Quartz 5

Gilded Requiem

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Gilded Requiem

Gilded Requiem is a renowned mercenary company - sellswords and heroes for hire - known across the five lands. They have been hired personally by kings and monarchs and have fought beside legendary heroes such as Achilius Clint, Gale Lightningold, and Ventura Estaban. Their seat is the fortress called the Argent Citadel.

History

The company was founded in 1487 by Dalil, then only twenty, as a simple band looking to profit from the Trident War - the three-way conflict between Jaknia, Clairnia, and the Theocracy over the borderlands of the Hub (1480–1491). It quickly grew into a well-structured, efficient outfit that excelled at capitalizing on regional conflicts.

When the War of Horrors began, Dalil wrestled with the wrongness of profiting from a war for the world’s survival, and struck a new balance: the company would still seek pay, but would also take poorly-paid “odd jobs” that aided the war effort. Over the years Gilded Requiem fought Horrors and fiend cults, brought relief to villages behind enemy lines, and evacuated besieged towns. They undertook personal quests for monarchs - rescuing the Clairnian king’s daughter from besieged Athens, rooting out a cell of Horror-sympathizers within the Lexalian army, and recovering the legendary Arackle of Siljameer Varooste for the High Management of the Jaknian Conglomerate. Their name appears in more bard-songs than any other mercenary company.

In 1537, a routine scouting operation went wrong: ambushed by a covert band of Horrors and their summoned fiends, the company barely won - and Dalil fell, and by his religious beliefs could not be raised. His death shook Gilded Requiem to its foundations. Gabriel was chosen to lead, but several members felt Dalil could not be replaced and departed, and over the following year more left, doubting Gabriel’s untested command. By 1538 the company had shrunk to just five active members rattling around the Argent Citadel, and whispers had begun that Gilded Requiem might soon sing its own requiem.

The Tyrfing Quest

That fate was averted by a single, world-famous deed. Gilded Requiem was approached by the Valkyrie Kaura - companion of Achilius Clint (rumor, unconfirmed, holds the two are lovers) and a member of the revived New Fiend Hunters. Kaura had lost Tyrfing, a legendary sword that can kill any creature it cuts; a fiend had stolen it and borne it into Mictlān. She and the company agreed to venture into the hells to retrieve it, and to do so they ultimately slew Banark, the Archfiend of Despair, one of Temeria’s generals. The deed won them world fame, a feast in Valhalla, and close ties with both the New Fiend Hunters and the Norse Pantheon.

Members

  • Gabriel - the current leader; raised by the company, secretly a Horror.
  • Augrot Silvermane - half-ogre champion, descendant of the Fiend Hunter Yaroub Silvermane.
  • Anigma - goblin trapsmith and trickster.
  • Zholk - bugbear, a former knight of the Masked Bastion.
  • Mùchén - cleric of Freya, the company’s “Caged Flame.”

Appendix

Organizations

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