[A-RP] <Baradin Warden> Recruitment

Argent Dawn
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“Vigilance, devotion, bravery and discipline. These are the four words that we follow. Each one of us has been chosen to become something more, not only for the Admiralty but for the Grand-Alliance as a whole. There is no greater purpose than to protect the empires, kingdoms and lands that who safeguard their people, our allies and leaders. We wield the instrument which protects our grand unity whilst hiding behind the mist. As a Warden of the Baradin order, you pledge your allegiance to live and die honourably, with the knowledge of your triumph not to be forgotten. In our line of work doing what is right, and doing what is necessary are more often than not completely different things. We do, what we do and live and die for the greater good of the Grand-Alliance.”

– Captain Juleen-Andrea Lysandré

The guild is based around the Baradin Wardens (the NPC order) which guard the prison on Tol Barad . With the Kul Tiran Admiralty’s rejoin into the Alliance, the order is not only working for the Admiralty and assisting the Dalaran Magiocracy but also assisting the Alliance through Warden Unit No. 4.

Consisting of an effective unit of soldiers, former mercenaries of convicts they form elite specialists working for the Admiralty and serving as its own military intelligence unit – such as the Stormwind Intelligence. They gather intel, observe and infiltrate with the only goal to capture and extract high-value targets, and imprison them with one of their three prisons: Sector 3 (Grounds), Sector 2** (“The Hole”) and Sector 1 (Baradin Hold).

The roleplay style is based around infiltration and covert as well as direct operations, drawing from where its least expected and letting no one or nothing stand in their way of the target.

We are both organizers and contributors for both small and large events. Internally for the guild’s training days and small operations, and externally by collaborating with other guilds on large events and campaigns. Our only exception for our member is for them to act as militants and follow military structure as much as the Warcraft Universe can provide, and also assist our allied guilds with assistance as much as we able to.

Basic Information:

  • OOC Guild Name: Baradin Warden
  • IC Guild Name: 4th Baradin Warden Unit
  • Faction: Alliance, Kul Tiran Admiralty
  • Type: Military Intelligence
  • Restrictions: No Death Knights & Demon Hunters
  • Mandatory Addons:
    • Total Roleplay 3
    • GB Radio
  • Base of Operations:
    • Tol Barad (Headquarter)
    • Boralus (Recruitment Office)
  • Contact Information:
    • Lysandré (Guild Leader)
    • Nadsie (Officer)

Useful Links:

  • Application Form: bit.ly/wardens_app
  • Argent Archives Page: bit.ly/wardens_archive

Background History

The Baradin Wardens was formed and once led by Duke Reginald Baradin the Second with the fierce army who hold historic ties to the island of Tol Barad. They joined forces with the Alliance in the effort to rebel against the Horde investors to gain control of the island, as it served as a crucial strategic point. The order was a collection of soldiers based on the island itself and bolstered their rands with mercenaries at many opportunities. The majority of the Wardens claimed ancestry from Stromgarde. The order settled against the Horde on the shores of Tol Barad in the past. Still, others speak of years of service to the magi of Kul Tiras, claiming that they were charged with ensuring that the deadly prisoners were locked away in the Baradin Hold to never again walk free on Azeroth.

Whether the people of Azeroth see this as a bravado, it remains true and had the effect of invoking the bloody history of the islands’ guardians which cannot be denied. The Baradin wardens are fiercely dedicated to their missions and sought aid from anyone willing to cross swords with the Horde armies scattered throughout the island of Tol Barad. The favours they extend to their Wardens are equally militant: Mighty battle standards, peerless weaponry and other assistance, all of which they hope will serve their continued goal of controlling the prison island once more. When the Baradin Hold was overthrown by the Horde it was in ruins and left abandoned. Prisoners roaming free and those few who were freed roamed free to be hunted by the Violet Eye. After the Horde and the Alliance left these shores and the island stood calm, the Kul Tiran Admiralty sought to claim and rebuilding the island, lock in the escaped prisoners and hunt those who successfully fled.

The Baradin Wardens rose now under the reign and control of the Admiralty, four units were formed. One to guard the lower parts of the prison, one to guard the grounds around, one to guard the Baradin Hold itself and one to track and capture the escaped prisoners, and transfer new ones to serve at Tol Barad to their days end.

