Hundreds of years before your lifetime, humanity lived in great steel cities, rising miles into the clouds. Billions of people lived in this human-hives, with great machinery producing goods you could never dream of. A virus ripped through this over-populated civilization with ease, killing nine in ten. It was never discovered why the last ten percent survived, but the aftermath wiped out many of the survivors too.
Of course, that doesn't concern you. No, you live in a much different time, an era of fire and sword. Born in a small feudal kingdom, your parents were killed when you were 13 by a band of marauders. The leader took pity on you, and took you under his wing. Five years later, you killed him in a duel, and assumed command of his band.
The following decade of your life was spent accumulating power, and notoriety. Duel after duel, battle after battle, men flocked to your banner. Now, at the age of 28, with dozens of battle-marks tattoed on your arm, the time has come for the next step. Your next target is the small kingdom of Winterhill, nestled in a river valley. Containing a handful of farming villages, and a couple thousand residents in all, it should contain valuable loot, and plenty of recruits ready for conscription.
Your 500 men overran the small wooden fort holding the pass without much of a fight, but, unfortunately, a messenger managed to escape into the woods. You must march on the nearest village, of about 700 souls, before the "King" can react.
Under your command are ten banners, or groups of two separate warbands. Nine of them, commanded by loyal warbosses, are standard, rank and file marauder infantry. Forty of them carry choppers, steel, cleaver-like blades designed to cleave through flesh and bone, along with wooden shields, while the other ten have bows. The real cream of the crop is your personal bodyguards.
Fifty men, hand-picked from the most experienced warriors in your entire army. Dressed in leather armor and steel helmets, they carry true swords, two-handed steel monsters that can cut through anything.
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Topic: Marauder-Kings (Read 978 times)