Cambium Knights

**Cambium Knights** (), is Ashvattha's primary special operations division trained to operate in the variety of climates. Being a branch of Ashvattha's collective military they follow the orders of the Toranku 15 with the utmost precision, and due to the specialty and precision required in the missions they undertake, they are noted to be one of the most selective and elite combat organizations in Firdaus.

## Overview

" *Talented and experienced men should be assigned to this work, listing among the requisite qualities a thorough technical knowledge, a quick and energetic nature to ensure the work is accomplished without unnecessary delay, a sufficient resourcefulness to overcome unexpected obstacles, a reticence to ensure results are kept confidential, and above all, exactitude of work.*"

After the monstrosities that followed the Ishtar Invasion, the Toranku 15 recognized the need for covert reconnaissance in other lands to help prevent war. The Chairmen at the time knew that this would require a number of both covert and clandestine operations that could not be entrusted to a large mass such as the branch mages, as the chances of intelligence leaking would be great given the number of mages in service. He pushed for a limited numbers of highly trained personnel that could be adaptable, self-reliant and able to operate in all environments. This would ensure that, should a mage of this organization ever find themselves in trouble, they will have the skills and the knowledge of how to escape without threatening the operation.

The motion was passed and the organization was established, having the Toranku 15 pull the initial members of the military group from a variety of different organizations such as the Silver and Gold ranks of mages and Beast Saints. With the funding and aide from the Toranku, the Cambium Knights set up their organization in an island of Caelum to allow them easy coastal access for routes to other continents. Once the Cambium Knights had established a functioning headquarters and recruited enough mages to form four functioning squadrons, the Toranku 15 sent them out for covert reconnaissance in the continent of Ishtar. Their main focus was topography and socioeconomic research, as the tides of war had left its continent with little military protection. The most important information the Toranku requested had to do with the hydrographic information surrounded Ishtar, as the Toranku would need to know the various intel on the coastal waters if they were to ever send forces their by ship without damaging the hull or altering their course due to various currents surrounding the continent. This information was later reported back and stored in the Toranku 15’s Archive to be used in case of another incident.

## Selection

Selection process for this elite program follows extremely stringent protocols. First and foremost, potential candidates are looked at to ensure that they possess the correct mental state to take on such a high risk and high security position. Commanding officers of the recruit are required to fill out detailed references and evaluations, as well attach the initial and annual psychological evaluations member of the military are required to take. The evaluations include records such as their confirmed combat kills, intelligence quotient, combat skills, completed training and qualifications, as well as any specialties the recruit may possess to make them a likely choice for the program. Recruits are then subjected to heavy personnel checks overseen by commanders of the Cambium Knights; looking at their personal history, service records, and personality profile deciphered through stringent tests given to the recruit, as well as interview responses from those who are closest to the desired recruit. This is to gauge recruit’s stability under pressure, sympathy towards potential enemy targets, perception of a recruits demeanor, and loyalty to the organization and their country. An intelligence and aptitude test is then given to recruits to test qualities such as their deductive reasoning and cognitive abilities. These factors will all be compiled into one detailed analysis by a group of specialists to give a comprehensive report on the candidate. This report is accompanied by a point value scored out of 150 to better rank individuals at a glance.

Should a potential recruit pass the psychological and intelligence portion of the selection process they will move on to an audited physical exam. This exam consists of eight different sections designed to test the physical readiness for intense combat, as well as the proficiency and accuracy the candidate is with their magic. The total process lasts two hours and is broken down into two sections with a thirty minute break in between the two. The first functions as more of a physical screening, and as such it does not allow any magical enhancements to bypass the requirements. This is overcome by hooking up each mage to Ki Registering Sensors that is placed on major vessels of the body and sends wireless information to nearby computers to help determine the mage's output and if they are overcoming the allowable limit.

