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Dwelling Dragonlord -> RE: (AQ/DF) Legacy of Blood (1/4/2013 18:11:13)
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CHAPTER XXI: Places of Shadow
Also more background information to the setting.
You glorify the idea of juvenile heroes, I'd suggest you pay a visit to the Ulgathi boot camps.
spoiler:
The Ulgathi are born warriors, unlike humans, as they had to adapt to a hostile climate. An Ulgathi knows that the odds of reaching the age of fourty are slim, bigger is the chance of dying in the war with humans, elves, trolls or dragons. This hostile climate has made for a strict militairy hierarchy.
Any Ulgathi at the age of 10 is drafted into the militairy service of his or her tribe. Some tribes make exceptions to women, others do not discriminate. These greenhorns are footsoldiers and continue to be called as such until they have reached the count of twenty battles or the age of twenty, whatever comes first. Most of them do not make it to carry a sword or crossbow and perish before that.
Footsoldiers are first sent to a boot camp, which includes a lot of push-ups, boxing and brawling. A few select with promise are allowed to train in the ways of the "Fist of the Troll Club", a Martial Art which revolves around dealing powerful blows at the cost of accuracy.
An Ulgathi can only be excused from joining the footsoldiers if he or she is gifted in the art of magic. Of course, this path is frowned upon as it is to give up honorary combat and thus most Ulgathi do not take this path even when they are proficient in magic. Those that do become mages are either more pacifistic or protective of their tribes. As such, they train in the creation of magical wards and barriers. Some of these mages become priests, but Ulgathi are not very religious. Some worshipped the Light Lord, until the Paladins brought war to their doorstep and others worship the Fire Lord, but Akriloth's destructive path has made many an Ulgathi, not bent on war and chaos, wonder what sort of god would make such a creature act as his champion.
Another option is to provide weaponry or food for the tribe, the more warlike and chaotic tribes may send out raids to do this, but Ulgathi miners, blacksmiths (this includes working with technology), farmers, fishermen and beastmasters are not unheard of.
The Ulgathi armies are indirectly led by the chieftains through generals who have survived enough battles to attain the rank of swordsman. These generals are the few Ulgathi who benefit more directly from being intelligent as they make up the plans for the wars. They do so with the wizards, mainly to make sure the mages do not obliterate their own ranks if anything else.
These plans are then distributed to the warlords, who each command a 100 footsoldiers. The mages are directed by the few wizards the Ulgathi count. The swordmen and archers are given more freedom as they are considered able to handle themselves, though they are often required to fight in the immediate vicinity of the generals, functioning as their bodyguard and ensuring their survival.
Unknown to most humans, Ulgathi do use siege equipment.* However, few of the people that are faced by these contraptions live to tell the tale and the Ulgathi hardly ever bother with them as they rarely besiege castles or places which have more than a simple wooden palisade. These palisades are easily burned to cinders by Ulgathi Blasters and Bombs, a technology which the generals consider mobile enough to use during short campaigns.
To maintain the strict order required to make this hierarchy function, militairy crimes are punished by sentencing the criminal to the fate of gladiatorial death. This is to give the criminal a chance to redeem himself in the eyes of the public and save his family from eternal shame. Gladiators are given a mace which can detonate at any given time they hit something with it.
*Cannons, also known as the Ulgathi Trebuchet.
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