Crastus Poole the Dai Sensei of the Miyama Ryu

Skill List

Role

Chapter 6

By the time you have read this you have established that you have utilized
effective combat tactics at least once in your life. These passages invite you
to look at the fight through the components of a well-performed throw,
its phases named as entering, off-balancing, and execution.

The initial phase, Entering, is composed of the setup prior to the action
which includes the concepts outlined in the Terrain and Strategy sections
of this memoir, but it also involves the actions a warrior takes just
prior to the fight. Have you chosen the terrain? Have you determined if
your foe as support nearby? Do you know what he intends, and does he know
your true intent? Swift unforeseen engagement, when your opponent
has not even anticipated an attack, is best, but you can achieve
success as well if, as you take action, you do so in a matter that
is unpredictable or cannot be countered.

In all matters of life, balance is essential. If you wish to kill
your foe, you must keep them off-balance. If you hit extraordinarily hard,
knock them off their feet and let the thunder of your blows kill them.
If they hit as hard and often as you, then you must surprise them with
innovation and timing of your attacks and disrupting their plans.
If your strength is inferior, you must do all these things and
have the gods of combat smile upon you. Keep them physically, mentally,
and emotionally off-balance, and victory may be yours.

The execution phase involves the proper implementation of plans
that adapt to the flow of combat like a river changing its
course when a boulder is dropped within it. If the studied warrior
is ready to perceive obstacles and adapt to them, in the meantime
controlling his opponent by keeping him off-balance, then the student
of my way will prevail.

These principles underlying tactics will aid you in becoming a master of combat.

Role

Chapter 5

This section looks on ideas important to waging our war that
are often overlooked or undervalued by our willful and proud warriors,
but employing them effectively may tip the battle in our favor
without needing damage a true warrior's pride.

The first and most important aspect of war is to adopt habits of
effective communication. When about to engage an enemy, inform your
brothers, that they know it is your fight and they know where you are
should it turn out other enemies join the melee. This will also help
command to identify enemy movements and establish patterns that can be
exploited.

As mentioned earlier, our enemies often fight as a group. An effective
strategy is to send a hearty soldier to head the vanguard, drawing these
enemies into a fight where they feel they outnumber their foe. As our vanguard
marches through the different terrains of Thera, reserve troops should follow,
just out of sight but ready to offer timely support when the enemy commits.

As we cloak ourselves in the Veil, it is also useful to gird it with
the magical essences of destroyed items and the souls of mages.
Most commanders will keep an active list of suitable items displayed
so the Veil can be thickened in preparation for a battle. Powerful items
can thicken the Veil in stages that will make mage spells and magical
items utterly fail, and if our enemies are allowed to thin the Veil to an extreme,
we will find the use of our powers painful and their spells will seem to be cast
by the archmages who once enslaved our village's founders.

These concepts of strategy will aid you in becoming a master of tactics.

Role

Chapter 4

Others who have written about military strategy have labeled
this section after one of the elements, but I refuse to be
confused with the writings of a mage. This section will explore
the basic types of terrain, how to use them and how they will
be used by our enemies.

First, you must know the roads and the paths, the rivers and
the seas, the routes the birds fly and the caves in which the
dark things crawl. Know where the hills turn to mountains, and
at which step the swamp turns to quicksand. Learn even the secret
passages of the dwarves and the portals of the magi, for upon
knowledge of terrain the rest of this section depends.

This knowledge allows you to better evade and pursue your foe,
or find them should they seek to disappear from your blade.
Should you become a fugitive of the law, you can better elude
capture or avoid the eyes of Imperial shadows. Learn them well
enough that you know how rested you need be to traverse them,
so you can wear out your opponent before they reach you and
know when it is safe for you to attempt the journey yourself.
Discover how quickly one can move over these formations, and
use this knowledge to strike first and sure.

Along with this knowledge of movement should come an understanding
of how the terrain will limit perception. A warrior with wisdom
will know in what bushes off the road can be used to ambush the
unwary, or how even the oceanic waves can be used to safely tail
the quarry or be ready to support the vanguard.

Learn the terrain as an assassin, and know what limits it imposes
on rangers, thieves and duergar. Discover where you might successfully
use your flash bombs to conceal your rapid movement away from or
toward your foe.

Invokers can alter many locations to create traps or cover their
escape. Rangers, orcs, and some thieves too may seek to use terrain
in their fights against you. I shall not speak on this at length as
it is written elsewhere, but your understanding is not complete until
you study their own uses of terrain

These concepts of terrain are essential to becoming a master of strategy.

Role

Chapter 3

Do not believe what priests with insight into my spirit say about me.
I am a stone-cold killer, a bastard with a bodkin, the boogeyman under your bed.
It is damnably hard to be a good Battlerager and not slip the knife into
the hearts of a few good-intentioned but misguided souls, and I am sure that
when I draw my last breath, I will have to pay for my sinning ways. I am resigned to
that, but it is a sacrifice I make willingly, if I can leave the world a better place
than it was when I entered it.

As the one citizen in the village I know with altruistic intent, I have
learned that you cannot let people perceive any weakness they can exploit.
If they learn of your heart's workings, then feign weakness to let them
think you have not the heart for combat, that it is your desire to count dandelions
while you are really just looking for a good rock with which to bash in their brains.
To throw them off, I embrace the speech of the barracks, I spit and curse and for a time
stayed in a drunken stupor whenever people wished to talk with me. Do not let others know
what to expect unless you want them to use that knowledge.

And then surprise them.

Know that those closest to you might have wagging lips when they visit the inns
or the brothels. Understand that mages (and imperials) have ears around every corner
and that it is even possible that someone near you is a traitor. Your heart may be pure,
but you must not be weak or naive as the villains you hunt may think you.

Be the wolf in sheep's clothing.

Role

Chapter 2

So, you might be wondering what motivates a man, on the 50th day of his birth,
to sit down with a fellow with ink stains on his hands and dust in the creases
of his face. I have acquired a few wrinkles myself, and I find now that when
I look in a still pool of water that I'm getting long in the tooth myself.
When I get up in the morning there is rust in my shoulder, and I swear by the balls
of the kobold god my trick knee whispers to me two hours before it is going to storm.

What I mean to do, with the help of this "robe-wearin' feather wiggler",
is to share my observations about this war with the mages, this new age I
find myself in, and some of the details of my craft and path. I don't have any
kids of my own, so I am putting this down in the hope that someone in the
future will take these musings and find wisdom in them.

Role

Chapter 1

Mister Poole has enlisted my services as a scribe to make record of his
experiences and insights. I shall remain true to the stories he
shares with me, taking liberties only with the form, and not the
substance, of his words. Therefore, any digression from fact will
remain firmly the responsibility of Mister Poole and not upon
the credibility of this humble historian and scribe in his
employ.

Ignatious Lemmones,
Resident Historian of Voralian City

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