Zyyntorean

## Description

Galactically renowned as the finest warriors and peacekeepers in the entire known galaxy, the zyyntoreans are a towering, imposing, and for the most part kind hearted race of saurians. Characterized by their blue or purple leathery skin, clear white eyes, and tough head plates that overlap over each other like massive, razor sharp scales, the zyyntoreans are living weapons. Along with a resilience to radiation, the zyyntoreans have extremely resilient pain receptors, those that train themselves and meditate can even ignore what little pain they can feel, causing them to feel nothing and therefore fear nothing.

Even before their all encompassing religion, the zyyntoreans have been lovers of combat, believing it to be the truest and most honest form of glory and honor. Zyyntorean honor is one of their chief tenants, along with swordsmanship (which is a subtext of honor in the zyyntoreans’ eyes). Since their religion teaches tolerance, the zyyntoreans are accepting of almost all things, provided that the actions are not blasphemous to the Zyyntorist code, which is very broad. From their birth, zyyntoreans are trained in the combat arts and are taught the ways of Zyyntorism.

Their code of honor, the Urizan, can essentially be broken down into four points: Honor is strength, both of person and mind. Honor is courage, both to tell the truth and to never back down from a battle. Honor is justice, to ensure that the dishonorable and unjust pay for their crimes with their blood. Honor is compassion, fairness in battle, even against an unworthy foe.

The zyyntorean theocracy, called the Ecclesiastic Imperium, is a bicameral institution. The religious and social affairs of the Empire are helmed by the High Priest, who is the highest religious authority in the land, while the Holy Emperor is the lawful authority over the land, he forms the laws, enforces the laws, and is the commander-in-chief of the Holy Legions of Zyyntoria. The martial practices are also infused with religion, as the holy texts of Zyyntorism do actually contain ancient treatises on both swordsmanship and marksmanship. War is also only declarable by the Holy Emperor, but only the High Priest can call Crusades of religious caliber. Crusades are called for religious reasons and often serve the purpose of dethroning oppressive regimes or destroying them entirely. A Crusade calls upon any Zyyntorist to act, zyyntorean or otherwise, which often causes civil disputes for empires who do not want their citizens and soldiers to serve under zyyntorean officers.

## Etymology

The etymology of zyyntoreans comes from the old Zyyntore word of Tore, which means people, while the word Zyn means “god”. Overtime, as the languages of the zyyntorean tribes merged from the 1st Age of War, a second y was added to Zyn to create Zyyn, which means holy. When put together, the word Holy People is used to describe the zyyntoreans. The naming system of zyyntoreans follows a feminine and masculine gender system. The suffixes of -ous, -cota, -i, -ta, and -ez are masculine (e.g Viacota, Venturous, and Desturi) while the suffixes for females are -issa, -illa, -a, -assa, and -ezza (e.g. Viailla, Venturissa, and Destura). Every name has a gender opposite (as shown in the examples), further examples include Zsarissa and Zsarous, Bithta and Bithassa, Relakarissa and Relakarous, and Vaxez and Vaxezza. The full names of zyyntoreans are always five names put together, the order of which goes as follows; Given name- Father’s first name- Gai (meaning of)- Mother’s maiden name- Father’s family name. An example would be Varous Nemekez Gai Volund Zakera.

## Military

Military service is mandatory for males within the empire, serving in the Holy Legion, who are required to serve upon reaching the age of twenty, which is legal adulthood within the empire. Males are then required to serve for ten years, to which they may then either leave to do other things or serve as a legionnaire for life, which most do. Acting as the largest organizational unit of the Holy Imperial Armed Forces, the Holy Legions are massive units of 20 million legionnaires and their respective vehicles, ships, clergy, and leadership. Legions act as their own autonomous units, subservient to the Harbinger, the ceremonial and tactical head of the entire Holy Zyyntorean Empire. The Harbinger, along with his cabinet called the Legionary Sacristy, does not command each Legion individually, but rather appoints Legates to serve as each Legion’s commanding officer. Additionally, in times when a Legion must be called to war, but the Harbinger or Legate does not believe that the entire Legion is not required, then the Legate will lead a detachment of the Legion into battle, leaving the remainder of the Legion on standby as reserves.

