The Army in the Sight

[Zevka]

Someone was asking me a lot about the scary giant army that Nire is obsessed with. I decided to post it here so asnot to give any one person extra info.

Nire's homeland was conquered and largely destroyed by a cult/religion/army called the Army in the Sight (AitS). They inflicted massive damage and death, before abruptly and for no obvious reason turning around and leaving. Nire fled to Mossflower, but is terrified that the AitS will show up in Mossflower and destroy his life again. It's given him a nihilistic streak, even as he seeks to recreate his homeland's gladiator games, where he worked as a carpenter and craftsbeast before the AItS showed up.

The Army in the Sight is part of a larger religion. They worship a single god who lives deep underground, and who demands that they conquer the known world for him so he can return and resume ruling the world as a paradise. Their devil figure is a storm god who lives in the sky.

The AItS is massive by Mossflower standards, and different units are scattered around the wider world. They have great warriors and good weapons, but AItS fighters are famous for their recklessness, and are sometimes ill-equipped to deal with organized, competent resistance. The faith was founded by steppe dwellers who had never seen any body of water larger than a creek, and have often experienced severe difficulty crossing large bodies of water. Mountains can also be an issue for them.

Most AItS soldiers are herbivores -- its founders were mostly hares and rabbits -- but there is no rule against carnivores converting and joining. Their main language is close to but not exactly like that spoken in Mossflower, and the script it is written in looks different. They do not fully understand the whole woodlander/Vermin concept, which is foreign to them. Members tend to be in good physical shape and ferocious warriors, but substance abuse problems are very common -- they do not consider this to be wrong if it promotes being better fighters. Fighters tend the re brave but reckless, and the AitS is known to sometimes do some fairly foolish things on the battlefield that a more cautious combatant would easily know to avoid.  There are fighters from many different lands. Converts are always accepted, but there is a bias in favor of those born into the faith. Promotion is based on piety as my h as on military effectiveness -- a deeply devout or inspired member may rise through the ranks mostly on that basis alone.

The leader of the religion, the Drezh (means 'key') lives far away in the steppes were the AitS was born. Unbeknownst to Nire, the AItS section that conquered his homeland left because a Drezh died, and the election of the new Drezh required many far-flung commanders to return to where the faith was born.