Kardane Company

**Timeline (work out dates on next re-read)**

Formed

Goblin Wars in Styke

Moon Marshes - where they killed Doomshade

Lunaria - killed Volek? Whoever he was :) and his horde became the basis of Roztov's fortune.

more battles!

**History**

This was far
from his first escapade of this nature. Back when he, Broddor, Ghene, Floran
and Meggelaine had been young, once the goblin situation had calmed down in his
homeland and not wanting to give up the life of adventure just yet, they had
set off north to Vegas and beyond. There were tribes of dwarves up there, in
the Lead Hills who were constantly at war with all manner of creatures. Roztov
had met his first necromancers in these lands, and had known real terror for
the first time. After that, they travelled south again when the Moon Marshes were
disputed lands and the king of Joppa was calling on everyone with a sword or
magic to help turn back the tide of undead. After the Moon Marshes it was the
Powder Plains, the Savage Lands and Lunaria.

Eventually
though, their band which had numbered up to two hundred at its height, was down
to twenty. Most were dead, some had taken their share of the treasure and
retired. The
Battle at Bograt was the end, everyone went home after that. There was no fun
to be had in seeing your friends die, Ghene and Meg went to the Great Forest,
Floran returned to Hyadna and even Broddor went back to the Vale of Adders to
marry and do his duty to the king of Kardane.

Only Roztov
kept going, to a certain extent, and occasionally dragged Broddor out of
retirement. The wanderlust in him was too strong and even with a house, a wife
and a family he was always fighting the pull of the unknown.

...

When you had
the ability to turn into a little bird, eavesdropping came easily. He had to
admit to himself that there was something in what they said. People in their
company had died, not many and mostly in the first few years, but enough that
he was sure he had forgotten a lot of them. There had been a time, a few years
after the company had been set up, when the fighting with the goblins was brutal.
After the death of Queen Beril the kingdom had been near anarchy, with the
Barons all vying for power and occasionally killing each other. It would be
twenty years before Styke chose another monarch. Roztov’s father’s barony came
under constant attack. Young men that had lost their families in goblin raids
and that wanted revenge, some of them were near suicidal and when they joined
the Company, well, often they died.

Meggelaine
had joined the Company even before Roztov. Ghene and then Floran came little
later, foreign fighters in search of adventure.

After the
goblin wars came to a conclusion, many of those young men returned to their
farms and villages. Broddor, still young and adventurous, wanted to seek gold
and glory in Lunaria, which had just entered into what turned out to be a long
and pointless war with Enttland. Roztov, well, he was a forth son, it was
expected that he would seek his fortune elsewhere now that their vale was
peaceful, and off he went.

They
recruited again in Enttland, bolstered their numbers and headed into the Moon
Marshes and the other desolate wastes hidden behind the mountains. Some of them
died, young mercenaries and sell-swords from the backstreets of Werfen and
Sharmes.

After
Lunaria the core of the Company was Roztov, Broddor, Meg, Ghene, Floran and a dozen
or so others. The rest were now fifty or so younger men and women, eager to prove themselves,
eagerly seeking glory. These were the ones that died, on the spears of Lunaria berserkers or blown to bits by their cannons.

After that,
other places, other people, other battles. The Company got smaller and smaller
as people died or retired. Roztov knew that hundreds of people had passed
through the company, he was not sure and it shamed him to know that he had long
since forgotten most of those that had died.

**Notes**

Later Broddor says a couple of hundred. work that all out and into time line on wiki read:

Well,
you know, it was my company right enough, but back in those days the tactical
stuff sort of rotated between Roztov and a few of the others and for what was
going on in this valley Roztov was the raid leader. He was pretty much in
charge of everything at the sharp end, the combat end. Ye had other leaders for
supplies, healing, that sort of thing. There was a couple of hundred people in
the company back then, I couldn’t manage it all by meself, and well, Floran
will tell you, I tended to prefer to lead from the front, be in the thick of
battle, showing those that followed me I didn’t mind getting my sword bloody.