Legions are named after their region from which they draw up troops from their respective homeworlds, with the Viscount Palatine of each region acting as an additional supervisor to the Legion’s formation. In addition, Viscount Palatines are responsible for maintenance and forming of Legions. If a legion is destroyed completely in combat, the Viscount Palatine musters up recruits from his region to reconstitute the Legion, as well as adding the prefix “Vae” to the name of the Legion, symbolizing its reconstitution. In the case of a Legion being reformed again following another disaster, a 2 is simply put before the Legion’s title. This naming is then to be rebranded on the Legion’s Standard and armors of each of its members. If a Legion’s home region cannot provide enough able-bodied citizens to fill its ranks, then it will draw up resources from the region adjacent to it that has men to spare. In that case, the prefix “Nei” is added.

If a zyyntorean does not wish to serve in the Legions and their skills qualify them for such, they are able to enlist and serve within the Legionary Special Warfare Group (LSWG), a specialized sect of the Holy Zyyntorean Armed Forces that operates in small, Cohort sized units to conduct unconventional warfare against the enemy. Revered for their skill and slightly ostracized for their perceived dishonorable tactics, the LSWG is divided into hundreds of specialized cohorts and asymmetrical military units. The LSWG does not use the standard formation sizes of the Legions, for they are far too large to be effective for what the LSWG conducts. Rather, they operate within specially formed regiments or smaller. The LSWG is also divided into several branches, each with their own specialization and domain of warfare. The branches are the Joint Special Tactics and Reconnaissance Branch, the Shade Corps, the Silent Blade Cohort, the Venger Death Squads, the Lancers, the Special Airborne Regiment, the Special Warfare Unit, and the Naval Ranger Force.

The Joint Special Tactics and Reconnaissance is a branch of personnel selected from both the Navy and the Legions. The JSTR, often referred to as the Star Branch due to its close work with the navy, is a highly specialized group that focuses on stealth missions, extraction, counter-terrorism and piracy, and guerilla warfare. Utilizing carbines and blades, the JSTR are present during invasions of enemy worlds to act as the vanguard, deployed by specialized Rapid Insertion Capsules to immediately scout out enemy territory and perform hit-and-run attacks on enemy patrols to disrupt their ability to wage war.

The Shade Corps is a large branch of both zyyntoreans and auxiliary races. Acting as an Imperial Organization, the Shades act independently of the Legions, only answering to the Harbinger and the Holy Emperor himself. The Shades operate in limited gear, at times even wearing civilian clothing on undercover missions, the Shades are in charge of sabotage, espionage, and assassinations. The Shades are at times shunned by their comrades in the Legions for their stealthy tactics and assumed dishonorable way of waging war, in which deception is a common tactic.

The Silent Blade Cohort is a unit of 1,000 zyyntoreans selected from the Legions. Working closely alongside the Shades and the JSTR Branch, the SBC act as the muscle for when the latter’s operations take a wrong turn. As both of the other branches are most effective in high-risk, stealth oriented missions, the SBC is there to act as insurance when the mission goes awry. The Cohort are armed to the teeth in heavy armor and longswords, trained to fight to the death and are always under the impression that their next mission will be their last. Known for their tendency to recklessly charge into fire and disregard any injury, the SBC are what a Shade turns to when his cover has been blown, the shield that a JSTR hides behind, and the SBC won’t let any of them forget that.

The Venger Death Squads are clandestine groups of assassins that operate in the field and behind enemy lines to take out enemy leadership, the Venger Death Squads are a strictly naval unit, deployed alongside zyyntorean marines to deal death to the enemy with a record success rate. In addition, the VDS are trained to fight in the vacuum of space, performing daring missions in hostile environments that would kill the average Legionnaire without the need for enemy soldiers.

The Lancers are a special branch that works exclusively with the Legions, acting as a suicide unit designed to take on high-risk missions with a low projected success result. Despite those odds, the Lancers consistently pull through, surviving missions that would break even the most skilled of Legionnaires.

