Veturii

Veturii (singular: Veturius) were members of an elite unit of heavily-armed shock infantry which served with distinction within the military of the Sabrian Empire, acting as both the personal guard of the Legate as well as part of Sabria’s standing army. Similarly to the Hostilii, the members of the Veturii were drawn from the Cacertian archipelago alone and consisted exclusively of women. It was the only religious military order in Sabria—dedicated to Veturia, the goddess of spring—with conversion to the Cult of Transformation a requirement for membership.

The unit was founded in 736 BCE by order of Legatus Hirpinia Modia. A skilled practitioner of the usage of the unique two-handed sabrius and devout adherent to the Cult of Transformation, Modia set out to create a division of the reformed Sabrian military dedicated entirely to rapid offense. As a result, Modia created both the martial art focused on the sabrius and the Veturii, although there exists no definitive explanation to the reasoning behind its gender exclusivity.

It was well-known that the training regimen of the Veturii was extremely taxing with nearly all of its candidates entering the sabrii schools at a very young age. Although highly-skilled and ferocious on the battlefield, the taxing program ensured that the Veturii were often small in number, usually never numbering more than ten thousand at any given time. By comparison to other soldiers in the Sabrian military, Veturii wore relatively light armor and were characterized by their tattoos and unique battledress. All Veturii were equipped with a gladius in addition to the characteristic sabrius that defined them.