Redguard – Description, Racial Bonuses and Penalties

Redguards are a race of human. Their homeland is Hammerfell.

They belong to The Daggerfall Covenant so if you chose Redguard your allies will be Orcs and Bretons.

Redguards have dark skin and severe appearance. They have strong bodies. No wonder that they are very good warriors. Everyone knows that they like to fight with sword and shield so they are masters of defense. They were born to fight. You can meet many warriors, scouts and adventurers among the Redguards.
Racial bonuses and penalties

No information
History of Redguards

“The best techniques are passed on by the survivors…” – Gaiden Shinji

Originally the Yokudans, Redguards take their roots in the western continent of Yokuda. In their origins they aren’t connected at all to the other humans. Physically strong and agile, dark-skinned, with a slight reddish tint, the continental climate of Yokuda shaped them to be resilient to extreme heat and dryness conditions. They are great fighters, and honor is their compulsive characteristic; martial rules prevail and are mostly recognized, over authority or any other social regulation. Certainly because of the continent’s disaster which forced them to exile, and whose causes are not proved but possibly coming from magic, Redguards grew much disdain towards magic usage, especially the arcane school of conjuration (mind tricking, controlling souls…). However, many of them developed their knowledge of destruction powers, becoming strong and tremendous battlemages.

More generally, their practices stand on a level which is beyond the Tamrielic societies. Advanced warriors, sailors, farmers, stargazers, philosophers made the nation really powerful and dangerous for the other ones. But they did not arrive to the eastern continent, on Hammerfell, just by a simple decision. Their history is complicated, colored by blood, shaped in steel…

Yokudans are mainly a martial nation, which can be leading to the best as well as drowning to the worst. Very often the land has been torn apart by civil wars from the 4th to the 8th centuries: the bad government of Yokuda, unable to make decisions after the suppression of the traditional Yokudan Empire, made its population split. The Yokeda (people who became nobles), and factions of brigands, warriors, began to “rule” the land, and grew, counting more and more people, giving to the nation less polyvalence, building on warfare, and art of fighting. In 1E609, Mansel Sesnit, a powerful and dictatorial warlord, took control of almost the entire land in some years. After his murder, Randic Torn, a plebeian, took his place, using the same oppressive way of ruling, creating a gap between simple citizens and the warrior caste by decreeing terribly restricting laws, forbidding in 1E617 common people to have weapons on them in public place. Only members of the “Sword Singers” were allowed to do such a thing. Randic Torn died, the civil war started again, and the order of Ansei was born.

The order of Ansei, also called the “Saints of the Sword”, was a mystic warrior caste, with former Sword Singers, which main goal was to end the civil war. This art also consisted in excelling in sword mastering, but also in the mystical art of spellcrafting on blades, giving those magical powers.

The Emperor Hira considered them a danger, because of their weapon-holding distinction, contrary to the rest of the civilians, but mostly because they were representing the most powerful force on the land which had no allegiance except with fighting arts and ancient unknown gods. In 1E780 Hira gathered Yokudan brigands and orcs in his army, and attacked the Ansei settlements. The blade fighters retreated on the Hunding Mountain of Hattu and defended themselves under the commandment of Frandar No Shira in the “Seven Battles” campaign. Even though they were outnumbered the masters of the sword won the battle.

Deciding it was time to leave a land, Sword Singers and Ansei got away from Yokuda, forming the Ra’Gada (the “forebearers”) and landing in 1E803 on Illiac Bay and Hammerfell coasts. They were not alone to leave Yokeda: many refugees took their chance to the western shores of Hammerfell, mainly on the island of Herne, after the terrible earthquake which made Yokuda drown. Rumor says that the Hiradirge, wizards renegades from Ansei and masters of stone magic, were responsible for the catastrophe, actually taking their revenge on Yokuda, after their defeat in 1E792.

With tremendous instinct for surviving, overcoming, and controling, the forebearers slain, enslaved and hired, attacking forts and settlements with great violence: beastfolks, nedes, bretons, remaining nordic bastions…no prisoners. Furthermore, Gaiden Shinji, a mighty blademaster, and founder of the Imperial City’s Arena created and led the Order of Diagna. In few months of bloodbaths the Ra’Gada made its people strong and military settled. Sentinel arose and became their new capital, between the rocks and the docks. The Crown of Yokuda, the “Na-Totambu”, had finally his way from Yokuda to Tamriel cleared. They became the “Redguards”, from the deformation of the original name Ra’Gada, but also called this way certainly because of their violent talent for war, strewing blood everywhere, and for their reddish skin tint. The Yoku, original language of Yokuda, began to disappear and was replaced, to the benefit of foreign trading.

They finally made an alliance with bretons, their main rivals on the land, to crush Orsinium when it began to threaten both bretons and redguards occupation. It’s in this long siege that Gaiden Shinji died. Even if rocky desert was overwhelming grasslands, Hammerfell was not as harder as Yokuda in terms of settling and agriculture, so Redguards made it without big difficulties.

With Redguards, the Daggerfall Covenant can count on a tremendous, lethal faction of perfect blademasters, trained harshly into extreme conditions, and potentially initiated with arcanes of destruction magic, and of course, with the Ansei’s and Swort Singers martial art. Given what they did on the Mountain of Hattu, fighting more than 300 000 imperial soldiers with only few thousands Sword Singers, enemies just have to fear…