Nobatica
11-08-2007, 21:48
OOC:This is closed to Karain members only. No exceptions.
IC:
Realm of Dominus Caius Quintus Seneca, Nobatica; Continent of Karain
It was a realm alright: if one's definition of the word 'realm' was a patch of rock in the middle of the Nobatican Desert containing a tin shack village housing a thousand starving peasants and a few hundred or so of their well-off white overlords (who, of course, lived in a fortified compound at the center of the village). The rulers of this country fancied themselves lords of the old style: men of noble blood, ruling in the spirit of their Lord, Jesus Christ.
Of course, Seneca was no more than a petty warlord, ruling over the native black peasantry through fear of his white paramilitaries and fear of what will happen to their souls if they are killed revolting against their masters, who, of course, rule over them by the Grace of God. Such was the way Nobatica was ruled: feudalism. Pure, unadulterated feudalism in the 21st century. Nobatica itself was a former colony of what is now known as the Imperium Doomanum; as a result, the spoken language of the land was Latin, and the dominant religion: militant Doomani Catholicism. Nobatica's secession had not been from the Imperium, however; in 1979, Doomanum had been a Res Publica, a republic that had been ruled by a secular Stalinist regime. During the revolution that had ousted the communists and installed the theocratic monarchy we all know and love, Nobatica itself fell into anarchy.
'Order', if one could call it that, eventually came in the year 2006 when one of the warlords had managed to acquire the favor of Manus Dei and was able to gain dominance over the other lords, establishing the system that exists to this day.
Despite being considered a 'nation', Nobatica was in fact a land comprised of many hundreds of smaller autonomous realms controlled by the warlords. The capital (and only true city in the entire country, housing no less than a quarter of the total population), Agrippina, was another of these realms. By default, however, it was the most powerful; as a result, the man who was Dominus over Agrippina was the de facto ruler of Nobatica.
In this case, that man was C. Publius Agrippa (hence the name of the capital), the self-proclaimed Dux of Nobatica. His control over his 'nation' was by no means solid; however, it wasn't exactly challenged either. Most of the time, the warlords were far too busy fighting amongst one another to even notice him, and he was fine by that. As long as the Domini did not unite, he would remain firmly in control of Agrippina, and as a result, the money and arms would keep flowing in from his Manus Dei patrons.
In fact, as of the moment, Manus Dei money was the only thing keeping Nobatica from plunging into complete anarchy. It was by anyone's definition a 3rd world country; and, if there were such a thing, it would probably fit the description of a 4th world country. The closest thing to an economy was the slave trade that went on between a select number of warlords and the neighboring Balhizans: the Domini provided the slaves, and received in return- surprise -more weapons.
Along the southern border with communist Kibizhaka, however, there was no such activity (instead, warlords generated income by abducting foreigners for ransom); things in that sector were certainly less than friendly, as evidenced by the activity in Seneca's village that day. Located some twenty kilometers from the Kibizhakan border, Seneca had recently had to deal with an influx of communist agitators; foreigners who tried to provoke the peasantry into revolting. Luckily, the system of fear had triumphed this time around: this had resulted in the arrest of six individuals, including a suspected Kibizhakan spy.
Unsurprisingly, the village’s main gathering place also served as the place of execution, and with the current festivities, was now in full attendance of the village’s peasantry. Located just down the street from the Equites’ Compound, the execution square consisted of an elevated wooden platform upon which the sedes traditoris, the preferred device of execution, was constructed, along side a wooden table. The crowd surrounding the platform was immense; a thousand or so people packed into the narrow streets of the town cheering and chanting as the fifth man sentenced by the Dominus to die that day was led up the steps and onto the platform and spun around to face the crowd.
The man was shirtless, his pants rags; drenched in sweat and despite the fact he was about to die in a particularly brutal fashion, his face conveyed no emotion. On either side he was flanked by masked Equites, white paramilitaries, DR-83s slung over their shoulders. Without a word being said, over the yelling and cheering of the crowd, a third soldier approached from behind and pulled a black hood over the man’s head. The ropes binding his hands behind his back were cut and the two men on his sides led him to the sedes traditoris.
Consisting of a simply wooden stool and a steel frame, the sedes traditoris, or traitor’s throne, was a torque-based execution device, utilizing several rotating limbs and a series of weights to essentially twist the victim to death. After being seated, the two guards extended his arms, strapping them to a pair of horizontal beams jutting out of the frame; his legs, subsequently, were strapped to a pair of vertical beams; a leather strap was tightened across his torso. Finally, the third man approached: in his hands was a steel, cage-like mask, caked with dried blood. Placing the mask over the captives head, he pulled on several tabs, tightening it. He then jerked the man’s head upward, sliding a tube mounted to the top of the mask into a shaft mounted above the seat to the frame, sliding a pair of bolts through to secure it.