After a riot within the prison, the extraction unit, known as the 4th Baradin Warden Unit stood on a stand-off along the three other units, their commanding officer, Captain Lukas-George Lysandré fell to an orc with its blade struck deep into his body. At this time, First-Director Juleen-Andrea Lysandré of 17th Platoon under the Stormwind Intelligence, known as the Covert Accord serving the Grand-Alliance had been relieved from service and was contacted by the Admiralty to serve in his brother’s place. With most of the 4th Unit’s fall to the riot, the new captain sought to reform and bolster her new unit into its primary purpose: To capture and imprison high valued targets of the Admiralty, the Alliance and the Kirin Tor on Tol Barad, and to let nothing stand in their way for their mission.

Ranking Order

Captain, Cpt. (Guild Leader)
Commanding Officer

  • Primary Functions: To deliver professional development and courses for the Wardens, and functions as the ultimate trainer for the unit, and charged with ensuring that the unit is always prepared to accomplish their operations
  • Secondary Functions: Charged with the ultimate financial authority of the unit to ensure its properly resourced, main strategy planning officer

Lieutenant, Lt. (Officers)
Secondary Commanding Officer

  • Primary Functions: Plan training for the Wardens, supervise and lead the unit into action through the use of order, and discipline
  • Secondary Functions: Assist the Captain with elaborate planning and structure building of the unit

Sergeant, Sgt. (High Ranked)
Squad Leader

  • Primary Functions: Keep up routines, training and equipment for the unit and get the Wardens in physical appearance, and fitness
  • Secondary Functions: To stand responsible for the personal lives of the Wardens and charged with ensuring that they are in order, or assist them to become so if an issue is identified

Corporal, Cpl. (Regular Ranked)
Secondary Squad Leader

  • Primary Functions: Keep responsibility for every aspect of the unit’s living ways as Wardens
  • Secondary Functions: To take care of the unit outside work, ensure that their personal lives are in order and provide the Wardens with assistance and resources if an issue is identified

Specialist , Spc. (Basic Ranked)
Specialized Initiate

  • Primary Functions: Ensure that the Initiates with the same speciality are trained, and to self-train to become a Corporal
  • Secondary Functions: To gain recognition as experts within their respective speciality and serve as such
  • Sub-Ranks:
    • Quarter Specialist (CQC), Qr. Spc.
    • Ranged Specialist, Rg. Spc.
    • Medical Specialist, Med. Spc.
    • Intelligence Specialist, Int. Spc.

Initiate, In. (Recruit)
Warden in Training

  • Primary Functions: To attend and perform basic training and begin to train towards their speciality, to become a Specialist
  • Secondary Functions: To learn how to follow orders, to execute these and complete their provided duties

Applicant (Unranked)
An individual who has not yet been initiated into the unit yet

Q&A (Questions and Answers)

“How do I join the guild?”

  • Fill out an Application Form which can be found under Useful Links at the top of the post, wait for a response from the officers through an in-game and in-character mail. At this point, you will receive an out-of-character invite to the guild as an Applicant
  • Attend to the guild’s recruitment day every Sunday at the recruitment office in Boralus

“How do promotions function?”

  • Promotions are based on your merit and skills in-character as well as out-of-character
  • This is to see how well your roleplay experience is and to see how you are as a person when not roleplaying

“Do you have uniforms?”

  • We do not have official uniforms, other than the Baradin Wardens tabard
  • The only we thing we demand is for you to have a matching transmog to the tabard which we do not mind helping with acquiring

If there are any further questions, contact any of the officers or the guild leader in-game, or post a question in the comments below.

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You were leading a very successful non-plagiarised SI:7 guild, weren’t you, Lysandre? Why would you need to ask OOC in what guild character was? Can’t you find out all by yourself?

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Hah, if I just had the same power as an SI:7 in real life, sure! Thought it’s more to insure that we don’t guild snipe or by other means is able to contact their former guild leader, should there be any issues (OOC wise; drama queens, lollers, god-emoting, meta-gaming, etc.) with the new member.

