A Comprehensive Guide to the Noctees: Nocturnus Family · 8:46am Mar 8th, 2015
“Defenders of Truth”
The Pony-Noctees war was a devastating conflict as the world has never seen. Through a millennia of constant battle and campaign, both the Crystal Empire and the Noctees families outwore each other to the point where after the conflict was over neither were able to fully recover. Because of the massive amounts of casualties that both sides sustained after the Emerald Storm Campaign, both the success and failure of the military operation ensured that neither side would have the upper hoof in the subsequent war, as it enlarged itself over the next millennium. During these thousand years the conflict was mostly a stalemate between the cunning of the Noctees and the massive Crystal Empire’s stock superiority. At first it looked like a deadlock, but the Nightmancers weren’t raised in a day, and their long term strategies in time started to prove effective against the superior resources of the Crystal Empire. Over the centuries the Noctees were able to turn the tables against their opponent, and even after one province after another started to fall to the sons of Naqesis, the Covens themselves often were forced to sustain heavy losses to attain victory over their equine enemies. This also meant that even though the Noctees families were each time closer to total victory they too had to forfeit the conflict in order to rebuild all that had been lost and center their efforts in this endeavor… All but one. The Nocturnus are the most warlike of all the families, and with the most military experience and strength. Their mastery of war is only rivaled by their aggressive tendencies, and some speculate that if it weren’t because of the peace treaty the Noctees signed with Ponies they would be still at war with us.
Nocturnus Coven
Because of their active involvement in every conflict the Noctees have had, the Nocturnus family is the most suited for war. From their training processes to the very organization of their administrative plans, everything is contemplated to be used as part of a defensive plan or contingency should the Coven go to war once more. As a result, the mentality of the Noctrunus is the most militarized possible, and the structure of their city shows this disposition to the limit of the pragmatic. Forts and fortresses are displayed throughout every level of the city, and the streets and alleys are designed in order to be able to serve as arteries and accesses from which their defenders can displace while at the same time limiting the enemies’ movements. To assault the Nocturnus Coven means to face a city whose every detail of its design is thought to be used against any invading force.
The government of the Coven is mostly exerted by Seimas, the Allfather of the family. The rest of the members are limited to follow his orders, though whenever an eventuality may appear they are in complete freedom of making their own choices, of course as long as they answer for the results, good or bad, of their ways of action. Aside from their intern management, the Nocturnus Coven doesn’t have any satellite cities or lesser families at their disposition. Semias prefers to remain independent as a city-estate, and he encourages all of his descendants to do the same. This doesn’t mean that every Coven would be on its own when in times of danger, but guarantees at the same time, with the uttermost respect every lesser family has for the Nocturnus, that a more stable hegemony will be exerted throughout their land. The same grade of independence that Semias offers to his siblings also made possible for them to act as a very powerful military force, for when a Coven would be menaced, instead of facing a standardized army and strategy, any enemy would found himself being attacked by all the others in every front and way possible, all of them different but at the same time bound by the goal of vanquishing their common foe.
Nocturnus’s motivations
Politically the Nocturnus assume their role as designated warriors and protectors of their people with uttermost seriousness. The warrior mentality that the whole family possess has shaped them in order to be ever vigilant and alert to the possible threats that may arise within the borders of Equestria. Whenever an enemy should appear that may concern the Noctees the Nocturnus are sure to mobilize or at least stand by until the prospect of damage is made more clear, time when they will either step into the fray or stand by until it becomes a more direct threat. This same attitude has lead them not only to stay out of most of the world’s affairs, but also to interfere with the issues of other races. Even though they are bound to defend their land and their people, as long as it doesn’t threat neither of the two the Nocturnus have admittedly shrugged the issue and continued as if nothing were happening. Semias is as wise as he is stubborn in that aspect, and only a strong pressure from the rest of the families have convinced him of putting aside his pride and meddling in the name of higher interests.
