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Alternative versions:
Battle - http://www.furaffinity.net/view/27996863/
Keith Keiser, Silver - http://www.furaffinity.net/view/27996884/
Battle, silver - http://www.furaffinity.net/view/27996906/
At the very top of the basitin military command structure are five individuals who wield near-total control over almost every aspect of their society and all the citizens who live within it. These people are the four High Generals and, sitting above them all, the King. Traditionally a triumvirate, the High Generals have recently, under what some would call questionable circumstances, expanded to include a fourth member, adding an Ambassador General to the pre-established group of Arms, Intelligence and Master Generals. Of the four, the Master General is a first-among-equals as it is their responsibility to oversee the work of the others and report directly to the King. The word “King” does not describe the position occupied by that certain individual particularly well as it comes from a mistranslation into human from the original basitin word which might be better interpreted as “ruler”. The King is a non-hereditary elected position, although once in office they serve for life and it is not just restricted to men either with several women having filled the role in the past. Those eligible to take over the role upon the previous King’s death are anyone of the rank of Tribune or above, giving a potential pool of about twenty candidates who must then compete for support from the voting body: anyone of the rank of High Marshal or above, or about five hundred voters. Once the votes are tallied, the winner takes office at the very top of basitin society and stays incumbent until their death, whereupon the election process is repeated.
The King may serve as the head of the basitin state but, as usual, it is those underneath that carry out most of the day-to-day jobs of running a complex society and the High Generals each have an extended portfolio of tasks which they administrate. The Arms General is responsible for overseeing the logistics for equipping and supplying the entire basitin military, as well as discipline and overall strategy, a position currently being held by Marcus Kane. The Intelligence General is the state’s chief bureaucrat with responsibility for gathering and storing the myriad different kinds of data and information a society needs and generates in order to function properly, with the position currently being held by Mordecai Seethe. The newly-created position of Ambassador General is a response to the changing nature of the world and the basitin’s place within it. With the map becoming filled in and the basitin’s isolationist ways becoming less and less viable, the position was created in order to ensure that proper contact between basitins and the other races could be established and maintained. It is therefore the Ambassador General’s job to oversee a corps of diplomats and have overall responsibility for the basitin’s foreign policy. The position is currently being held by Keith Keiser. Lastly, the Master General has oversight over any and all work carried out by the other three and has the most direct line of communication to the King who can dictate any changes to any policy they so wish. In addition to this overseer’s role, the Master General also has overall command of the civilian activity that goes on within the basitin state’s boarders, and importantly, is also head of the all-powerful law courts on which so much of basitin society depends. The position is currently being held by Gregor Thule.
The arms and armour of the High Generals are all unique, individual pieces of the finest quality available in basitin lands (or anywhere else for that matter). There is no pre-established pattern to which they must conform and the Generals wear no rank insignia; everyone already knows who they are. As such, each suit of armour is a highly personal piece which displays the tastes of the wearer and are usually as much works of art as they are functional battlefield protection. The suit shown here is worn by Ambassador General Keith Keiser, created under the orders of the late Master General Nickolai Alaric. The armour of a soldier at the top of the basitin military hierarchy is a master-crafted magnum opus with near total protection being achieved by the highly skilled royal armourers tasked with their creation. Such precise crafting of individual, overlapping and interlocking parts requires extremely detailed measurements to be taken and there was some hushed speculation about how it was that General Kesier’s armour fitted him so well considering he had spent the last six years in exile and so was not present for his suit’s creation under General Alaric’s orders. Alaric was therefore also responsible for the armour’s design which may explain the rather unorthodox choice to have the whole set oil blackened: black armour for the black sheep.