After the physical screen the candidates will continue to keep the Ki Registering Sensors and continue on to the combat simulation. Each mage will go through a two-level building simulation, going through the bottom floor to first test their accuracy without magic and then making their way to the top floor which allows them to use magic. They will have the option of choosing a standard issue tactical gun or a traditional bladed weapon. They will then traverse the arena that has been littered with mechanical targets that will rapidly move in randomly determined patterns, having to make it through the course within the thirty minute time frame while hitting the 150 targets, in either the head or heart, with as best an accuracy as they can. The targets themselves are drones situated with air propelled pellets that will explode with paint upon contact with a surface, meaning that a recruit must avoid getting hit during the trial or points will be deducted from their performance depending on where the pellet hits them. The targets are also fitted with a receiver that will send information to a nearby computer on data such as the recruit’s accuracy as well as the damage caused on the target using the traditional Magic Power Finder (MPF) system. This data, along with the output read by the Ki Registering Sensors, will be printed out in a three page report and a recruit will be given a point value based on a 450 point total for the physical portion.

Should a recruit’s score be a combined total of over 480/600 their file will be looked over by the board of commanders who will decide if a mage is worthy enough. The Cambium Knights typically select around twenty new recruits a year for training camp, as around thirty percent of recruits typically drop out during the intensive training process. Once approved a recruit will receive a letter that will guide them through the steps of registering with the organization’s training camp as well as listing out what items they will need to bring with them.

## Training

### Physical Condition and Team Exercises

In what has been come to be called “Hell Week”, Cambium recruits are put through six days of hot, cold, wet, and brutally difficult operational training on fewer than four hours of sleep. This tests their physical endurance, mental toughness, pain and temperature tolerance, teamwork, attitude, and their ability to perform work under high physical and mental stress, and sleep deprivation. Above all, it tests determination and the desire to serve and protect the people of Hylion. On average, only sixty percent of candidates that pass the screening make it through Hell Week, the toughest training in all of Hylion’s military.

Recruits are put through a series of physical training tasks where they must stay in constant motion; running, swimming, paddling, carrying logs over their heads, sit-ups, push-ups, rolling in the sand, and sprinting through mud across the island that houses the Cambium Knights base. Being still can be just as challenging, when you’re standing interminably in formation, in scorching hot heat while taking blasts of Ki to their chest. Recruits are put through trials that require them to think, lead, make sound decisions, and functionally operate when they are extremely sleep-deprived, approaching hypothermia, and even hallucinating. Reports have said that while recruits are given plenty to eat, some are so fatigued that they fall asleep in their food or have even fallen asleep while walking between trials. Teamwork and camaraderie are essential as recruits alternately help and encourage each other to hang in there and not quit, or else they face the wrath of the drill sergeants.

Medical personnel and mages who specialize in healing are always present during all hours to take care of emergencies and monitor the vitals of the recruits during training. Throughout Hell Week, Sergeants will scream and entice trainees to quit, mimicking the inner voice that tells you to give in to your physical pain. The name of Sergeant Echo is infamous among mages of the Cambium Knights for his use of Sound Magic to drown out the thoughts of the recruits with notions of quitting while they were forced to tread water in an ice bath. Some may find this treatment to be considered harassment, though no Toranku 15 laws are broken and safety is strictly adhered to. But because the Cambium organization is so small, the Sergeants know that they will likely serve in future combat operations with the recruits who pass and so they like to severely test the physical ability and moral character of the recruits and their resolve to save their and other teammates’ lives.

### Weaponry and Close Combat

This second step in training focuses more on putting the conditioning and team trust to use in combat. Perhaps the longest phase in the recruits training, the entire session is punctuated by frequent and intense live fire and target exercises. During this phase, Cambium recruits will take down far more targets than any other Hylion military force combined. Their primary lessons focus on high accuracy engagements with a variety of targets, including ranged targets, stationary targets, and moving targets. Advanced robotics have been rigged with paralytic munitions as well as close range nullification spells to test a mages true combat skills with a choice in bladed weapons or projectile weapons. End of weeks are marked by team exercises in which a unit must make their way through “The Abattoir”. The Abattoir, modeled after traditional two story warehouse floor plans, utilizes advanced holography and hard light projections to create convincing combat arenas. At first, Cambium groups will transverse The Abattoir as a unit against static targets; then these static targets will increase in complexity until they eventually face mobile holographic hostiles, carrying hostages with live ammunition. Their weaponry will be the same of which they will use in the field to help drill in the muscle memory of its use. These two lessons are repeated continually at first, until they are introduced to the longer portion in close combat.

