30 Base Commanders and their Bases

1) The Martinet

The Martinet is in command of a military base in an active warzone, where the war has been grinding on for several years with no clear end in sight. He is very strict towards his soldiers, strictly punishing drug abuse, insubordination and lazing about and insists on frequent patrols to make contact with the enemy and bump up the body count, not caring about the lives of his own men. What's more, he refuses to  listen to the views of his NCOs who know far more about the situation then he does. If in a modern time period, he is likely to end up fragged, despite the two soldiers who are excused having to go patrolling in exchange for guarding his bedroom  at night. Even in an older time period where grenades have not been invented, there are several of his men who would stab him on the battlefield if they thought they had a chance of getting away with it, and he may not be long for this world. His fort is made of wood plated with steel.

2) The Henry Hawley

The Henry Hawley despises his foes, and loves to witness executions, be they spies, murderers, deserters from his own forces, or just civilians suspected of  disloyalty, and just outside the walls of his fort is a set of gallows with dozens of decomposing corpses. Every breath of wind towards the fort brings a horrible stink. The civilians in the  area hate him, and have taken up a collection amongst themselves to hire a professional assassin to hire the problem. His fort is of wood, like the classic one seen in old cowboy films.

3) The Senguko-Daimyo

His country has been locked in a bitter civil war for as long as he can remember, and he is a warlord intent on taking as much territory as possible. Despite the length of the war, territory changes sides frequently and most of his soldiers are volunteers so  there is not as much war-weariness as the war that the Martinet and his soldiers are fighting. Also, they admire his bravery and the way he hands out rewards to those who fight well, so when he occasionally has to punish one of them, the others don't mind much. They know they will only put them through what he is willing to go through himself. His castle is a Japanese castle-type, with sloping walls that one cannot climb far up. 

4) The Daimyo

His country has been at peace for over a century, his wife and children are hostages  at his king's palace, to be slaughtered if he attempts to revolt, and to further lessen the chance of a  revolt, he has to spend three months at his castle, three months at the king's palace, and six months travelling between the two places at his own expense, eating up a large amount of his province's revenues so he cannot afford to hire more soldiers then he already commands. He is thinking of sending in people to rescue his family so that with them safe, he can launch a revolt. Enter the PCs....

5) In Name Only

He was a puppet emperor who was defeated in battle after plotting to restore military rule, but executing him was politically unthinkable, so he was placed as the commander in name only of a small fort on an island five miles out at sea with a single company of soldiers as it's garrison. He is the titular commander in name only, as all his orders are only valid if the deputy commander agrees with them. The fort is his de facto prison and a supply boat shows up twice a year. Enter the PCs, who are on a quest to rescue him.....

6) Under Siege 

His fort has been under siege for weeks on end, the supplies are running out, and he is slowly losing his mind and freaking out under the endless bombardment of his foes, but his soldiers are of sterner stuff, otherwise the fort would have fallen and surrendered a long time ago.

7)The Feared

The road to the fort is lined with the heads of the local population stuck on poles. The fort is located deep in enemy territory and the commander has made the area around it for ten miles a kill zone where only his country's soldiers are allowed on pain of a very painful death. The PCs have been hired to assassinate him but that will not be easy as his soldiers are very loyal to him.

8) Bored

He was suspected of serious war crimes, but the evidence was not the strongest and the government would have been very embarrassed by bringing the case to trial. So he was sent to the most boring fort in the entire Army, with very little to do and no internet access even as the fort commander. There are no offensives, no patrols, safe or otherwise, nothing much to do, not even much paperwork to write. 

9) Warder

The Warder is a strict unpleasant, dour man, but with a good reason to be. His fortress is the most high security prison in the country, full of violent robbers, traitors, sex criminals, and other nasty people, and he considers them to be all beyond redemption and there to pay for their crimes. If the country he lives in still had capital punishment, many of the criminals he guards would have gone to the gallows for their crimes. He rarely leaves the fortress, fearing assassination as he does as there are several organized crime bosses within the walls who hate him because of how he treats them.