Backing off, he gave a hand signal to the executioner, who stood to the right side of the traitor’s throne. The executioner nodded in return before pulling a lever attached to the device; this released one of the weights concealed behind the sedes traditoris, which in return pulled on a pair of wires wrapped around the leg beams. This caused the beams to begin to rotate, the man’s legs still latched to them; as the beams began to rotate outwards, so went the man’s legs, the beams slowing down as the legs began to put up resistance. It was of no use of course; the weights always prevailed. The man screamed as he struggled against the rotating beams. The sickening sound of his muscle tearing resounded. Slowly his legs were being torn outwards out of their sockets.
The skin on the legs was horribly stretched and deformed as the legs began to separate from the body, stretching as the thy bone was twisted and torn; torrents of blood rushed across the deck. Finally, after no more than five seconds, there was a thump as the weight hit the deck and the beams stopped rotating. His legs, still latched to the beams, had been completely torn off; however, with the first weight hitting the deck, a second weight began to drop: this time the horizontal arm beams began to rotate in opposite directions. He instantly began to yell out in pain as his arms were crudely dislocated from his torso. As it continued to turn, the skin and muscle tissue was torn like paper, completely ripping his arms off. As if to add insult to injury, the beams continued to rotate for another two cycles, his dismembered arms still attached to them. By now the man was soaked in his own blood: an armless, legless torso, begging for a death which he would finally receive.
The second thump initiated the dropping of the third weight: the shaft attached to his mask began to rotate at a much faster rate then the others. There was a single, loud, long crunching noise as his neck was broken, his head twisting completely around. It kept turning; the skin could no long stretch so much, and so that two began to tear until finally, the man’s head had been completely torn from his shoulders. Finally, the final thump. The mask stopped spinning.
The crowd roared as the man that had attached the mask knocked the two bolts out, pulling the steel mask with the head still attached off and holding it up for all to see. There was celebratory gunfire; two of the executioners on stage fired their DR-83s into the air, and a few dozen militia in the crowd fired their DR-89s and DR-78s into the air for several bursts as the head was removed from the mask and dumped out of the hood.
A rack of six DR-78 rifles adorned a corner of the stage; severed heads were impaled on the 18” bayonets of four of the rifles, and this one was subsequently mounted to the fifth; insects crawled in and out of the mouths, ears, and eyes of all of the heads as they rotted in the scorching sun.
”This is the fifth fucking time this month,” Seneca kicked a tin can off of the shoddy balcony as he sipped his cold beer, reclining in the lawn chair.
He and his son were watching the executions from the comfort of their compound, enjoying a few beers, cigarettes and the cool breeze from the frantic fanning of a pair of black peasant girls. Seneca, a man of about forty-four, wore a white t-shirt and a pair of tan camouflaged cargopants; his son, Gaius, some twenty years of age, took a drag of his cigarette.
”I think it’s about time we sent those commie fucks a message, father,” replied the surprisingly well-built young man, toying around with the cylinder of his revolver.
Seneca grunted.
”You think? No shit we need to send them a message. This bullshit stops today. I want you to take some good men and go across…take a few hostages, we can use the money, and make sure to kill a good amount in the process. Make a nice mess of things. If those stupid fucks want to fuck around with us, they’d better be willing to accept the consequences,”
As he spoke, they watched as the sixth and final of the condemned was lead up onto the stage. From where they were they could see as he was forced onto the table: the executioner proceeded to cut out his eyes and his tongue. They’d saved the foreigner for last. Gaius chuckled as the man, screaming in terror, was dragged to his feet and strapped into the traitor’s throne without being hooded.
”Very well, father, it shall be done,” he closed the cylinder of his revolver and laid it across his lap. ”Lemme finish this last round first,” he smiled, chugging the last bit of beer remaining in his bottle and tossing it over the side.
An hour or so later, the sound of diesel engines firing up resounded about the white quarter as thirty Equites packed into some eight technicals of varying makes: RM pickup trucks sporting Maurus HMGs and MMGs and the occasional 23mm anti aircraft cannon; Nyala utility vehicles with 105mm recoilless rifles and a similar variety of machineguns. All of the vehicles were clearly overpacked: aside from the crews of the machineguns, the beds of the trucks and Nyalas were filled to the brim with the Equites, who carried their prized DR-83 rifles and the occasional Spiculum rocket propelled grenade.
