In the bowels of the Fox’s Den, four soldiers pulled at their Redridge Fox brooches. Pondering the fate of an insignificant unit with would-be undue attention. Would-be. But for-
‘Lordaeron, Stromgarde, Darkshore, Teldrassil-’ said the first officer.
‘Zandalar-’ the second.
‘Kul Tiras-’ third.
‘Not to mention sustained campaigns beyond the Span.’
‘The Burning Legion.’
‘And a wounding war before that.’
The maelstrom of dust returned to its usual barracks in the cracks of the oak table. Their first flurry of conversation, and it had only been about what a sorry state the regiment was in.
‘As if that were the worst of it – now the roaming undead to deal with.’
A gold-cladded shoulder rolled. ‘Dire circumstances. Question is what to do about it…’
Even the dust sat up, the room tautening.
‘The Hybrid Platoon’s Section I is a success.’
One officer swung back in her chair, saying, ‘What, the cannon-fodder?’
A wry smile. ‘It seems giving fifteen untrained peasants the Fox’s brooch with a promise of “learn on-the-job” peacekeeping, maintenance and alien-threat duties still passes muster.’
‘Or standards have slackened.’
‘Whatever it is,’ said the third, ‘they’re risk-free for us. Underpaid, underfed, underqualified. Then they thank us for the privilege! The honour to serve, they say. Indeed.’
Nodding, the commander replied, ‘Problem being, they must have a corporal.’
‘Unenviable task,’ the third snorted. ‘Who would want to have their pay packet determined by how well they can marshal a bunch of lay-abouts into order?’
‘Have we any war-weary veterans?’
‘Abundantly. None of them want the job.’
‘How did we poach the corporal for Section I? What’s he like?’
‘Oh, a middling, dependable sort of chap. Aware he’ll never make commission, aware he’ll find nothing better than the Fox’s brooch nonetheless. Exceedingly average, I should say, which is perfect for a footman.’
‘A veteran?’
‘A veteran.’
‘How did we manage to get him?’
The commander stood up. ‘His wife had a baby at home, with another on the way. More regular periods at home was his primary motivation.’
As if this wasn’t part of the script, the three officers blinked candidly at the fourth man who had thus far said nothing. An exceedingly average man with a heavily pregnant wife and too much self-awareness. He smiled the smile of a martyr.
Days later, Corporal Peter Drury was seen marching the streets of Stormwind, chuntering about “silver-linings” and “seeing the kids more.”
Good evening all!
I led with a story to introduce my new guild, The Redridge Foxes, because it summed up what I’m going for.
The Redridge Foxes is a fictitious regiment within the Stormwind Army. There is no strong regional link to Redridge, though traditions exist.
Why a regiment?
First, I intend to bring the administrative aspect of a regiment alive through a rolling system. Each week, a series of rolls will determine whether Section II’s treasury, armaments and food are insufficient, sufficient or surplus. On downtimes, the main RP arc of that week will be dealing with any problems (or benefits) the rolls throw up. When on campaign/deployment, it will be an essential side-plot. What it means is the Foxes will log online and always be able to contribute to something.
Second, I want to harness a competitive ethos. The first aspect of this will involve DM’ing/NPC’ing the elusive Section I of the Hybrid Platoon. They’re better-paid, better-equipped, better-respected; all because they answered their draft sheets before you did. The second aspect will work between the players. New recruits will be ordered into ‘Cells,’ denoted by blue or red headbands.
Combat system
Combat events is not all you can expect as a Fox, but naturally they play a big part. To emulate real combat situations for units and individuals, there are two modifiers: stand-alone and in formation. It is complex but basically: inexperienced Foxes are debuffed when standing alone, buffed when in formation; experienced Foxes have reversed modifiers, as when in formation their martial experience gives way to command roles.
So you have to think about your actions. Should the Greenhorn be sent to scout ahead, risking standing-alone? Is it worth sending your most experienced Fox and losing some of your buff for in formation combat? If you spot something suspicious, would you investigate alone or buddy up?
What to expect
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Character-driven military RP.
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A feeling of being part of something larger - a Regiment.
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“Fun” or light RP, drinking and doing stupid things as “team building.”
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Heavy military RP. People will probably be killed, maimed or just go missing.
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A beasting. No military, even in the modern world, avoids this; these days they call it “character building.” My suggestion is don’t make characters too similar to yourself in real life.
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Individualism. You aren’t just a number, events aren’t just raid markers. The highest character you will regularly come in contact with is a Corporal, so if you fancy doing something (maybe to mitigate a poor Roll for food/armaments/treasury,) do it. Corporal can’t tell you off if Lieutenant told you to do it off-screen. Hopefully.
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Less training, more doing. Training can be dull with lots of standing around. Since it is necessary at times, I promise to try make it fun.
What I expect
- No ERP.
- Strong characters - you don’t always have to agree with each other.
- Accept that OOC is OOC and IC is IC. Corporal Drury will not be nice to you. I’ll stay clear of any of the -isms and -phobias but there will be swearing and mockery.
- Make your own RP. Already mentioned above, but it’s worth noting I’m not here to spoonfeed you RP.
- Be active. It’ll be your main character, for reasons soon mentioned.
- Simple characters with little/no combat experience
- Characters who can grow, but quickly. If you want to play an underbelly thug you can, but the thug won’t intimidate Corporal Drury. In fact, any back chat and you’d be lobbed out for the next lackey willing to take your place. To avoid wasting all of our time, just… don’t be edgy. You’re a thug/farmer being beasted by a veteran.
Recruitment
I’m opening up 8 slots for training. Inactivity stands out like a sore thumb here, hence importance of commitment.
Right now, I’m busy (exams coming up.) However, I have opened recruitment because I am still playing. I’d like to grab the core membership, engage in some social RP to build that camaraderie, then dive in.
The process for joining will be an OOC chat about your visions for the guild, what vibe you get. Next will be an IC meeting where we will check your character’s compatibility.
Human Paladins and Warriors only, for now. No Kul Tiran humans, they’re cartoonishly big and look silly in the armour I’ve chosen. Also, point me to any NPC in the SW Army that is not a normal Human model with a sword-and-board, I’ll point you to 20 that are. We are generic and uniform; there are other guilds if you don’t want that.
Contact
So, that’s everything! Thanks for reading. If you’re interested, drop my character Drury an in-game letter or /w me and we can go from there.