10)Disney

He is in charge of a Contacology that functions as a medieval castle where everyone has their parts to play, and that serves genuine meat once every month, not lab grown stuff, and costs quite a lot to join and be a member of. The walls are thicker then they appear, and there are secret stores of Power Armour and strong weapons strongly and secretly locked away in case the place is ever invaded by Wastelanders or terrorists. In effect, the place can serve as a genuine fort in an emergency.

11) Royal Palace

As the Captain of the King's Guards, he is completely and utterly trusted at protecting the King and the Royal Palace and the fort he commands is a fortress on the outside and a luxury palace on the inside. Someone is spreading rumours that he wants to cut the heir with a knife.

12) Fort Knox

He is one of the most trusted officers in the Army, and his fort is harder to break into then a maximum security prison would be-and with good reason, because it contains his country's entire gold reserve of gold bullion-a fortune of a billion pounds(in money) of gold and has to be protected from the unwelcome attentions of his country's underworld as well as any attackers from abroad.

13) The Mage

He commands a fort made mostly of magical force shields and he checks it each day for signs of Spell Breaking done by war-wizards of the other country. If this was not done, a week or so of that would crack a hole in the wall as surely as heavy artillery would crack a hole in a stone wall. As well as keeping out unwanted military attackers, spies and scouts, it also keeps out a lot of unwanted economic refugees, as the other country is poor with a largely moribund economy.

14) The Traitor

After over thirty years as an officer in the Army, this Colonel now controls a key fort protecting a narrow pass that is vital to his country's defence, but he has been a spy for a rival power, a sleeper agent just waiting to be activated. When he is activated he will open a side door to let in the foe and neutralize the fort very quickly, so that a sickle cut can be made into his country's defences.

15) The Admiral

His fort is a fleet that commands some narrow straits that keep his country's capital safe from attack, as well as protecting traders from pirates, and he is firm and no-nonsense but not overtly cruel to the crews of the ships under him. At least a third of the fleet is doing various things at any one time-escorting merchant ships, patrolling for pirates, deterring illegal fishing, and making diplomatic visits overseas.

16) The Trader-Bane

His fort guards one of  the only passes in the mountains, and he taxes the traders a tenth of their profits on the way back, which they grudgingly put up with as it would be even more expensive to go around him. He uses the money to buy the supplies for his men, pay his men, keep them well fed and to pay himself as well, and his men like him as he pays them well.

17) The Scheming

There were wild rumours at the royal court that he was planning to commit treason, but luckily for him his king did not believe in ordering his execution based on idle talk amongst the courtiers. However, he has exiled him to a far away military base just in case the rumours are true. In fact the rumours were true. Privately intensely frustrated at being dumped out in the back of beyond so far away from the centre of power, he has decided that all he can do is behave himself, bide his time and hope to be recalled in time to the royal court that he was so unceremoniously exiled from.

18) The Cultist

A truly charismatic cult leader, he became an assistant cook at a castle and first converted the entire kitchen staff, and then almost all the men at arms to his way of thinking. A few years later, the noble who owned the castle and his family were rousted out of their beds in the middle of the night by their own men and he made them an offer they were in no fit state to refuse-sell him the castle for about half of what it was worth or be despatched there and then and have their dead  bodies thrown into the castle's oubliette. He sends assassins beyond the castle walls to despatch lords and generals who dare to challenge him and his cult.

19) The Rebel

Until now a faithful and loyal general, his government has decided to confiscate the weapons of the nobles, and said nobles are furious with it and see it as the government without provocation lowering them down to the peasant class, and are meeting at his castle to plan the start of their rebellion against a government that as far as they are concerned hates them for existing.

