Here is how I describe the KoW's culture when called upon to do so for players encountering them.
FIRST DAY: The KoW warriors attack the town. The walls are quickly breached and they pour into the city. All the city's soldiers are gathered together and burned alive. It is a capital crime to have borne arms against the KoW. Any soldier who surrendered immediately, without actually fighting any KoW soldier, is spared and sent outside the city walls.
SECOND DAY: The commanding officer rewards those soldiers and officers who displayed exceptional valor. On rare occasions, a soldier displayed cowardice, mercy, or some other criminal deed. Generally, such soldiers are cut down on the spot by their comrades, in the heat of battle, but if such a soldier manages to survive until the second day, the commander quickly adjudges the crime and determines whether or not the man is worthy of death. (Death is the only punishment for KoW soldiers.)
REST OF THE WEEK: The warriors divide into two groups. One band retains discipline and mans the walls, watching for any potential relief army. The other band rampages through the town, killing at least one person in every family, and sometimes more. Anyone found hiding is killed on the spot. People who do NOT hide are often spared. All money and valuables are carried away and piled in a huge heap in the town square. If a house is found in which money is tucked away and hidden, then everyone on the entire street is killed. After a day of this, it becomes pretty easy to get everyone's money. If anyone betrays a neighbor's or family member's hiding spot, he is spared, as is his family, and sent outside the city walls.
Torture and rape are ubiquitous, both to intimidate the citizens and to reward the victorious soldiers. At noon of each day, the two bands of warriors switch roles, so that everyone gets a chance at rapine.
SECOND WEEK: Any women, men, or children who are deemed desirable by one of the warriors are carried off for the victory orgy. Sometimes KoW warriors fight over women or loot, even to the death. This is all part of the fun. The Victory Orgy lasts several days, and the warriors expend themselves in fights, bisexual acts, torture, executions, rapes, etc. Those civilians who survive the orgy are then taken to the Joy Battalions. If the military situation demands it, the orgy may not take place immediately after capturing a town, and there are times when a unit has had to fight for as long as a year before it was allowed to rest and experience its orgy. In such a case, the orgy is correspondingly longer than usual. The unit that was a year without leave got to orgy for a full season.
After the orgy, all children between the ages of 3 and 8 are forced to engage in a series of tests to determine their natural cruelty, their expected size and strength upon reaching adulthood, their ability to resist pain (kids that refrain from crying when branded with the iron are given high points), and so forth. Those children that are deemed suitable material are carried off to the KoW proper, to be reared as warriors.
THIRD WEEK: all the elderly and crippled are killed. All those engaged in non-essential jobs (priests, lawyers, governors, teachers, etc.) are assigned new jobs as craftsmen or farmers. All adults are then Tapped appropriately. Those who have especially useful crafts, and who need their INT and/or POW have their feet cut off instead.
FOURTH WEEK: a team of garrison troops and a governor are assigned to the town. These personnel will be rotated periodically, and good soldiers are generally rewarded with a season or two of garrison duty, in which they can rape and beat up anyone they want. The rest of the army move on to further campaigns. Their R&R is done. The town can now start trying to recover from the blitz of destruction that was just visited upon it. Just four weeks ago, they were a normal happy town. Now Ragnarok has come upon them.
PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS
The warriors are also expected to use their own initiative,
and the officers reward soldiers who have succeeded whether or not
they had orders to do what they did. The KoW soldiers are
discouraged from forming one-on-one sexual relationships, but
friendships are fine. They are also encouraged to engage in sexual
contact with other warriors, both in their own unit and others. Some
of the KoW warriors are female, but in any case all are taught to
be bisexual, though most tend to prefer one sex slightly over the
other.
PERSONALITY
Think of "Pittsburg Phil" (aka Harry Strauss), William
Quantrill, Simon Girty, Otto Skorzeny, and "Bricktop" Jackson.
That's what the KoW guys are like.
Sandy
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