The Chain of Avalas

Who Are The Chain of Avalas?

  A mercenary company. Career soldiers. Legends claim they are one of the Four Legions of Acheron. Collectively known as the Helltroopers…but legends say a lot. They arrived in Ceramet 15 years ago after being absent for centuries, travelling and working on various other planes.

What Do They Do?

  They are an army for hire. Rich and powerful figures pay them to be an army when they have none, or defeat an army in rebellion.

• A powerful figure loses a war and their army, but still has money; hire the Chain.
• A small country with resources fears predation by a larger country; hire the Chain.
• A leader fights a distant war, leaving their home undefended; hire the Chain.
• The government tries to shut a powerful guild down. The guild hires the Chain.
• A military leader rebels, taking the army with them. The nation hires the Chain.

It’s pretty typical for the people who hire the Chain to try and avoid paying them when the bill comes due. The Chain is used to this. Once you’ve hired the Chain to put down a rebellion you find having a professional army occupying your capital city gives you few options.

Who Joins The Chain?

  People with no options who need to escape their past. The life of a professional soldier is unglamorous with little reward. Some few save their meager pay and escape to retire somewhere, but many is the story of the retired soldier who returns to the fold after finding there’s nothing for them in the world outside the camaraderie of the Chain.   The Chain are famous for being an organization people join to disappear, to be forgotten. If you had any other options, you’d take them rather than join the Chain. Criminals escaping their past, lovers caught sleeping with the spouse of a powerful noble, innocent people framed for crimes they didn’t commit, heretics, political dissidents. One thing that unites the soldiers of the Chain; they can’t go home again.  

So How Does It End?

  For the soldiers of the Chain, redemption is found in the Chronicle. The tomes of history kept by the Chain’s Chroniclers down through the centuries. They win battles, they lose them, but their deeds are recorded in the Chronicles and this is immortality. If a soldier features prominently in the tale of a great battle, they feel they can die happy.   The reverse is also true. The officers of the Chain brook little disobedience, but the greatest punishment is to be spoken badly of in the Chronicle. The Chronicle echoes through eternity. In dire times, the Chronicler finds inspiration in the stories of their predecessor, often reading from the Chronicle aloud to inspire the troops.   The Chronicle is also a powerful tome of lore. Nothing that happens to the current alumni is new; the answer to any new conundrum can be found in the Chronicle.