20) The Covert

Unusually, his fort is a truly secret military base that appears to be a normal border village. He and his soldiers do not wear uniform, although they do have their uniforms in their houses so they can change very quickly. They carry concealed pistols in case of a surprise attack from the enemy, have hidden rifles in their homes, wear their hair like civilians do, all have civilian jobs within the village, and have genuine families where both parents are in the military and their children don't know about it. If need be, hidden cannons and walls can be raised at the press of a button, and what seems like a normal village can turn into a fort that is designed to hold out for at least three months. The Covert is very careful that the secret is kept and no one outside it finds out.

21) The Stump Commander

This Commander commands the military equivalent of The Village on a Stump, the people inside being soldiers and their families. There is a fort, a training area, and the soldiers train regularly for the day when a war is declared and the base becomes full size to block the foe from the East. The fort is a military secret, and those inside cannot leave until the fort enlarges, but they have everything they need, regular pay, good rations and enough time off not to be burned out or bored.

22) The Cupid-Struck

A baron of a medium size castle that keeps a beady eye on the local clans of the Far West, he has fallen hopelessly in love with the wife of the baron of another castle several miles away and wants to pay the PCs a lot of money to infiltrate that castle, kidnap her and bring her to him, so he can forcibly give her a love potion to make her into his willing lover.

23) Lord of the Tower

His tower is a wizard's tower, and he was trained at East Point and sent there as it's commander. The tower is built above a great crypt that is still in use by everyone nearby, as it is the only place for fifty miles around that bodies can be legally buried. What is a strict military secret is that if the country is ever invaded, the Lord of the Tower has the power to raise all the bodies as zombies and skeletons and send them into battle. Although individually weak, there will be a lot of those lesser Undead, enough to delay an invading army for a vital few hours until a living army can get there to fight them.

24) Undead

He is an Undead who was accidently freed by grave robbers, and over the years he freed other Undead from their graves and tombs whilst they were still sane and they took over a fortress through infiltrating it pretending to be monks carrying a deceased lord for burial. Here they can live their undeaths without being slain or magically enslaved or otherwise bullied by the living, and they are willing to fight to hold onto what they have.

25) Area 51

His fort protects a secret weapons training range for warplanes, tanks, artillery and guns that are still on his country's military secrets list and are yet to be used in combat or passed down to the regular troops. There are (untrue rumours) of crashed alien spacecraft there as well.

26) Slaver

Slaver's castle, like the real life Cape Coast Castle, is used to house slaves awaiting transportation to the plantations overseas where they will spend the rest of their deeply unhappy lives. Slaver is a deeply unpleasant man, revelling in the slave's misery and regularly taunting them about their dreadful fate. He lives in luxury on the proceeds of his foul trade.

27) The DMZ Commander

The fort that he guards is one of many on the edge of a former warzone that has seen peace for seventy years but is still a dangerous place, and he has to stay on the alert, watching out for spies, genuine refugees, and small raids from the foe. His country and the other one are constantly on the verge of war with each other, and he is a suspicious man.

28) The Squatter

After a failed crusade, this charismatic leader and the remaining followers of his have taken over this disused and ruined fortress and blocked the doors with tree branches and rocks, whilst they wait to see if they will be relived in time before they are slaughtered by their foes. There is a full well of clean water in the castle but they only have enough food for a week to sustain themselves with.

29) The Trading Post

This is the only legal trading place with a rather xenophobic country, but despite that, a lot of trade carries on there and the fort commander has the job of keeping people from either sneaking out or sneaking in to either country to avoid international incidents and/or anyone from being executed for spying.

30) The Changeling Queen

A love feeder like all of her kind, she lives in a fortress of black granite within a mountain where she keeps the cocooned bodies of those who her drones have replaced so that they can feed on their love. Other drones who are undercover bring in further love to the hive, when not pretending to be the people they are replacing. Love from boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands and wives. Love of family. Patriotic love. Love of greed. It takes a lot of love to feed a Changeling Hive.