LEGO SYSTEM Castle : ~11/blankshields/intro


Castle / James Brown / blankshields / intro

The Hsitory of the Blank Shields

Introduction

Long before the current age of prosperity in Legoria, there were times of strife and division; periods that continued for centuries before great thinkers and philosophers began to present ideas and technologies that would eventually be called the Renaissance.

However, there are many works out there devoted to those great thinkers. Scholars who chronicle the dark ages of Legoria’s history are few, and mostly focus on the various kingdoms that rose and fell between the Roman Legopire and the Renaisance. Thus I have taken upon myself to trace an often ignored area of dark age history: the role of the mercenary company.

Mercenaries were numerous during the dark ages, there being any number of reasons for men and women to pick up a sword and sell their skills: poverty was common, as was desertion from larger armies or cruel overlords. Often, a defeated noble would mean the collapse of an entire army, leaving sometimes hundreds of skilled warriors with no war, as it were. It must be admitted, however, that in the earlier parts of the dark ages, these men and women became bandits and robbers at least as often as mercenaries. In fact, it wasn’t until around the year 600 AP(1) that ‘mercenary’ became distinct from ‘bandit’, and mercenaries began to resemble the professional organizations that dominated the later half of the dark ages. We will follow the progress of one of the earliest of these companies, and show how it influenced the shape of history - perhaps more than we realize.

There are any number of minifigs whose deeds have survived the test of time to become legends today. Knights by the score, lords and ladies, and so forth. None of them, however, manage to capture our attention like the ‘anti-heros’ - minifigs like the pirate Skull Eye, or the mercenary Captain Dhugal, or just ‘The Captain’, is the minifig whose career we will be following. Little is known about his background before he started the Blank Shields sometime around 612, except that he had served originally in the army of King Bertrand of Legany, probably holding the highest rank a commoner could claim: that of lieutenant. When Betrand was defeated and his fortress razed in the summer of 611, Dhugal and a core of picked minifigs struck out on their own, hiring on to minor nobles and small towns to clear out bandits and such. It was around this time that he started calling himself the Captain, and began his campaign to turn the phrase ‘blank shield’ into a badge of honor. Contrary to popular belief, it was not Dhugal who named his company, rather it was his various employers, who started refering to them as Dhugal’s Blank Shields. Presumably, it was because he was so adamanant that the phrase become distinct from bandit that he became so closely associated with it. In any case, the name stuck. By 617, he was using it himself, although he had forced a shift away from using his name, and they became simply ‘The Blank Shields’.

1)AP: After Purchase

Up Next

Primary content in this document is © James Brown. All other text, images, or trademarks in this document are the intellectual property of their respective owners.