Culcheth City Guard
The Culcheth City Guard is a modest but ever-present force tasked with maintaining order across the market town and the nearby villages of Guthram, Silten’s Reach, and the surrounding countryside. They are not soldiers in the truest sense, nor do they aspire to be. Their duties are local, grounded in the rhythms of market days, tax collections, and keeping the peace in a land where the law still holds more sway than superstition—barely.
Under the command of Captain Marek Drabek, the guard operates with a rough sort of discipline. They wear padded gambesons or chain shirts when needed, and carry spears, short blades, and truncheons more for presence than precision. Their uniforms bear the black hound of House Novak, though not always cleanly—muddy boots and battered helms are common sights among them. They train when time allows, but more often learn their trade in the streets: breaking up fights, settling land disputes, dragging drunkards out of ditches, and standing silent watch as grain levies are counted out in copper.
Most are locals—sons of millers, carpenters, or crofters—who took the guard oath for steady coin, warm meals, and the protection of authority. Some are sharp-eyed and capable; others coast on routine and familiarity. They are known by name in the villages, and while that brings a measure of trust, it also breeds resentment. Everyone in Guthram and Silten’s Reach has a story about a cousin cuffed too hard, a cart seized unfairly, or a night spent in the stocks for saying too much.
The guards rarely stray far from the roads or town walls. They do not venture into Borslev fen or Darklight Swamp unless pressed by dire command or desperation, and even then, they go with dread in their eyes and weapons gripped far too tightly. Those cursed places, they know, belong to other things.
In Culcheth and its lowland reach, however, the guard stands firm enough. They are the law that knocks at your door, the figures in green and black at the edge of every gathering, watching, listening, waiting for trouble to make itself known. And when it does, they act—not always perfectly, not always fairly—but decisively.
In a land where monsters wear many faces, it is often the familiar one that folk fear most.
Type
Military, Paramilitary/Militia
Capital
Training Level
Trained
Veterancy Level
Trained
Notable Members