The Special Airborne Regiment, or SAR, is a naval branch that focuses on rapid insertion, counter-terrorism, night operations, winter warfare, guerilla warfare, and reconnaissance. Deploying exclusively from moving airborne vehicles and equipped with jetpacks and automatic weapons, the SAR never operates in units larger than a platoon, preferring to wage war against units much larger than their own to maximize effective usage and tactics. The SAR will not shy away from the harshest of conditions, participating in week long missions in the freezing cold and searing heat, all without even so much as a tent to protect themselves from the elements.

The Naval Ranger Force (NRF), is a naval unit that acts alongside the marines as the garrisons for space stations and ships. Deployed to protect high value zyyntorean naval vessels such as carriers, dreadnoughts, and supercarriers, the NRF also participates in ship-boarding missions, zero-gravity warfare, and demolition, deploying in small units and hovering over the battlefield in gravity defying armored harnesses and armed with automatic plasma weapons for maximum suppression and damage on the battlefield.

Working in tandem with the Legions is the The Holy Imperial Navy (HIN), the branch of the Holy Armed Forces (HAF) that conducts naval operations; with roles including ship-to-ship combat, planetary defense and invasions, orbital bombardment (though this is seldom used), the deployment of fighters and bombers, the method of delivery for the Legions, and the area of operations for the marines, NRF, and other naval-based infantry.

The HIN fields one of the largest fleets in the Milky Way, sporting over 300,000 ships, most of which able to carry thousands of soldiers and hundreds of airborne vehicles for deployment in the battlespace.

The HIN is subdivided into two different organizations, that being Holy Armadas and Battlefleets. Holy Armadas are formations of tremendous size, numbering in the hundreds and sometimes thousands. The Holy Armadas are often tasked with high-value missions, which mostly includes the invasion of heavily defended planets or enemy fleets such as homeworlds of enemy factions or enemy invasion fleets respectively. In order for a Holy Armada to be formed, it must be consecrated by the High Priest in order to be considered legitimate, as tasks performed by these armadas have a distinct religious overtone. Given poetic religious titles, these Armadas, following their consecration, are outfitted with cathedrals within them, and it is said that doing so makes victory over the enemy more likely, which is seen as the primary reason as to why they are consecrated in the first place.

Battlefleets, on the other hand, do not require the High Priest to be legitimized and canonized as a naval formation, rather they are the most common form of naval units seen in combat. Battlefleets are still named however, taking on the name of the planet from which they made their maiden voyage. Such examples include the Battlefleet Suron, the Battlefleet Zyyntorier, or the Battlefleet Crystaria. Battlefleets can in turn be divided into flotillas and also combined into Warfleets, fleets that are larger than 100, the standard maximum number for a Battlefleet. Warfleets, since they can be combined into any number from any number of different fleets from around the Empire, are named from the Diocese in which they were combined, of which there can also be multiple. Such examples include Warfleet Alpha I, Warfleet Beta III, and Warfleet Omega II. These Warfleets are much more common for invasions of planets or star systems, as they are large like Holy Armadas, but are much more common and easier to form and dissolve at a moment’s notice than the latter.

All naval organizations, regardless of title, are helmed by a flagship of some kind, often a carrier, heavy dreadnought, or supercarrier. Supercarriers rarely garrison anything lower than Holy Armadas, but particularly large Warfleets have been known to be led by supercarriers, though they are more commonly led by large carriers or dreadnoughts. Holy Armadas are almost always lead by Supercarriers, as well as being composed of heavy ships such as galleons, dreadnoughts, or cruisers, while Warfleets can be made up of any menagerie of ship and Battlefleets made up of frigates and lighter ships, though heavier Battlefleets are also just as common as the former.

