Questions about the Red Blades

[Farmboy2003]

I'm considering gradually letting my Elven fighter realize that the Blackwood mercenaries aren't exactly her true home (she's not that fond of them really), I've read up a bit on the red blades, but there's a few things I can't figure out:

1. Is the Red blades even a mechanical subfaction anymore? Are all legion faction members just peers in the 3rd legion? It seems to me they became obsolete (no store, no guildhall, no NPC's) and got swallowed by the legion.

3. Do I have to fight first with the short sword, then the longsword and finally bastard sword like the wiki states, or is this just in my off-screen training?

4. Could this, and much more be answered in the legion meeting this sunday? If so, could I crash it as a +1?

[Poltergeist]

It's not a mechanical subfaction anymore, but they do exist in lore. In fact, most of the 10th Legion is made up of Red Blades. you can do DM quests to attempt to join them, but bear in mind that they are more than ultra-loyal soldiers and weapon masters. They're an extension of the the Church of Red Knight.

[Farmboy2003]

bear in mind that they are more than ultra-loyal soldiers and weapon masters. They're an extension of the the Church of Red Knight.

Thanks for that clarificiation. I got the impression from the wiki that The red knight was a big thing, but not a stopper. Are you saying that I would have a hard time joining as my character worships the seldarine?

Basically, I'm interested in the part about the weapon masters. I think it fits well with the elven lifestyle and devotion.

[FoogooFish]

The Red Blades no longer exist as anything other than the former Third Legion. PCs join the Tenth Legion now - no other Legion is permissible. The remaining four Legions are the Fifth, Seventh, Ninth, and Tenth.

The Chapterhouse has a few nifty lore placeables in the Hall of History that explain what happened IC to the Red Blades and the other Legions. Go check them out.

[roguethree]

Prior to the Second Sundering, you didn't have to worship the Red Knight to join the Red Blades, but your orders were given by people pretty big into the faith, so while your religion might have been elsewhere, your actions were almost always furthering the Red Knight's faith.

There hasn't been an effort in the last few years to hold members of the Red Blades to their code of progression (short sword --> long sword --> bastard sword --> greatsword, and the initiation test that often enough results in a dead initiate). It's a fantastic role play opportunity if you can get a DM to help you along.

[Farmboy2003]

The Red Blades no longer exist as anything other than the former Third Legion. PCs join the Tenth Legion now - no other Legion is permissible. The remaining four Legions are the Fifth, Seventh, Ninth, and Tenth.

The Chapterhouse has a few nifty lore placeables in the Hall of History that explain what happened IC to the Red Blades and the other Legions. Go check them out.

Thanks for chiming in! (you too r3). I did actually read all those plagues, but it didn't say if they were dispanded. But if you read the legion composition in that area, the roles, and titles (ranger, assasin, fighter, medic, mage) it doesn't really make room for the sword saints. In a regimented an orderly phenomenon as an army there doesn't seem to be room for the devoted sword saint types.

Unless they got some separate platoon with a different organization within the third? (or is this my plot hook?). It would be kinda moot to join the third legion as a 130 year old warrior and then become a footslogger, instead of sword saint.

Please bear in mind that my knowledge of regiment compositions in armies, are very limited. I may throw words like platoon and regiment out, but I'm not completely sure in their use or function

The red knight doesn't seem like a deity that has a lot to do with the seldarine, good or bad. She's not a force of good/evil, she merely holds the domain of a trade, namely tactics and swordsmanship and warfare right? She seems inherently neutral.

It's not like people of Faerun worship just one god either, they just have a favorite/patron. Ofcourse I'd need DM confimation on the faith issue

[[DM] Grinning Death]

The Red Knight is a primarily human god. I know our wiki has a pretty detailed description, but it'd likely be something like an elf worshiping Tempus (seeing as he's her superior). Not impossible, but if you want to stick close to the elven traditions, it probably would be less of a fit.

The Red Blades are now the commando/guerrilla group of the Legion. Since we've restructured the Legions to only allow PCs to join the 10th, I think I'll make them a sub-section (like Praetorian, Cohorts, Speculatorii, etc).

As for requiring faith to join the group, I may suspend that particular requirement, seeing as there's no main-stay god to worship within the Legion.

But! This will be a good issue for Sunday's meeting.

