Chereads / Lord Raven's Court / Chapter 23 - Information for Public Disclosure: The City Watch

Chapter 23 - Information for Public Disclosure: The City Watch

The City Watch of Regalia is an independent military organization from the Regalian Standing Army, operating exclusively behind the walls of the city as the sole law-enforcement unit with the duty of peacekeeping. The City Watch is comprised of 1,000 professionally-trained guardsmen, responsible for solving crimes, apprehending criminals and settling minor disputes among the peasantry, freeholding commoner class or otherwise referred to as the yeomanry, and the lower nobility. The group is also employed to man the watch towers, to collect tolls at the gates, to patrol the city's immediate vicinity, and can act as a local defense force for sieges, riots or insurrections against the city. During the event known as the 'Regalian Uprising' on the autumn of the year 547, the City Watch played a significant role to quell the rebellion upon the absence of reinforcements from the standing army, although at the cost of half of its original numbers at the time. Since then, the Duke has decreed the guardsmen to be well-versed in urban warfare and non-lethal subjugation.

Similar to the Regalian Standing Army, the men of the City Watch are issued standard armaments comprised of a mail paired with gambeson worn underneath it, a kettle hat and coif (or gorget for men-at-arms), a pair of leather-based greaves, iron gauntlets, and pauldron for armor; a halberd as main weapon; and arming sword, shortsword or daggers for sidearm, in addition of a club for non-lethal apprehension. Due to the factional agreement among the eastern lords on an embargo of arms trade between Estveine and the neighboring regional and foreign territories in order to regulate the infighting among the nobility, the Duke of Regalia– the eastern overlord and leader of the established Estveine Faction– obtained sole monopoly over weapons and armors in the east, owing it to the fact that Regalia has two large iron mines, not accounting the ones from Kurlon. Hence, the mail and helmet are two common pieces of armor used by almost every men-at-arms of Estveine, also partly due to them being material-cheap and effective, distinguishable only from the crest of the noble house owning the army or garrison, which is engraved upon a surcoat, tabard, tunic, gambeson or other forms of military uniform.