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Here are two questions from me, someone who isn’t that well informed. However…

  1. Why and how did < SI Covert Accord > die/get disbanded? History usually tends to repeat itself and I’m sure potential members should be aware of that.
  2. … If, say, one of your members suddenly turned out to be a “loller, metagamer, yada-yada”, then what’d you do with that “Previous guild” part of the application? It’s not like GMs are parents, they are not going to lock up their ‘child’ in a room if they behave ~~ like Sylvanas~~ morally grey and turn out to be a questionable person. If I was a member of SW Commandos and came to you, turning out to be a cancerous loller, who spends 50% of his time in Goldshire IC, I highly doubt you’d hit up Arthedun and say “Hey, Crowton’s such a bad child. Please punish him.”
    That’s an exaggeration, but the gist is easy to understand.
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Short version: Miscommunication and misunderstandings. My guild ran great and most of my former members realized later that I wasn’t the bad apple. If you want an elaborated story, please do message me in private.

It’s not about the previous guild leader to act as parents, it’s more a way for me to see where you come from as I know how these guilds work (not in detail, but enough). If for instance – as you mentioned, the SW Commandos came to me, I’d observe the member myself to see if it is actually truthful or not.

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Couple of issues with this one.

First off, intelligence and front line combat don’t mix. In a massive division perhaps yes; you’d have a G2/J2 arm responsible for not only the acquisition of intelligence via ground/air/ISTAR assets, but you’d also see companies taken from different specialist regiments such as the signals & logistics corps with specific duties such as comms interference and cartography. In the same company? Absolutely not.

Companies are companies (and they’ve existed since long before professional armies, we’re talking 14th/15th Century at least) because they are what’s known as a natural-sized unit. Your company commander, in most cases a major/captain (knight-commander or knight-captain in WoW), is actually able to recognise his men personally at company size (typically 100-135 men) and more importantly they will recognise him in turn. This facilitates seamless command as rankers are far more likely to follow the orders of officers they recognise from training and experience than those with rank slides but whose faces they have never seen.

To this effect, companies are strictly formed of the same specialisation. Even in the early ages of pike and shot warfare in the 1580s when you had halberdiers, archers, pikemen and arquebusiers in the same company, they were all infantry. Companies are simply too small to divide into even two front-line specialisations i.e. infantry and cavalry, let alone having half the company devoted to military intelligence for some bizarre reason.

Aside from that, your chain of command has gone askew in a few places. Private soldiers are trained soldiers (the only exception to this being the modern US Army where trainees hold the paygrade E-1 and must first earn their ‘mosquito wings’ as an E-2 before being considered fully trained) and they do in fact have certain duties rather than ‘following orders’ as it was so delicately put. Additionally, Specialist and Corporal should be the other way around, as it is the allure of a possible specialist/NCO career that typically keeps private soldiers in the army. From private rank soldiers should expect to either pick up advanced skills or a trade in Phase 2 training or at battalion where they can then earn better pay as a specialist, or pass through some sort of PJNCO/JCC/SCB course to climb up the ranking ladder.

Corporals should really be your main team leaders, with specialists in senior roles within those teams. Sergeants should be acting as senior non-commissioned officers and platoon second-in-commands to your lieutenants who are your first commissioned officers and battlefield platoon leaders (as you are apparently a full company) while your captain can technically fulfill the officer commanding role, though ideally should be a subaltern behind a major (or knight-commander in WoW terms).

Overall I get the strong sense - while the Baradin’s Wardens concept is definitely interesting and a good niche to explore - that you’ve just kind of crammed your previous guild into a military template and run with it.

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If you should offer some advice of change or tweeks, what would you want to change?

On that note, my former guild was also para-military intelligence, and it worked out just fine. But thank you!

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Choose either Baradin Intelligence or Baradin Infantry, one of the two, in terms of baseline concept. If you want to roleplay a company, make it one of the two and stick to it rather than combining them.

In terms of the rest:

  • Hammer down your rank roles properly:
  1. Captain is the company commander, responsible for strategic operational command and personnel, logistics, public relations, operations planning & training administration
  2. Lieutenants are your platoon leaders, responsible for strategic command and control at platoon level and personnel administration at platoon level
  3. Sergeants are your platoon senior non-commissioned officers, responsible for the direction and supervision of all junior non-commissioned officers within the platoon plus communications linkage/control deference from the platoon commander down to the individual teams/squads/sections
  4. Corporals are your team/squad/section leaders, responsible for tactical command and control on an individual level within their details & the retention and acclimatisation of new recruits
  5. Specialists are senior enlisted personnel and act as a point of call for more junior enlisted in order to allow your teams to develop properly; they typically also manifest skills such as sappers, combat team medics, weapon technicians etc.
  6. Privates are fully-trained personnel and should be given as much detail and attention as the higher ranks in terms of career development, varied training in multiple situations and generally should function as the meat and potatoes of your company as opposed to a rank that just ‘follows orders’ - that doesn’t help anybody at all and is no incentive for anybody to join whatsoever.
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That really depends on what army you are looking at. I wouldn’t necessarily debate the differences between various NATO* countries and how they are structured, but I will say that there are multiple levels of junior NCOs, which differs from official NCOs. An example - OF1-2 ranks for the UK are exactly the same (to my knowledge), yet in some other countries those are 2 different ranks and answer specific duties, depending on the section/platoon/company overall.

