Villain Portret #1: The Dandy

Name: Daniel Everhard
Age: 57
Appearance: Black hair, here and there a grey hair, bushy eyebrows, small brown eyes.
A very expensive suit that earned him the dandy nick name but is now torn and dirty, a belt of small daggers. A dusty triangle hat.
Weapon of choice: A dagger in quick combat, in duels a rapier
Talents: Knows his way around the seas, great leadership, a true strategist.
Occupation: Retired commodore of Demenor
Hometown: used to be Kalego, now it's here and there, whereever his ship lies anchor.
History:
Daniel became sailor on a ship during his young age, his father was a rich merchant earning his
money from the trade with Askarin. When Daniel was a sailor he saw a lot of the world
but never forgot his home, in service of the Duke of Topas he was made commodore of
the Kalegan Sea Fleet, a duty he furfilled for many years until the civil war broke loose.
He took the side of Demenor and was the person after the ships of Demenor taking the Askarin Harbour hostage. When finally Topas admitted defeat he returned home and became a hero.
Thinking he could spend the rest of his life free from any lord, he couldn't have been more wrong. He was packed with juwels and gold and a mansion on the coast of Jaragotta, an island in not far from Demenor. But he was bored, he didn't have the right to sail free anymore, neither did he have a ship. One day he stole a ship that was harboured in front of the coast,
he left the juwels and gold for the owner and started sailing his own way. But the Demenorians didn't let this happen just like this! They were angered and marked him a pirate. Captaining a stolen ship, or sailing without license is piracy. He was furious and outran many ocassions with the Demenorian Navy. He began sabotaging the trade between Demenor and the continent Pharion. When the navy and the merchants started fighting back so did he, and soon he forgot his glorious past and became what they called him: "A pirate"..

New logo, new artist

As you can see the COTF logo got a little pimped!
This was all possible thanks to this talented man:
Hirashin aka Namashi, you can visit his website here.

Wanderers

History
The Wanderers are a group of nomads, they
travel from city to city. They are one of the few people that
do not believe in the Avertian Religion, according to their fate the Gods
of Averta are evil and have banished the real Gods from The Halls to the Underworld, at Ragnarrok they will finaly take their spot back as true Gods of Averta.

The Wanderers first popped up in the far west of Ryo, in the Kerren dessert,
they lived by the Stear River and had their own tribemaster Razam,
as life continued around the delta of the Stear, Razam gathered his people
and announced he would soon die and be reïncarnated in his first born son.
Age after age a new Razam would take his place as economic, cultural and religious
leader.

But soon the Emperor of Ryo, Druk the fourth, demanded immediatly that the tribe of Razam would convert themselves or leave. Some converted, but Razam and thousands of faithful followers left the dessert and started to wander around Averta.

They didn't find a home anywhere, authorities of other countries refused to listen and they were banned from almost any land. Soon they began to travel from place to place staying out of authority's way and trying to stay long enough to survive. The constant traveling made them popular with the people living outside the civil world, the ex-prisoners, fugitives, orphans, even mages fleeing from the Inquisition sought some form of protection with them.

Wanderers soon became ignored by major authorities, under the rule of, "they leave me alone, I leave them alone" but the stealing and illegal hunting still aggrivates the public.

Falling part of the Razam Culture
As the reincarnations of Razam led the people from place to place, soon a problem occured,
Razam had become the father of an identical twin, as it was unterminable which child was born the first, they both claimed to be the reïncarnation of their father, some people followed one of the twins, others followed other influenceable people and soon the once great Razam People had falled apart.

The Guards

Provinces of Topas
Ages before there was talk of a civil war or even a unified Topas, each city had their
own kind of army. When finally the cities of Topas united under one banner
the country was devided into several provinces:

The Island of Demenor
Askarin and surroundings
Port Jazema and Ortaliaz Harbour
The Ramas Vally
The Island of Harim
Capitol Zone (Partino and surroundings)

Each province got to keep their own flag, their own smaller capitol and a governer
and ofcourse their own Guard.

Ranks of the Guard
RECRUIT
The recruit is the lowest rank of the Guard, they have to go through a period of 6 months of trial.

SOLDIER
A soldier of the Guard is a recruit who did a fine job for 6 months. They are in almost
any other way equal to a recruit.

CORPORAL
After 3 years of service (or an act of extreme courage) a Soldier can apply for a Corporal's exam.
If the jury decides the person has the capacity to be a good corporal they
are allowed to live with the rank of corporal. Corporal work directly under a Sergeant, and they command a group of 4 soldiers. The longer the Corporal is in service the more soldiers they
have under their command.

SERGEANT
There is no sergeants' exam, a sergeant gets to be appointed by the Marshal or the Colonel and has to be at least Corporal. A sergeant commands a group of corporals, at least 2 but it can be more. They also take decisisions together with other Sergeants and the Marshal.

MARSHAL
There is only one Marshal in a Guard, he can lose his rank when he decides to resign or when he is pulled out of service for other reasons. When he resigns he can appoint his succesor from one of the Sergeants. When he is pulled out of Service the Colonel decides it. A Marshal is the leader of the Guard, they take the important decisions and do the paper work, some Marshals do some field work but not too much.

COLONEL
The colonel is the little connection between a Province Guard and the Army,
he is appointed by the Seat and doesn't interfere too much with the Guard's working.
A Colonel can pull a Marshal out of Service if the Guard doesn't work like it should.

The Inquisition

A flaming blue T, symbol of the cleansing of Topas, the mysterious Inquisition.
Excisting out of priests, nuns, soldiers and ex-convicts alike they were for several
years the bane of every non-human in Topas.

When the young Azemar was taking hostage by Pecurias Valtimez, the household mage, priest
and oracle he lost both eyes in a flaming attempt of escape. When he eventually
became Duke, he punished Pecurias, aka Azur of the Cult of Esiaphot, for constantly
hypnotizing and manipulating his family with death by burning.

Soon disturbing visions reached the Oracle of Averas' daughter, visions of a destroyed, post-Ragnarrok Topas, to stop Ragnarrok from happening too soon he demanded more details
and heard of a rebellion of lesser races, a last war. So he decided to banish what for him was lesser: elves, dwarves and mages.

The elves and the dwarves were driven out easily by the army
of Topas, but the mages who were able to hide themselves in the human population,
so to find these Hidden Ones, he started a small group called The Inquisition.

Officially they work for the church, but there true loyalty lies with the Duke. Soon the Inquisition were able to find and burn several mages before and during the Civil War until suddenly a strange accident happened, they were found every single one of them death by stabbing yet no sword was in their presence. It was later found that this was one of the last and most horrible ritual by the Cult of Esiaphot.

The group was disbanded until a few years after the war: Duke Ector decided it was needed again.