Rache

From IoD Lost

Aliases

Hölle Rache, The General of the Night, Master of The Ignorant Armies

The generals are born again, born again, born again
The generals are born again, they're going to save the world

Appearance

Rache is a creature of perverse opposites, embodying as he does the beauty of war. He is the hard, clean edge of the blade, the sinister majesty of the killing machine; blood-soaked bodies, scattered like blossom on a distant field; the awesome terror of the cavalry charge; the clear ring of steel on steel; the sweet tang of cordite smoke and the smell of napalm in the morning. His armies cover the land like a plague of locusts while his air forces darken the skies over the battlefield, and every place that Rache treads is a battlefield, whether it was so before or not.

Their armament is seeing right, doing right, being right
Their armour of righteousness is going to save the world

Personality

He is dominion, merciless and implacable. He is the drive to conquer, the need to overpower and destroy all resistance. His mind is full of subtle strategems, but in its overriding need to move forward it is akin to a shark, or rather to a tank, ploughing over all in its path, heedless of the destruction it wreaks. he does not revel in death or mayhem; for him, that is merely a byproduct of the constant need to take that which he does not yet possess.

They're sending in the cavalry, cavalry, cavalry
The bugles and the banner-boys are waiting for the word

Domain

That which Rache controls, he turns to his singular purpose: the pursuance of war.

The outer edge of his territory is No-Man's Land, an endless, scarred battlefield, across which his guns and his tanks and the limitless hordes of the Ignorant Armies face whatever foe is luckless enough to come into view. This is where Rache himself dwells, moving among the many battles which rage here, overseeing the eternal expansion of his dominion. The heaviest fighting, the greatest concentration of troops, is ever on the Eastern Front, so called. While direction means little in Arcadia, is is here that the Beautiful Sun rises, and here that Rache and his nemesis, Mardöll clash eternally.

The captain is a blind man, blind man, blind man
A blind man is reaching for a terrible swift sword

Behind the front lines, ringed with trenches and bunkers and fortresses, lie the Fields; fresh ground, watered with blood and farmed by vast gangs of slaves until it gives up all of its goodness to feed the endless hunger of the war machine. Behind these is the Machine, a sprawling industrial complex, fed by Rache's own quarries and by the Bloodstone Mines of the Lords of Soot and Steam.

Finally, with its fertility gone and its mineral wealth torn out, the dead country is abandoned, becoming a part of the Desolation at the heart of Rache's territory.

Born again: the generals are born again to save the world.

Durance

I'll never get to heaven no matter what I do
I'll never be a blue eyed boy although my eyes are blue

The nature of Durance for Rache's subjects depends on where he finds a use for them.

And I will not work and I will not work and I will not work for you

The Ignorant Armies

They'll put a stop to history, history, history
Cut through this confusion with the purity of steel

Most of the Lost in Rache's power serve on the front lines, as part of the vast legion known as the Ignorant Armies. Many find their place in the infantry, fewer in the cavalry, while the favoured few may find service as engines of destruction: tanks, fighters, bombers, gunboats, and even the mighty leviathans; mobile fortresses the size of a skyscraper.

The Ignorant Armies fight with steel, lead and stinking, chemical gas. Rache's mind searches tirelessly through the dreams of humanity, seizing on the worst excesses of their invention to fuel his pitiless war machine. Changelings of all kinds slave in the Armies, distinguished only by their use.

• Beasts - In the Ignorant Armies, all living things must fight. Beasts of the Armies are fighting animals, trained and broken to war: Warhorses, warhounds and warhawks; poisonous vermin and great cats. There are no fantastical creatures in the Armies, however; no dragons or griffins.
• Darklings - Assassins and spies, the children of the shadows are valued in Rache's army; some even suggest that they are his favourites. Whatever work they do is hidden, however, and few people ever meet one of his Darklings twice.
• Elementals - The raw materials of the war are elementals: metalfleshed tanks, earthboned bulwarks and searing, weaponised firehearts; the choking breath of blightbents and the stinging burn of levenquick Tesla coils.
• Fairest - The captains of the Ignorant Armies are Rache's dark-souled beauties, the bearers of the terrible, mind-twisting panic which sends hordes of foes fleeing headlong, their backs to the Aremis' lances.
• Ogres - The most hideous weapons in Rache's armies are his Ogres; impossible, often-elemental engines of destruction, they bring death on a massive scale. Few ever escape their durance, because the burden of their deeds weighs too heavily upon them.
• Wizened - The Wizened are the backbone of the Ignorant Armies: rank-upon-rank of soldiers, cadres of engineers labouring on Rache's war machines and chirugeons keep the other fighters on their feet.

