Eltan

Scar

Moruene

Baldur's Gate

Forgotten Realms

One of the most powerful such companies
currently active, the Flaming Fist is usually
based in Baldur's Gate, where its commander
Eltan, is a Duke (See BALDUR'S GATE).
The Fists have a good record of achievements,
particularly when operating
against other mercenary companies,
such as the nonhuman bands.

The Flaming Fist is the most powerful,
most magical, and most expensive fighting
forces in the Realms, and is the result
of decades of work and effort, both in
training and in accumulating magical
items for use on the battlefield. The Fist
normally hires out at a base rate of
10,000 g.p. Per Day plus its share of the
plunder, but will pay its own transportation
costs and agree not to begin charging
their rates until directly entering the
employer's service.

The Fist consists of:
    1000 4th level fighters (AC4), chain mail and shield
    500 5th level fighters (AC3), banded and shield
    200 6th level fighters (AC2), plate and shield; 46 have rings of spell turning of which 10 have +1 weapons
    25 6th level thieves (AC7), leather and shield
    10 8th level assassins (AC7), leather and shield
    10 7th level monks (AC5), LN, worship Helm
    200 4th level clerics (AC3), plate mail, of Tempus, Tymora, and Helm (all carry extra curative spell scrolls)
    5 7th level magic-users (AC2), bracers of defense,
        and all have rings of spell storing, replenished by Moruend (see below) between battles, and holding one haste, two dispel magic,
        one web, and two 6-die fireballs (each ring). All wear greenstone amulets.
    20 4 to 6th level rangers (AC 8 = leather, serving as scouts)
    10 (SEE BELOW) Leaders and aides

All men in the Company are mounted on
heavy horses, and each has a spare horse,
tethered behind the first when on the
trail (total: 4,000 horses). In addition,
there are 3,150 pack mules for the carrying
of equipment and plunder, and 14 of
the 6th level fighters ride as drovers to
keep them together, armed with whips
(the mules are bridled in long lines, or
files). The Company also has nine wagons,
drawn by teams of eight draft horses
each (four spare horses are bridled to the
rear of each of the wagons). The wagons
carry food, and even more importantly,
drink, medical supplies (including many
curative spell scrolls) and siege equipment.
All wagons have roofs that are platforms
with sidewalls for use by archers,
and the wagon walls are armored and
trimmed with dragonhide to resist fire.
One of the wagons is a council wagon,
furnished with a table (which can double
as an operating table), a hole in the floor
for a fire (which is built in a sand bucket),
rugs, ets. It serves as a temple for the clerics
of the Company when not otherwise
in use. The device of the Company, flown
on its banners and depicted on its tents
and wagons, is the Flaming Fist. In battle,
warriors of the Company wear white tabards
blazoned with this device.

ELTAN (EL-tan)
Baldur's Gate/Flaming Fist
20th level fighter (179 hp)
LN, Tempus
Human male

The leader and founder of the Flaming
Fist, Eltan is a tactical genius who loves to
fight. He is respected among the rulers of
the Forgotten Realms because he is a man
of principles and of his word, and
because as a ruler himself, Eltan is seen as
knowing and sympathizing with a ruler's
concerns and troubles. Eltan sees a con-
tinual balance of power amongst many
small kingdoms to be a Good and Proper
Thing, and so hires out his company so as
to prevent any large empire-forming. He
is friendly with the other mercenary generals
based nearby, but often battles
them (never let emotions interfere with
business, he believes).

Eltan is a tall, handsome man with grey
eyes and jet-black hair, who wears a greenstone
amulet, plate mail +2, a displacer
cloak +2 (this plus his Dex makes him AC
-3), and disdains to use a shield. His
breastplate is polished mirror-bright so
that his men can distinguish him easily on
the field, as well as for the splendid effect.
He wears a ring of absorption (750 spell
levels left), a ring of anti-venom (absorbs
poisons; 22 charges left), a girdle of storm
giant strength, and gauntlets of ogre
power: These latter two allow him to wield
his most precious treasure, a rarely used
hammer of thunderbolts. He also carries a
silver dagger +2 his boot, a silver long
sword +2, and a neutral, telepathic short
sword +1 named "Roan," his longtime
friend. Roan can detect magic, detect invisible,
detect illusion, detect traps, and know
alignment once each per day, and will
"automatic return" if it leaves him and he
is conscious to so will it (maximum range
9"), if necessary dragging anyone holding
it along with it (a combined strength total
of 30 will stop it). A bracelet on his left
wrist allows Eltan to communicate telepathically
with Scar and Moruene.