[FoogooFish]

The placard lists the "former" deployment of the Third Legion Red Blades and the "former" Myrios before stating that "the remnants of the Third Legion were absorbed into the reformed Tenth Legion." The placard for the (new) Tenth Legion states that "...remaining soldiers were reassigned and the entire Sundarian Legion was restructured." To me, everything is clear with regards to the Red Blades being no more, but I also built the Chapterhouse and wrote all those lore placeables.

To further clarify, though, one cannot join what no longer exists. The Red Blades no longer exist as a faction, sub-faction, or anything else that is able to be joined. A PC wanting to "be" a Red Blade would need to join the Tenth Legion and pursue, in his or her spare time, the path that the Red Blades followed. However, that PC would never be officially known as a Red Blade. Anyone and everyone in the Tenth Legion is a Tenth Legionnaire - not a former Red Blade, former Veritas, former Fourth Legionnaire, etc.

The Legion, as an entity, pays homage to many, many deities (as evidenced by the Chapel in the Chapterhouse.) Worship of the Seldarine is not common, as the Legion is predominantly human, but neither would such worship be an issue. There are other elves (PCs and NPCs) in the Legion, and I'm sure they worship their own deities.

If your PC is interested in joining the Legion or finding out answers to these questions in an IC manner, let me know and I'll make time to meet with you IG.

[roguethree]

What happened to all of the Red Blade Saints (Vaer Vitori, Rasi Vitori, Uryll, Bachus, Jericho)? Surely some are still around and could provide guidance to the aspiring swordsman, maybe even refound the Order with time and effort (player initiative, right? That's good now?).

[Doubtful]

(player initiative, right? That's good now?).

Player initiative has always been good.

OK, the Red Blades.

The updates to their standing go something as follows:

After the ass-kicking the Legion got as it scurried back to the city showed up several flaws in its troop distribution, one of the larger issues was that it kept all of its sword saints in one basket.

Following the cities skyward leap it became clear that the Legions would need to be re-arranged to accommodate both the number of casualties and the arrival in the city of Legions normally housed outside of the city. The specialist skills that the 3rd had at their disposal were viewed as best spread amongst the remaining Legions, allowing them to train the survivors and new recruits alike in tactics and swordy skills.

As such the Red Blades no longer exist as their own Legion, but as specialists within the remaining Legions, bringing the wisdom and tactics of the Red Knight to those who need them most. The order isn't disbanded or gone, just repositioned. The various NPCs who inhabited the places are (mostly) still alive and available to be chatted to if so desired.

Mechanically those following the swordy path would simply need to be in the Legion and rise through the ranks under the gaze of both the Legion establishment and the higher ups of the Red Blades (RP!).

It is hoped that in time we will be able to represent the skills gained by progressing under the tutelage of the Red Blades specialist with a PRC, though with our current limited DEV resources I'm afraid it isn't currently a priority.

[Farmboy2003]

Wow, what great replies from you all, but they're very confusing!

Grinning death almost says all the things I want to hear - Religion is somewhat less important, and the red blades will survive as a guerilla unit within the legion. This is what was unclear in the legion chapterhouse.

My own interest in joining the red blades is not so much about the legion, the religion or the tactics, but I'm really interested in the brotherhood of weaponmasters - it's a good hook for a foreigner PC that hasn't got any altruistic notions about joining the military of a foreign country. Although military service is a nice place to practice the trade. And it's generally a role you'll fit into over time, as I see it.

But Foogoofish and Doubts contributions, leave me a bit confused.

A PC wanting to "be" a Red Blade would need to join the Tenth Legion and pursue, in his or her spare time, the path that the Red Blades followed. However, that PC would never be officially known as a Red Blade. Anyone and everyone in the Tenth Legion is a Tenth Legionnaire - not a former Red Blade, former Veritas, former Fourth Legionnaire, etc.

This is practically saying that the red blades are no more. But from an IC standpoint it seems very bureaucratic to disband the red blades and mix them with the 'standard' troops, and assume that general military organization, strategy, choice of weapons, chain of command among a great other things will remain unchanged? Isn't a bit like enrolling five 30-year olds into kindergarten and assuming that they'll fall in line with all the 6-year old kids, and that it'll still be a standard kindergarten class?