The Holy Imperial Navy also acts as the field of operations for the zyyntorean marines, a more lightly armored, firearm oriented branch of the HAF. Unlike Legionnaires, who fight on the battlefield with swords as well as firearms, the marines are armed almost exclusively with plasma and arc weaponry, relying on firearms rather than bladed weapons. Despite this, marines are armed with a Gladen sidesword, but they are seldom brandished, as marines favor the automatic Wraith Rifles and Plasma Pulsers to swords and knives. This has caused a healthy rivalry between the Marines and the Legionnaires, who both compete with each other for the Harbinger’s favor when the two must work together in joint operations, these operations often being the initial invasions of planets when a beachhead much be established and secured, allowing more infantry and vehicles to deploy so the invasion of the planet may commence in earnest.

As a result of this, marines operate at a much more limited capacity, and their numbers rarely exceed one million at one time. Marines are also the primary defensive and offensive foot soldiers of naval combat, acting as the interior defense of starships in the event that they are boarded as well as the force that boards and captures enemy vessels. This separates the marines from the NRF, who act similarly but in even smaller numbers. Additionally, the NRF never capture ships, rather they board, kill the leadership, then destroy the ship by detonating ordinance within the engine room of the enemy vessel after successfully disengaging.

The collective term for all the legions of a planet gathered together is officially called an Astraex Victiae, the Imperial Zyyntore term meaning “Legions of the Planet”, a units of billions of legionnaires that answer to the planetary governor, the Count Palatine. The standard of an Astraex depicts the abbreviation “AV” and then the name of the planet. Beneath the planet’s name, the numbers of all of the legions composing the AV are listed, with the AV’s battlecry written below that.

In addition to the legionnaires themselves, the Legions are also host to its clergy, the Battle Priesthood. Battle Priests serve as sanctified morale officers, each assigned to a Cohort, a unit of 1,000 men within the Legion. The Battle Priests serve under the Legion’s Chaplain, a bishop assigned to the Legion by the Archbishop of the entire planet. The Legionary Chaplain serves as the commander of his Battle Priests as well as serves as a spiritual advisor to the Legate, advising him on moral grounds when making tactical decisions. Additionally, the Chaplain and his priests will minister to the men during evening and morning prayer while on campaign, and the zyyntorean holy day of Leirtous (Wednesday) is ministered to the troops that evening. Chaplains are in charge of dictating the scriptures that are to be read that night as well, deciding the general theme and theological focus standing of that Legion. As such, on the standard of every Legion, the Chaplain’s Imperious Clatous (Prime Scripture) is inscribed on the standard and heraldry of that Legion, acting as their battlecry and recruiting slogan.

### Vonin and Honor Chapters

Zyyntoreans may serve in the military for almost their entire lives, however there comes a point when they are considered too old to serve considering their advanced ages. Many zyyntoreans, when honorably discharged, will go on to continue fighting as Vonin.

Vonin is the Zyyntorae word meaning “Wanderer” or “Vagrant”, referring to, often elderly, zyyntorean warriors that have since left the Legions due to their advanced age and live as travelling vigilantes. Vonin, due to the high amount of them in the galaxy, will often coalesce into small bands referred to as Mendicant Cohorts, groups of men who travel to criminal infested planets and cities to rid them of evil and injustice. Vonin are often welcomed by local police forces for their cooperation, honorable conduct, and willingness to do good, but are also challenged by other governments due to their illegal vagrancy, since Vonin groups do not live anywhere, but instead travel with rucksacks and tents to live on the streets so they may be closer to the danger. By necessity, Vonin are for all intents and purposes, mercenaries, but will often work for much less than they are worth, and will not take on jobs that would require them to be dishonorable.

When groups of Vonin have done enough good deeds in an area to be recognized publicly, the Zyyntorist Church will then step in and legitimize them as an Honor Chapter, an official justice system composed of volunteer militia and Vonin, now referred to as Honor Brothers, who act in tandem with local police forces to rout out criminals, often engaging in all out war with criminal syndicates and other, less benevolent, mercenary bands. As official units of the Holy Zyyntorean Empire, Honor Chapters are able to request material aid from the Empire, who may deliver vehicles, ammunition, and military grade weaponry to assist the Chapters in their mission.

