Prestorian Guard

Composition

Manpower

The total number of Prestorian Guards is officially classified, as certain of its divisions are not acknowledged to actually exist by the crown and, furthermore, because the crown does not wish to divulge the extent of the Guard's activities in Atra beyond the capital.

It is generally agreed that approximately 1500 uniformed members of the Prestorian Guard are stationed within the Atrean capital of Feln Volaris at any given time.

200 of these serve as the personal bodyguard retinue of the King of Atra, with an additional 200 assigned to guard the other members of the royal family.

600 members of the Guard are permanently stationed at the Royal Palace as a palace guard.

A further 500 Prestorian Guards serve throughout the city of Feln Volaris, where they interface with the City Watch as representatives of the crown's interests.

Equipment

Prestorians assigned to guarding the King, the royal family, and the palace itself receive specialized, multichannel Stone of Far Speech earrings, which allow them to communicate necessary information about their charges at range, instantaneously.

Prestorian officers on royal guard duty are typically issued an emergency teleportation device, which is designed to extract the bearer and their charge to one of several hidden safe sites. The locations of these sites are intended to be known only to the King of Atra, and the particular destination is chosen randomly at the time one of the devices is triggered.

Weaponry

The standard armament issued to members of the Prestorian Guard includes:

Magical shortsword or longsword

Shield

Wand sidearm, usually wand of Magic Missile or Fireball.

Training

The rank and file of the Prestorian Guard are usually selected from the highest-performing cadets in the Atra Royal Arcane Military Academy. The Guard has also been known to recruit promising candidates directly from other schools or walks of life.

Guardspeople invariably are skilled in at least two types of martial weapon (usually sword and bow or spear) and some type of combat-relevant magic. Personal guard duty tends to favor abjuration specialists, while palace defense favors evocation.

Rumors, which have persisted for so many generations that they have become common wisdom, suggest that the Prestorian Guard recruits individuals for its secret intelligence services from the Atra Royal College of the Bardic Arts, the City of Industry, and everyone in between.

Type

Special Forces

Overall training Level

Elite

Assumed Veterancy

Veteran

Used by

• Kingdom of Atra

Ranks & Titles

• Prestorian Prefect