Hi guys, I'm still new here Anyway, I was wondering how to make an army for a secret society. Or rather, what to call the soldiers in it. The secret society is a background association which has agents placed in strategic government positions. For example, the head of a certain large province would be a captain in the society, and the president of a country could be a general. So, let me describe the soldiers and positions. Grunt: Not actually called a grunt, but the usual, run-of-the-mill guard soldier who carries a sword and a round shield. He wears chain mail, a helmet, and combat boots... What should I call them? Something very fantasy-like. Or maybe I should call him vagrant. Squad Leader: Has a bunch of -Grunts- reporting to him. A bit higher, wears a shoulder cape, carries a crossbow on his back, has a sword, and wears chain mail and combat boots. I might just call him a Captain... Muglump: Relatively powerful guy, maybe a sergeant or a lieutenant in a real army. Wears a full cloak, a round helmet, a dagger, an axe, and pointy leather shoes. (All the rage in fashionable young men those days ) Cardinal: Very powerful individuals who command whole armies. Can use magic (they can teleport, make giant balls of shadows that destroy stuff, disappear, reappear, all the norm in the wizarding world), and only are appointed if they are able to use magic. They wear a full brown and black cloak, a hood for hiding their faces, a crossbow, their magic, boots, and shiny black metal clawed gloves. (They kind of look like Ringwraiths from Lord of the Rings by Tolkien.) Head Custodian: (Yeah, I called him the head custodian.) Head of the heads, top of the top, ringmaster super lord. He wears long, grayed, frayed robes, a very long hood to make his face indiscernable, and carries a cane (suspected to have a sword in it). He also wears some kind of brooch. Nothing is known about him, except that he is searching for something and is trying to destroy the fantasy world. This all takes place in a fantasy world, which is a bunch of archipelagos floating in space, protected by magical atmosphere. The archipelagos are different "worldfragments" which are independent countries with varying climates. The secret society (the Zodiac) are planted pretty much everywhere you can imagine (even in waste treatment plant managing positions). Please post your comments and possible names for the grunts and squad leader. Thanks!
It's a secret society, right? Why would it point out its main player by giving them specific names? So long as the troopers know who to take orders from, they don't need to have specific names. If I were the leader of something like that, I'd make everyone dress the same and forbid the troopers from saluting officers, make things hard for snipers...
if its a secret socity why do they have uniforms and standard issue wepons? why not street clothns and improvised/ makeshift/ non standard issue wepons?
I imagine this could work seeing as it is a fantasy world and things like "logic" are usually taking it far up the butt on a daily basis... maybe there's a lot of pseudo-professional military forces around? My problem is that it's organized far too much like a video game. The bad guys are too uniform and predictable in their general organization. While I realize with an entire innumerable army of evil uniqueness may be hard to come by, you shouldn't really think of it in the way of particular enemies that appear at particular times and are like bosses/standard foes/minibosses/special enemies etc. and more like an actual military. What can a certain enemy group be modified for, as in the sorts of situations they can be trained and equipped for? How do all of these forces work in conjunction with logistics and intelligence departments? What sorts of situations warrant particular forces such as the cardinals appearing? At the same time, you've a long way to go with the sorts of forces you want to bring up. Every single one can have a lot of diversity.
Like the others said, unless they have a secret hide out, they can't wear special uniforms or else they stand out. Only a really wacked out psycho wants to destroy the world, more commonly, the leader wants more power, with the final goal being world domination. Even in star wars, destroying worlds was not the main goal. Universal power was. Secret militants like to stay secret, so the grunt would probably only know the person that gives them orders and one alternate, so if captured they can't expose the whole group. At some point up the chain of command the elite would know the main leaders. Maybe a wolf pack mentality, hunters(grunts) follow pack leaders(Sarg), follow terriorial pack leaders(captain), follow kingdom pack leaders(colonel), follow world pack leaders(General)? Mages would be arcane-wolves, and some sort of levels of rank, so the military knows where they fall. Just think of a chain of leadership and expand it upwards.
I agree, it's very difficult to mesh the ideas of 'secret society' and 'uniformed army'. When overt violence is required, traditionally secret societies simply manipulate a sovereign military to act on their behalf. It makes sense for a secret organization to have access to some kind of special paramilitary force, but that's usually either street thugs or elite agents, one of which uses a cloak of anonymity, the other a cloak of stealth. I think it might help your naming, and your storytelling, to pin down exactly what these 'soldiers' do and how their actions aid the society.
You might benefit from reading the Evil Overlord List (http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html). One of the best examples of a military for a "secret society" (sorta) comes from the novel "Legion" by Dan Abnett which is set in the Warhammer 40k universe. Despite the Alpha Legion being an army of thousands of genetically-enhanced, super humans, they prefer far more espionage-based tactics than their brother chapters. They hide their presence on planets (not easy for eight-foot tall space marines), even eschewing their iconic power armor at times. They make use of their enemies weapons and technology when able to throw off suspicion of involvement, and use a vast network of spies and henchmen (many not knowing who they even work for) before ever appearing themselves. What's more they all call themselves the same name (their leader's), and even go under cosmetic surgery to appear as closely to him as possible, all just to add mystery and confuse not just enemies but allies. Also the list of Roman military ranks from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_army_unit_types) has some nifty names.
Thanks for all your advice, guys! I've decided to incorporate your guys' ideas. Basically, the society will be the puppetmasters of the large union army that is stretched between all the "countries". They will still remain secret, but the government will be "under new management". Eventually, people won't remember what life was like before. I'll explain the society - they started as astronauts from Earth who found the archipelago world. After rejoicing at the find that this was a new civilization in what was the Medieval Ages of Earth, they decided to guide and influence the path of the civilizations to try and make perfect utopia. However, through meddling with the government, they suddenly became obsessed with creating perfect society. When government leaders started implementing foolish laws and "wrong" decisions (the astronauts weren't exactly politicians and had a very different view of what was ethically and economically right), the astronauts/planted government advisors started getting rid of the leaders. Eventually, this forced implementing of "good" laws led to corruption in part of the astronauts' ancestors (who had the permanent spots of advisors) and they started getting frustrated with trying to run a planet. Then, they saw mass weapons of war develop in the military, and realized this could be a threat to Earth (dramatic advisors, yes?). The advisors put it upon themselves to do their Earthly relatives a favor and disable this new threat. They elected a family Head Custodian, and set to work building up a force to destroy this menace (the menace being peaceful people who had no idea their military had stockpiled weapons just in case some impossible war started). The astronaut's descendants knew their Earthly relatives would honor such heroes as themselves, and therefore knew it would be alright to sacrifice themselves if they destroyed the planet. (Actually, they're a lot like the Pureblood wizarding families from Harry Potter.) Anyway, they plan to destroy the precious artificial atmosphere around the worldfragments (see original post) by removing the atmospheric shards, which implement the atmosphere. And that's the antagonist Thanks to all for your great help! All that matters now is the ringmaster.
