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The procession of Todoroni nobles and officers hopped respectfully into the audience pool of His Holiness, Popeye Nattergiachi XI. Expectantly, Prince Amphibioni croaked his entreaty to the huge toad High Priest. "Holy Father, you are-a da tutti-frutti, mucho-bello Spawn of di 'Eavens. Please-a hear di requesta your people!". The giant Toad Pontiff continued to stare unblinking at the gaudy princes before him. Emboldened, Amphibioni continued. "We 'ave form-ed di alliance wid di Ferachi Elves, and we woulda lika di backing of di Holy Father to make-a dis'alliance more easy for our people". Blowing out his mighty throat-sacs, the Pontiff croaked a terse reply. "Never!". Amphibioni shrugged theatrically, then said. "Well, 'Oly Father you leave-a me no choice". With a fluid motion, his arm swept out with a stiletto dagger, as did several of his party. But they had forgotten the Popeye's Guards. In a stiff, grim set of actions, the pike-armed dogsoldiers spitted the Todoroni nobles from their pool-side positions. Their brief activity finished, the giant sergeant addressed his still-unblinking master. "Your Holiness, ve vill remove zese offending articles from your pool!". The burly dogsoldiers in their almost ridiculous uniforms then fished out the dead Todoroni before resuming their immobile positions with pike and halberd. As had their fathers, and their fathers before them. A tradition too entrenched to question. The famous Popeye Guard from the Grand Duchy of St Bernard went back to their duties. The Grand Duchy is a mountainous state within Östaria, from which come a breed of dogsoldier of prodigious size. With nothing better to do in their homeland than rescue ill-prepared visitors from the many avalanches, many young St. Bernardines become bored and seek a life of adventure in the outside world. In fact, due to their size and stamina, these stolid warriors became very popular as mercenaries in the pre-black powder period, and were eagerly hired by princes and kings amongst the Elves, Dwarves, Todoroni, Goblins and Humans. But with the invention of firearms, their military pre-eminence has dwindled. However, they remain as loyal guards to several notables including His Holiness the Popeye (who lives in the holy "Aquarium City" at the heart of the Todoroni lands) and the Dark Elf King (who maintains a unit of St. Bernard halbardiers). These dogsoldiers are too conservative to use firearms readily, and tend to dress in uniforms of their golden age. For some unknown religious reason, every St. Bernard soldier wears a small brandy-cask pendant around his neck. (The infamous "St Bruno" heresy, now all but eradicated, involved filling the cask with tobacco rather than brandy!) As the soldiers of the Grand Duchy are slightly different to normal dogsoldiers, I have given them a new set of statistics, as follows: Crawl 3cm
Walk 12cm
Run 18cm Defence Factor/Wounds 4
Hand-to-Hand Modifier +2 Webmaster's Note The above was originally published on Danny's excellent website and is included here with permission from the author. |
