DaringSteel
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A representative foot soldier of the Yellow Jade Legion - an empowered mortal, with pseudo-Artifact equipment. Her equipment is standard for YJL infantry: glaive, long sword, short sword, riot shield with built-in viewport, and chainmail armor supplemented by greaves, gauntlets, and a helm - all of the rare and unusual Yellow Jade.
Models made using Hero Forge.
Side view, showing the shield and its built-in viewport - an engineering feat not seen since the First Age.
The Yellow Jade Legion is named for its equipment. Yellow Jade was at most a rare curiosity to First Age savants. To Second Age jade-smiths, it represents an aggravating project failure and an expensive waste of Jade ore. Exalted find it quite useless. Arms and armor forged from it have the same superior physical qualities as any Artifact, but are magically inert - attunement requires Willpower instead of Essence, and they have no Evocations.
Second model, with the glaive stowed and long sword drawn.
However, these weaknesses conceal certain advantages. Being magically inert, Yellow Jade is far easier to craft than "proper" magical materials (though it still requires esoteric knowledge and techniques than simple steel or bronze do not). In fact, where true Artifact arms and armor are bespoke, those of Yellow Jade can be produced en masse. And as they require no Essence to attune, they can be wielded by mortals.
If someone was smart enough to know the secrets of crafting Yellow Jade, rich enough to procure the ore, and crazy enough to squander both on stunted pseudo-Artifacts... they could outfit an army. Such an army would be nearly unstoppable - their armor would be impervious to mortal weapons, their weapons would carve through mortal armor, and even Dragon-Blooded heroes would fall before their sheer numbers. But the only people with the means to do so would be the Exalted, who would have much better use for that much Jade ore ...at least, in theory.
Rear view, giving a better look at the glaive, long sword, and rear armor.
Someone, somewhere, has done the unthinkable and unprecedented.
In RY 768, a Wyld Hunt near Chiaroscuro was foiled by a talon of unidentified troops. In the first months of RY 770, six dragons of an unknown faction smashed House Mnemon's legions at Jiara. Reports trickle in from the Threshold - Cherak, the Pinnacle of the Eye of the Hunt, Pneuma, Greyfalls, Paragon. Silent, anonymous legions, wearing impenetrable armor and wielding unstoppable weapons, with the numbers and training to swiftly bring down even Dragon-Blooded champions.
Fusilier of the Yellow Jade Legion, wearing brigandine armor and wielding a firewand with bayonet. Fusiliers are invariably deployed alongside infantry - either in a mixed formation, with a core of fusiliers defended by several ranks of infantry, or (in mass deployments) with multiple uniform formations arranged for the same result. In a battle line on an open field, fusiliers move ahead to cut down enemies at range, then retreat behind the infantry's shields when the enemy closes.
Side view, for a better view of his weapon. Unlike all other extant firewands, which must be reloaded after every shot, his can fire multiple shots before he needs to replace its detachable firedust magazine (like all YJL fusiliers, he carries several such magazines for faster reloading). The bayonet can be removed and used as a combat or general utility knife.
Left side / rear view showing his pack and armor.