As high noon began to peak, the technicals sped down the streets of the village, sending the peasantry running in various directions to avoid being run over, and out into the desert; on the lead vehicle, a boombox in the bed of the truck was cranking out Slayer’s “Angel of Death” at maximum volume. They knew of a certain village that was almost directly on the border, maybe a kilometer inside Kibizhaka. In all likelihood, that was the place the communists were basing their agents out of; hopefully hitting the place would put an end to that problem. Of course, little did they know, the Kibizhakans had very little patience for such violent incursions…
IC:
Realm of Dominus Caius Quintus Seneca, Nobatica; Continent of Karain
It was a realm alright: if one's definition of the word 'realm' was a patch of rock in the middle of the Nobatican Desert containing a tin shack village housing a thousand starving peasants and a few hundred or so of their well-off white overlords (who, of course, lived in a fortified compound at the center of the village). The rulers of this country fancied themselves lords of the old style: men of noble blood, ruling in the spirit of their Lord, Jesus Christ.
Of course, Seneca was no more than a petty warlord, ruling over the native black peasantry through fear of his white paramilitaries and fear of what will happen to their souls if they are killed revolting against their masters, who, of course, rule over them by the Grace of God. Such was the way Nobatica was ruled: feudalism. Pure, unadulterated feudalism in the 21st century. Nobatica itself was a former colony of what is now known as the Imperium Doomanum; as a result, the spoken language of the land was Latin, and the dominant religion: militant Doomani Catholicism. Nobatica's secession had not been from the Imperium, however; in 1979, Doomanum had been a Res Publica, a republic that had been ruled by a secular Stalinist regime. During the revolution that had ousted the communists and installed the theocratic monarchy we all know and love, Nobatica itself fell into anarchy.
'Order', if one could call it that, eventually came in the year 2006 when one of the warlords had managed to acquire the favor of Manus Dei and was able to gain dominance over the other lords, establishing the system that exists to this day.
Despite being considered a 'nation', Nobatica was in fact a land comprised of many hundreds of smaller autonomous realms controlled by the warlords. The capital (and only true city in the entire country, housing no less than a quarter of the total population), Agrippina, was another of these realms. By default, however, it was the most powerful; as a result, the man who was Dominus over Agrippina was the de facto ruler of Nobatica.
In this case, that man was C. Publius Agrippa (hence the name of the capital), the self-proclaimed Dux of Nobatica. His control over his 'nation' was by no means solid; however, it wasn't exactly challenged either. Most of the time, the warlords were far too busy fighting amongst one another to even notice him, and he was fine by that. As long as the Domini did not unite, he would remain firmly in control of Agrippina, and as a result, the money and arms would keep flowing in from his Manus Dei patrons.
In fact, as of the moment, Manus Dei money was the only thing keeping Nobatica from plunging into complete anarchy. It was by anyone's definition a 3rd world country; and, if there were such a thing, it would probably fit the description of a 4th world country. The closest thing to an economy was the slave trade that went on between a select number of warlords and the neighboring Balhizans: the Domini provided the slaves, and received in return- surprise -more weapons.
Along the southern border with communist Kibizhaka, however, there was no such activity (instead, warlords generated income by abducting foreigners for ransom); things in that sector were certainly less than friendly, as evidenced by the activity in Seneca's village that day. Located some twenty kilometers from the Kibizhakan border, Seneca had recently had to deal with an influx of communist agitators; foreigners who tried to provoke the peasantry into revolting. Luckily, the system of fear had triumphed this time around: this had resulted in the arrest of six individuals, including a suspected Kibizhakan spy.
Unsurprisingly, the village’s main gathering place also served as the place of execution, and with the current festivities, was now in full attendance of the village’s peasantry. Located just down the street from the Equites’ Compound, the execution square consisted of an elevated wooden platform upon which the sedes traditoris, the preferred device of execution, was constructed, along side a wooden table. The crowd surrounding the platform was immense; a thousand or so people packed into the narrow streets of the town cheering and chanting as the fifth man sentenced by the Dominus to die that day was led up the steps and onto the platform and spun around to face the crowd.
The man was shirtless, his pants rags; drenched in sweat and despite the fact he was about to die in a particularly brutal fashion, his face conveyed no emotion. On either side he was flanked by masked Equites, white paramilitaries, DR-83s slung over their shoulders. Without a word being said, over the yelling and cheering of the crowd, a third soldier approached from behind and pulled a black hood over the man’s head. The ropes binding his hands behind his back were cut and the two men on his sides led him to the sedes traditoris.
Consisting of a simply wooden stool and a steel frame, the sedes traditoris, or traitor’s throne, was a torque-based execution device, utilizing several rotating limbs and a series of weights to essentially twist the victim to death. After being seated, the two guards extended his arms, strapping them to a pair of horizontal beams jutting out of the frame; his legs, subsequently, were strapped to a pair of vertical beams; a leather strap was tightened across his torso. Finally, the third man approached: in his hands was a steel, cage-like mask, caked with dried blood. Placing the mask over the captives head, he pulled on several tabs, tightening it. He then jerked the man’s head upward, sliding a tube mounted to the top of the mask into a shaft mounted above the seat to the frame, sliding a pair of bolts through to secure it.
