The Moor Riders

The Moor Riders (Euluska: Vëlvaksavi) were a legendary group of condottiere and brigands that had a reign of terror in the rural moors of the Horn and Fallo for decades from 1519-1579. They grew out of the Decimus noble house's most elite cavalry regiments after the fall of the Empire.
== Origins ==
In the days of the Euluskan Empire, the Decimus noble house were the imperial warmongers. They manufactured firearms, trained cavalry, supplied grenadiers, and created regiments of musketeers and fusiliers. Their handiwork and troops were legendary for their effectiveness. During the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century, some of the relevant elite cavalry battalions included the:
* 1st Decimus Volant Musketeers - the elite of the elite, the most well-trained and brutal shock cavalry, trained to use lever-action rifles from horseback. Clad in Decimus Scarlet colours with light armour, they also employed black powder grenadoes, ropes held between two riders, spears, lances, and sabres. The Empire used them to break heavy lines in their wars against the Vreigardts, or to scatter and chase warbands in their wars in Lakay. They were feared for their effectiveness, and romanticised by Euluskans as swashbucklers and pirates of the land. This regiment, and a few others, sometimes wore large iron ceremonial wings, which were designed to whistle, shimmer, glint, and rattle, to terrify enemies and dissuade enemy animals from charging, as well as thwart the grasping attacks of man-catchers and lassos (which many of their enemies employed). 
* 3rd Decimus Black Powder Dragoons - a large battalion where the best were taken to the Volant Musketeers; these lot used rifles from horseback and were famed for it too - in an age of advancing warfare they found an effective formula. 
* 5th Decimus Typhoons - A regiment of messengers and shock troops riding the fastest horses, with lightly armoured riders. In battle they laid mines or bombs, set fires, or relayed messages.
* 12th Decimus Titans - a regiment entirely made of very large soldiers in heavy armour on extra large draft horses.
* 22nd Decimus Cuckoos - a massive rag-tag first-line regiment made up of irregulars (not of the Empire's army). Motivated by plunder, a little crazy and certainly undisciplined, but numerous. Often conscripted out of Falon, Fallonese, or Nethir civilians. 
=== Fall of the Empire ===
In midsummer 1519, as the Imperial Army was preparing to march north and retake Felonil, attack came from the west. The crumbling Empire, on its last legs, having lost both its major colonies in the space of a decade, came under attack by the Vortais-Lakayan Navy. The Lyskeiön Capital Territory was sacked in the Sack of Lyskeiön, and the Empire fragmented into countless successor states within weeks. The Decimus family's hold over its electorate became rocky. With Imperial trade links unsupported and dwindling like a bridge with no pillars, many of the noble houses had no choice but to become independent and rule their own territory, not stretch thin. House Azrapi, rulers of the Electorate of Navara, were the Imperial bankers, and their money usually maintained House Decimus's armies that formed the backbone of the Imperial Army. Without these links, the soldiers had no pay. And elite soldiers with elite skillsets who've just told they have no pay for the foreseeable future don't like that one bit. 
It's no small wonder that within a few months of the breaking of the Empire, many regiments disbanded or became small independent mercenary groups, lending their services to various burgeoning city-states around the Horn and Fallo. Here, the story is the same. Most of the soldiers from the five regiments mentioned above joined forces to form their own private mercenary militia in 1520, which they named the Moor Riders.
