Group:The Dragoons

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Mission Statement
To provide our clients with services that they cannot perform on their own, and to perform these tasks as reliably as possible.

About
The Dragoons is a recently reformed mercenary unit led by Reed Barnes. They strive to embody the ideals of honor, professionalism, and integrity in the mercenary business. We are available as a group or individually. We are currently hiring new mercenaries and seeking employment from individuals or groups.

Business
Do you have a job that you can't seem to complete yourself? Do you need some extra help finishing a task? We can help with this and much more, if the pay is good. Currently, all prices are to be negotiated between the contracted parties. Here are some examples of what we can do:


 * Seek and destroy


 * Assassination


 * Recon


 * Acquiring Rare Items


 * Acquiring Upgrade Materials


 * Barrier Bashing


 * Barrier Defending


 * Scroll Searching

To contact us, you should pm Reed Barnes on the Overlord Forums. All contract details will be made public unless specifically stated otherwise in the contract.

Past Glory
~An excerpt from an interview of Reed Barnes in The History of Scroll Wars, by Diomedes, the Herodotus of Scroll Wars

The Dragoons was originally created in January, 2008. It was conceived by the Army National Guard Chat Room squad(Hell Rising) as a new way to have fun in the world of Scroll Wars. At the time, I was a guildless wanderer helping The Great Underground Empire get started. The group had potential, and I was hoping to help guide this young group to prominence and hopefully one day challenge the powers of the day.

The lone superpower, Humpty Dumpty A Barriers Guide, was a boring home to a few of the original Dragoons. I got my start there, but didn't stay long. The behind the scenes power mongering was obvious from the start. Controlling the scrolls is the only thing that drove many of the top members of this group. Their leader, Lippsyl, is the benign face the group puts on. He is always there to clean up the messes his members cause, and his ability to soothe the angry tirades of blooded victims is unmatched by any in this land. That, or it could be fear of the vast hordes of bloodthirsty warriors he promises to hold back if you bend to his will. In any case, I viewed this as a threat to the world's power balance. A mercenary could not profit from a world controlled by one group. Something needed to be done, and that is why the Empire was needed.

When the Empire was strong enough to support itself, I cut all ties with them. The idea of forming our own guild in the ANG Chat Room was put forth, and it was agreed that a mercenary guild would be most enjoyable. The details were kicked around for a few days, and eventually The Dragoons were formed. In my humble opinion, this group was the closest knit, best organized, most fun-loving awesome group to ever walk the soil of Scroll Wars. I want to thank all of them here(original members in bold): Gorgeous George, Christina Rose, dasuperbitch, da131tch, Dick Datson, Diagon, Blue Crow 90, Brine, Gunny Rics, McGeary, wolf bane, and MastermindX.

While I contacted possible employers, the rest of the original five were hard at work honing their skills. Our first contract was a simple test, given by an old friend from the Empire. We were to kill Blisterbone three times as quickly as possible. It was a test of our teamwork ability. When we showed that did work as a team, we were contacted again with a more serious tone. Throughout the original Dragoons time, the details of contracts were kept confidential. This was done to protect our clients, but it would soon have dire consequences for our home. Once we had completed a few contracts, we felt the need to find a home of our own. The unoccupied Odicef Castle in Jaikiel Town was quickly adopted as our new residence. A fully charged barrier of trust was erected there, as a beacon to our employers. We also grew in number, but we did not allow ourselves to become too large, and thus lose what made us strong, our ability to fight as a cohesive unit. We fulfilled contracts for a number of Scroll Wars denizens, but one fateful day, we would fulfill our last contract.

During this period of Scroll Wars, the actual scrolls were very powerful and sought after by all. The Dragoons reputation had recently taken a hit due to one of our raids for a scroll. We were contracted to find a scroll, any scroll(which is a bit suspicious) and deliver it by the following days end. All scrolls were currently held by members of Humpty Dumpty. Raiding a barrier controlled by the Humpties was by far the most dangerous thing one could do, and we had never attempted such a thing. During the planning process, we had a stroke of luck. One of the Humpties had died while fighting a dragon and had lost a scroll! We quickly began searching for the Scroll Guardian. It was found and killed, and the scroll was in our hands, awaiting delivery. This caused a commotion over the telepath crystal. The Humpties not only believed the scrolls were theirs if they found the Guardian, but they believed some of the scrolls were permanently their property through some sort of agreement with the Empire. Needless to say, I was disappointed in the Empire, and let them know it. I should have held my tongue, but my efforts their were being wasted. I had warned them against becoming a pawn of the Humpties, but they would soon pay for their mistakes through Humpty raids on their bases of operation.

Almost two weeks later, we were finally contracted for another scroll acquiring mission. This time, we were to acquire a specific scroll. The scroll was being held by a member of the Scroll Wars chapter of Cleansed in Blood. Their stronghold was easy enough to find, and through a decisive raid we were able to capture the scroll by ending only a single life. As was our custom, we raised an aura of peace around the surviving members of Cleansed in Blood. We only came for the scroll, not bloodshed. As expected, CiB was none too happy with our raid. Threats were made over the telepath crystal, but we tried to alleviate their frustrations. This was nothing new to us. Our downfall came when our employer refused to pay. This fool will remain nameless due to my unwillingness to breach a contract, but if this name was revealed my perceived paranoia would be well understood by all.

