Grieving Warriors

The Grieving Warriors are the best fighters of the Sinclair clan. While most clan members have a main job and are warriors second, the Grieving Warriors are all fighters and most don’t have a second job. All members of the Grieving Warriors, men and women, fight. They are all descended from Sinclair’s second son, Qiang, and posses his blessing, the Blessing of Grief, (see Sinclair’s Three Blessings.

They are the Sinclair Clan’s most elite special forces and last line of defence against extinction. If the clan should face extermination it is the duty of the Grieving Warriors to protect the survivors at the cost of their own body, soul and even honour.

Composition

Manpower

The total number of of fighters only come to about 2000. Including the non-combatants such as the very old, the very young, pregnant women and mothers with young children their total number comes to about 4000.

Equipment

They wear no uniform armour with each member choosing what suits their fighting style the best. All will usually have some sort of warm cloak for travel even in winter and some very sturdy walking boots. When a member of the Sinclair Clan becomes skilled in Enchantment magic they will provide the warriors with Talismans.

Weaponry

All members are given very basic training in the axe and the spear and more advanced training in the sword and archery. Upon moving from childhood to youth the young warriors will choose which weapon they will specialise in. Traditionally men will use the sword or the axe and women will use the spear or the bow. They are also trained in unarmed combat.

Vehicles

When deployed in haste the clan will provide horses but usually they will travel by foot or ship. They train in cross country running from youth.

Structure

The organisation takes its wartime orders from the Sinclar Chieftain. The warriors themselves have an elected Marshal to lead them in war personally. If the Marshal is unavailable for some reason then in peace time his wife will take change of running things. In wartime he will appoint a second in command but this is often still his wife. There are no distinct units and an appropriate number of warriors will be dispatched for each mission by the Marshal. The dispatched unit will be lead by a soldier with past experience in whatever type of mission they are sent on.

Tactics

While they are very adaptable, the Grieving Warriors truly show their skills in hit and run attacks, preferably in dense forest and wilderness. Striking fast, hard and often, they can whittle away at the numbers and moral of armies even a hundred times their number. Since they are only dispatched on mass when the clan is in desperate need they have no qualms about resorting to tactics that would usually be considered dishonourable, such as night attacks, poisoning and hostage taking, (although they will never, ever threaten children.)

If forced into open battle they will try to take a defensive formation since there are so few of them, although only a fool would try to push the warriors into a corner and annihilate them, since thanks to their Blessing the more they lose the stronger they become.

Training

The Grieving Warriors start training of some sort from as young as six years old. The typical child will attend school with regular children of the clan in the mornings to learn basic skills such as reading, writing, maths and the common speech of the world. In the village/fort of the Grieving Warriors they will learn basic combat and drills with the grown warriors all pitching in to teach. A master will also teach them the basics of Soul Forging. Their parents will teach them from their own experience and skill and will supervise them is things like cross country running and wilderness survival. After choosing their personal weapon the young warrior will be trained by a master of their chosen art. The finally be considered fully trained and ready for missions a young warrior must be approved by their parents and the Marshal.

Logistics

Logistical Support

The food they consume and the resources they need as an organisation are all provided by the Sinclair clan. The non-combatants such as non Grieving Warrior wives, mothers and the elderly will oversee the day to day logistics of the formation. The clan will also provide a pension for when a warrior retires or becomes too injured to remain an active fighter. When deployed in the field they are given some money for expenses but can also live off the land by themselves.

Auxilia

During a large scale mission or a mission that only requires Grieving Warrior oversight as oppose to full command, they will use regular Sinclair soldiers to fill in and aid them. When on a mission far away from home territory they may sometimes hire local mercenaries of good repute for the same purpose.

Upkeep

The main expense for the formation is paying the Blacksmiths Guild for the forging and maintenance of the weapons and armour the warriors use. Since the population is small and the Sinclair clan owns plenty of land it is not difficult to keep the warriors well fed, even if the harvest hasn’t been bountiful. Aside from a clan stipend the warriors may take personal jobs to accrue some personal funds.

Recruitment

Although most of the Warriors are born into the formation exemplary fighters from the rest of the clan and even foreigners who join with the Sinclairs may be made part of the Grieving Warriors if the Marshal accepts them in. If the person who joins is male or a women who is married to an outsider, then their children will not be automatically accepted in, since they would not have the Blessing of Grief and would need to gain the approval of the Marshal for themselves.