Eltan is probably the most heavily loaded
of the magical characters in the Realms.
Normal high level types, such as successful
PCs, shouldn't be wandering around with
quite so much stuff. Eltan has it because
his mercenary company presents the "ultimate" in equipage,
as a DM's design example,
and because Eltan is a careful and
very rich man who has tried to prepare
for every eventuality such as powerful
adventurers trying to knock him off with
ease. Eltan is often the target of assassination
attempts, because his Company's targets
believe that the Flaming Fist would
fall apart without him.

SCAR
    Baldur's Gate, Flaming Fist
    14th level fighter
    LN, Helm
    Human male

Eltan's right-hand man and faithful friend,
Scar is a bald giant with a scarred cheek
(hence his name) who swings a scimitar
+2 and has a belt of six throwing axes. He
wears bracers of defense (AC2) and a
throat gorget, leather breeches, otherwise
disdaining armor. Scar has a telepathic
bracelet on his left wrist, allowing communication
with Eltan and Moruene,
which is clamped to a bronze wristlet that
also supports a sheathed dagger. He, too, is
a military genius, and at his belt carries
two stainless steel vials; a potion of flying
and a potion of speed. Scar often makes
manic leaps or charges in battle to break
masses of men defending in a strong position.
He talks little, and never checks
morale. Scar wears a greenstone amulet.
Scar's real name is Hurbold Duethkatha
(HER-bold Dooth-KATH-ah); a secret to all
save his surviving youthful acquaintances
in Waterdeep, Eltan, and Moruene.
 

MORUENE (More-yoo-EEN)
    Baldur's Gate, Flaming Fist
    19th level magic-user
    Human female
    LN, Azuth

Moruene is Eltan's lifelong friend, continual
comrade, and occasional lover. She
wears black robes (cut so that she can
ride and fight unhampered), a greenstone
amulet, bracers of defense (AC 2), a
helm, a ring of flight (which allows the
wearer to fly as in the magic user spell, as
though cast by 10th level magic user,
thrice in any 24 hour/144 turn period of
time), two ivory scroll tubes at her belt
containing one limited wish scroll and
one teleport scroll, a dagger +2 at the
back of her neck, on a throatband sheath,
a rod of cancellation (only four charges
left) at her belt, and a captured wand of
viscid globs of 14 charges. Moruene also
wears a bracelet which allows her to
communicate telepathically with Eltan
and Scar. One of her earrings is a 9-hit-die
Fireball from a necklace of missiles, and
the other is a polymorphed black pudding
of 68 hp, which she will toss and follow
with a dispel magic if in peril.

Moruene wears a belt of iron plates,
into which is locked a portable hole,
which contains her working set of spell
books. The other set will be found in
her friendly mimic 7 HD, 41 hp storage
chest, along with her Pegasus steed.
Moruene is currently looking for an
apprentice. Also in her portable hole is
a spare teleport scroll; she will use this
to escape (with Eltan and Scar, if possible)
if necessary, to a cave retreat,
walled in, inside the Nether Mountains,
a retreat which includes her treasures:
40,212 gp; a spiritwrack scroll with
Demogorgon's true name, should he
ever appear; Eltan's money (160,000 gp,
in various currencies); a jug of alchemy
and 2 week's dry rations (for 2 people),
a prismatic sphere scroll, a protection
from devils scroll, and a ring of spell
storing containing one cure blindness,
one cure disease, one dispel magic, and
two cure critical wounds clerical spells.
 

The senior officers of the Flaming Fist
serve as section commanders in battle,
bodyguards in negotiating situations, and
if Eltan and Moruene stand together in
battle, often form a protective "hedgehog"
or wedge around them (Scar prefers not
to be guarded; it gets in his way). All are
devoted to Eltan and Moruene, and will
fight to the death for them; all are
equipped with field plate armor, greenstone
amulets, rings of spell turning, one
potion of extra-healing each (in a stainless
steel belt vial), and their preferred (and
specialized) weapon, usually a broadsword.
They habitually wear their visors
down so as to better intimidate. These seven
are:
    Beluarion (LN, 10th Level Fighter)
    Kulurauk (CN, 9th Level Fighter)
    Bellan (LN, 9th Level Fighter)
    Nenon (NG, 9th Level Fighter)
    Koruelve (CN, 9th Level Fighter)
    Desedrak (LN, 10th Level Fighter)
    Yulimtul (LN, 9th Level Fighter)
Again, it must be stressed that this mercenary
company is far more powerful
than most; everyone else save a Horde
raised by combining several mercenary
companies is going to be less powerful
than this, and carry a lot less magical
loot; all of the Fist's senior officers listed
above are the equivalent of most of the
other mercenary company leaders.