Hex Crawl 23 #190: Tower of the Crescents

Six hexes northwest, one southwest of Alakran.

 

We come to the first of several fortresses that encircle and protect the city of Gesshed, built when eastern Wahattu was a wilder place than it is now. Although Wahattu has a regular army, divided into maniples of tightly drilled spear and shield, all the renown and glamour go to its colorfully named legions which supply the other arms of the military enterprise. This tower belongs to the Crescent Blades that Cleave the Earth, or simply, the Crescents.

The Crescents are a unit of heavy foot who work with two-handed axes but carry full-body shields for protection against arrows and in melee. The shields have long spikes on the bottom which can be sunk into the earth, allowing both hands to swing the axe while the shield acts as a static rampart. Their armor is bronze rings on a leather coat, and as a further mark, they wear crescent-shaped gorgets of polished tin at their throats, their beards being parted into two tails to display the gorget.

This fort is a plain, square, four-storey tower thirty feet on a side, built of ochre brick and stocked with a crossbow at each window. The forty men here represent the "right horn" of the formation, with the left horn and reserve/command platoon being quartered elsewhere in the kingdom. The commander of the fortress is tall and thickly built, "like a stack of shields," and goes by Hanthu the Jolly Boaster, for he exaggerates the unit's accomplishments and preparedness in a jocular, self-mocking way. Indeed, he encourages a friendly rivalry between this company and the other heavy infantry formation nearby, the Obliterating Fists. The joke on the Crescents is that they Cleave the Earth because they cannot hit their enemy. The joke on the Fists is crude, unrepeatable, and all too inevitable given that formation's name.