting or sexual abuse are all harshly punished, but lesser infractions such as poor appearance, not maintaining a clean barracks, possession or distribution of illicit substances and more can still land a Marine with corporal punishment. Most punishment takes place at a section level, Sergeants, Corporals and Lance Corporals will hand out punitive extra duties to criminals, such as cleaning and maintaining the section's weapons, performing cooking or barracks cleaning duties, taking consecutive late night watches and so on.
The usual form of corporal punishment for serious infractions and crimes is a number of strokes from the cat-o'-nine-tails. In this instance, the criminal is stripped to the waist (though some request to be stripped completely), their wrists are tied securely over their heads, either to the shrouds of the ship or to a tree when on land and then they receive a number of strokes of the whip dependent on the severity of their crime. The reason many Marines choose to be naked for punishment is to prevent the inevitable blood from staining their white trews. The punishment is meted out by another member of the criminal's section, and that man knows full well that if he pulls his blows and it's noticed then he and the rest of his section will receive the same punishment as the criminal.
Another variation that sets The Third apart is that officers are not immune to corporal punishment. Should an officer be found to be in breach of the Corps rules he'll receive the cat as freely as any of his men. Indeed, it is a matter of common fact that the current Colonel of the Corps himself has a goodly number of scars on his back and shoulders from the lash.
For the most severe crimes such as murder, there is only one sentence: The Drop. In this case, the criminal has their hands bound to their waist and their feet tied together. They then have a rope attached to their feet which is secured to the gunwales and they are dropped overboard. There, exposed to the elements and the creatures of the skies with no way to protect themselves, the criminal will die, slowly and in pain as the blood would pool in their heads, their hearts would have to work harder to keep moving the blood to the body and their joints would slowly start to dislocate. The shortest length of time before death is twenty four hours, but with the exceptional health of a member of The Third, this can take anything up to three days.
Benefits of The Third
With such strict requirement for entry and continued placement within The Third, one might think that the Corps would be hard-pressed to find inductees willing to put themselves through so much. But the reverse is true. The Third, as an elite Corps, offers even an enlisted Private fifty percent more than his standard wage, as well as additional pay bonuses for exceptional behavior. Any Marine has the opportunity to rise all the way through the ranks, even to the uppermost ranks, regardless of his birth or upbringing. The most an enlisted Marine in other Corps could hope for is retiring at the rank of Master Sergeant, but a Marine of The Third could one day retire as a Colonel, with pay commensurate of the rank plus an additional fifty percent.
The reputation of The Third also carries a lot of weight, even in civilian life. A man retired from The Third would not have to look hard for work or a place to live, even if he had to retire for medical reasons. Some important politicians in Aetheria were at one point Sky Marines of The Third Corps and they are well-known for bringing the Corps' strict standards into their civilian work.
Archie
In Aeternia, military prowess has been the watchword since the kingdom clawed its way up from a pirate haven to an established political and military power. To this end, it’s navy and by extension it’s Corps of Sky Marines, have had to work hard to be a credible threat to the superpowers of Zhong and Rodolfo. Aeternian Sky Marines are well-drilled, well equipped and well motivated as both an offensive and defensive force in the air and on land, using tactical advantage and strict discipline to send their foes fleeing before them. But even in an army like that, certain elite units rise above the already expert soldiers about them. The Fancy Men are one such Corps.
Corps Structure
The Third are an elite Corps in that they do not regularly draw troops from civilian enlistees, instead inducting seasoned troops from other Sky Marine Corps who must be recommended by a senior officer from the inductee’s Corps or any member of the Third who witnessed his actions first-hand. No amount of money could be offered to grant an inductee admission to the Third, such is the renown of the Corps. The Corps‘ official motto is ‘Sans Pariel’ and the men and women work hard to make the motto a reality. Each and every member, from the Corps Colonel to the youngest Private works to make themselves a paragon of personal and military excellence. The rank structure of the Corps is the same as it is for all Aetherian Sky Marines, in order of seniority: Colonel, Major, Captain, 1st Lieutenant, 2nd Lieutenant, Master Sergeant, Sergeant, Corporal, Lance Corporal, Private. It is an established fact that promotion to a Commissioned Officer rank can happen for any inducted Marine, regardless of their background and upbringing. Truly every Private carries the Colonel's bicorne in his cartridge case.
The Third consists of twelve companies, ten active duty companies which can either be deployed en masse across a fleet or as individual sections aboard lone vessels. The eleventh company is comprised of artillerists, engineers and sappers, while the twelvth is the inductee company, where newly inducted Marines are tested and trained. The twelvth is also known as the Garrison Company and is expected to provide troops for the ships that patrol Aetheria's borders. Each company has a specific color to differentiate them, the first company being yellow, second being forest-green, third being mid-orange, fourth being sky-blue, fifth being grey, sixth being brown, seventh being pale green, eighth being purple, ninth being red, tenth being dark blue, eleventh being black and twelvth being white.
