Morenar

The Morenar is a mercenary organisation founded by Lord Dagoth Levain Von’Saldor, a low-ranking noble who leads it to this day. Its presence is not limited to the Western Provinces, nor even to the Empire: the Morenar takes contracts from anywhere and from anyone willing to pay its price, and its price is a hefty one.¹

Creed

The Morenar holds that chivalry, red lines and codes of honour are the very things that make other companies weak. Mercenaries, in its view, are tools in the hands of those who hire them: blades, and blades do not care whom they cut.²

Blaze tells newcomers that seeking power is part of everyone’s nature, an urge to overcome one’s limits. Swordsmen, clerics and bards spend years mastering their arts, but there are quicker paths to power, more radical and far more dangerous; only the seeker can know the true cost, and none should turn on the door that granted their power by claiming to have been tricked.³

A clean face

After the civil war that followed the rise of the usurper, the organisation recruited many of the rebels and gave them new identities. It keeps a perfectly clean face in the Empire: it is connected to many merchant guilds and offers membership to merchants, promising them profitable deals and insurance for their goods.⁴

Most merchants and powerful nobles are said to be tied to the organisation, which is why the hunter Davos Fratz at first dismissed it as a guild of nobles and merchants. The Morenar has a mercantile branch and a military branch, and its western branch has its own master of coin and head of caravan operations, Joseph Kalkerian, who would rather keep the Morenar’s gold away from the prying eyes of the Empire’s accountants.⁵

The organisation is now building ties with the dark elven House of Grezzit Baeren, with Neanoth Jeal’tlous serving as its representative to the house.⁶

Membership

Every member of the Morenar is tied to some dark power, by choice or through a series of misfortunes, and each is of fiendish origin, a user of dark magic or an opportunist. All mercenaries in its ranks are bound to the organisation by a magical pact of servitude. There is no escape from the Morenar, and its members know it: even in death, they serve. A candidate’s initiation begins only once their superiors judge them ready.⁴

The organisation’s aim has always been to create a privileged group of people who live and work with as few troubles as possible.⁴

Members

The Morenar’s roster includes Marcus Gaius, Blaze, Joseph Kalkerian, Davos Fratz, Neanoth Jeal’tlous, Ahriman Fer’zaad, Ifanelle, Sigusmund the Boar, Luccas Mairein and Zeeke.⁷

• Marcus Gaius found in the Morenar the unity and brotherhood he had been looking for. Blaze, guided to the organisation by his patron, serves as his second in command in Neptun, and has been warned and punished by higher-ranking officers for his carelessness in battle.⁸
• Joseph Kalkerian joined at the lowest point of his life. Lord Dagoth saw in him not a hapless miscalculator but a strategic genius; under the Morenar’s guidance he trained as a swordsman, and he recently became master of coin of the western branch.⁹
• After his removal from his former guild, Davos Fratz was invited by Joseph to join and continue his hunts under a private hunting licence that only the count can grant. He joined as a candidate and has since risen in the military branch.¹⁰
• Ahriman Fer’zaad joined reluctantly. He knew it was another kind of slavery under a crueller master, but this master could keep him safe from his pursuers, and they shared a common foe.¹¹
• Ifanelle was on the run when she met members of the Morenar in Vansreik; she is in her first year of service. Zeeke, a new member, joined without a second thought, sure that membership would carry him to the top in the city.¹²

Spoiler: The true nature of the MorenarRevealSpoils: Mercenary Compendium; Book of Dead · Say what you have read

The Morenar was formed by a cleric of hell, though it does not work strictly for the Nine Hells. As a member climbs its ranks, the fiendish influence becomes evident and the true meaning of membership becomes clear. Contracts made by members do not bind their souls to the hells, but they do lead those souls towards the lower planes and sin.⁴

In Dagoth’s grand plan, membership is to give the organisation’s high-ranking members a way out of hell and a means of continuing their existence in the material world after death.⁴

A note signed by Lord Dagoth Salvador, there named as the founder of the Morenar, accompanies the account of the Tomb of Anarchy, a rite for binding demon princes to a place in the material world. In it he writes that learning the rite cost him many souls, and that it was worth every one.¹³

Neanoth Jeal’tlous has a connection with Lord Dagoth; aware of it, Blaze and Marcus refrain from using the organisation’s power for personal gain.⁶

Spoiler: The Morenar’s schemesRevealSpoils: Mercenary Compendium · Say what you have read

Among the Morenar’s methods are hiring other mercenary guilds on false contracts that lead them to ruin, and taking contracts from both sides of a conflict to maximise its profit.⁴

In the Western Provinces, the organisation’s present aim is to move the ownership of the farmlands around the city to a low-ranking noble family it can control, and so gain the rights to process their harvest. The fields within the crater, now held by House Von Sturm, are extremely fertile and supply a tenth of the whole Empire’s demand for grain.⁴

Zeeke, the son of the city guard’s captain, had long known of the Morenar’s presence in the city, and knew that his father took its bribes.¹⁴

Three years ago, when a Scarlet Spears battalion cornered the bandit Sigusmund the Boar, Ifanelle approached him disguised as one of the Scarlet Spears and gave him a choice: join the Morenar with all his men and plunder, or die at the hands of the Scarlet Spears. She led the bandits along a dangerous mountain path to a dozen Morenar guardsmen waiting with horses and supplies, and Luccas Mairein helped persuade Sigusmund to side with the organisation. Unknown to Sigusmund, the whole operation was meant to secure a valuable item he had taken in one of his raids; gaining a skilled bandit and his gang was, for Marcus, a welcome side effect.¹⁵