== The Moor Riders ==
The new company travelled the Fallo and Horn, doing work for different states. They numbered probably about a few thousand at their inception, but members died or left faster than they were replaced, due to the elite and gatekept nature of the company. They hovered around 900 members for most of the rest of their 70-year existence until Autumn 1579. The Moor Riders took the Decimus Scarlet colour as their signature, given it was already the colour of their robes and horses. Their banner showed early Decimus muskets, a courant destrier horse, and bore the original First Regiment's motto; Mákeite Lasiónul, meaning "Die by the Saddle". Though they began with good intentions, a group of elite cavalry troops in a land of post-Imperial political turmoil are going to turn to any means to get ahead, and that slowly became banditry. By the time of the 1530s through to 1579, the Moor Riders' name was spoken in fearfully hushed tones. They struck like lightning, coming out of the gloom of the Fallo roads by night, leaving no survivors. Their horses were very well trained, so one of their favourite tactics was to surround a caravan camp with fire, then have their horses leap the fire, demand surrender, or lay waste. They also perfected their charges, which were bone-chilling to witness; the sound of their ceremonial wings struck fear into the hearts of many, just like the night that the Moomyns banded together to fight them off in autumn 1579.
== Key ==
=== Known Hideouts and Areas Active ===
* Various farmsteads and abandoned castles in the St. Verehia River Valley region in the 1520s
* The east coast of Caledvylh, and the abandoned Castle di'Zemava in the 1530s
* Trevizo, in the 1540s
* The empty Castle Fiexko, on the Shores of Dolmen in the 1550s, and in 1579.
* Abavale Gorge in the 1560s and in 1579.
* Llur Vennor, a small corn farm near Abavale Gorge, in the 1570s
=== Notable Members ===
* [Leader from 1519 to 1550s]
* Malak Coldblood, the next leader of the militia, active from the 1550s to 1579
* Elluin Ethanderal, the right hand man and possible brief lover (it's up for debate) of Malak, who was captured and tortured by the Moomyns, then fell in love with his nurse, and finally died in a sheer fall off Abavale Gorge.
* Ioreth Rhesyra, the militia's chief assassin and tactician under Malak, who assassinated Saint Zasenna. She was killed at Llur Vennor in a cornfield battle.
=== Victims and Enemies ===
* The Moomyns, whom they fought with in the autumn of 1579; that group shattered the Moor Riders several times
* The town of Trevizo; in autumn 1579, the riders burned it to the ground to intimidate the Moomyns.
* Zasenna Salmastrien, later Saint Zasenna, who they martyred by assassinating
* Elisabeth Arbalest, the Chief Knight of Trevizo, and important historical figure, later Saint Arbalest, who helped the Moomyns hunt them,
== End of their Reign of Terror ==
In autumn 1579, the right-hand man Elluin, best friend and possible lover (it's left up to interpretation) of the leader Malak was captured during a cavalry charge upon a wealthy caravan on the road between Navara and Abavale. Several members of the caravan, and a small nearby wagon of artists, joined forces to repel the Riders in a dramatic moonlit battle, their camp surrounded by a ring of fire. Malak tried to shoot Elluin to stop him giving up their location, but the caravan's healer Filomena saved his life. The group, known thereon as the Moomyns, took Elluin to Abavale, and tortured him for information on the whereabouts of the Moor Riders. In Abavale, they met the Iconoclast agent Zasenna Salmastrien, but later during their stay, Zasenna was assassinated by Ioreth of the Moor Riders. Elluin escaped custody, and the Moomyns chased him to Abavale Gorge, where, mortally wounded, he was driven off a sheer cliff and died of a fall. (There was some serious emotional stuff there too with Filomena). Hurrying on the trail of the Moor Riders, the Moomyns came to Trevizo, where they met Zasenna's superior, Elisabeth Arbalest. They tracked the Riders to Llur Vennor, but there, find it was a trick - they are betrayed by their new 'friend' Mäke, they fight and kill him and Ioreth, but are too late to stop the Riders burning down the town of Trevizo. The Moomyns ride hard west, resupply in the parish rectory of Cahay, then return east to Castle Fiexko to confront Malak and the remaining Moor Riders. One of their number, Rama, is captured and tortured by Malak. What happens next, history is not quite sure... (that's code for, we didn't finish the FINAL session of the campaign!).
== The Collapse Era ==
Ideologically and physically , they experienced a reappearance in the Collapse Era too, many centuries later by those seeking to take up their legend, but that is a story for another day....
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