The Kadha Guard

A wall is only as strong as the men who guard it.

— Sen Amater, Captain of the Guard

Responsible for the defense of the untamed frontier and the great fortification that separates the Golden Empire from the chaotic hordes beyond, the Kadha Guard are as hard and unyielding as their walls. Many of the greatest heroes of the Empire have come from the Guard or once served with them, the Guard's legacy as a prisoner-legion is long gone though the practice remains. With every year, the screaming hordes throw themselves against the Walls and every year, the Guard meets them, matching monstrous strength with an iron will.

Structure

The Kadha Guard organize themselves according to segments of the wall, with each Legion caring for and protecting their charge to the last. Though the structure of the ranks are largely indistinguishable from that of the Golden Empire; soldiers lead by a Talon, twenty Talon reporting to a Captain and ten Captains reporting in turn to a Lord, the Guard stand much less on rank. It is a painful lesson for many noblemen's sons and daughters to learn as they arrive on the Wall, but the Guard remains a fiercely independent meritocracy.

The exact strength of each Legion varies, ebbing with failed fortunes and costly battles then bolstered as the Swarm threatens to break through and panicking the lords who cower behind it. In theory, a full Legion is a hundred-thousand strong, but only two of the sixteen Legions can boast this number with most falling far short.

In addition, the Guard have adapted some unique ranks of their own to match the mercurial nature of their enemies. These have no comparable rank or title within the Golden Empire, making official interactions fraught with potential missteps. More often than not, these ranks are about expert knowledge rather than command or influence.

Many power-hungry politicians have for centuries argued for some unifying commander, a Legion to rule all other. But the Guard allows no one to take their wall - not from without and not from within.

Xenomath

Scholars and soldiers, Xenomaths attempt to know the unknowable and understand the Swarming Horde arrayed against them. They survey the movement of the Swarm, predicting their next assault less as one would a military operation and more a raging storm or natural disaster.
Most are only concerned with better ways to kill them, but a radical few explore more... Extreme measures. These radicals hide their efforts for now, but know they will be vindicated with victory.

Lancer

A rank equivalent to Captain, Lancer are experts in the traveling the wild beyond the wall and lead sorties against the Swarming Horde. These attacks are often coordinated and planned together with the Xenomaths, hoping to unwind a knot of building tension before is is unleashed.
Few Lancers grow old. Skilled as they are, the Wilds are always changing and the monsters within always evolve into new horrors. It is a rare Lancer without a mutation or Screaming Wounds.

Far Ranger is no rank or title found in any official report, but one given within the Guard to any who travel to the Far Wild and return. Among all the Legions, there are perhaps less than two dozen Far Rangers.

Wardens

As the iron protects flesh, the Warden shields to mind and soul of their fellow Guards. When faced with a hurricane that screams with a thousand voices or rain that spawn horrors with every drop, the courage of men falters. The Wardens are there to make sure it does not, both in battle and outside it.
Wardens specialize in protective magic - and often in manipulation through oratory, propaganda and narcotics. It is they who remove trouble-maker and rabble-rousers from the guard, with grim finality.

The Lost

The Lost are damned to a fate of inevitable, grim death. Some suffer from debilitating Screaming Wounds that will eventually claim them, or creeping mutations that threaten to make them into enemies. A few suffer from more exotic maladies, not so easily defined. No matter what will end them, they do not intend to go alone.
Most Lost often know or possess dangerous, experimental techniques or equipment. Properly motivated by a Warden, they use them with reckless abandon to lay waste to their enemies.

The Legions

Sixteen Legions form the Guard and stand watch along the Wall, each with their part to play in the greater war against the Screaming Swarm. Their numbering has little to do with the date of their founding, with many Legions arising in response to disaster or a new threat.

The 1st Legion: The River Guard

Set sail, man the oars - oblivion awaits!

