The Shindaans: Your Guide to the Elite

From Duels Content

You've seen the Shindaans before, marching through the streets, standing guard on the walls, beating the daylights out of miscreants. But how much do you actually know? The Shindaans are an ancient and mysterious order, and it is only through exhaustive and somewhat dangerous research that this author has uncovered the information he has.

Armor & Weapons The fabled Shindaan armor can sometimes be seen in an exhausted form on some of the more potent gladiators in today's arena. However, what they wear is but a feeble shell of the originals. Shindaan smithing techniques marry two unlikely schools of blacksmithing: the delicacy and intricacy of Nir Gostian elven forging with the strength and brute force of Vistav Orc smelting. The result is armor that is light and elegant, yet hides a cruel and merciless strength. Since the Shindaans are drawn from a wide body of races, classes, and even planets, they make use of every conceivable kind of weaponry, from fists to maces.

Training Shindaan "training" is actually a brief, though not-so painless, process. Since the Shindaans are only drawn from the best fighters is the universe, basic combat training would be both redundant and wasteful. A newly recruited Shindaan is drilled in formations and basic group battle tactics (i.e. fighting in a group), but that's about it. After that, the skill of a Shindaan is entirely dependent on the previous experience of the individual. Japanese martial arts, Ithorilian strangleboxing, Greek wrestling, Shar'daanan sword dancing, and countless other techniques are employed by different Shindaans, making each one a unique and deadly opponent.

Classes While Shindaans are not officially organized into groups other than by rank, they do operate in groups that have similar capabilites and armaments, prompting the attachment of "classes" to some of the more common groups. These include

Slicers: Armed with swords and/or axes, these Shindaans wield bladed weapons with devastating effectiveness. They are often used in larger groups to deal with major problems, such as uprisings or riots.

Bruisers: These Shindaans are usually powerfully built, and primarily make use of fist weapons to beat single or small groups of miscreants into submission. Rarely traveling in groups bigger than five, they maintain order on a local level.

Crushers: The mace wielders. More than one of these intimidating guards is rarely needed. Guarding important facilities and the walls of the city, they can swing their gigantic maces with pulverizing strength.

Speculation Almost all of the Shindaan Guards carry daggers as sidearms, yet since they almost never need them, it seems odd that those masters of blacksmithing who supply the Shindaans with daggers would waste their time. Rumors abound, the most common of which is the idea of the Shadowstar Shindaans, elite assassins who carry out the darkest and most secretive work of the Archons. Their existence is completely speculative, but the existence of Shindaan daggers as well as the mysterious disappearance of most of the opposition to the Archons means that there must be something...