As for what ranks to be used with the implementation that into WoW terms - I would say that there is no need to create a wheel, when there is already a motorcycle, therefore using standard Alliance military ranks would fit just as well for any military guild.

note* - I used NATO simply because I do not want to endlessly debate which rank is what in comparison to other countries in the world. Ranking structures are all different, not only in the army.

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Most of the examples I give in my posts tend to be from the British Army (as that is where the bulk of my experience comes from) but I also draw parallels from the US and Norwegian armies from time to time. When giving critique on guild concepts however, I try to steer away from focusing on any particular armed forces as WoW itself is not a real world country. I instead try to give a comprehensive view based on the logic that ties all the world’s armed forces together, and that’s what I’m doing here with that particular point.

A Corporal is a non-commissioned officer in almost all cases. Yes, some armies have intermediate ranks such as Lance Corporal, Lance Sergeant etc. but those all also function as NCOs. Specialist is not an NCO rank, it is a rank primarily used in the US Army in the modern day to denote an experienced private soldier with additional skills who has completed a series of extra training courses. Their authority comes from experience.

Sure, the same could be said of NCOs, but the main difference is that a corporal must go through a specific command course in order to obtain their rank (called a variety of things from Potential Junior NCO Course, Junior Command Course and Section Commander’s Battle Course depending on where you’re from) whereas a Specialist does not have to do this.

Translating down from the old Roman concept of ‘imperium’, the quality allowing a politician or general to command the full weight of the state’s authority, all armies serving a monarch (as the majority in WoW do) ‘borrow’ their authority directly from that monarch. Commissioned officers are commissioned directly by the monarch (hence the name) when they graduate their academy and start as ensigns/cornets/second lieutenants/sub-lieutenants/whatever rather than going up through the ranks. Warrant officers hold a similar document called a warrant allowing them to act as an extension of the monarch’s authority in their field. Non-commissioned officers however inherit their authority directly from the commissioned officer leading their regiment, battalion, company or platoon and thus must qualify on paper as a leader of men to be considered an NCO. Specialists do not do this and thus cannot be officially considered leaders, definitely not above a Corporal at the very least.

Apologies for cluttering the guild thread with jargon and senseless information, but I like to fully justify my points and give the supporting information necessary to back up my claims and statements. Hope it’s useful in the long run.

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In some cases, corporal IS a specialist rank, therefore making rank itself just some rank-and-file type of enlisted soldiers. In some cases, corporal IS something one could call “Section’s Second in Command”, but yet that also depends if he passed a series of extra training courses and w/e that can qualify him as an authoritative figure/be a part of the chain of command.

All in all, it’s just different and I just high-key agree with your points regarding WO and overall CO. :pray:

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Yeah totally, I can’t recall off the top of my head any armies where that’s the case, but I’m pretty sure some light cavalry/dragoon regiments that use WMIKs in the modern day use corporal outside of its NCO context. That’s certainly the case.

My argument’s more to do with this guild in particular. If we’re using corporals and specialists both as team leaders for different purposes, there’s no example of that anywhere. They shouldn’t be in that order either.

If OP is dead set on using a rank to denote a team leader for a specialist team, the best available rank is technical corporal which fulfills the same role and isn’t so much of a logic fart/eyesore on the chain of command.

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Let me understand this correctly:

  1. Your advice would be to either for me to chose to be an infantry or an intelligence unit, correct?
  2. Removal of either the Specialist or the Corporal rank, or change their setting?
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No clue what the past of the OP specifically was, but I’ve something to say on the matter.

Are you really going to debate RL ranks for a video game? I know many Stormwind guilds like basing their entire existence around how modern armies operate/people wave around their ‘I’ve been in the military’, but how about a shed of fantasy in a fantasy universe?