Regardless of the speculation surrounding both General Keiser’s armour and ascension to the position, he has since proven himself more than a match for the role in which he now finds himself. At first travelling to human and basitin lands personally for several years, with the eventual set up and training of the Diplomatic Corps (under his personal direction), he spent increasingly more time on the Isles and took up more of an administrator’s role, only travelling overseas for extremely important events such as the last-ditch negotiations with the Templar before diplomatic ties were severed and the great war began. With diplomacy abandoned and the drums of war sounding, Keiser was again thrust into an alien environment: direct battlefield command of an entire army. To be promoted under unusual circumstances is one thing but to be put in charge of the lives of thousands of men when you yourself have almost none of the experience required to enact that role is quite another entirely. In fact, there was much public and private debate over whether the law governing regimental appointments should be changed to prevent him from taking command at all. But Keiser had learned much of war in the years since his return from banishment and, in addition, knew that like any young commander he had to lean heavily on those under him that did have significant experience with directing large numbers of troops for advice. At the start, he had only limited input and the army under his command was run in large by those senior officers underneath him acting as regents with Keiser himself rubber-stamping any decisions made. But as months turned to years and the campaign against the Templar see-sawed back and forth, he gradually grew more and more into the role of leader and eventually took his place as the legitimate commander of an army, alongside his fellow High Generals and those others of very senior rank.
Keith Keiser’s story from underachieving child, to exile, to Ambassador General, to supreme commander of the combined forces of the Eastern and Western basitins, to boarder-line apotheosis amongst his people is a tale that is as exciting as it is long and so cannot be told in full here. Regardless of the journey, the outcome of it all is written on the stones of history: the basitins lost the war and fled to Earth as refugees with General Keiser at their head. For several years he toiled with various human governments to make the basitin’s new life a success, but his efforts were cut cruelly short when, on the way to the United States on a diplomatic mission, he perished at the age of 37 aboard the SS Andrea Doria when it sank just off Nantucket, Massachusetts in 1956. How things might have been different for the basitin people had he lived is the cause of much speculation, but regardless of what might have happened in the future, the legacy of his deeds in the past has secured his place amongst the history books, human and basitin, for all time.
However, not all is well on Planet Earth, for something sinister is stirring in the darkness; a plot that could threaten to consume everything in the fires of war that once engulfed the basitin’s home world years before. Everything is in place and the pieces have started to move. The fate of the Earth and all its inhabitants shall very soon be decided.
What can save us now?
Partial head line art by Tom Fischbach
Basitins are the creation of Tom Fischbach over at http://twokinds.keenspot.com/
Battle - http://www.furaffinity.net/view/27996863/
Keith Keiser, Silver - http://www.furaffinity.net/view/27996884/
Battle, silver - http://www.furaffinity.net/view/27996906/
At the very top of the basitin military command structure are five individuals who wield near-total control over almost every aspect of their society and all the citizens who live within it. These people are the four High Generals and, sitting above them all, the King. Traditionally a triumvirate, the High Generals have recently, under what some would call questionable circumstances, expanded to include a fourth member, adding an Ambassador General to the pre-established group of Arms, Intelligence and Master Generals. Of the four, the Master General is a first-among-equals as it is their responsibility to oversee the work of the others and report directly to the King. The word “King” does not describe the position occupied by that certain individual particularly well as it comes from a mistranslation into human from the original basitin word which might be better interpreted as “ruler”. The King is a non-hereditary elected position, although once in office they serve for life and it is not just restricted to men either with several women having filled the role in the past. Those eligible to take over the role upon the previous King’s death are anyone of the rank of Tribune or above, giving a potential pool of about twenty candidates who must then compete for support from the voting body: anyone of the rank of High Marshal or above, or about five hundred voters. Once the votes are tallied, the winner takes office at the very top of basitin society and stays incumbent until their death, whereupon the election process is repeated.
The King may serve as the head of the basitin state but, as usual, it is those underneath that carry out most of the day-to-day jobs of running a complex society and the High Generals each have an extended portfolio of tasks which they administrate. The Arms General is responsible for overseeing the logistics for equipping and supplying the entire basitin military, as well as discipline and overall strategy, a position currently being held by Marcus Kane. The Intelligence General is the state’s chief bureaucrat with responsibility for gathering and storing the myriad different kinds of data and information a society needs and generates in order to function properly, with the position currently being held by Mordecai Seethe. The newly-created position of Ambassador General is a response to the changing nature of the world and the basitin’s place within it. With the map becoming filled in and the basitin’s isolationist ways becoming less and less viable, the position was created in order to ensure that proper contact between basitins and the other races could be established and maintained. It is therefore the Ambassador General’s job to oversee a corps of diplomats and have overall responsibility for the basitin’s foreign policy. The position is currently being held by Keith Keiser. Lastly, the Master General has oversight over any and all work carried out by the other three and has the most direct line of communication to the King who can dictate any changes to any policy they so wish. In addition to this overseer’s role, the Master General also has overall command of the civilian activity that goes on within the basitin state’s boarders, and importantly, is also head of the all-powerful law courts on which so much of basitin society depends. The position is currently being held by Gregor Thule.
