Yishana's Askaris

A design by Chloe of the fighting men aboard the Larl of the Thassa.

Yishana tends to have somewhere in the region of 150 Askaris aboard the ship at any one time, and they are recruited from the dark jungle interior slightly north of Schendi. This area of the jungle has tribes that worship the Goddess Nakeisha, the wind rider, amongst other tribal Gods, and few of them have ever heard of the Priest Kings.

The term 'Askari' was popularised by the black Ubar, Bila Haruma, in Explorers of Gor and not to be outdone, since she claims to be an Ubara herself, Yishana has adopted the same term.

While the Askaris are undoubtedly warriors, they are not of the formal caste of warriors found on central Gor, for the simple reason that they have no knowledge of civilisations outside of their domain. Often their first experience of Gor beyond the jungles is when they sign on to serve the Ubara on her ship. Therefore they do not necessarily have the same codes as say Brinn might.

Askaris tend to fight with a large oval shield and one or more assegais (spare ones are carried with the shield) - a short pole weapon used for hand to hand thrusting or throwing - usually a light spear or javelin made of wood and pointed with iron. In battle the Askaris will use their shields as offensive weapons, smashing them at an enemy and then thrusting with the tip of the assegai when their opponent is off balance. They tend to be less disciplined than Brinn's warriors might be, in terms of shield wall formations and the like, but equally as ferocious. Their morale is exceptionally high since they believe they will feast in their equivalent of Valhalla if they die in service to Yishana. I have never seen them break in battle or even retreat so long as Yishana stands in their front rank. Even Brinn's men have their limits, though I do not think Brinn's men would break so long as Brinn remained standing.

Yishana's Askaris tend to be superstitious and believe very much in omens and portents. There is no doubt that they believe Yishana to be the earthly avatar of their storm Goddess. An avatar is simply someone who can invoke the power of a divine being.

Most of the Askaris have some fluency in the common Gorean tongue but they also speak their own tribal dialects. Yishana is fluent in their native tongue as well as common Gorean. From what I can tell she has lived in their villages since she was a small girl.

They tend to be rather, um, rough when handling and using slave girls. Most of the time I am simply thrown to my belly and taken without any foreplay in the furs. Gradually though I have been teaching them that there are other ways to enjoy sex and word is spreading across the deck...