History

After their founding ancestor Qiang discovered to true nature of his mother’s blessing, he gathered all his descendants together and formed the Grieving Warriors. For the rest of his long life they served as the clan’s main attack force, helping to firmly establish the clan in the Great East. Since then the Warriors have been at the forefront and in the middle of every major conflict the clan has had and preformed countless hidden missions.

The Phoenix King War
The first time the rest of the world really took notice of the Grieving Warriors was at the end of the The Phoenix King War. The Sinclair Chieftain, Emperor Xing, dispatched the entire force of the Grieving Warriors of only 3500 fighters to suppress Phoenix King Ying’s ragtag army of 20,000 in the west of the Great East. Using the heavily forested terrain to constantly harass the rebels in the wilderness, they wore down Ying’s troops until they started deserting him. When Ying’s army numbered a mere 6000 weary men, the Grieving Warriors ambushed them in a valley and the Marshal of the Warriors, Zian Sinclair, killed Ying and brought his head back to the emperor. The Grieving Warriors lost just over 1000 men during the campaign. There were no military rebellions against the Sinclair dynasty for three centuries.

Teng Dynasty War
Thousands of years after the Sinclair imperial dynasty came to an end the Teng dynasty came to power in the Great East. Fearing that the Sinclair clan would try to take power again, they declared war on the Sinclairs and almost drove them to extinction. The entire Sinclair clan, numbering only a few thousand, where besieged in their last fort in the Green Wolf hills. The Grieving Warriors were reduced to just thirty two members and twenty four fighters. The Blessing of Grief increased each of their power to Soul Forging rank nine but the Teng armies had so many high ranking mages that they were unable to turn things around. After several high rank mages managed to corner and kill the Warrior’s Marshal, his son broke through the Warlock rank and turned the battle around. After three more Warriors died of their injuries another broke through. The Teng army was driven back and the clan was saved. One of the Warlocks rushed to the City of the Kings and killed the entire imperial family, plunging the Great East into civil war and distracting everyone from the clan. The clan was able to rebuild over the next ten thousand years under the watch of the two Warlocks.

The Hunt For The Cerberus
After the Battle of the Traitor King in 1 BTK many of the Traitor King’s servants were left roaming the world. Aside from his lieutenants and foot soldiers many of his beasts also survived the battle. Greatest of his beasts was the Cerberus, a three headed hound that stood twenty feet high at the shoulder and covered itself in flames when it fought. It rampaged through the land of the Abercrombie clan, killing many people. Since the higher ranked fighters of Barriban were preoccupied with the more organised remnants of the Traitor King’s army, the Grieving Warriors were sent to hunt down the beasts. After a few failed attempts to kill the Cerberus it was deemed that a frontal attack wouldn’t work and that a surprise attack from range was the only way to get passed its defences. Young archery prodigy Evergale Sinclair, daughter of Mary-lee, volunteered to hunt the Cerberus and prove her worth to the Marshal.

She tracked it to a village it had destroyed and positioned herself in a tree within sight of the sleeping beast and waited for days for it to wake. When it opened its eyes she shot it in the left head’s eye with an arrow made of enchanted wood that would not burn from its fire. The arrow went into its brian and killed the left head. While it was thrashing around she killed the right head. After that it found her and stated changing. In the time it took her to nock an arrow the beats had already charged over to her. It was crouching down ready to jump up and devour her when she loosed her last arrow and killed the Cerberus. She became a hero to the Abercrombies and gained much glory among the Sinclairs.

Historical loyalties

The Grieving Warriors have always been in the service of the Sinclair clan worked in its interests. They are at the command of the Sinclair Chieftain and have only ever failed to obey the Chieftain twice; during the Sinclair Civil war near the end of the First Sinclair Empire, they refused to come to the Chieftain’s aid and remained completely neutral. The second time was when the Chieftain went insane and they removed him from power.

Type

Special Forces

Founding

92,000 BTK

Overall training Level

Elite

Assumed Veterancy

Experienced

Used by

• Second Sinclair Empire

Ranks & Titles

• Marshal of the Grieving Warriors.