THE POWERS · THE VALE

The Marrow Lances

The free company every power in the Vale hires and none of them trusts — the neutral sword, and the martial player's door. In the Lean Years, when no house can keep a standing army, the Lances are the army everyone rents: escorts, garrisons, sieges, and the work too bloody to put a name to.

Steel is honest, the Lances say, and they mean it the way a blade means it: it goes where the coin points. They garrison no cause but the contract, which is exactly why House Vandahl, the toll-takers, the merchant syndicates, and every petty power on the make have all paid them — and why each suspects the Lances of carrying the others' secrets. In a frontier the empire abandoned, with raiders pressing out of the cold passes and no crown to call the muster, the company that holds the roads and the walls holds real power, and they know it. Their whole worth is a single brittle thing: their word. Lately that word has a crack in it, and the crack has a name.

KIND

guild

PLAYSTYLE

martial

HEADQUARTERS

The Marrowhall

LEADER

Captain Sevrin Vossk

Connected

The Old LancesFACTION · The oathbound veteran cell — the company's spine.The Broken LancesFACTION · The mutinous wing rotting inside the company.Captain Sevrin VosskCHARACTER · Vossk is Lance-Captain, holding the cracked word tog…Quartermaster AddaCHARACTER · Quartermaster and keeper of the oath-ledger.HrolfCHARACTER · The blademaster drills Lances for hire — the neutral…The MarrowhallPLACE · The company seats at the Marrowhall above Highbridge…

Type Fields

kindguild

playstylemartial

skillsLong Blade, Short Blade, Blunt, Axe, Spear, Block

headquartersplace.the-marrowhall

leadercharacter.sevrin-vossk

joinableyes

relic_stancemercenary — the Lances will guard any cargo, relic or grain, for whoever pays; the contract decides, never a creed

cellsfaction.the-old-lances, faction.the-broken-lances

signature_gearitem.the-oathblade

signature_techniqueconcept.the-marrow-oath

ranks{"name":"Sworn","unlocks":"the Marrow-Oath rite; basic drill from hrolf-blademaster; a bunk in the Marrowhall"}, {"name":"Lance","unlocks":"contract work; Long Blade & Block training to journeyman"}, {"name":"Blooded Lance","unlocks":"the muster-yard armory; Blunt training under marn-the-breaker"}, {"name":"Serjeant","unlocks":"lead a hand of Lances; vote at muster; the Lance Wall technique"}, {"name":"Lance-Lieutenant","unlocks":"negotiate contracts; access the oath-ledger (who's been bought)"}, {"name":"Captain","unlocks":"master Blade & Guard; a company under your name"}, {"name":"Lance-Captain","unlocks":"command of the whole company; a seat in the Marrowhall's inner counsel"}, {"name":"Iron Marrow","unlocks":"the Lances follow your word over the contract — the rank that can refuse a paymaster"}, {"name":"Lance-General","unlocks":"muster every hand the company holds to a single war"}, {"name":"Marrow-Lord","unlocks":"the free company is yours, root and steel; the Marrowhall answers to no one else"}

goalsKeep the word that is the company's only asset, Take every contract; favor none, Cut out the Broken Lances before the crack runs through

valuesthe contract, the company, honest steel

axis_profile{"method":0.6,"law":0.2,"fortune":0.3,"mercy":0.2}

disputes{"name":"The Broken Crack","summary":"The Broken Lances were company men once, and half the Marrowhall still knows their names. The captains want the splinter cut out — hunted down before 'ex-Lance' means 'bandit' in every mouth on the road; the old sworn say you don't send Lances to kill Lances, you send them an offer.","sides":["cut them out (the company's word dies if the road fears its castoffs)","buy them back (an offer first; steel after)"]}, {"name":"The Refusal","summary":"Take every contract, favor none — the company's law, and the reason every power trusts its neutrality. But the Lean Years bring contracts that would break the Vale itself, and only the rank of Iron Marrow can refuse a paymaster. Whether that privilege should sit with one rank or with the muster vote is the Marrowhall's oldest standing argument.","sides":["the contract is the contract (neutrality is the only asset)","widen the Refusal (let the muster vote down a ruinous paymaster)"]}

