From the outlook of my new and inexpensive flat, I could see her. She was kneeling in the graveyard across the cobblestoned way in front of a fresh grave. She was in dark mourning gear, complete with those large black hats that were the fashion. A lost lamb I supposed, recently wed, recently widowed, crying for the loss of a loved one. She had been there two days that I noticed, as well as their nights. She never seemed to move, so locked she was in her grief. As I drank a lonely nightcap, I caught the glimpse that changed me. In the pale moon light, I saw the grave buckle. In a foul corruption of Athenean birth, some spawn sprang forth. Not taking my eyes off the horrid scene, I reached over to the weapon I had been cleaning. Before I could grasp it fully, the petite young widow of my imagination cleared a saber concealed under her over cape and removed its loathsome head. After checking her kill, she looked up at me; backlit I assumed by the lamp in the room. She was not just a simple widow, she was Mourner. I held up my glass in a true salute from one professional to another. At that point I knew two new things: That the Unnatural truly had become more active as I had been hearing in the back alleys and I needed to move far from that graveyard.

Sing a song of sixpence
Pocketful of rye
Four and twenty blackbirds
Baked in a pie

Mercenary companies are usually little more than bands of low-level thugs. This one is a much more sophisticated organisation, with its own history, regulations and culture.

One of the Locastrian Regiments, footsoldiers with a reputation for savagery and a predilection for the meanest, dirtiest assignments.....

The deployment of the Lord of the Waste's army.

A tactical lay-out for villainous forces inspired by Warhammer 40K

The Ambassador's bodyguard quaked at the sight of the uniformed skeletons guarding the main gates of the royal palace. "Don't be afraid," the Ambassador said. "They are King's Bones, the monarch's personal bodyguards, and are no threat to us unless we were to do something stupid like trying to attack His Majesty."

The Azure Lions Company is a mercencary company of some repute. With the motto of 'Strength of Arms, Body, and Spirit'.

Exiled from their home this elite military force is adrift in a foriegn land. All these people have ever known is war so they put themselves for sale as mere mercenaries at the same price as any other sword slingers. But these men have brought a new type of type of warfare to the northern lands and the fields of battle will run red with their enemy's blood.

'Let their bodies be consumed, so that their souls may be healed' (Consumption 1-1)

If you wake up in a field of green grass, looking at a woman of flesh and steel. Be glad, you are dead. If you wake up covered in blood and shit, be gladder still. For you are alive and your time is not yet come!

Doyen Velit

''Is not the emir himself a slave of the Allmighty? Everyone should be a slave. Unchecked freedom is a terrible curse and burden that will destroy us if we are not subject to the will of our natural superiors that have it in themselves to elevate all that is noble and proud in their slaves, while stifling that which is head-strong and foolish. Unfortunate is the free man who has no master to rule over him''.

Short for Vector Industries Tactical Security, VI-TAC-SEC, often itself shortened to V-TAC serves as the principle police force and garrison of Vector Industries.

Black Sword is a private military corporation, a company hired as security or to supplement governmental military forces. In Black Sword's case, it is to supplement their special operations forces.

The Commander sniffed, 'They are a motley group.'
The Captain said, 'We will get the job done'.

Seen by some as warriors for the gods, and by others as mere mercenaries drapped in a priests robes.

Go forth to war my son, and be absolved of your transgressions.

St. Acre the Just, Confessor General

The Arrival of the Regiments has commenced

And now the day was here, and the people had gathered for the spectacle of my punishment for show throughout the arena the bodies of those about to perish had led off a procession of their own death. My master was sitting there piling up favor derived from our blood. Although no one could know my fortune, my family, my father, because I was separated from my homeland by the sea, among certain spectators nevertheless one thing made me pitiable, that I seem inadequately prepared; truly I was destined to be a certain victim of the arena, no one had caused less expense for the giver of the games than I. One thing they do not know, while I may be inadequate in preparation, the fear of a cornered man knows no bounds.

-Agustine, prisoner of war and Gladiator

The Order of the who? Of the What?