Each company consists of approximately 130-170 enlisted men and officers, depending on active duty, and a section is a unit of 10 Sky Marines. In deployment, a number of sections will be deployed to a ship, this number being determined by the size and importance of the ship as well as what sort of duties it will be expected to perform. A vessel tasked with long-range patrol duties may carry up to 4 sections with a Lieutenant as officer commanding, while a pirate interdiction ship may have six or seven sections with two 2nd Lieutenants and a 1st Lieutenant as officer commanding. The Third is very rarely deployed as naval garrison troops outside of the capital.
Appearance
The Sky Marines of the Third Corps did not gain the moniker 'The Fancy Men' entirely by chance. They wear distinctive uniforms that, while using the same color schemes as the rest of the Aetherian Sky Marine Corps, have details and additions that make them stand apart from other Corps, even to a layman's eye. Alongside this, the Corps also exemplifies personal self-discipline and deportment, moral rectitude and a higher standard of dutiful attendance to the ideals of Aetherian superiority.
Personal Appearance
The unofficial motto of The Third is 'Keep It Neat, Keep It Right', which they apply liberally to their appearance. As an elite Corps, the Marines of the Third are given liberty to wear facial hair and eschew the close-cropped hairstyles of other Corps. Well-kept and trimmed beards, mustaches and sideburns are commonplace, as are ponytails, braids, cues and cadenettes (long braids that hang down forward of the ears, either side of the temples) in the style of elite cavalry units.
Sky Marines of The Third are given leave to have tattoos, so long the designs do not extend beyond the collar or cuffs of their jackets, and are regularly given by members of the Corps or less often by land-living tattooists. The manner of the tattoos are entirely of the owner's choosing, though most take the same aeronautical themes of the sailors they travel and fight alongside. Some few of The Third also get the Corps own sigil tattooed somewhere prominent on their body's but this is not expected of anyone.
The physical fitness of a Marine of The Third is paramount and every man, from the rawest inducted Private to the Colonel is expected to maintain his own health and fitness. Everyone, regardless of rank, is expected to run the rigorous training and athletics course of The Third, commonly called 'The Razor', in a time of less than an hour and thirty minutes, the time set by the Corps' first Colonel. To this end, the Marines of The Third are all muscular to a man, not an inch of wasted fat seen anywhere. Even after a period of incapacity, following injury in battle or sickness, Marines are expected to train themselves back up to peak fitness as quickly as possible. For some, however, the level of injury or sickness is too much and they may regretfully find themselves being medically retired or otherwise returned to the Sky Marine Corps they were inducted from, often with a promotion.
Should an inductee not meet the strict physical requirements of The Third, they are usually return to their original Corps. There is no shame attached to such an event, the pride comes from being recognised and inducted and a greater indignity would be for a Marine who does not meet the requirements to remain in The Third's 12th company and receive permanent garrison duty.
Uniform
The Third Aetherian Sky Marine Corps wears the same uniform colors as other Sky Marine Corps, that being a headdress of black, jacket of sky-blue, trews of white or off-white and footwear of black. The Third has a number of deviations from this scheme which have been accepted by naval command in deference to the status of the Corp.
The majority of Aetherian Sky Marines wear a brimmed shako of black felt with a cockade and plume of white feathers for officers or woolen pompons for other ranks. The Third, in contrast, wears a 'busby', a cylindrical cap made of stiff black felt with a sky-blue 'bag' that protrudes from the top and draped over the left side. An earlier version of the headdress included a plume, an upright arrangement of feathers or a woolen pompon, but this was made obsolete due to the close confines found belowdecks on ships. This headdress is worn up to the rank of 2nd Lieutenant, with the Officer's headdress gaining a rope braid of sky-blue to denote the rank of the wearer. From the rank of 1st Lieutenant, a cockaded bicorne, wore 'fore and aft' and with an increasing number of lines of gold braid along the outer brim denoting higher rank, is worn.
The sky-blue jacket worn by The Third is different by the presence of navy blue braiding across the chest, around the tops of the cuffs and on the back at the waist. Company colors are worn on the collar and cuffs. Officers wear their sky-blue jacket as a pelisse over a coat in their company color.
Marines of the third wear black leather boots that rise to just below the knee, as opposed to the ankle boots and waxed canvas gaiters worn by other Corps.