But aside from these reasonably rare occasions the rest of the time the Nocturnus are secluded from the outside, dedicated to the constant improvement and enhancement of their characteristic aspects with almost zealous commitment. Outsiders are not allowed, even to this day, without a powerful recommendation from another important family, and their attitude to other peoples can be easily described as bearish and disdainful. They believe in the superiority of their race and will not doubt to defend it against anyone or anything who puts it in question, which at the same time has owned them the respect and enmity of many who had actually interacted with them.
Overall, it’s easy to see the ill-feeling the family has rooted specifically for ponies. Beginning by Semias, the vast majority of his older siblings, as old as to date back to the Pony-Noctees war, share his views towards equines as their enemies. From a fairly neutral position this is somehow understandable, for after a thousand years of shedding our blood and loosing their brethren to the Crystal Empire, it would be rare not to find at least a trace of war neurosis within their psyche. The fact that to the date the Nocturnus haven’t unleashed their ire against our kind once more is due because Semias is notably wiser than ill-tempered, and also an excellent strategist, which is saying a lot, since he’s not willing to compromise the peace that has costed so many to either sides in the past, even if he has to live with his personal grudges to our race.
Nocturnus in war
The Nocturnus are the most warlike family, and every aspect of their lives and society is developed in order to exploit their competences. The Night Guards of the Nocturnus Coven are the most highly trained of all of the Noctees forces. So it is that many families are eager to train their Night Guards and Night Bearers within the ranks of the Nocturnus in order for them to return to their respective Covens to further enhance their military prowess. Despite this, the Nocturnus are unrivaled in their ways of practice and training, reaching levels of combat mastery that are very effective and hard to imitate, even for other races. A popular saying states that if a Nocturnus cub doesn’t know how to use a sword at the age of ten then he’s born in the wrong Coven.
Because of their same proficiency, when the Coven marches to war they do so almost in their totality, leaving behind only the necessary personnel to take care of the maintenance of their city, which most of the time, aside from a designated garrison, comprises the vast majority of younglings and recruits. So confident are the Nocturnus of their untested soldiers that even when they leave themselves exposed they know the can handle the tasks of vital importance to their greener recruits and know these will be fulfilled with precision as expected. This acts as a deceitful tactic as well, for when all of the professional fighters of the family are gone no enemy will expect to be met with such a fierce resistance from cubs and young thestrals, which has happened in more than one occasion, who’d turn out to still be trained better than many professional forces in nowadays armies, even if they aren’t fully fledged Night Guards.
The Nocturnus army is an example of what a military force should be. Through millennia of rearrangement and constant improvement the Nocturnus have created a force that’s considered by many strategists as the apex of military expression. Their forces are not only able and accustomed to fight under most climate conditions, but, surprisingly, are self sustainable. A Nocturnus army can survive for months at a time by their own means without any provisioning, or even if their supply lines are cut they are still able to live from the land. Many unaware foes have mistaken a seemingly advantage over the Nocturnus because of their low victualing just to be surprised when they discover that the same army has been actually living off their very stolen goods all along while weakening theirs at the same time. This feature has also proven useful when the Coven undergoes their long term military campaigns, time when the only supplies the army is going to be needing will be the refreshment companies from the Coven itself.
In battle there are few forces that can emulate the precision and exactness by which the Nocturnus perform their maneuvers and maintain their formations. Their phalanxes are unbreakable and their charges are unstoppable save for the staunchest of resistance. The coordination and precision by which they can display their movements is unparalleled, and nowadays it continues to amaze and frighten those who have seen them in action. In the confusion of the fight the Nocturnus Night Guards, from the most veteran of soldiers to the greener of recruits, are able to move an fly as though if they were one, and with maneuvers and movements as elaborated and complicated to be pulled in that scale they are able to quickly turn the tides of the fight to their favor even against numerically superior enemies just because of their ease to reconfigure completely during a confrontation and not loose their momentum while doing so. A beaten company can retreat while another is releasing hail after hail of projectiles over their prosecutors, or a single squadron can let itself be surrounded just for their enemies to astoundingly find that they have fallen into a trap, and receive a consequent rain of blades fro a whole battalion shortly after. The proficiency by which the Nocturnus have been able to pull their movements is product of the countless centuries the Coven has spent in one conflict after another in the name of their people until they’ve mastered the ways of war by nowadays standards.
