The Cymorian Chasseurs[]
- Gregorlaus: Captain of the band; tactician, leader
- Anamatius: Sargeant-at-arms renounded swordsman; small, strong, swift, polished
- Nikios: knight errant; only surviving knight in band. Massive, strong, reckless, handsome
- Paeorlaus: wheeler-dealer, sly, caniving scavanger who makes an effective scout; man-at-arms, Retainer of the Order
- Sispse: A Gho Yedi warrior, who appears to be half Cainus. Outfitted and trained as a Chasseur by the Valiant Order. Freedman. Raised in Gho Yedi quarries. Religious, wise, otherworldly. Functions as the cleric of the band.
- Arjor: A Cymorian by birth, a failed Batua by training, a Chasseur by profession. He is a hotblooded man of impulse and functions as the warrior mage of the band.
Battle of the Mirages[]
- Mareun Herian: City of the Restless Mairen Horsemen in the far eastern reaches of the Alamastran Empire, from which the reigning House Mair hails
- Hasarasina: The Gho Yedi principality which operates as a client state to the Alamastran Empire. The bastion of the Eastern Frontier, a buffer again the Gho Yedi city-states, principalities, and kinglets. Also a major trading hub at the edges of the Desert of the Risining Sun and the origin of the Imperial Highway, a major trade artery connecting the Alamastran Empire with the riches of the East.
The Battle of Mirages refers to the last battle before the Siege of Maren Herian during the Third Gho Yedi War. The Battle of the Mirages took place on the dusty plains before the great city of Maren Herian. Here members of the Order of the Valiant Templar, a crusading order charged by the High King to govern and garrison the frontiers, mustered their full strength in defense of the city. In recent months the Gho Yedi had united into a confederation to evict the Valiant Templar from the great city. The Order had been given rights of lordship and governance over the city in exchange of its defense, the collections of the High Kings duties and customes, and an annual tribute paid to the capital. The Order had sought in recent years to penetrate the transdesert trade monopolized by the Gho Yedi, refusing them access to the city, the Imperial Highway, and thereby western markets. In return for access, the Order demanded favorable trade terms and the ability to organize limited caravans across the desert without Gho Yedi interferance. This demand struck at the very heart of Gho Yedi wealth and prestige in the region. Somehow, the disunited Gho Yedi unified, mustered a great hoard and marched on the city of Mareun Herian. From the Order's perspective the host materialized out of the desert, their shimmering approach appearing as a desert mirage. The Order was taken so off-guard, the inhabitants of the surrounding estates and villages where slaughtered or trampled under the Gho Yedi's rapid advance. The Governor-Master of the Order commanded his finest cavalry to muster before the main eastern gates and sally forth to bar The Gho Yedi approach and force them into permenant encampment for a siege. There were no orders to save the fleeing villagers and peasants. The Battle of the Mirages ensued, successfully halting the Go Yedi advance and forcing them to encampment on the edge of the oasis. The Governor-Master used this time to call up several regiments of the feared Mairen Horsemen, the original masters of this great city, now impressed as auxilliary regiments in the Imperial Legions. Three of such units garrisoned the province.
'Second Battle of the Mirages'[]
As these regiments were rushing to reinforce the city, a second Gho Yedi host emerged from the desert mirages from the south. The Gho Yedi were moving quickly to envelop the city and cut off any assistance from the Mairen Auxilliaries. Again, the Governor-Master ordered his knights and horseman to muster before the Eastern and Southern gates to keep them open long enough for the reinforcements arrive. The resulting battle was one of total carnage. The Valiants before the Eastern Gates tore through the ranks of Gho Yedi, find them to largely be those of the traditional light Gho Yedi Skirmisher. They tore so deeply into these ranks they quickly approached the command position where the golden chariots of the various Gho Yedi kings and chieftains oversaw the battle. As these various kinglets broke ranks and fled the field at all-speed to avoid capture, they drew the Valiant cavalry off in a wide host of directions in pursuit.
Before the Southern wall, the Valiant cavalry ran aground against a steel wall of Gho Yedi Cataphracts, the most heavy cavalry in the desert regions. The Cataphracts turned the Valiant Cavalry, which retreated into the city in chaos. The only thing that prevented a complete route was the timely arrival of the Mairen Regiments, which were in no mood to take the field, reinforcing a collapsing collumn. Both beat a hasty retreat into the city through the Southern Gates. A furious battle took place before the gates as the Cataphracts attempted to press their advantage and seize the open gates. The Valiants were able to close the gates with all partizans inside and interdict the Go Yedi assault with withering fire from war engines mounted above the gates. The Cataphracti withdrew, but regrouped and shifted to reinforce the army on the Eastern Gates, allowing the infantry to advance toward the Southern Gate with all seige engines ready to be installed.