More Details

Once filled with enough life to feed the world, the Tharazdun river is now poisoned and blighted beyond hope. Its waters scream as droplets fall towards the sky, horrors are born from the foam of raging currents and the shimmer of deadly a thousand deadly venoms paint the waters as a rainbow. It is the First Legion and their iron ships that keep them at bay.
The 1st Legion is based out of the Gate; a vast fortification that spans the width of the Tharazdun. As much a dam as it is a fortress, the 1st Legion work ceaselessly to contain the river and its multitude of venoms from entering the Empire beyond, while fending off whatever aquatic horrors are birthed within the tainted waters. For the Guard of the 1st Legion, every day is a race against time - can they repair their fortifications faster than the singing, chanting erosion can tear it down?
The 1st Legion of being the only one with a navy, and at least half of their number has some training as marines - though they do little boarding action. Behind the Gate, shipwrights work tirelessly with a multitude of crafts, from the wide-framed iron ship for which the River Guard is most renowned, to blade-prowed canoes or village-sized floating citadels.
Sometimes called the Rivermen, the symbol of the 1st Legion is simple iron circle. The different units of the Legion add their own weapon or tool to the symbol, often depicted as hanging off circle.

Public Agenda

On the surface, the agenda of the Guard is simple: Hold the wall, no matter the cost or the forces arrayed against it.
But beneath the surface, things are far more complex. The Guard need to contend with an number of complications and factors beyond that, with the tax man and squabbling nobles sometimes eliciting far more dread than any Screaming swarmling could. The Guard must always educate the safe regions of the Empire of the threat they are kept face from, ensure a steady flow of armaments, supplies and workers, and keep generally keep the defensive machinery going. The further away from the wall one gets, the less urgent the threat feels and the less support there is to maintain it. The Guard knows the folly of such lazy thinking.

Every now and then, Swarmlings will find a way past the Wall and rampage through the lands beyond. Wagging tongues suggest that is is no accident that such attacks often coincide with hard negotiations surrounding funds and recruitment.

Training and equipping fresh troops, replenishing existing units and recovery of the injured are all high on every Legion's priority. Considerable tension exists between some parts of the Empire and the Guard, with some bitterly complaining that the Swarm would be far more gentle than a Guard unit seeking supplies. Such things are rarely said in the face of any who have faced the Swarm's annihilating corruption.
Beyond that, each Legion has their own agenda that they pursue - often in direct competition with one another. There are only so many fresh recruits and blades to go around - the fighting around who gets what can be as vicious as the worst parts of the wall.

Assets

Every grain of wheat, every blade, every drop of blood - it will go to either the Guard or the Swarm.

— The Iron Wight, Captain of the 4th Legion

Although there never seem to be enough, the Guard command considerable asset. Each Legion, even at diminished strength, is a match for any military force within the Empire. They have access to a tremendous stockpile of weapons, armor, chemical and esoteric supplies, though exact number differs between Legions. If anything, the Swarm's fury is unpredictable and a Legion at the height of its power today may be forced to expend all its resources tomorrow.
At any given time, about ten to twenty percent of a Legion's strength is injured or in reserve. Resting troops are often made to perform duties such as training new recruits or advising non-Guard on warfare or Swarm-slaying. In addition to the theoretical number each Legion should hold, there are countless more drafted laborers, farmers, clerks, merchants, camp-followers and more, each one necessary for the Walls to function and hold. Particularly cynical Legion commanders view these as potential hands to hold a blade, should the situation call for it.
Beyond all other measures of wealth, the Guard has access to some things that has no equal. Items of power, forged in the heat of battle and legendary deed, techniques perfected in secret and among Lancers or Xenomaths, and dreadful weapons made in Guard laboratories until they can be unleashed. Some in the Empire view the combined might of the Guard as an equal threat to the Swarm, and not entirely without reason.
Cautious officials and worried nobles ask: should the Swarm's attacks ever falter - what then? Where will the Guard turn all these potent weapons and techniques?
To the Guard, such thoughts are no mere idle fantasies but dangerous and subversive threats. Those who have faced the Screaming Swarm all know - there is no such victory. Only the delay of defeat, one day and one bloody, ruined corpse at a time.

