Master Tactician

Master Tactician or more fully Master Tactician - Magic to Aid the Art of War was a reference and spell book containing discourse on the war tactics and advice of Nicos Nathos, a mercenary commander and faithful of the Red Knight. The book also contains three spells related to that faith.

Description
Master Tactician was built to resemble "The Red Book of War", a holy text of Tempus' faith. It was described as a large, one foot square book in very good condition, bound between two sheets of flat-beaten metal. The front cover was stamped with the symbol of the Red Knight. The pages were written on heavy parchment, horizontally ruled and with wide margins. The primary text was written in large block letters in black ink, but two other people have since written comments, in a smaller hand, down the margins. All of the text was written in the Chessentan language. The book was probably less than thirty years old as of 1373 DR.

Contents
The cover page reads, "Master Tactician -- Magic to Aid the Art of War, Penned by Nicos Nathos, Priest of the Lady of Strategy, Praise Her and the Lord of Battles."

The first forty pages of the book describe military formations for dozens to hundreds of troops, group fighting tactics for the same, and advice for dealing with enemy war strategies. It also provides information about different humanoids' pertinent abilities and the warbeasts they field in battle. The annotations in the margins offer strategies against specific types of humanoids or for use in different weather conditions, and were added by adventuring clerics and paladins of the Red Knight.

The remainder of the pages describe spells used by the Church of the Red Knight, namely:
 * Checkmate's Light
 * Know Protections
 * Telepathic Aura

History
Master Tactician was penned in 1348 by Nicos Nathos, an adventuring cleric of the Red Knight. After a successful career as a mercenary commander on the Dragon Coast. Upon retiring back to his native city of Cimbar due to old age, the mercenary took to summarizing his campaigns and the tactics he'd used to achieve victory. After the death of its author in 1358, it remained in the Cimbaran Temple of Tempus until a small temple of the Red Knight was built in 1359. There it was used as a teaching tool for teaching tool for priests of the faith, both in war and the Red Knight's secret magic. During this time it was also available for viewing at request but was forbidden to remove without permission from the temple elder.

As of the 3 Mirtul, 1373 DR, it had been stolen by Knight Artula Porolos, a young cleric of the Red Knight with plans to use it as a reference for her campaign to bring order to the Border Kingdoms. The Church of the Red Knight was seeking the book's return, but did not want her to be harmed in the process.

Behind the Scenes
Master Tactician: Spells from the Church of the Red Knight is a web enhancement for the Forgotten Realms about a tactics manual cum spellbook that adds three new cleric and paladin spells.