Armament
Unlike other Sky Marine Corps, The Third use rifled muskets, carbines and pistols, as opposed to the smoothbore weapons of their fellows. The Marines are armed with muskets and a bayonet while sergeants carry either a carbine or a single-shot pistol and a sword. Master Sergeants and Lieutenants carry either a carbine and pistol or a brace of pistols with a sword. Officers of higher rank commonly carry one or more pistols alongside their sword.
It is common for Officers above the rank of 2nd Lieutenant to purchase their own pistols and swords, many preferring to buy percussion revolvers and ornately worked sabers in preference to the rougher single-shot pistols and swords issued by the Aetherian military.
Additionally, The Third employ what they call ‘Boarding and Breaching’ teams, or simply ‘Breachers’. These Sky Marines are trained in close-quarter combat and are equipped with alternative weapons to the other sections of their command. Breachers are equipped with rifled carbines and sword-bayonets, which can be fixed to the carbine to create an unwieldy but useable polearm or wielded like a short sword. One man in three in a Breacher section carries grenades, three fragmentation grenades, two smoke grenades and a single alchemical caustic smoke grenade, a so-called ‘pepper pot’. These weapons are often deployed below decks during a boarding action to attack enemies seeking refuge and tactical advantage in the cramped environment found on the lower decks. Finally, one man in five is equipped as a ‘breachmaster’. A breachmaster carries a heavy three-quarter length steel-faced wooden pavise shield with a cutout in the top right corner. This cutout is coupled with the two blunderbusses the breachmaster carries and allows him to fire the brutal weapons with minimal risk of taking return fire. The breachmaster also carries a two-handed ax for breaking down locked doors or smashing aside any obstructions that defenders might cobble together to delay the Sky Marines.
Discipline
Within the ranks of The Third Aetherian Sky Marine Corps, discipline is seen as a priority. A Marine of the Third is expected to adhere to the highest standards of the Corps at all times, even when off duty or on liberty ashore. Excessive drunkenness, wanton violence, theft, looting or sexual abuse are all harshly punished, but lesser infractions such as poor appearance, not maintaining a clean barracks, possession or distribution of illicit substances and more can still land a Marine with corporal punishment. Most punishment takes place at a section level, Sergeants, Corporals and Lance Corporals will hand out punitive extra duties to criminals, such as cleaning and maintaining the section's weapons, performing cooking or barracks cleaning duties, taking consecutive late night watches and so on.
The usual form of corporal punishment for serious infractions and crimes is a number of strokes from the cat-o'-nine-tails. In this instance, the criminal is stripped to the waist (though some request to be stripped completely), their wrists are tied securely over their heads, either to the shrouds of the ship or to a tree when on land and then they receive a number of strokes of the whip dependent on the severity of their crime. The reason many Marines choose to be naked for punishment is to prevent the inevitable blood from staining their white trews. The punishment is meted out by another member of the criminal's section, and that man knows full well that if he pulls his blows and it's noticed then he and the rest of his section will receive the same punishment as the criminal.
Another variation that sets The Third apart is that officers are not immune to corporal punishment. Should an officer be found to be in breach of the Corps rules he'll receive the cat as freely as any of his men. Indeed, it is a matter of common fact that the current Colonel of the Corps himself has a goodly number of scars on his back and shoulders from the lash.
For the most severe crimes such as murder, there is only one sentence: The Drop. In this case, the criminal has their hands bound to their waist and their feet tied together. They then have a rope attached to their feet which is secured to the gunwales and they are dropped overboard. There, exposed to the elements and the creatures of the skies with no way to protect themselves, the criminal will die, slowly and in pain as the blood would pool in their heads, their hearts would have to work harder to keep moving the blood to the body and their joints would slowly start to dislocate. The shortest length of time before death is twenty four hours, but with the exceptional health of a member of The Third, this can take anything up to three days.
Benefits of The Third
With such strict requirement for entry and continued placement within The Third, one might think that the Corps would be hard-pressed to find inductees willing to put themselves through so much. But the reverse is true. The Third, as an elite Corps, offers even an enlisted Private fifty percent more than his standard wage, as well as additional pay bonuses for exceptional behavior. Any Marine has the opportunity to rise all the way through the ranks, even to the uppermost ranks, regardless of his birth or upbringing. The most an enlisted Marine in other Corps could hope for is retiring at the rank of Master Sergeant, but a Marine of The Third could one day retire as a Colonel, with pay commensurate of the rank plus an additional fifty percent.
The reputation of The Third also carries a lot of weight, even in civilian life. A man retired from The Third would not have to look hard for work or a place to live, even if he had to retire for medical reasons. Some important politicians in Aetheria were at one point Sky Marines of The Third Corps and they are well-known for bringing the Corps' strict standards into their civilian work.
Archie
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