Wanderers

"Your daily bread will be a deadly threat; your job will be to face peril and death, and keep on asking for more; this lifestyle will gnaw you off, scar per scar, limb per limb. You'll finish your miserable life crippled if you're lucky, but you're more likely to end up missing in action, lost in some Hellhole with no friendly soul around.
So, do you still wish to become a Herzhi?

"You'll owe me and the Order over a decade of your life, just to go through your training. And, by this, I mean that you will owe me a total and blind obedience, while I'll lead you through pain, magic and fear. You'll end up changed, your very substance altered, the fabric of your soul chiseled into a new use. You'll be Marked as one of ours. For evermore.
So, do you still want to become one of us?

"As such, you will abandon your humanity completely; as we do, you will walk on edges. Human no more, never truely a magicling, countryless wanderer, pawn bound to its task. Few souls will welcome you and fewer will dare declare their friendship to you. The very ones you'll help and save will spit in your eye and, sometimes, will try to kill you. You will always sleep with a dagger underneath your pillow and, as any outcast, you will be denied the right to trust any other than your own Brothers.
So, do you accept to become my disciple?"

Standard oral contract between a Master Herzhi and a wannabe pupil

"[...] It must come under the consideration of anywho who wishes to serve the Father, whether it is actively in His Holy Orders or in a more mundane way simply by living a life devoid of sin, that magic is, and is by essence, an insult to the Father and a blasphemy to the world He created for His Children, and such is true, no matter the purpose of anyone delving into the arcane crafts.

In my years as minister of Faith, I came through a great number of blasphemous activities and unholy dealings with dark and malignent forces. Oft enough, such judgements were easy tasks as the devilish crafts seldom leave the soul unstained and any mind elevated by the reading of the Scriptures and strengthened by Light of His Grace can see through the mischevious schemes and elaborated lies of the Children of Sabbath.

Yet I once came with a case that demanded the full extent of both my Faith and my wisdom, for I was to judge a man belonging to the notoriously occult and dangerous society which took the arrogant moniker of Hersi Order. I am not one to fall for pride, but as The First Minister taught to us: "(ToMG, VII-4) They who think too highly of themselves insult the Father by claiming that their talents are their own and not gifts bestowed upon them by Him; They who think too poorly of themselves insult the Father by assuming that the gifts of the Father are better left unused." As such, I know that my ability to assess the merit of even the boldest blasphemer has only made me a better Keeper, but this only made the trial of the man called Aelfryn Wallemyre even more complex.

Contrarely to most of those I interogated in these damp dungeon cells where a Keeper is oft called by his duty, Wallemyre greeted me with an unatural calm and composed, yet bruised and bloodied by the Question, face. His deep velvety voice marked no hesitation as he described the circumstances under which he came to use steel and magic against the knight Lambert De Ponfré-Lamis, exposing a plot were noblekind sealed pacts with agents of the darkest forces and against the Crown itself. The story was convincing and Wallemyre's charisma so great that I once thought he'd bewitched me; he laughed when I expressed the thought, answering with confidence that if he had the skill to do so, I'd never suspect it. I guess it is when the interrogation turned into a simple discussion.

I then asked him why he told me the story so straightforwardly. He shrugged and told me that he knew that his murder left him exposed and at the mercy of the very people he investigated upon. His last hope resided in the fact that I would listen to him and do my duty as my Faith proclaimed. Curiousity had the best of me and I couldn't do but asking what he meant, and the depth of his knowledge of the law and sense of ethics amazed me. He knew I wasn't called to declare him guilty or not, but to judge either he was a threat or not. To him, the threat was rather the chaos and unstability the plot he attempted to prevent would provoke, and he was hoping that I could understand the situation as he did. To his relieve, so did I; but yet remained the unchanged question of wielding dark and occult powers. He knew I basically would have to break my vows and lie if I wanted him to continue to do the greater good, and still he somehow desperatly trusted my judgement.

Sleep fled me all the night that followed this meeting, but when the Sun finally dawned, I answered the call of the Keepers and did my duty. Aelfryn Wallemyre was hanged by the neck until death and his corpse burned.

