Northern Juche Militia

The Northern Juche Militia is a military unit which has existed on the Blessed Isle since the days of the Shogunate, drawn from volunteers and conscripts in the peasant hamlets of northern Juche Prefecture. When the Scarlet Empress took the Throne at the end of the Great Contagion, its Dragonblooded commander (a cousin of the Shogun) declared defiance, but was put to death by his own troops soon after, and the Militia set about proactively enforcing the Empress' rule before many in the surviving hierarchy of daimyo had declared either way. The Militia was honoured by retention in the Realm's order of battle, though separate from the Legions.

Technically the Militia is a division of the Thousand Scales. They remain a force of part-time peasant volunteers and conscripts, providing auxiliaries for Imperial Legion, Black Helms, and Wyld Hunt forces as needed... and needed they often are, for northern Juche is mountainous difficult terrain, where outlaws can seek hideaways and the rich transport caravans and essence flows tempt mortal and spirit bandits alike.

The Militia is commanded by a Strategoi, equal in rank to a Legion general on paper but treated as far less by those who know anything of Realm hierarchies. Often a disgraced Legion officer, the Militia strategoi does not have tactical or strategic command of their unit, tasks which fall to the individual scale- and fanglords of the Militia... they exist only as a means of circumventing laws against armed peasants in the Realm, by granting the appearance of Dragonblooded command and military structure. The death rate of Militia strategoi is no different from that of Legion generals, though facing no foes so deep in the Blessed Isle the cause of death has always been suicide.