Backing off, he gave a hand signal to the executioner, who stood to the right side of the traitor’s throne. The executioner nodded in return before pulling a lever attached to the device; this released one of the weights concealed behind the sedes traditoris, which in return pulled on a pair of wires wrapped around the leg beams. This caused the beams to begin to rotate, the man’s legs still latched to them; as the beams began to rotate outwards, so went the man’s legs, the beams slowing down as the legs began to put up resistance. It was of no use of course; the weights always prevailed. The man screamed as he struggled against the rotating beams. The sickening sound of his muscle tearing resounded. Slowly his legs were being torn outwards out of their sockets.
The skin on the legs was horribly stretched and deformed as the legs began to separate from the body, stretching as the thy bone was twisted and torn; torrents of blood rushed across the deck. Finally, after no more than five seconds, there was a thump as the weight hit the deck and the beams stopped rotating. His legs, still latched to the beams, had been completely torn off; however, with the first weight hitting the deck, a second weight began to drop: this time the horizontal arm beams began to rotate in opposite directions. He instantly began to yell out in pain as his arms were crudely dislocated from his torso. As it continued to turn, the skin and muscle tissue was torn like paper, completely ripping his arms off. As if to add insult to injury, the beams continued to rotate for another two cycles, his dismembered arms still attached to them. By now the man was soaked in his own blood: an armless, legless torso, begging for a death which he would finally receive.
The second thump initiated the dropping of the third weight: the shaft attached to his mask began to rotate at a much faster rate then the others. There was a single, loud, long crunching noise as his neck was broken, his head twisting completely around. It kept turning; the skin could no long stretch so much, and so that two began to tear until finally, the man’s head had been completely torn from his shoulders. Finally, the final thump. The mask stopped spinning.
The crowd roared as the man that had attached the mask knocked the two bolts out, pulling the steel mask with the head still attached off and holding it up for all to see. There was celebratory gunfire; two of the executioners on stage fired their DR-83s into the air, and a few dozen militia in the crowd fired their DR-89s and DR-78s into the air for several bursts as the head was removed from the mask and dumped out of the hood.
A rack of six DR-78 rifles adorned a corner of the stage; severed heads were impaled on the 18” bayonets of four of the rifles, and this one was subsequently mounted to the fifth; insects crawled in and out of the mouths, ears, and eyes of all of the heads as they rotted in the scorching sun.
”This is the fifth fucking time this month,” Seneca kicked a tin can off of the shoddy balcony as he sipped his cold beer, reclining in the lawn chair.
He and his son were watching the executions from the comfort of their compound, enjoying a few beers, cigarettes and the cool breeze from the frantic fanning of a pair of black peasant girls. Seneca, a man of about forty-four, wore a white t-shirt and a pair of tan camouflaged cargopants; his son, Gaius, some twenty years of age, took a drag of his cigarette.
”I think it’s about time we sent those commie fucks a message, father,” replied the surprisingly well-built young man, toying around with the cylinder of his revolver.
Seneca grunted.
”You think? No shit we need to send them a message. This bullshit stops today. I want you to take some good men and go across…take a few hostages, we can use the money, and make sure to kill a good amount in the process. Make a nice mess of things. If those stupid fucks want to fuck around with us, they’d better be willing to accept the consequences,”
As he spoke, they watched as the sixth and final of the condemned was lead up onto the stage. From where they were they could see as he was forced onto the table: the executioner proceeded to cut out his eyes and his tongue. They’d saved the foreigner for last. Gaius chuckled as the man, screaming in terror, was dragged to his feet and strapped into the traitor’s throne without being hooded.
”Very well, father, it shall be done,” he closed the cylinder of his revolver and laid it across his lap. ”Lemme finish this last round first,” he smiled, chugging the last bit of beer remaining in his bottle and tossing it over the side.
An hour or so later, the sound of diesel engines firing up resounded about the white quarter as thirty Equites packed into some eight technicals of varying makes: RM pickup trucks sporting Maurus HMGs and MMGs and the occasional 23mm anti aircraft cannon; Nyala utility vehicles with 105mm recoilless rifles and a similar variety of machineguns. All of the vehicles were clearly overpacked: aside from the crews of the machineguns, the beds of the trucks and Nyalas were filled to the brim with the Equites, who carried their prized DR-83 rifles and the occasional Spiculum rocket propelled grenade.
As high noon began to peak, the technicals sped down the streets of the village, sending the peasantry running in various directions to avoid being run over, and out into the desert; on the lead vehicle, a boombox in the bed of the truck was cranking out Slayer’s “Angel of Death” at maximum volume. They knew of a certain village that was almost directly on the border, maybe a kilometer inside Kibizhaka. In all likelihood, that was the place the communists were basing their agents out of; hopefully hitting the place would put an end to that problem. Of course, little did they know, the Kibizhakans had very little patience for such violent incursions…