History

Coming soon...

"Hold."

Type

Military Order

Alternative Names

The Guard; formerly, the Penitent

Training Level

Semi-professional

Veterancy Level

Veteran

Demonym

Guard

"Guardsmen"

Although individuals in the Guard are sometimes called "Guardsmen", the Guard care little who holds the blade so long as they can swing it. Although the Guard only recruited young men or prisoners early in its history, such practices were swiftly abandoned. Though the phrase remains, its use typically carry certain implication that the Guard has been known to correct if they sense them - usually with force.

The Great Enemy

Known by many names; the Great Enemy, the Screaming Swarm or the Devouring Dark, they are the Guard's eternal foe. Though their exact origin has been lost to time and their nature is fiercely debated among scholars and Xenomath, they hold all lands beyond the Wall.
The forms of the Great Enemy are manifold, from abominations that tower above the clouds to living carpets of madly tittering horrors. Worse still, it changed every year and the Guard can seldom guess what sort of threat they will face as the season turns. It is a small consolation that the Swarm's ceaseless mutation is without purpose or thought - if it could ever be focused to overcome the weapons of the Guard, the Empire would surely be lost.
In both behavior and manifestation, the Swarm is as much a force of nature as a foe of flesh and blood. Attacks are as unpredictable as shifting weather, and the force builds like a hurricane slowly gathers strength.

No matter how many are slain, the Screaming Swarm always return. Season after season, year after year, new horrors throw themselves at the Wall and into the waiting spears of the Guard. No matter how many acres of tainted land set to the torch, blasted or seared by acid, the creeping taint always returns. Some Xenomath argue that such infinite renewal must have some source - on that can be found and extinguished.
Many secretly harbor much bleaker thoughts, however - that the Swarm's vigor is endless, while every Guard slain is lost forever.

Heretics

When faced with seeming inevitable in the face of endless, screaming hordes of madness and death, some break. Whether through the misguided hope that they will be spared or mad idea of becoming part of the enemy, all cults and worshipers of the Screaming Swarm are labeled as Heretics. Though the Guard's wardens take care of such blasphemy within the ranks of the Guard, it falls to the so-called Open Hand to root it out within the Empire itself.
Heretical belief come in many forms - misplaced divinity, surrender in the favor, the reckless pursuit of power and favorable mutation, or even farmers attempting to leave sacrifice to be spared the Swarm's corruption. While it is not inherently Heretical to study the Swarm, scholars must always be careful in the words they use in their findings.
Even when seemingly harmless or desperate, neither Guard nor the Open Hand spare any heretic from their "corrective ministrations".

Beyond the Wall, Guardsmen are often consulted by the Open Hand for the latest form of madness and mutation. In turn, the Hand shares with the Guard whatever its agents have gleaned from their gore-splattered studies.

The Wilds Beyond the Wall

Once a thriving hinterland of the Empire, the land beyond the Wall has become a living nightmare. It is a place where the sky bleeds and screams, the earth changes to flesh beneath the trod of feet and water bubble with endless, shifting colors. Bubbles the size of battleships drift on multi-colored winds and pop into squirming maggots or writhing, fleshy butterflies. In the borderlands, the taint can still be fought - trees that bear fruit of flesh and madness can be burned, scrubs that whisper blasphemy to travelers rooted out and so on.
Further out, the Swarm's influence is inseparable from the land it inhabits. Like one vast, living thing, the Swarm and the Wild Beyond the Wall squirms and changes, birthing ever-more terrible things and mewling abortions.

Some Heretical cults believe that the Wild Lands are all part of a whole - one exalted womb, waiting to give birth to true divinity. Such views are persecuted with particular fervor by Open Hand agents with a pious bent.