The Sohay were warrior-monks of the Ichiban Sect on the planet Azure who gained notoriety during the Civil War as fierce fighters and astute tacticians. (Note that the name Azure has been given to several worlds; this entry refers to the one in the Ellipse Sector). In the decades leading up to the Civil War, Azure was plagued with a weak central government. Wealthy landholders, influential religious orders and off planet interests both fuelled and benefitted from this weakness. The final blow came when the government failed to line up behind either faction in the Civil War, lost what little confidence remained in the populace and fragmented into competing “governments in exile” or “temporary action committees”.
Attempting to fill this political vacuum were the very organizations which had created it. In the years leading up to the Civil War, each had created its own private army, be it locally raised, hired off world or sometimes both. These armies became the instrument by which ultimate political power was to be secured. In the case of the Ichiban Sect, it fielded a force of lower level clerics trained in the military arts. Unfortunately for Azure, no one faction was able to field a decisive force and therefore a protracted series of conflicts followed which were marked by assassination, terrorism, commando actions and battles involving what amounted to light infantry. The Sohay fell into the last category and earned a fearsome reputation for tenacity and a ready ability to adapt to changes on the battlefield.
The conflict on Azure sputtered along but was decisively ended when Naval Infantry forces were landed to restore order and return Azure to “the community of civilized worlds”. Most Sohay chose to lay down arms for good once peace was imposed but a minority decided to ply their trade offworld or participate in a very brief, very fatal resistance movement. Over the intervening generation, rumors to the contrary, the Sohay have quietly faded away although some notable individuals still serve as advisors to individual worlds, teach strategy and tactics or simply wander the jump lines.