Though most Vonin groups have formed into Honor Chapters due to the interconnectedness of zyyntorean culture, there are still hundreds of millions of lone Vonin and thousands of Vonin bands travelling the expanses of the Milky Way. As such, one would think each individual Vonin has his own rules and code of honor, but this is not the case. A written treatise, called the Tractates of Honor, is a 1000 page book concerning the rules that Vonin and other zyyntoreans should live by. Acting as both a manual on martial arts and philosophy, the Tractates was written by the Harbinger Vaxez Gai Zakera, one of the greatest zyyntorean warriors in the history of the species. Contained within the pages are countless treatises on swordsmanship, marksmanship, honor, and pious living.

The book has gone on to be one of the most best-selling in galactic history, with its popularity reaching nearly biblical levels, so much to the point that it is regarded by some zyyntoreans as a secondary holy text alongside the Scripts of Valeez. The book is taught in zyyntorean schools as a required course teaching conduct and martial practices, and is one of the primary reasons zyyntoreans are such a martial and rigid species, living by the code set out by Zakera.

Any zyyntorean wishing to live as a Vonin is required by social law to have read and memorized the book in its entirety, and any Vonin who doesn’t hold a copy with him would be doing himself a disservice in the eyes of his peers.

Since zyyntoreans live for such a long time, they only get more dangerous with age, with some old zyyntoreans becoming so skilled that only the slow decay of death may claim them. Speaking of which, death is highly glorified within zyyntorean society. In their religion, the zyyntoreans believe that dying in combat is the highest honor of all, since a fallen warrior may go and serve in Valeez’s (their god) holy legion. Once a part of this heavenly legion, the soldiers journey into the depths of Buraki (Hell) to battle the demons of Zeelgoth. Reincarnation is also observed in their culture, it is said that whenever a baby is born, he or she was a holy warrior who fell while battling Zeelgoth’s armies.

Zyyntorean practices are also very martial, when greeting each other, the zyyntoreans present their weapons to each other as a sign of trust. Courtship is also centered around sword fighting, when a zyyntorean wishes to court another, they must challenge the other to a duel. If the agent wins, the patient is socially obligated to go on a date with the other. If the agent loses, the patient gets a choice without shame attached to it. Marriage is symbolized by the smelting of the Yukatan Sword, or youth sword. The youth sword is the family heirloom of every zyyntorean household, which is why it is required that a family may have only one child, as there is only one blade to pass down. The blades become progressively bigger overtime to the point that they are no longer practical. The blades, upon two families joining, are to be melted and combined into a single metal to symbolize an eternal union, when the one child is born, he or she will carry on that legacy. Zyyntoreans are also heavy drinkers of mead, which is the customary celebratory drink, which is often drunk at parties that celebrate tales of battle and honor.

### Doctrine

The military doctrine of the zyyntoreans is highly organized, disciplined, and efficient. Legionaries are trained in all forms of combat, including naval. Battles on the ground are often composed of mass melee charges of swordsmen while riflemen cover them by firing from elevated ground. Zyyntorean tanks are bulky, yet slow, and possess intense firepower, while their navy is massive, but does not account well for defense. Their navies are designed as a buffer when defending planets, this buffer gives ample time for the garrison and civilians on the surface to arm themselves and prepare for war. This tactic was used to great effect in the Zyyntore-Crake War (also called the 31st Zyyntore Crusade) of the early 7000s, in which the crake invasion fleet was met with the entire populace of Zyyntoria armed and ready for battle. The navy also demonstrated its adeptness in breaking through blockades so that the troops could land on the ground to make butcher’s work of the enemy.

The highest honor that a zyyntorean may receive under the role of High Priest is the rank of Harbinger. Harbingers are skilled career warriors that have demonstrated their immense piety, honor, and bravery in combat. There have been a total of 37, with Viacota Venturous Gai Dertht Zelem as the current and most recent. Harbingers are the right hand of the High Priest and the voices of Valeez. Their monuments are erected on Mount Kreizul on Crystaria, where the zyyntoreans may go and pray to as members of the Valeez’s pantheon of godlike warriors.