A sort of vietnam-waresque 'the fodder lads' RP from Atomic which died when he left.

I'm thinking about reviving it, or more accurately creating a similar new RP - thouhg I'm planning on changing the background, moving things to Valenwood and altering the history elements. The basics will be simlar though, with the PCs as the Empire's grunts thhrown into a mean guerilla war.

I'm thinking about a slightly larger scale, with the PCs being amongst a full company - though probably with most if not all of them in the same first squadron (the captain's guard and 'special tasks' squad.) - No position above lieutenant at the start.

Who would be interested ?

YES! I was so bummed out when Atomic left and the RP died. I would join in a heartbeat.

Didn't play in the original, but sounds great. You have my frustration with the army.

Here's the background history I came up with :

4E01 ? following the Oblivion Crisis and Martin Septim's sacrifice, the Elder Council starts the immense task of restoring the Empire's prosperity. The Crisis's destructions sends thousand of impoverished refugees into the Imperial City's outlying areas, unwilling to move away from the miraculous statue in fear of an encore by Mehrunes Dagon. This influx turns the already poor sections of the City into crime and poverty-ridden slums.

4E03 to 4E05 ? in an attempt to solve the refugee problem, the Elder Council grants many of them land in Valenwood's northeast corner. Happily ignoring the Silvenar's objection about the local tribes. The tribes harass those they view as invaders, while the Legion don't do much about the situation. For most officers, squabbles between dirt-poor peasants and uncouth savages isn't the Legion's business.

4E6 : As the settlers begins to flow back into Cyrodill, the Elder Council creates the West Empire Company, patterned on the somewhat successful East Empire Company, to coordinate the settling and turn the worthless jungles into valuable timber and farmland

4E7 to 4E8 : the Company starts buying up the disgruntled colonist's plots, gathering them into massive plantations, turning a hefty profit and underpricing the independent farmers thanks to a politic of debt peonage. The tribes get increasingly restless as they see the disorganized farmers give way to a mercantile juggernaut bent on destroying their hunting grounds and trying to turn them into farmers. Soon they turn to violence to protect Yffre's gift (the jungle), engaging in a nasty guerrilla war to make up for their small number.
Some other tribes are swayed by the Company's offers and settle ? though the lack of hunting grounds soon force them to choose between working the plantations for a pittance or starve. Many turns to crime for a living.

4E9 : seeing it's income threatened, the Company's leadership launches a propaganda campaign in Cyrodil, depicting the rebels as a bunch of bloodthirsty cannibals determined to keep the bosmers out of modern civilization and the Company as the benevolent hand extended by the Empire to pull Valenwood out of it's backwardness. Using the populace's indignation, their influence and some hefty bribes they manage to send several legions to 'protect the Empire's citizens and interests'.

4E10 : facing a real opposition, the rebel tribes gather to execute the Wild Hunt ritual, managing to destroy a whole legion and a large number of colonists, though at hefty cost to themselves as the remnants of the finally defeated Hunt flows back into the jungle. In reaction, the Legion sends in more troops and begins raids into Valenwood's jungle to catch the rebels. Their indiscriminate and heavy-handed attacks no only fails to crush the revolt, but drives most of Valenwood into open revolt against the Imperial presence. The 'civilized' tribes aren't much help in the conflict ? their loyalty is questionable at best, unlike their corruption.

4E14 : four years and plenty of deaths later the situation hasn't changed much. The Legion keeps running after the rebels without much success, as the semi-nomadic tribes easily dance around the clumsier legionnaires. But without suitable equipment and unwilling use the Wild hunt again, the rebels can only destroy patrols and outposts. Neither side being able to deal a deathblow, the war has turned into a bloody hide-and-seek routine as the Elder Council keeps pouring gold and bodies into the grinder. Fattening the carrion eaters and the contractor's purses in a directionless war...

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=913809

Sounds fun, I'm in, so tech-wise we're still using medieval weaponry yes?

On top of that this'll be my anniversary rp! One year since I first started rping here, or anywhere.