The Elder House of the Nocturnus
The Nocturnus are one of the largest families in existence. Their sheer numbers are enough to compare themselves to the largest families of the Noctees, like the Voidstar, but still they haven’t have had enough to build and successfully rule other Covens. The reason? The high mortality rate at which the Nocturnus loose their siblings, which make their large numbers necessary not to enlarge their families, although that’s always a prospect in Semias’s eyes, but to sustain their losses and continue to be the highly efficient war machine they are. The genotype of the Nocturnus is stable both in their Nightmancers and their thestrals, the latter being of dark brown mane and brown coat, and the last of brown coat and dark colored mane. The eyes of the Nightmancers are all yellow bright, while the thestrals can present themselves in different displays of color due to their more mixed heritage.
It’s said that for the Nocturnus the war never ended, and judging by the personality of the vast majority of their members that statement may be true. Father Semias is a hardened veteran who lived through the bloodiest of the biggest conflict both races have ever seen, and came back alive to tell the tale, and the rest of his family is just as seasoned. The Allfather of the elder family used to harbor the most hatred for our kind in the war, not quitting or forfeiting even when it didn’t seem strategically plausible. In the end they survived the war, him and his family conquering the capital of their enemies and defeating the Eastern Crystal Empire practically by themselves, and resisted the Changelings because of this same will to overcome, but even after this feat the Nocturnus remained the most disdainful to ponies. It’s said that if it weren’t because we needed each other at the time the Swarm invaded, Semias would have made of us a good riddance but times, nevertheless, changed, and when peace was signed with the Three Tribes the Nocturnus accepted, even if the animosity between their family and our people has truly never ceased, but it was to be expected.
Another feat that characterizes the Nocturnus because of their bellicose practices is their sense of honor and respect, which prevents them from exercising any kind of dirty war, but at the same has brought them into conflict with other families whose views are not so hidebound, like the Mirksun and the Voidstar. To the same effect the Nocturnus are bound, like every elder family, to defend the interests of their people, and because of this they are also seen as the armed wing of the Noctees.
The competence and disposition of the family to always undertake every crusade of their race has made them loose members of their family every campaign. In fact it’s almost a constant that during any military action of major scale it almost ends up with the sacrifice of a member of their family. In response to this mortality of members, the relatively high rate by which they pass away is only matched by the extent at which they are able to functionally replace their losses. Over time, and because of the stakes at which they are involved during conflict, the Nocturnus have developed a system of values and beliefs that works both to shape their mentality in order to be willing to sacrifice for the Coven and the family, and to be able to replace their losses within the shortest a mount of time possible. This hasn’t only resulted in the efficiency by which the Nocturnus are able to replenish themselves after every conflict, but the cause behind the high number of young Nightmancers that the family has harbored during the last thousand years.
For those of the family that have survived the endless confrontations with the enemies of their race their age is proof enough of their capacity as leaders and skill as fighters. These are part of an elite group within the Nightmancers known as the Firstborn, and constitute the heads of state and staff officers of the Nocturnus, each one of them a master in their own right about their field of action, having learned over centuries out from trial and error. They are often the oldest members of their family, some dating back to the Pony-Noctees war, and their words are heard by Semias with more weight than their younger siblings.
The Nocturnus characteristic style of conjuration comprises shadows of yellow and brown.
Notable Family Members
Semias Nocturnus
Demias Nocturnus (deceased)
Charias Nocturnus
Erias Nocturnus (deceased)
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