The Penitent

The Penitent are a military unit within the Kingdom of Almeron, composed of a motley assortment of disgraced knights, deserters, desecrated priests, criminals, and sinners seeking forgiveness. Assignment to the Penitent is seen as a death sentence and volunteering for it suicide, though those who die while serving are seen as forgiven for the misdeeds of their lives. Knights who have disgraced their kingdom or forsaken their vows are sent to the Penitent, as are thieving priests and cowardly deserters. Criminals from the noble classes may be punished by being sent to the Penitent to avoid a direct death sentence, and those are simply overwhelmed with guilt may volunteer to join their ranks. The Penitent are always the first into any battle they serve in, charging the line where it is most dangerous and breaking apart enemy formations with determination and their corpses. Though their gruesome existence and imminent death might seem a breeding ground for cowardice, those of the Penitent are instilled with an unbreakable sense of duty by their commanders. Any who flees from a wall of pikes faces a fate worse than death, as well as the pain of knowing forgiveness is denied to them.

Those who do not have any equipment are given armor taken from the corpses of previous members, seen both as an honor and commonly joked about among the grim ranks of the doomed. The banner of the Penitent bears hundreds if not thousands of ermines, representing their countless numbers as well as the worthlessness of the individual member. Each soldier of the Penitent is branded below their left eye with a singular ermines, marking them permanently as one of the unit to dissuade any attempt at desertion and for easy identification upon their inevitable death. Those of the Penitent who have lived through enough battles might be commended or even pardoned by their commanders, freed of their commitments and seen as fully forgiven of their transgressions. Such a thing has only happened a small number of times, however.