Mageslayers

As mages delve into the mysteries of the Tapestrum Arcanum, they inevitably inch towards that final realization that the power they can draw from that plane is practically limitless. Some individuals can handle the responsibility of wielding such awesome might but others go rogue, whether it is due to ambition and lust for power or simply losing their minds when confronted with the infinite.

However they emerge, these renegade mages are some of the most dangerous individuals on Nascindor. That is why, in secret from all prying eyes and with no place to call home for itself, an order of warriors called the Mageslayers was founded. It falls unto them to locate and destroy those who would turn their magic against the common good.

Founding

The Enlightened Few, being mages themselves, were the first to identify the problem that comes with extended practice of magic. Together with select individuals from the church of Resounding Truth, these two organizations founded the Mageslayers with the understanding that no one, not even these founders, should be safe from their reach.

Recruitment

Recruitment for the Mageslayers is a two-part process. First, a potential recruit is approached by a member in a casual setting that will seek to befriend them. Over the course of this friendship, the member of the order seeks to gauge the prospective recruits opinion on matters both magical and mundane, especially in relation to their opinion on haphazard use of magic and its often ill consequences.

Once the member has made sure that the possible recruit is Mageslayer material, they will gift them a trinket of Deadwood. This is also a test, a way to ascertain that the scrutinized recruit is not overly sensitive to the adverse effects of the heinous material and can function in its presence. After this test is concluded successfully, the potential recruit is told of the existence of the order.

At this point, there are only two options for the budding recruit. Either they join the order and vow to keep its existence a secret or they are killed on the spot and the fact that they ever even existed is erased from memory.

Equipment and Tactics

Mageslayers wear armored robes, usually with dark blue or even black coloration in the fabrics. The armor itself is a mesh made from an alloy of steel and Tyndarite, affording them flexible protection that the operative has limited capacity to modify on the fly using specially made whistles that resonate with the Tyndarite within the metal, changing its properties.

A good length of steel serves a Mageslayer as well as anyone but the real tool of their trade is their focus; an implement or charm hewed from Deadwood and meant to suppress the immediate area around the operative so that mages cannot project when near him or her. This implement can be a staff, a club, a bracelet or even just a ring, though larger implements are preferred as the size of the implement usually denotes the strength and radius of its suppressing properties.

Public Relations

To the general public, the Mageslayers do not exist as very few who are not members of the order are even aware of it. This is by design, to deter any organized resistance to their mission from the mages they hunt.

Should any member of the order be discovered, they are quickly branded as vigilantes that acted alone to preserve the shroud of secrecy that is so delicately placed upon the organization's shoulders.

Locations

Mageslayers are a group that does not have a centralized base of operations but rather the members work on their own terms and using the methods they see fit to achieve their goals, which are guided by the principles of the order. Anyone that passes by on the busy streets of Glarithia or below the fortress walls of Telothia is potentially a Mageslayer.

This means that every operative of the order is a sleeper agent, ready to spring into action whenever a situation that demands it arises.

Power Begets Consequence

H-Hey! That man just killed that guy! Someone stop him!

–A rare witness to a Mageslayer's execution of their quarry

Predecessor Organizations

• Enlightened Few
• Resounding Truth

Related Species

• Human

by Midjourney

_{A Mageslayer}