Debating terminologies and especially numbers comes across as quite pedantic and makes me wonder: do you go around all the guilds on AD that are considered ‘good’ but actually have about 15-20 active members and tell them ‘No sir, you can’t be X made-up rank, because you need 173 people in order to realistically claim that’.

How about we don’t use things like ‘Technical Corporal’ and just use plain old ‘Knight’?

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Yep, it just makes sense at the operational level of a company or platoon.

You don’t need to remove either. Just move Specialist below Corporal and flesh it out as more of an advanced private soldier rank; with some additional trade experience i.e. medic, operative, sapper. It’s almost a ‘veteran’ rank. Corporal should be your team leader.

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Wrong character above #ThanksNewForums lol

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I think you’re missing the point. It’s incredibly easy to look at all the advanced information and just say ‘wow stop using RL stuff Warcraft isn’t RL’ - trust me, we all start somewhere and that’s exactly where my first military guilds came from and let me tell you they were absolute piles of trash.

I do not advocate that people copy things from real life. Footman doesn’t; I don’t. You have to understand however that what makes good fantasy is an appreciation of the natural consequence of the development of civilisation/society and the incorporation of that into a fantasy setting to give it relatability and logic. Tolkien, for example. His languages are so fantastically in-depth and realistic because Sindarin for example was based on Welsh with advanced research into the development of tenses, cases, vowel harmony and consonant gradation so as to give as detailed a fantasy language as possible and that gave his works depth and sincerity.

We do the same. It’s so amazingly simple to just nab the vanilla PvP ranks and lob a load of people in the Stormwind transmog into lines and give out some vague orders, but it’s that vacuous and shallow approach that has earned military RP its horrible reputation for lacklustre RP. In order to provide something that truly lives and breathes like an actual working military force, you simply need to invest yourself in understanding how and why the world’s real militaries developed.

There is a reason for every rank, every size of unit, every division and every procedure. That’s how armies develop from their earliest days as feudal levies to the professional line infantry of the 18th/19th Centuries into the modern industrialised forces we see today. I take a harsh stance against anybody who criticises the use of historical/real world terminology and influence in the military niche because it shows a complete lack of foresight and willingness to research in order to develop something to the requisite level of detail to portray an accurate and appropriate army unit of any denomination.

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Gotcha! I’ll see what changes I can make out of your advice. Thank you!

… Damn this new forum is something you need to get used to!

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Calm down fancypants. All I’m really seeing is a lot of nitpicking. While I appreciate taking inspiration and basing things on real occurrences (and I do agree with it), I definitely don’t agree with all the terminology flying around because there’s one point which I can say is definitely wrong from experience:

If you want to fool yourself into believing that copying RL ranks has any potent degree of influence over storytelling, then I’m only going to call that ‘your opinion’. Storytelling, intricate or not, requires the reader and those interested to be able to understand what’s happening. It is the absolute basic anyone who has either studied or even at the very least Googled how writing works: don’t introduce your reader to a lot of information that they don’t understand. While you might definitely pride yourself on researching, reading, or being in the military, many people will not care to research every aspect of it just so they can RP with you.

I appreciate and use a lot of detail in my RP, and definitely will encourage others to do the same. However there is a firm and solid line between accuracy and creativity, and roleplay is based on the later. Terminology is something you definitely cannot push as a granted; I’ll call my paladin a ‘Captain’ even though he’s just leading five people (I don’t, but that’s another matter).

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It’s not fancy. It’s authentic. That’s my approach to military roleplay and it reflects my style of roleplay in general. If I’m performing a part in a play I’ll do my research and try and get as close as possible in a realistic sense. That’s simply my style. I don’t think that terminology is the key. I think that research and understanding of military processes and constructs contributes to a solid foundation from which to build your story within an authentic military experience - otherwise what’s the point of being a military guild or institution? It’s just research, man; you’re not obliged to throw technical corporal around at every opportunity to big yourself up. Just do a bit of background on what you’re trying to pull off.

In terms of style I (for example) much prefer free emoting to any sort of D20 system, but I don’t criticise those who prefer D20 systems. I do however take umbrage when people criticise free emoting and that’s why I’m being a fancypants. Just because you don’t personally see the benefit to introducing authenticity to a military setting doesn’t mean you need to criticise freely given critique or nitpicking for being inappropriate - there’s no telling what style the OP is going for here and as a matter of fact they seem to have taken these fancypantsisms on board, seeming to appreciate the added information to help base their guild a little more in real practice. What’s the issue with that?

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