The Fieldworkers

For time is just a can of worms, can of worms, can of worms
They'll blow away corruption when they break that seal

Even the Ignorant Armies march on their stomachs and it is the thankless task of the fieldworkers to drag something edible from the parched, poisoned ground of the fields.

Born again: the generals are born again to save the world

Cogs in the Machine

A star is in the firmament, firmament, firmament
A new star in the firmament Wormwood is its name

In endless rows the factories of Rache's war machine stand, churning out weapons, armour and ammunition to keep the Ignorant Armies fighting. Those chosen to work here become the machines, tireless slaves to meet the general's insatiable demand for instruments of slaughter.

The Abandoned

Everyone will see the light, see the light, see the light
And though my eyes are shut I'll have to see it just the same

Those who fail utterly in their function are cast out into the Desolation, to wander and starve. The few who manage to escape from here and return to the waking world are usually utterly mad.

Changelings

For peace to last a thousand years, thousand years, thousand years
Prophecy has struck a match and held it to the fuse

Gehenna

Ciara

Hedgespun Items

They're wheeling up the cameras,
They're timing Armageddon for the evening news
Born again, the generals are born again to save the world

Ignorant Armour

The Ignorant Armour is made in a dozen forms, shaped to Rache's many soldiers, but it always consists of steel head, neck and body armour, with heavy leather and cloth to guard the limbs and joints. On a humble soldier resembles the modest protective gear of a WWI soldier, but including a face mask on the helmet, while for cavalry it is heavy barding and harness combined. On those who can shapeshift, the armour can shift as appropriate. The armour is protected by a glamour. In Arcadia this was a form of camouflage; in the waking world it manifests as an enhanced mask. It usually appears as heavy clothing, including a bulky jacket. In any form, however, it has a distinct 'lived in' smell, and the wearer will sweat profusely.

Ingredients: Hedge Fabric; Blood of an Artist; Bones of a Smith; Sweat of an Ogre (in their Durance, each of the Changelings working on the armour must slave so hard that they suffer at least three lethal damage in the process).

The fabric of the Ignorant Armour is innocuous enough. The hides and fibres are taken from hedgebeasts and hedge plants, it's true, but there is nothing exceptional in them. The mystery of the armour is in the making. The machines in the factories of Rache create the armour in bulk by feeding their blood and sweat and strength into the cloth and leather. The looms are Wizened artists, forced into their mechanical shape to weave close and strong, lending their subtlety to the armour as their fingers bleed into the fabric (Enhanced Mask). The buckles and plates are fashioned by transformed smiths, hammerlike limbs rising and falling over and over until they are worn to stubs and the armour worked hard as stone (Enhanced Protection). The leather is tanned and worked by ogres, whose sweat pours forth like rain to instill the armour with their stubborn might (Bulletproof). As they work the armour, the machines pour out their strength until they are spent. One machine can make between fifteen and twenty suits of armour before requiring repair and replacement (before the Changeling within is cast out into the Wastelands and another transformed to take their place) and the Ignorant Armies are vast.

Stats:

• Type - Armour.
• Enhanced Protection (heavier suits for 'special units' probably exist, but would require more than local approval)
• Enhanced Mask
• Bullet Proof
• 1/2 bulletproof, Durability 1, Structure 2, -1 initiative penalty.
• 3 point Hedgespun armour

(Lyrics: The Generals are born again - The Oyster Band)