I mean no disrespect at all, and I'd much rather it'd be you making these calls, as you're knee-deep in the faction (a big round of respect for that). It just seems to be... Idunno, ignoring the lore of the server? Giving them a specific role within the legion, and mentioning the name in legion composition would at least help in others getting confused about their wereabouts. I think most my reason to post is that they sort of seemed to slide out of the Lore that's in the IG chapterhouse

Giving the Red blades a commando/guerilla role in the legion seems to open up for a bit of headroom, and a custom PrC, like Doubt proposes seems wicked nice, albeit it kinda screws with my intention of joining them

In the first WH40K Horus Heresy Novel the space marines of the Lunar wolves set up lodges. They're small enclaves/brotherhoods, that function outside of the normal chain of command, where warriors are equals. They mostly relax, drink eat and talk in the lodges. But they also train with each other and the like. I don't see why the red blades couldn't a be "lodge" within the army, where the remaining red blades use the legionnaires to recruit new members for their warrior lodge(the worthy), and in turn perform dangerous, behind-enemy-line missions. "Hoorah"

Only trouble being that those lodges helped along the Horus heresy, but eeh.

I'll try to see if I can stay awake for tonights meeting, but as I don't have any legion PC's, I'm not sure if I'm welcomed or if the matter will be discussed at all?

[[DM] Grinning Death]

My reply is a little different, because I'm a bit behind the times as far as the lore goes =P

We've addressed some concerns with the Red Blades between ourselves, and I think we'll come to an agreement tonight during the meeting. If you're not there, we can record it and put it up on the Legion forums afterwards.

So, basically, hold your question until after tonight!

[Doubtful]

There are two parts to the decision to roll the red blades into the rest of the Legion, the IC and the OOC.

OOCly the Legion was organizationally a bit of a nightmare; Players could join any one of a number of Legions posted at various places aroud the valley all with separate chains of command, orders, stations, agendas and what not. Plus the Hands.

Running events for the Legion involved quite a bit of willful suspension of disbelief as the soldiers of disparate Legions abandoned their postings to come sort out whatever was going on, the chain of command posed equal nightmares.

Clearly it needed sorting.

The IC disruption and carnage around the second sundering gave us the perfect opportunity to streamline the Legion faction and make it much more player and DM friendly - Ideally we'd like to see all of the factions and sub-factions come under player leadership, for that to work within the Legion is meant using a single unified Legion that players could join and potentially lead. The rest of the Legions would need to become purely NPC.

The Red Blades were an extremely rarely used faction, the active players in the faction could be counted on less than a single finger. Keeping them as a separate entity went against the intentions of streamlining, it meant separate chains of commands and what not, so folding them into the player Legion with a possible future PRC was the simplest way forward. That way they'd continue to exist, be usable but still come under the single 'Legion' heading.

ICly the Red Blades have become the glue that holds the holds the Legions together (a good quote from Polt!), they offer the tactical knowledge, weapons training and general asskickery needed to retake the valley. The Legions already contain several specialist and support roles beyond Legionnaire, the Red Blades are no longer separate but one of these (Ideally they'd be an officer only PRC, open to those who've joined the Legion and proved themselves capable, deserving and motivated enough train toward the elite ranks of the RBs). Absorption shouldn't be a problem at all, the 3rd Legion (Red Blades) were a part of the Legion already, albeit a Legion that held itself to a slightly different standard.

Reassigning the 3rd/Red Blades also makes a lot of sense for Verinus - the Red Blades were founded in the Veritas civil war to protect the government allegidly sanctioned by Mundus. With both the Veritas absorbed and the government the RBs were founded to protect gone it would make a lot of sense for Verinus to do away with the old symbols and show that the Legion is his, not the old states.

As for Lodges; it's easy to assume that several officers clubs, societies and groups exist within the Legion structure, after all those Bardic enthusiasm offers probably share notes, the first aiders likely meet to train and share horror stories, sorcerers laugh and blow stuff up, spys discuss the benefits of going over to the Russians, assassins discuss this seasons shocking declaration that black is the new black, scouts and rangers share insect eating tips, there's fencing groups, archers groups, a pudding club, a few cavalry clubs, etc etc. That's not even thinking about the more elite subgroups such as the Evocati or Praetorians. There's no need for these to exist as a mechanical function within the Legion, but they do exist and are ideally explored through RP, as per your example they're not always a beneficial or happy part of the Legions structure!

Anyway, that's things as they stand currently, GD is correct in that all of this can be discussed easily at the meeting later tonight.

[Farmboy2003]

thanks for all your replies. It clearly answered a lot of my questions, and voiced even more I didn't knew I had! I'll see if I can make it tonight, if nothing else Ill wait patiently for any resolutions. I know they'll be good