That's not too unusual. What's unusual, though it's only apparent to people more worldly than the Berglenders themselves, is the fighting style they've been trained in. It's very standardized and rather distinctive, involving the pairing of a large shield with a spear of middling length, which can be either thrown or fought with—not a combination often favored by Ostvian persons-at-arms.

To the locals this is just an idiosyncratic but effective way of fighting. To both Norah, an expert in military matters (at least on the individual and squad levels), and Nemo, who is very well-traveled, it's something more: the very particular method used by soldiers of the Erorian Imperium. For someone who recognizes their manual of arms, coming across a rural North Ostvian militia training like Erorian legionaries is quite an arresting sight.

The reason for this soon appears in the person of Tertia Caxton, a mercenary of sorts from outside the Norbeld who has signed on to get the town militia into shape (rather in the same way police chiefs in modern small towns are often hired in from elsewhere). It's no secret to anyone in town that she's not from the area, but few, if any, of the townsfolk realize just how far out of town she may be from. Her first name is Erorian, but that's not all that uncommon in Ostvia; some people think Erorian given names are pleasingly exotic, sophisticated, or distinctive, and give them to their children without always even knowing what they mean. Her surname is definitely not.

In appearance, Tertia is a good-looking, slightly travel-worn woman of about thirty, with black hair and blue eyes. She keeps her hair short enough to go under a helmet, but otherwise doesn't do much of anything with it. Her aspect is usually serious, her resting expression a slight frown, as though she is considering some matter that does not entirely please her, but she's reasonably affable in conversation, albeit not very talkative. Though she recognizes the value in letting some of her people follow the "work hard/play hard" path, she herself prefers to work hard and then read a book.

Tertia has unostentatious, workmanlike taste in clothes, though that's largely academic since she almost always wears her nondescript scale armor instead. In action, she uses a fighting style even more distinctive than the one she's taught her troops, wielding a short sword in each hand. Her skill and experience are plain for anyone with some expertise in the matter to see.

She's also good at carpentry and a decent smith and farrier, knows her way around a field kitchen and a foraging expedition, and writes an excruciatingly neat hand that looks almost like it's been printed with movable type—all skills an Erorian centurion, that is a company-grade officer, could be expected to have along with knowledge of tactics, training and organization methods, and personal skill at arms.

The flip side of this is that while Tertia is about the right age for an active centurion (assuming sufficient talent, which she seems to have, and the right patronage), she's in the wrong hemisphere for that, and yet she's far too young to have completed her term of service and retired from the Erorian army. No one else in Berglen has any knowledge of any of this—they just think they lucked out in hiring a particularly competent and ethical mercenary to reform their local militia.

Nemo, on the other hand, finds it all terribly intriguing...

Here's a HeroForge mockup of what Tertia might more-or-less look like.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
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