Legacy of the Keepers, Sworn-Brother Amédée Climond (838)

Perception

Social Status

The way people perceive the Herzhi'n changed more and more during the past two centuries and many factors made it that the Order went from admired, almost familiar, to useless and archaic, if not outright mysterious and threatening. As cause to these changes, we can list the political unstability, awful epidemic and great wars which plagued the VII^th and VIII^th centuries, as those affected any foreigner, wanderer or traveller, who are now seen as potential threats.
However, a few other changes have affected the Order more precisely; as the Bontist religion grew even more zealous, rivalry rose between Holy and Herzhi Orders (knights hunting monsters, Keepers investigating evil magic practitioner,...) to an extent where Herzhi'n were considered malignent in some bontist regions. In addition, the rise of science and technics filled the heart and fueled the ambition of many lords, nobles and burgers; to them the wandering heroes of yore now were but archaic magic-wielding freaks.
The most decisive reason might yet simply be that the Order was unable to adapt to that new world; as a consequence, the Hunters became scarce, and they slowly faded from living history to fairy tales and legends. Nowadays, must commoners might tell the tale of wandering knights in shining armor slaying monsters while spitting in the face of rugged, hungry adventurer knocking at their door.

Even amongst those aware of the Order's existence , its perception changes drasticaly depending on who one is talking to, as one's opinion about the Herzhi'n is strongly impacted by many factors, amongst which religion, culture, exposure to magical hazard and monsters, relationship with the Order,... are but the main influences. Here are the different point of view about the Order in various places and social circles:

• Holy Kingdom of Gand
  Under the influence of the Church of the Father of All-Good, magic is strictly forbidden in Gand, and any magical activity seen as both illegal and blasphemous. This religious interference is an unexpected boon for the Order, as it means that this bann is enforced by obsessive zealots hunting down folkloric witches rather than a powerful underground organizations. By tacit agreement, the Hunters keep a low profile in this country.

Demographics

Top-secret knowledge (Underworld / Ancient history / Herzhi)

It is difficult to estimate the number of members in the brotherhood, as only the Wanderers will openly assume their belonging to the Order. Extremely secretive, no hunter will ever mention the other branches of the Order; Dwellers and Agents. You may consider that only a person well versed in ancient (and controversial) history or in the underworld might have clues of the existence of the network behind the Wanderers. Others might suspect the need of such an organization to have logistics and informants, but only if they have an active interest in the Order as everything is made for the Hunters to seem completly independant.

One additionnal hurdle is the sacrecity of Hunters throughout the known world; by allocating a great amount of time, ressources and contacts, one may get a rough estimation of their number, which would be shy of 200, for a 650,000 square leagues wide hunting-ground.

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The best source of information about the Order, though, is obviously the Herzhi'n themselves. However, no central record nor member list is kept by the Herzhi'n, in case of a security breach (this effort would anyway be redudant with their ability to recognize each one another magicaly, through codes and hidden language).

As the Dwellers' network keeps track of the Wanderers' coming and going and also register any Hunter who won the title of Master, they can estimate the number of silver-wielders to around 280 - 300. Amongst them, almost the half (some 120) end up becoming Masters at a certain point of their career.

Operations

Tools

The silver sword is the Wanderers iconic weapon, even if it isn't their main weapon. A Herzhi's main weapon might vary from one another, but it is usually a bastard bladed weapon (sword most often, occasionnaly axe or even bladed spear). The basic equipment is completed by a side weapon for throwing and close-combat situations. In terms of defense, the favorite Herzhi armor is nicknamed "coat-of-laces"; a strange coat made of seemingly random bits of leather and laces, upon which they will strap chainmail, plate, hardened leather,... according to their needs.

Dangers & Hazards

• Open wounds
• Concussive blows
• Broken bones
• Crippling strikes
• Exposure to poison and acid
• Magical attacks
• Curses
• Environemental hazard
• Public lapidation
• Burning at the stake
• All kind of executions
• Occasionnal stab in the back
• Death.

Alternative Names

Shadow-Hunters
Dusk-Walkers
Three-Beasts
Keepers Of The Balance
Dawn-Light
Gem-Eyed
Those-Who-Wear-The-Silver
Silver-Knights
Wandering Knights
Freaks
Mutants
Sons Of Sabbath
Whoresons
Monsters.

Legality

"There's a reason why no ruler ever declared us outright outlaws, and the reason is that any ruler is either one of the two; they are either clever enough to understand that they'll one day inevitably need us, or they are to stupid to keep the reins of power long enough to draft a law against us..."

- Jörge 'Three-Fingers' Varga