Imperial Army's Auxilliary

Forces of Imperial Army's Auxilliary respond to one of the most serious threats to tactic of every standard army in the world, with similar organization existing beside practically every standard army in the world – for obvious reasons.
This threat can be summed up to magic. While soldiers equipments is normally enriched by few percent addon of antegnit, making it partially capable to repel offensive magic while being able to pierce through magical defenses, it is far from enough. High level aura manipulator, archmagician with enough time to prepare, bunch of summoned daemon, or rampaging High Dragon can and probably will cause many loses in manpower despite it.
To counter such threats such auxilliary formations are made, created from adventurers, magicians, aura manipulators or non-rampaging High dragon, that are supposed to remain close to the battlefield, able to react when similar enemies show up.
The fact that they are so widespread means practical stalemate in terms of powerful entities, allowing wars to be waged in an old school way of fielding sufficiently big groups of sometimes completely mundane people, letting tactics and discipline be important factor on battlefields, rather than allowing them to change into even more chaotic bloodbaths.

Structure

Imperial Army's Auxilliary formations are generally added to bigger (regiment size up) formations of Imperial Army, in company (for regiments) or batallion (for divisions) sizes. Their internal composition is in no way standarized, in most cases being a loose compilation of squads (varied in size).
There exist no independent command structure of Auxilliary formation, with overwhelming majority of such units being a part of Imperial Army (hence the name). The only exception are formations sent to operate in magical anomalies, in most cases given semi-autonomous status. While they still answer to provincional governors, they are left working on their own, as long as they bring necessary profits to the Imperium while making sure there are no 'incidents' around, their commanders in most cases appointed by the said provincial governors.
A sort of in-between exists in heavily exploited anomalies, especially in Valley of Ashes which doubles as an imperial penal colony, with special 'governor' issued only to this single location, with local Imperial Army and Auxilliary responding to him while being ultimately separate.

Public Agenda

Imperial Army's Auxilliary has one main job - accompanying Imperial Army and Imperial Navy during their voyages. When enemy unleashes some powerful magick, terrible daemon, mighty beast or high dragon, they are used to counter it.
Separated into squads of highly competent adventurers (or magicians/daemons/beasts/high dragons) they are scattered behind the lines of regular infantry and cavalry. When they see some 'special' enemy attacking, they are there to counter, changing potential high level massacre into a brief skirmish.
Of course, a batallion of heavy infantry with vanguard company is more than capable of ripping a dragon or magician to pieces. Even level 100 aura manipulator will simply end up being overwhelmed, with soldiers surrounding him and stabbing him to death even if a dozens of them dies in the process. The problem lies in morale – with many magicks causing terrible morale loss for reason obvious – discipline (after all it is hard to remain a coherent formation when dragon just burned a hole in the middle) and in forces simply too focused on singular enemy to counter few hundreds of his friends.
Thus it is much better to have few dozens competent adventurers and few magicians around, the first one ready to take down a dragon/daemon/beast, while the other are great in keeping enemy magicians busy or helping adventurers.
Of course, they can also be used for an offensive, doing exactly the same to enemy forces as they try to do to Imperial Army, at least until they are stopped in the same way.

Demography and Population

Recruiting members of Auxilliary lies in hands of Imperial Ministry of Internal Affairs that works as a sort of intermediary. It brokers deals between Imperial Army and Imperial Magic Guild, which brings in magicians, daemons and tamed (to a level) beasts, and Imperial Adventurers Guild, which supplies it with adventurers.
Imperial Ministry of Internal Affairs has its own sources of manpower, including mostly certain sentient species like High Dragons, that are considered fitting for such job.
In most cases, however, Auxilliary formations are still heavily undermanned, since they tend to be organized ad hoc (lowering the chance of enemy specially crafting its own supernatural forces to counter them). If the local command is in hurry, it can also mass draft local adventurers and magicians, not to mention forces of 101st. Infantry Division, though considering the quality of such drafted units, it is considered a last resort.

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Type

Military, Paramilitary/Militia

Alternative Names

Imperial Adventurers, Imperial Auxiliary Corps.