The arms and armour of the High Generals are all unique, individual pieces of the finest quality available in basitin lands (or anywhere else for that matter). There is no pre-established pattern to which they must conform and the Generals wear no rank insignia; everyone already knows who they are. As such, each suit of armour is a highly personal piece which displays the tastes of the wearer and are usually as much works of art as they are functional battlefield protection. The suit shown here is worn by Ambassador General Keith Keiser, created under the orders of the late Master General Nickolai Alaric. The armour of a soldier at the top of the basitin military hierarchy is a master-crafted magnum opus with near total protection being achieved by the highly skilled royal armourers tasked with their creation. Such precise crafting of individual, overlapping and interlocking parts requires extremely detailed measurements to be taken and there was some hushed speculation about how it was that General Kesier’s armour fitted him so well considering he had spent the last six years in exile and so was not present for his suit’s creation under General Alaric’s orders. Alaric was therefore also responsible for the armour’s design which may explain the rather unorthodox choice to have the whole set oil blackened: black armour for the black sheep.
Regardless of the speculation surrounding both General Keiser’s armour and ascension to the position, he has since proven himself more than a match for the role in which he now finds himself. At first travelling to human and basitin lands personally for several years, with the eventual set up and training of the Diplomatic Corps (under his personal direction), he spent increasingly more time on the Isles and took up more of an administrator’s role, only travelling overseas for extremely important events such as the last-ditch negotiations with the Templar before diplomatic ties were severed and the great war began. With diplomacy abandoned and the drums of war sounding, Keiser was again thrust into an alien environment: direct battlefield command of an entire army. To be promoted under unusual circumstances is one thing but to be put in charge of the lives of thousands of men when you yourself have almost none of the experience required to enact that role is quite another entirely. In fact, there was much public and private debate over whether the law governing regimental appointments should be changed to prevent him from taking command at all. But Keiser had learned much of war in the years since his return from banishment and, in addition, knew that like any young commander he had to lean heavily on those under him that did have significant experience with directing large numbers of troops for advice. At the start, he had only limited input and the army under his command was run in large by those senior officers underneath him acting as regents with Keiser himself rubber-stamping any decisions made. But as months turned to years and the campaign against the Templar see-sawed back and forth, he gradually grew more and more into the role of leader and eventually took his place as the legitimate commander of an army, alongside his fellow High Generals and those others of very senior rank.
Keith Keiser’s story from underachieving child, to exile, to Ambassador General, to supreme commander of the combined forces of the Eastern and Western basitins, to boarder-line apotheosis amongst his people is a tale that is as exciting as it is long and so cannot be told in full here. Regardless of the journey, the outcome of it all is written on the stones of history: the basitins lost the war and fled to Earth as refugees with General Keiser at their head. For several years he toiled with various human governments to make the basitin’s new life a success, but his efforts were cut cruelly short when, on the way to the United States on a diplomatic mission, he perished at the age of 37 aboard the SS Andrea Doria when it sank just off Nantucket, Massachusetts in 1956. How things might have been different for the basitin people had he lived is the cause of much speculation, but regardless of what might have happened in the future, the legacy of his deeds in the past has secured his place amongst the history books, human and basitin, for all time.
However, not all is well on Planet Earth, for something sinister is stirring in the darkness; a plot that could threaten to consume everything in the fires of war that once engulfed the basitin’s home world years before. Everything is in place and the pieces have started to move. The fate of the Earth and all its inhabitants shall very soon be decided.
What can save us now?
Partial head line art by Tom Fischbach
Basitins are the creation of Tom Fischbach over at http://twokinds.keenspot.com/
Category Artwork (Digital) / Fantasy
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 720 x 1280px
File Size 198 kB
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