The Valiant infantry on the East gate were crushed between the Gho Yedi Cataphracts and skirmishers. The Valiant Cavalry, scattered and disorganized in its pursuit of lords and kings, soon began to realize that their retreat into the city was completely cut off. Many executed their royal prisoners and dumped their plunder, making hasted to meet up with other roving bands of Valiant cavalry, in order to turn and make a stand. Others continued to hunt their royal prey and were drawn too far into the desert where they died of dehydration and heat exposure. Those where were left were massacred on a bald knob on the edge of the desert where they retreated to make their last stand. Any survivors were lost forever in a massive sandstorm which rolled out of the desert later in the day.
The Kingcatchers[]
This is where the story of the Cymorian Chasseurs both begins and crosses into legend. Several bands of scattered Valiant cavalry continued their feverish pursuit of their royal Gho Yedi prey deep into the desert. One band, which fate (it is told) isolated and put together from the random charging ranks of the Second Battle of the Mirages followed the swift retreat of a Gho Yedi King in a great golden chariot, drawn by swift desert murus. He was surounded by a royal guard of Caini, the fierce and magical jackle-men from deep within the Desert of the Rising Sun. As they pursued this hodge-podge band of twenty encountered wild, and shifting mirages, freak flats of quicksand, noxious gasses, which wittled their number to 10. It seemed to these surviors that these misfortunes surpassed the natural hazzards of the desert and instead crossed over into the sorcerous. At last, they over took his guard, which was covering his retreat on foot, as the javelin of the Valiant Captain, Gregorlaus, had found the spokes of the chariot, overturning, the chariot, busting the axel, and greviously injuring the king. The royal guard of Cainae turned at this moment to face the approaching chasseurs and ran two of them clean through with manfully thrown spears. The remainder were cut down at great effort by the surviving chaseurs. They were plundered for their mystical affects. That this point, only six chasseurs were left. Only the heartiest survived, all but one being a Cymorian by birth. Then they turned upon the king, who had attempted to flee of foot from the scene of his overturned chariot, but he lay in great agony halfway up a dune on the fringe of a great dune sea. Nikios, the only knight in the band attempted to run him through with a sword, but it was rebuffed. The king wore no armor, but was protected by dark Cainae magic. Sipse, a half-Cainae, half Gho-Yedi by birth, but Valiant Templar by rearing, found an artifact of ancient and evil origin within the wreckage of the chariot. The king divulged that it was he who was the great master of the Gho Yedi hoards and who had forged Gho Yedi unity among the princes and lords with this dark relic. The band elected to take him hostage in order that they may collect his bounty from the Valiant Order. Instead the King said that his body was of no worth to him. That many of these dark relics were now in the possession of Gho Yedi Lords and that his mantle and power would pass to the next worthy master and in that way he would live on. Sipse, understanding the treacherous nature of this Cainae magic insisted that they must abandon the relic and kill the king and not attempt to transport either, for they would surely die. The others disagreed, for the king's warnings clearly forbode the revitalization of Gho Yedi power and unity under this dark magic. Why release this dark power to its next master, when they could contain it in their custody and deliver it over the Governor-Master of the Order? They apprehended the King and tied him accoss the haunches of one of his desert murus.and bound up the relic in the garmets of his slain bodyguards, being careful not touch it. They then struck a course northward, in attempt to avoid crossing the Sand Sea and to circumvent the Gho Yedi forces and circle back around to Alamastran lines, having no idea of the state or outcome of the battle. As they made their way across the desert, the king seemed to have a mesmerizing effect on the pack animals, who seems to desire to be near his presence. It became so challenging to separte them from their master, at last the band tired of it and let them walk beside him to comfort and consol him. When they stopped for the evening to pitch a camp under a rocky overhang, the king produced the dark relic, which he had somehow managed to seize from the pack animals as they herded around him.
Gregorlaus agains hurled a javelin at him, it was unable to piece his flesh, but the shock of its impact caused the king to drop the relic. This cause the curse which he was binding to unravel. A great sandstorm immediately blew up out of the Sand Sea blasted their camp. Gregorlaus rushed the king and grabbed him by the throat and strangled him to death, in hope that the ending of his life would in the curse.