Military Insignia of The Commonwealth

Hi the Questions have returned :grin:

Do we have any idea of what the Rank Structure or The Commonwealth would be and the Insignia and what kind of Military Units it would have as I am thinking of using a piece of that as a bit of my characters background

Cheers

I’m not sure how much detail is available on this.

You will likely already have browsed their wiki page (below)

Bear in mind that too much information about foriegn nations (especially distant ones like the Commonwealth) isn’t likely to be known much in the setting anyway.

Unless the player of the Ambassador to the Commonwealth drops by and feels like sharing, your best bet may be a simple email to PD, along the lines of “I want a background touching here, what can I put in
?”

https://www.profounddecisions.co.uk/empire-wiki/Commonwealth

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@Geoffrey_Willoughby gone through the whole commonwealth wiki it has politics ruled by military but nothing of the actual units thanks for the info about going to PD didn’t think of that :fist_right:t2::fist_left:t2::beers:

As this kind of stuff isn’t even defined inside The Empire itself you may not get much info from PD, your best bet might be to write it in a way where it doesn’t contradict what’s on the wiki and it’s loose enough that it can handle other people throwing in their own ideas.

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@Mark_Wilkin cheers for that I have thrown an email to PD with anything they may know and also that I will happily put a brief description together and a ranking system for the military with markings and insignia that can be sent through and used for future ref and brief enough to add onto for anyone who is or becomes the ambassador to The Commonwealth hopefully they are on here and they might be able to push me in the right direction

Honestly, I’d make something up, based on the structure and language of the Landsknechte (because they were German and the language of the Commonwealth is phys-repped by German). There will be lots of variations, so if PD decide to go a different way then you’ll get away with it. I mean the British army has three (?) different names for a junior lieutenant and about twice that for the second most junior enlisted. Then (as you already plan to do) send what your planning to PD so then can decide whether or not to build on top of it

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I was thinking less of modern military rank structure and more of a medieval anachronism on rank doing both a Navy and Army for them I spent a lot of my day at work thinking it through in English to have translated to German but as we are in the UK make it slightly more recognisable with similar insignia of both German and British I’ll get it drawn up better and post a listing if anyone is interested

@RichardFannon its the plan mate most armies use 2nd Lieutenant and Lieutenants those are the only ones in the army but Navy and Air Farce use lieutenants to the same level as the Army use Captain and captains in the other 2 are equivalent to a Colonel in the army I’m looking to make it simplified to most Modern structures and due to obvious reasons The Commonwealth won’t be having an Air Force :rofl: but just awaiting any information that’s already placed around it from PD and adapting it to what’s already there

:slight_smile: You’re one of today’s “Lucky 10,000” (xkcd: Ten Thousand)

Sure most British Army units call their OF-1 equivalents " Second lieutenant", but the Guards call them “Ensign” and the Blues&Royals call them “Cornet”

And most OR-2 equivalents are “Lance-Corporals”, but they can also be “Lance-Bombardiers”, “Signalers”, “Sappers”, “Kingsman” and I think there was still a unit that called them “Chosen Men” until quite recently

The point is that the real world has a huge variation in practice, so, if you go one way in a bit of world-building and PD then chose to go another way, you can still say something like that “sure, most Commonwealth units did this, but my unit did this because ”. It’s all part of the fun

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Right got you :beers:

@RichardFannon Also looking at the Landsknechte being mercenaries didn’t have a structure other than the guy in charge and his bodyguards, due to being Navarri growing up in a striding and not being from The Commonwealth my characters back ground lived there from being about 15 and joined their Army at 18 leading a group of Försters by the time He left eventually moving with his family back to Hercynia where he inherited his Grandparents Farm on the outskirts, so there is a reason I have a farm, and why I can use a bow and swords and chirurgeon skills in the backstory, doing some time in the army and instructing cadets not I want to add a bit of that to the character so trying to find a way to incorporate a rank into my kit so my fighting kit has a bit of history with something that could be recognisable if something would be in place I’m probably over thinking my character in all Honesty thanks for the advice

Do keep in mind that no one will care how much experience your character has out of game. I’ve known people who have been fighting as one of the cannon fodder for years, but I’m already a “cat herder” (I keep an eye on a few people and healers and can boss people around), so it really varies.

Being a strategist at Empire is mostly a hard skill as LARP fighting is very different than re-enactment or actual real world battles cause foam swords and magic. Its something you can pursue for sure, but know that you aren’t going to come onto the field as a person of power

Also, skills don’t really need to be justified in backstory as Imperial Children are instructed in basically every skill as they grow up. The only time it might be important is magic as people can learn that through sooo many different methods it becomes more important to clarify

AND, no one is gonna be able to tell that you used to be a commander in the Commonwealth as it is a few thousand miles away lol

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@BaalamBaalam cheers for the answer it was only for my background and my family back ground as my missus and son are also coming it’s a part of the reason we met (background) and why I have a farm in Hercynia yet no one knows me etc but Matt answered my email and he has left it open for this reason as he wanted freedom around it

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