Not much has changed for the average grunt since the Oblivion Crisis. On a larger scale, Helseth's pro-imperial stance and the destruction of Dagoth Ur have allowed the Empire improved acess to dwemer ruins, enabling them to replicate some dwemer technologies, but only a handful of them are showing up in Valenwood :


airships : improved upon Louis Beauchamp's early experiments [the patchwork airship quest from Bloodmoon], they're now sturdy and reliable enough to ship troops and supplies, but remains clumsy and not that fast. But still way faster than moving on foot through a trackless jungle. When crewed with mages they can be used to rain destruction from above, but meaningful targets are few and far between. About immune to arrows, destruction spells are still a danger but they can soak up a respectable amount of damage. An increasingly common sight, but there's not enough of them to guarantee one will be available when you need it. Far from it.

satchel charges : their military usefulness is obvious, but in this war they're mostly used to clear obstacles and construction work, along with the occasional trap. It's not as if the rebels had much infrastructure of their own...The Legion is starting to fiddle with dropping enlarged version of the satchel charges and incendiary bombs from airships, but accuracy and fuse reliability remains questionable.

Communicators : a cruder declination of the dwemer machines ranged commands. They enable a two-way voice communication with a range of 50 km and can be tuned to specific resonances. Expensive, fragile and temperamental there's at best on per company, though every airship mounts one. Using them require very little training, though a journeyman level skill with mysticism is required to power them from the user's magicka rather than it's one hour reserve. A backpack-sized contraption of bronze and crystal housed in a light steel casing..

Okay I have just reserved group radio man if that's okay

Damn. I wanted that spot.

In that case, I'd like to be a Demolitions guy (satchel charges and the like).

no problem with me, tough you might want to have a bit more duties - just sitting by the communicator and relaying messages isn't exactly thrilling (even if the rebels know what the communicators are and rank them high in their choice of targets).

Here's an overview of how I envision a Legion company's organisation and equipment :

A bit of military hierarchy :

An Imperial Legion company is usually made of one hundred mens when at nominal strength (well, a few more when you include the leaders and specialists).

It's divided in ten 10-men squads, each led by a sergeant, usually assisted by one corporal who takes the lead if the sergeant is out or the squad needs to split. Standard designation is by numbers (first squad, second...). The first squad is a bit special as it's the captain's bodyguards and frequently the one assigned special missions. Which means it often includes several extra sergeants and corporals. The units specialists (battlemages, healers, communication man) are either directly attached to the captain or included in the first squad according to their ranks.

Here's an overview of the different ranks :

Captain : commanding a 100-men company, most of them are picked from the nobility. They're the one calling the shots and their word is company's law ? in theory at least. With the action mostly limited to ambushes and skirmishes, they're usually operating on their own rather than in larger units.
Equipment : standard issue is imperial officer armor and weaponry (high quality steel, roughly equivalent to dwemer armor and weaponry, mithril for light armors). More often than not the weapon is enchanted.

Lieutenant : He's there to assist the captain and learn from him. Which often implies dealing with paperwork and bureaucracy (whatever the captain doesn't likes tends to end up on the lieutenant's plate....). More often than not this rank is bestowed upon young and well educated minor nobility or commoners (most high born skip this rank, unless their families believes in merit-awarded positions). This ranks is also given to specialist like battlemages or healers.
Imperial officer armor and weapons

Sergeants : Commanding a ten-men squad, sergeants are the day-to-day leaders, and according to them the Legion's backbone. Usually promoted from the ranks, they tend to make up in toughness and experience what they're lacking in education.
Steel or mail armor, silver weapons
First sergeant : usually the most experienced sergeant, he's in charge of the first squad, which serves as the captain's bodyguards (and often 'special tasks' squad). Less officially, he's the common trooper's voice to the captain ? and the one dealing with discipline problems unworthy of the captain's attention. Frequently the toughest, meanest fighter in the whole company.