Recruits are required to be highly proficient in unarmed combat, and so training will focus on giving them the tools to utilize their super human strength and reflex to perform moves otherwise deemed impossible by simple mages. Their training will involve sparring with other Cambium trainees and already enlisted trainers, practicing with rubber blade weapons to learn tactics such as disarming an opponent, silently taking down a number of different enemies, and taking down opponents whose size and strength vastly outweigh their own. This two week long course will hone recruits instincts, assessment skills, and situational awareness to be able to accurate defend and attack against a variety of combat styles; and as such recruits are unrestricted in the use of their speed, strength, surprise, and aggression to achieve total dominance against their enemy.

### Advanced Tactics

This portion of training introduces recruits to many specialized tactics, as well as strategical approaches, required in their deployment. Their first lessons involve entry systems and indirect approaches to battles. Recruits will be broken into teams and each given a set of standard issue grenades. They'll learn how to blow an entry into a building, both with their equipment as well as Ki manipulation techniques. They will understand the many uses they have for high explosives, such as how to properly employ them, familiarity with the uses and effects of explosives, and even build them from common materials. It is this knowledge that allows Cambium Knights operatives to conserve their Ki for when it truly counts. For obstacles that require silent entries, they will be trained in skills such as lock picking, scaling buildings, and underground/aquatic entries.

One of the more elite training comes with the introduction on espionage, contacting agents and informants, conducting surveillance and counter-surveillance, as well as advanced interrogation tactics. Wanting to be well rounded, Cambium Sergeants will also teach interrogation resistance, in which Sergeants will demonstrate the interrogation techniques taught on recruits in mach situation to teach them resistance techniques to help protect Classified information.

They will then go back out into the expansive training ground to begin learning lessons on small unit tactics, practicing in randomized teams on how to execute combat maneuvers, with frequent exercises in The Abattoir and the neighboring forest to test and hone their skills. Some of these tactics and strategies rely heavily on the Indirect Approach of combat in which Cambium forces rely on disrupting an enemy’s equilibrium and using the path of least resistance to guarantee a successful attack. They will also practice drill that will utilize various military strategies such as: attrition warfare, Blitzkrieg, pincer maneuvers, counter offensive, choke point defense, scorched earth, and turtling.

Lastly, they'll learn hostage rescue. This begins with rapid target identifying, with static targets switching between 'enemy' and 'friendly'. This will escalate to holographic targets holding hostages, practicing sniping hostile targets in a hostage situation and lastly, their ultimate test in this area, dynamically entering a target building held by holographic terrorists, with several teams working in conjunction and using actual weaponry and spells, while their fellow recruits play hostage.

### Environmental Training

Recruits will learn basic field aid and medical treatment. Cambium Knights stresses the art of Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC), giving recruits the knowledge to perform basic preventative treatment under fire, as well as without proper medical equipment. Because 90% of combat deaths occur on the battlefield before the casualty ever reaches a medical treatment facility, it is because of this that the Cambium organization stresses this education to all its recruits regardless of if they are medical personnel or not.

Recruits will then include orienteering, navigation and advanced survival skills, such as hunting and gathering and finding their way without the use of maps or navigational equipment. They are then put through extreme environment training, involving lessons on obscenely inhospitable environments, such as Arctic conditions, lifeless deserts, mountain climbing, deep sea navigation, high pressure environments, and low pressure environments. Sergeants of each elemental magic will help create the environments necessary for trainees, which will also prepare recruits for combat situations with mages of similar powers, forcing their bodies to not succumb to the effects of the elements. The last element of this training course is an intense trial intended to put their hazardous environment knowledge to the test. They will be dropped in what seems to be a harmless forest, given the task to make it to the extraction zone safely. The trial itself takes a week to get from the start point to finish, even with skills such as High Speed the trek is still two days of travel. Upon this path recruits will encounter their superior sergeants who will test them on their ability to withstand elemental attacks, as well as combat an opponent with a lack of proper nutrition and energy, should they be unable to properly hunt or forage.

### Specialist Training

The last phase of genuine training was the beginning of the recruit’s specialist training. Up until this point, recruits received no specialist training and were instead trained in a great variety of areas. Constant observation, past records, psych exams and skill scores in various training areas and cross examination by the organizers are used to come up with a number of advised training courses, though ultimately the recruit will choose the three they will complete over the remaining few weeks. The specialist training courses are as follows.