All Relationships (42)

member_of

←The Old Lances — The oathbound veteran cell — the company's spine.
←The Broken Lances — The mutinous wing rotting inside the company.
←Quartermaster Adda — Quartermaster and keeper of the oath-ledger.
←Hrolf — The blademaster drills Lances for hire — the neutral sword's neutral teacher.
←Reddin Vasa — A freshly-sworn Lance.
←Bralen the Grey — Thirty years in the company.
←Free-Company Blades — The blades, sellswords, and captains are the Marrow Lances' working steel — fought when a contract turns them on you.
←Ellery Coss — [former_member] character.ellery-coss → faction.the-marrow-lances
←Korga Ren — Korga fights under the Marrow Lances' banner.
←Quartermaster Dask Orr — Dask is the Marrow Lances' quartermaster.
←Pell Varsk — Pell is a green Marrow Lances recruit.
←Vell Osgrim — Vell is a serving officer of the Marrow Lances.
←Reza the Tollwright — Reza is a Marrow-Lance serjeant, assigned to hold the Eastern Crags barrow road.
←Oathblade-Captain Berru Andas — Berru Andas holds a Marrow Lances contract-captain rank, commanding the Keep gate garrison.
←The Broken Lances — The Broken Lances are the mutinous rot inside the Marrow Lances — technically still members, working the inside to sell contracts out.

leads

←Captain Sevrin Vossk — Vossk is Lance-Captain, holding the cracked word together.

located_in

→The Marrowhall — The company seats at the Marrowhall above Highbridge.
→Highbridge — The Marrow Lances keeps a seat/branch at Highbridge.
→Sresh-Dar — The Marrow Lances keeps a seat/branch at Sresh-Dar.
→The Driftmarket — The Marrow Lances keeps a seat/branch at the Driftmarket.
→Valenfeld — The Marrow Lances keeps a seat/branch at Valenfeld.
←Hollow-Pines Camp — The Marrow Lances use Hollow-Pines Camp as their northern staging point for escort contracts up toward the foothills.
→The Drowned Lances — The spear-shafts standing in the ice at the Drowned Lances mark where a Marrow Lances escort went under the bog mud in a bad winter — the company's worst unlucky dead.

references

→The Marrow-Oath — The rite the whole company's worth rests on.
→The Wright's Shard — The mercenary swing-sword of the Barrow Relic fork — they'll guard it for anyone.
←A Guild Writ — The boilerplate that the free company's own oath-charter is cut from — standing earned, dues owed, deed witnessed.
←A Smith's Primer — Field-gear wisdom — 'the cuirass you can still run in after the third hour' — that the free company lives or dies by.
→The Korl — The Marrow Lances hire Korl backs and reach — a Korl swings iron a settler can barely lift.
←The Bought Oath-Horn — The company's own muster-horn, sounded to call a wing to its sworn work.
←The High Moot — When the Marrow Lances need Korl backs for a contract they must come up the trail and treat with the Moot as a people, not buy a giant or two over a fire — Brunda names the price, the cause, and the holds that will answer, or sends the captain back down empty-handed.
→The Lean Years — The free companies are the Lean Years' war made a business — powers too poor to keep standing armies hire the neutral sword, and the sword sells to whoever is still solvent.
←The Korl Greatblade — The Marrow Lances want the Korl greatblade for a Vale contract they will not specify — Korl-forged iron is not made now and this is the only known deposit outside of living Korl ownership.
←The Last Banner Stone — The Marrow Lances use the Last Banner Stone as an open-air contract ground — a rusted socket and a view of the vale is court enough for steel-work.

rival_of

→The Finders — The Lances are paid to guard what the Finders are paid to steal.

enemy_of

←The Greycloaks — The Greycloaks raid the very caravans the Lances are paid to guard; the company hunts them for free to keep the roads worth hiring on.
←The Korl War-Band — The disciplined Korl of the Marrow Lances despise the War-Band's raiding and break it where the contracts pay.
←The Redhook Crew — Captain Vossk of the Marrow Lances pays out of the company purse to clear the Redhook crew off the Vale road.
←The Frostmaw Brood — The Marrow Lances lost a company to the passes the Brood dens; they no longer send men up alone.

owns

→The Marrowring — The Lances built it as a mustering yard and keep it as a business — spectacle tolls better than war.
→The Arena — The Arena's games are the Marrow Lances' recruiting-floor and betting-house tie.
←Marrow-Lance Toll Token — The Marrow-Lance Toll Token is the Marrow Lances' road-access credential for the barrow road.

guards

→Hollow-Pines Camp — The Marrow Lances hold the Tollwright's Camp in the Eastern Crags and the Hollow-Pines Camp in the Northern Reach — the same horse-lords pressing south out of the cold, claiming the passes between two regions for their tolls.

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