The rest of that day was filled with accusations. People believed we were using our mercenary status to pass all blame while trying to acquire the scrolls for ourselves. Because we refused to give up the names of our employers in order to protect them, it was easy to point the finger at the scroll we had in our hands. The ironic thing is that most of the insipid comments came from Humpties, the very worst of the scroll hoggers. We contemplated giving the scroll back to Cleansed in Blood, but none of their members were online. We decided to contemplate this as we slept in our castle, and come to a decision in the morning. A decision that would never be made.

When the first Dragoon awoke the following day, she discovered that we had been raided. While this was discussed as a possible outcome, it was not by whom we expected. Cleansed in Blood had nothing to do with the raid, it was carried out exclusively by members of Humpty Dumpty A Barriers Guide. While Humpty Dumpty had always desired the scrolls, they had never attacked another group outright to take one. It was always acquire through intimidation and back door deals. Their policies had obviously changed, at least towards us. Hoping that a raid from such a large group on a small, neutral group could incite a full on war, I joined the fray of the telepath crystal. Unfortunately, Humpty had already gotten to all of the other major groups. Santa's Naughty Elves had been turned completely against us. The disappointing Empire had been completely subdued due to shear intimidation, and Paragon, the so called "perfect light", was nowhere to be seen.

Thinking that the Humpties had gotten what they wanted, we began to rebuild. This would not be allowed, however. We were raided constantly, even if there was nothing to be gained by it. For days the constant raiding of Odicef Castle was conducted. We decided it was time to defend ourselves, contract or no contract. We changed our tactics, essentially leaving behind our mercenary lives for the betterment of our survival. We abandoned Odicef Castle, saying goodbye to our home. We spread out across the land, only coming together when the time was right for a strike. We decided to show the rest of the land that it was possible to stand up to the Humpties and her allies the Elves. We raided the Elves, taking the scroll they had been given by the Humpties for its service in the siege of Odicef. The damage we inflicted on the Elves over the next couple of weeks essentially ended their existence as a powerful guild. Now, we were alone with the beast.

We turned our attention to Darkwether, the nigh-impregnable barriers there were built by vast amounts of magic that we could barely comprehend. It had not been breached in the time of our existence, nor had we heard of any others succeeding at such a task. After a few diversionary strikes, we gathered near Peasy Lake and launched a full scale assault of the walls or Darkwether. Six fully trained Dragoons stormed the bastions of the our oppression. We broke through the barrier of trust to find two dozen armed guards, but none of the advanced wizards or tanks the Humpties had at her disposal. Their lie Lippsyl, asleep. We killed him and the scroll he carried. We slaughtered as many of the guards as we could and got out as quickly as we had swept in. The advanced guard returned quickly to the peltshop to find their leader dead. This was when all hell broke loose.

Because we did not hide in a barrier, Humpty could not raid us. We, on the other hand, raided them day and night. People began to talk about backing out of the deals they had made for Humpty Dumpty protection. To counter this, the Humpties began nightly mapsweeps for any Dragoon they could find in an attempt to squash our ability to raid their barriers. These mapsweeps were lead by a fanatical scroll hog known as Balls of Zeus. While Lippsyl was the face of Humpty Dumpty, BoZ was the driving force of their military might. They also began putting up fully charged Barriers of Trust around the entire map. We only had enough mp to raid one barrier at a time, so the fruits of our raids began to become negligible. When we successfully raided his hiding spot twice in as many days, a feet that was statistically highly improbable but my deduction skills have always been very good at helping defy the odds, BoZ began to keep a very close eye on me. His obsession with me grew to a high point when I barely avoided dying in a mapsweep. The second they had found me, I had logged in and evaded death. He became so mad that he accused his good friend ReaperEgg of either being my spy, being me in disguise, or even being my wife depending on whom you discuss it with.

We had shown that with just a small force, a large group could be thrown into chaos, but that full-on war required a larger force. Eventually, the Humpties mapsweeping wore the Dragoons down. No help came from the Empire, or Paragon, or any of the other smaller groups though we begged for assistance in overthrowing the Humpties power or even just helping us survive the night. These groups turned a blind eye towards a once small, and proud guild that was being stomped out of existence by a large bully with an egghead, a handshake in one hand and a club in the other.

Gorgeous George was the first to leave of the original five. He vowed never to return, and nobody has heard from him since. Christina Rose, I am very proud of. She has gone on to lead a raiding guild, the Reavers, that is doing quite well at the moment. Dabitches were the last to leave the group, but their fate is the worst of them all. They have joined the Humpties, the very being that ended our days together in Scroll Wars. I left the land of Scroll Wars for long while. I checked in now and again. I left The Dragoons for awhile, so that my involvement did not overshadow dabitches attempt to keep the guild afloat. When I made my return, I joined the Reavers to learn about all of the changes that had occurred while I was away. Now, I am back. Attempting to regain what has been lost. We are going back to what we started as. A mercenary guild for hire. I may be the only original member left, but someday the call for The Dragoons to unite will need to be given, and these old friends of mine won't let me down. They will unite with the new generation of Dragoons that we will create, and we will defend ourselves to the last man once again.

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