With Blade and Claw
The Alerean Ward, or the Rizhan's Ward, are the military body that occupies
Aleryn under the rule of the Adarizhan. These soldiers are some of the best traditional fighters on
Virosia and are regarded with great pride by the residents of
Aleryn. A culture of self-improvement, and an ancestry of warriors and military prowess developed these men-at-arms into what they are today.
"In the Ward, we have a saying: 'Swift and Lethal'. This is us. This is our embodiment. This is who we are. Execute without mercy. After today, you will not waste another moment of your lives. After today, you are a trance of man and steel." - Duelseeker Danse II
The Ward have been historically well equipment by the Adarizhan. Nowadays, few Ward stride Aleryn without complete coverage in plate, armed with their iconic through-fullered blades, and clawed gauntlets. This equipment is used to its fullest by Ward soldiers and must actually be earned piece-by-piece through their training. For the first year of training, an initiate will engage with a rigorous challenge about twice a month and is rewarded with a component of their uniform after each success. Failure leads to being underequipped against their class, where they must fight harder to compensate a lack of equipment. Just to wear the uniform of the Adarizhan's Ward is an arduous task, and once an initiate has a complete uniform, they are considered a fully-fledged member of the Ward.
Their full uniform consists of a number of minutia specific to the Alerean Ward. While maintaining full-plate armor, the Ward maintain great mobility by utilizing rather thin plate with a style of combat much more intent on glacing blows striking them rather than full impacts. The Ward use steel blades: arming swords with straight profiles and otherwise simplistic design. Their off-hand guantlets are equipped with blades mounted to the knuckles, often two to three, serving as both off-handed weapons and additional parrying implements.
Trials of the Ward
The Ward performs rigorous tests on their initiates to prove their mettle. They ramp up in difficulty slowly, with the first being achievable by most, and the last few resembling feats of human endurance. These tests are referred to as the
Assay. They are numbered in accordance, and there are one-hundred Assay between an initiate and their place in the Ward. After each, an initiate earns a single piece of their equipment. Sometimes this means a complete breastplate, and sometimes this means they've earned a single boot's lace. How initiates treat and use their piecemeal equipment is part of their trials, and keeping all components together in that time is paramount to the completion of their Assay. If they've physically completed the trials, but do not have the equipment to show for it, they must wait and finish more Assay before they can be truly finished.
A Trance of Man and Steel
The culture of the Ward is exemplary of the values of Aleryn and the
Akathian Realm at large. To focus so wholly on the betterment of oneself is a tradition that few keep alive as well as they do. Through their Assay and time before deployment or proper induction into the ranks of the Ward, these guard often become different people altogether before they leave. This can truly be a complete change in personality, and within the Ward it is referred to as the "trance of man and steel".
Some enter this state of mind quickly, others easing into it after years, and some still never truly finding their place in it. Like a meditative state, it's thought only achieveable by those of true Alerean lineage, as generations of Akathian monks had, in their deep zealotry of ages previous, developed methods of meditations that required an assortment of bells ringing in specific pitches and intervals that could allow the mind to delve deeper, locking that mind into a trance for whatever specific needs the meditator sought. The exposure to these bells can be done with a small assortment and an apparatus that can ring them accordingly, or it can be done through much slower exposure and greater focus by simply living in Aleryn. The Teurthas Belfry is the largest bell system in
Virosia, interweaving its seventeen bells of evenly spaced pitch throughout the city. As they ring, their tones overlay in specific harmonic shapes that allow the mind to access a closer tie with its soul - or so Akathian monks would have you believe.
The trance of man and steel allows the Ward to endure more, learn more deeply and quickly, and to themselves, feel that they have lived longer lives. A Ward in trance serves the Adarizhan precisely and loyally, with acute will and senses of the space around them. Their emotions become suppressed, and they tend to feel little more than the satisfaction of improvement and focus upon a craft. Relationships are thereby difficult to maintain while entranced, and many that enter the trance reject a life of family and love for that of service.
True masters of the trance are capable of willing themselves in and out at will. Trancewalking is a gift that few possess, though many that have it eventually become Duelseekers or notable Mythmakers. As a matter of fact, about a third of the Duelseekers that have ever served were known Trancewalkers.
On the battlefield, bellstaves are used to carry these tones into combat, maintaining the trance for the warriors of Aleryn. Despite the volume of combat, on the sound's existence is necessary for the trance's continuation. Bellstaff wielders are among the most honored members of the Ward, and are rarely seen to directly intervene with combat, focusing on maintaining their rhythm with the other Belfry Ward. Though a unit of the Belfry Ward itself is seventeen strong, often many dozens of additional Ward are deign to protect them on a field of combat. Seventeen are needed to begin the Plying Melody, but once it has begun, it can be continued by as little as one after the fact. A single bellstaff, however, can only resonate the melody in a limited distance, typically only within a hundred foot or so radius. Thus, as many as can maintain the melody is a high priority in most Alerean battle strategum. Those that carry the bellstaves are in the Order of Teurthas, and referred to as either Teurthian priests or simply as bellstaves.
The main benefits and detriments of the trance are detailed below:
- Senses become dulled where unnecessary, and heightened elsewhere. Strong emotions like fear and love are dullened to allow for greater focus.
- Deeper understanding is given while learning under the trance, and greater insight can be saught within oneself.
- Time becomes more malleable feeling, with greater time allowance before action, that one might think through more thouroughly.
- When in groups, a degree of understanding stems between those other under the trance. This allows soldiers to have a sense of battlefield movement and the flow of battle with greater certainty. Within Aleryn, this allows the Ward to determine where more guard are necessary, especially in cases of emergency.
