Imperialium Caelum Speculatores
The Imperialium Caelum Speculatores (The Imperial Sky Scouts)
The Choke and the Devil’s Sea have longed hampered trade and maritime influence for the True Empire. There have been various schemes to ‘clear the straits’ but none have succeeded. Thirty years ago a priest of Vatun sought to tame the Darkwings of the region that so hamper night travel. He tried to capture, tame and breed Darkwings for the Empire and to do so he used the more common Wyvern, the Dracnois Vipera, as a means to an end. Over several years the nests of Darkwings were raided, at great cost in lives, and eggs acquired but the young proved to be too intelligent and wild to be tamed. The dual headed creatures were too spirited to control without the heaviest of magical charms and restraints being repeatedly used. The subsequent death of the Vatun Priest, at the claws of a Darkwing, would normally have ended the scheme but it did not totally.
Thessalia Jamishe was an acolyte of Bralm, the goddess of industriousness, who had been assigned to assist the scheme to tame the Deathwings. She organised all the necessary but otherwise unglamorous elements of the scheme and did not want to see it end with such a waste of time and treasure. She argued that it was obvious that the Darkwings could not be tamed and that plans to control the Devil’s Sea were folly. To save face and to supply an actual useful asset Thessalia argued that the existing Wyverns should be used. This was not to control the sea as the common Wyvern was no match for a Darkwings but as an aerial force on its own. ‘Failure is an orphan’ and the idea of using the existing assets to create a distraction was seized upon. Overnight the emphasis changed to creating an aerial scouting force and the idea of dominating the Devil’s Sea forgotten.
The Imperialium Caelum Speculatores, draconic for Imperial Sky Scouts, were thus formed. The Sky Scouts have a breeding and training base in the hills to the north east of Tervingard far from prying eyes. When mature and trained they are deployed in flights of three to Tervingard where they live in caverns beneath the great lighthouse. They have not been used elsewhere as the Empire has had a period of relative peace following the fighting on Ipranius, the Isle of Hate, over thirty years ago. Elements of the scouts have operated on the Kylma continent, south of Kaegor Nova, as part of the spring and summer Exercises of War. They performed well and have attended ever since. The scouts are growing in prestige and, of course, gaining jealous rivals.
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