* **Advanced Medical Treatment**: Through this specialty recruits are capable of handling a great deal more of combat derived injuries with the utmost care. Because this specialty aligns with that of other military combat doctors, Cambium soldiers will have the honor of wearing a red cross on their uniform to denote their specialty. In order to obtain this they must pass the following courses: Basic Life Support/Automatic External Defibrillation (AED); pharmaceutical calculations; anatomy; physiology; pathophysiology; medical terminology; basic physical exam techniques; medical documentation; pharmacology; basic airway management; medical patient assessment; advanced airway management; pre-hospital trauma emergencies and care; tactical combat casualty care skills; minor surgical skills; obstetrics/gynecology and pediatric emergencies; cardiac pharmacology; and Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS).
* **Long Range Advancements**: This specialty is for those whose magic and skill set is best suited to perform long distance target purges at a scale almost twice that of a typical guild mage. During this intensive course, they will learn a number of new skills and hone their long range accuracy and deployment skill. Coupled up with the instructor to assist them in solo missions, operatives will learn advanced techniques, such as selecting the optimum position, employing concealment, spotting and directing ranged ordnance strikes, shadowing and observing enemy forces, employing patience, eliminating targets at obscene ranges and learning counter methods and asymmetric techniques, to help demoralize groups as well as take out targets before they ever reach typical combat range.
* **Advanced Close Quarter Combat**: This course hones the operative’s skills for breaching situations, honing their skill at breaching fortified and non-fortified positions, while employing high accuracy shots and spells at high speeds to avoid taking out friendlies. Operatives will then move onto martial arts skills, allowing them to ascend to mastery levels of combat by teaching skills such as disarming maneuvers, Ki flow disruption strikes, and maneuvers that will typically render a mage unconscious if dealt with enough force. Most operatives describe this course as a second Hell Week, due to its emphasis on physical conditioning, but many who pass this course are unmatched in hand to hand combat.
* **Officer Course**: Recruits must be specifically selected to attend this course, as it provides them with the entire advanced leader training they need, learning to coordinate and direct a section of recruits upon their graduation from the training academy. This course focuses on combat leadership of small units and maintaining unit cohesion under pressure. They typically cover a wide variety of subjects such as operational support, technical skills to support forces in the field, and combat advising. Usually, they will work alongside current Lutenants of the Cambium Knights squadrons before being returned to be embedded with a unit of their own.
* **Special Weapons Course**: Recruits will learn to become precise and deadly with a range of exotic weapons not commonly seen, even in cases of the Ishtar Invasion. Ki weapons, long range munitions launchers, various requip weapons, and other types of heavy weapons are often par for the course. Recruits also learn to intimately know weapons from outside Hylion’s borders, and be familiar with their performance, range and lethality, to advise their team on how to best handle them, or go against them.
* **Ki Manipulation Course**: One of the more sought after programs, this week long program is home to an in-Cambiums session as well as a hands on portion. The first two days are spent diving into a deeper understanding of Ki manipulation abilities, as well as the flow of Ki throughout the body. The next five days are spent putting this education into practice, learning abilities such as pure kinetic Ki attacks, resonating Ki defenses, and even manipulation skills to be able to achieve the practice of Physiological Meliorism during combat.

## Organization

CAMBIUM teams are categorized into two different classifications depending on the mission at hand: A Joint Task Force with other military personnel, or a Special Operations Task Force that consists of only Cambium soldiers. Within the Cambium system there are 16 different squadrons that consist of four to five man fire team, with around 15-20 men dedicated to intelligence and headquarter operations for the team. Although the support staff for each team of mages is around 250 personnel when all factors are taken into consideration.

The fire team follows a unique hierarchy as well as a division of specialty skills. Each team is assigned an Officer in Charge (usually designated as a Captain) and an Assistant Officer in Charge, who are in charge of the main directive nature of the squadron. The core leadership in the squadron take direct orders from the Commander, who is typically situated at HQ.

The mages skills rely on their basic training skills detailed above, but they are specially divided to make for a more well rounded team. A squadron relies heavily on complimentary and versatile magic that is suitable for a variety of different environments. Although mages tend to specialize in two or more magic abilities a squadron generally has a member who concentrates in: A power driven magic, an elemental magic, a defensive magic, a support magic, and an all-rounder.

## Trivia

* This is largely modeled after the United States Navy SEALs.
* The quote by Major Dion Williams is an actual quote written in 1906 on the first American doctrine concerning amphibious reconnaissance.