Corporals : experienced soldiers who display some potential for leadership or remarkable skills at something. Usually one for each squad, but it can be more, especially in the first squad. Usual rank for the communication specialists.
Steel or mail armor, steel weapons

Soldiers : your regular sword-fodder. In Valewood most of them aren't exactly the cream of the crop, mostly those who don't have better prospects in life or get svckered by recruiters, with a smattering of idealists hoping to bring Imperial civilization in a place where it's benefits are sorely needed (or put the savages back where they belong, not all have the same ideals....)
Steel weapons, iron or leather armor.

Equipment : most will be standard issue military equipment ? think bland, practical, and often of lousy quality thanks to lowest bidder contracts and corruption. Weapons and armor according to the rank, usually broadsword and shield (not much room for polearms in a jungle). Short sword and crossbow for ranged troops. Armor is usually limited to cuirass/shirt and helmet, sometimes with greaves and vambraces for the officers, Valenwood's hot and moist climate makes complete armors unbearable. Over the armor are a surcoat and an oiled linen hooded cloak, both dyed in shades of green and brown to blend in the vegetations.
Standard issue backpack with one week's worth of food, water purification potions, half tent, blankets, weapon kit, basic hygiene and first aid supplies, flint and tinder, bandages, a shovel and one other tool (pick, axe, mattock, nails... all you need to set a proper camp). About 40 pounds to add to your armor and weapons.

Non regulation equipment is definitively frowned upon, at least in the camps and forts, but the higher up the food chain the easier it is to get away with it.

Races :
Only the normal races are allowed. A were's wrong times of the month don't fit well with regular troops, and neither would most vampire lineage's sunburn issues.
Bosmers can apply whether they're imperialized, have some personal issue with the rebels or were forcibly conscripted. Just don't expect much promotion, no matter why you've joined...

I'd love to play a healer or battlemage.

it all looks pretty good although I swear the half tents are called bashers (might just be an english term though, what I learnt in the CCF)

In Canada they are called Hoochies. I guess it just depends on where you're from.

Edit: I forgot to mention that i would definately join this. Probably the scarred, cynical corporal who no longer wants anything to do with the war.

Already four interested players, I'd say two more and we'll be able to get started - I'll make a new thread for the RP itself when we reach the headcount and have that one locked when it's done. PM me your character sheets (there's enough of them floating around that I don't think you need a model). Don't forget your character's rank.

Tayroc, maybe you'd like to get up to sergeant rather than corporal - it means les peoples to boss you around. And certainly lower odds of that uncontested pillar of the army : latrine duty

One last thing for the magic users : I consider magicka recovery as in-between Oblivion and Morrowind's system. You recover magicka when you're awake and active, but at a slow rate.

awake and active : 12 hours to replenish it all
rest/meditation : 6 hours
sleep : 4 hours

It means you won't be able to toss magic around all day long, but if you're unable to sleep you'll still recover some.

Sounds fair.

Can I join? Sounds good

Of course you can - it will make five players, enough to get things started. I'll start the RP thread once I've got the caracter sheets - I might need some last-minute tweaks to fit the characters, and I'd rather have them included straight in my first post.

can you give us a sheet to fill in then, I'll do mine now unless there is more info you want to add...

Here it is - nothing out of the ordinary

Name : self-explanatory
Race: as I said earlier, only standard races (no weres or vampires). Bosmers are allowed, but promotion will be scarce.
Age :
six :

Birthsign :

Rank : what rank you'd like - I'll approve or alter

Class/Skills : what your character is good at - Morrowind's five major and five minor skills makea decent basis for this, you aren't restricted to in-game skills (cooking, tracking, carpentry, siegecraft... or even oddities from before the legion). I won't mind if you add a few 'for flavor' skills like taxidermy or playing luthe beyond the ten.

General Appearance :


Mental profile : .

Armor : normally standard issue armor suited to your rank.

Clothing : normal Legion garb would be basic linen pants and tunic (quality increasing with rank), though off-duty clothing is regulated only by your purse.

Weapon : once again, usually standard legion equipment

Miscellany : whatever odds and ends or extra gear you have squirelled away or would be issued for hat you're supposed to do

Bio :

Thanks (I'll edit over this)

PM your character sheets so we ca nget started (I'll post new thread as soon as I have them only William III posted so far - the first sergeant slot is now officaly taken)