The Wild Hunt
Fear chilled us all to the bones that very night, for something unearthly rode abroad. Quntilian save us, I prayed, for I had caught a glimpse through the clouds of great riders that rode the roads of heaven. Specters of the unquiet dead, I was sure they were, each taller and more terrible than any man. And oh, so more beautiful. All that night and every night thereafter, their horns sounded, higher and wilder than the tempests of the inner sea, and each day, we found one of our own had gone missing in the night. Sometimes, we would see them in dreams, chased by things, like men but greater, as hounds flee the hunter, pierced by spears that shone like lightning in the night.
Structure
From the songs and verse that Angharad left behind and taught to her students, the Wild Hunt is led by the Prince of the Winter Court. His real name has never been revealed and it appeared that the huntsmen who ride with him are bound to him through some oaths of loyalty, making them something of a war-band or immortal hunting party.
Public Agenda
Throughout the isles, the Wild Hunt is known for is mad riding through the clouds during massive storms or just before catastrophe strikes the land. In ages past, they would raid farmsteads, slaying the adults, and stealing the children, although that mostly ended after the druid Angharad encountered and bound them by an iron-oath to never steal children or harm innocent mortals again. They continue to occasionally abduct adults, most likely based on their own notions of guilty or innocent, but have never since stolen a child. By all accounts, it seems that the Wild Hunt exists solely for the amusement of the Huntsmen.
Assets
When sighted, the Hunt usually numbers between one and two dozen riders, all mounted on Fae steeds that glow in even the dimmest light. All are adorned in silver mail, with swords of the same, along with long spears, and longbows. It is likely that they have great hoards of wealth somewhere in the Fey, but none has ever lived to tell of it.
History
When a great storm strikes the archipelago, the Wild Hunt is seen, riding amidst the clouds and hurling their spears down to earth like lightning, although rarely do mortals know what it is that they hunt. For as long as mortals have lived in the isles and as long as there has been a Winter Court of the Fae, there has been a Wild Hunt, and they have long been a sign of coming tragedy.
It was their appearance at regular intervals that heralded the beginning of the Faen War, if not one of the instigators of the entire event. Before the first Aelithi fleet appeared on the horizon, massive storms wrecked the coastland and the Huntsmen were seen from one end of the horizon to the other. Some even say that prior to the death of the first High King after the departure of the Aelithi Empire, they were seen riding in the highlands.
Type
Military, Other
Alternative Names
- Storm-Riders
- Child-Thieves
Training Level
Elite
Veterancy Level
Decorated/Honored
Demonym
Huntsmen
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