Guardians of Hokzin
"Many soldiers have faith, but the Sunekan faith has soldiers"
The Guardians of Hokzin, known individually as Guardians or Holkara, are the elite soldiers of the the Suneka. They are the vanguard of Sunekan invasions, the strike teams that surgically remove heretic cults, and the backbone of Sunekan coalitions against outside attacks. They are famous for their discipline, their zealotry, their weaponry, and their skill in battle. In Suneka, they are feared and loved as brutal enforcers, protectors, and embodiments of the Lion God Hokzin.
Their uniforms are iconic: light infantry and gunners often wear cloth dyed gold, black, or some combination of the two to look like lion or leopard pelts, trimmed with furs, and with hoods and helmets decorated with fangs like a lion's open mouth. The heavy infantry and cavalry wear scaled or scale-aesthetic armor evocative of the Guardian Lion Ruxa. Their weapons are often dyed black, evoking the ancient obsidian blades of the distant past and the jet-black claws of a predatory animal. They carry curved claw blades or jet black axes, and often a musket painted black or red.
Who actually are the Guardians, the Holkara? The vast majority were taken in as orphans or ripped from their parents as punishment as young children. They grew up indoctrinated, the Holkara providing them a home and community of their own. They cannot hold property as an individual at all and most never choose to leave the Guardians. Regardless of sex or personal feelings of gender, Hokzin identify as male- the role is seen as inherently gendered and the individual does not exist while the role is being played.
As for the organization, the Guardians operate in self contained units that are mixed and matched together according to need. Oftentimes they conscript or ally themselves with local Sunekans to leverage larger numbers. While numerous if you placed them all in one place, the Holkara are spread thin across the continent and typically rely on help from their allies to counter any large, organized threat.Structure
The Guardians are led by the Grandmasters of Hokzin, a council of the five grandmasters and one representative from the sacred assembly (the oligarchy that leads the entire Sunekan religion).
Each grandmaster leads a Quarter. Confusingly, there are five Quarters: The North, South, West, East, and Expeditionary. Each Quarter manages operations in a swath of the Suneka, with operations centralized in the Grandmaster's Court.
Beneath the Grandmaster and their court are the Chapter Masters and Generals. Chapter Masters manage local operations in a chunk of established Sunekan territory. Chapter Masters handle recruitment, defenses, heretic hunting, and finances. They have lieutenants and captains beneath them that manage the details.
Generals, meanwhile, manage offensive invasions and covert operations. Generals are temporary positions attached to operations rather than permanent titles.
To actually pull of these operations, Masters and Generals are both assigned cohorts from a pool by the Grandmaster. Cohorts are units of 500 Holkara that have their own hierarchy and personality- some have their own specialty, some have attached artillery, etc. Each cohort is led by a Champion- the best and brightest, promoted up through the ranks of their cohort. Each cohort also falls into one of three categories: Frontier troops, Specialists, and Administrative cohorts. Frontier troops are your basic fighting soldiers, specialists manage more delicate internal or external operations, and administrative cohorts are for the nerds and retirees that are better suited for auxiliary and bureaucratic work.
While each cohort has their own internal divisions and quirks as previously stated, most follow a formula of: Soldiers work in squads of 5, which arrange in platoons of 25, which arrange in companies of 100.
History
Originally, lion warriors, tiger warriors, and jaguar warriors now known as Holkara were not institutions, but were rather descriptors for a kind of elite warrior class found in many Sunekan societies. The idea of predatory cats representing fierceness is extremely old in the Suneka, but the idea of them as protectors comes from the legendary Guardian Lion. The Guardian Lion is a kind of wild spirit or "Ruxa ", which are strange creatures created by Halycon that appear and dissapear frequently in the Southern Suneka. The Guardian Lion is perhaps the most benevolent of these: a scaled lion of great size that protects those who approach it with an open mind. Hokzin, greatest of the guardian lions, is considered paramount spirit of lions, protection, and strength. As warriors wearing the pelts of slain jaguars or lions was already practiced across the Suneka, the idea of these cats representing a benevolent spiritual strength was very popular.
With the rise of Sunekan uniformity in the late divine era and early modern era, lion warriors became an expected part of government. They were imagined as elite warrior-protectors of the community that served the spirits themselves, often associated with Paladins. But the actual Order of Hokzin began in 570 ME as a tool of the Great Spiritual Empire, the first political body to try and unite all of the Sunekan states. The Emperor of that time, Yezok, founded the Order as a way to unite the elite warriors of all the Sunekan tributaries- a sort of military tax of elite soldiers. This united front would serve as the ultimate hammer against the empire's common enemies: the plains nomads, Akatlan, the Southern Onetan peoples, Ederstone monsters. Yezok handed control of this cult and these elite military regiments to a ghostly former Lion Warrior named Konato, who created a basic structure and hierarchy that remains today.
As the Empire continued its many-fronted war, the component kingdoms began to resent this lion warrior levy. They began sending "chaff" with their elites: violent malcontents and deviants that they wanted to be rid of anyways. Konato was furious, installing local chapter Masters to oversee the levy process and fine those who defrauded the order. And yet, at a certain point, there just weren't enough lion warriors for what Yezok asked for- and while ghost soldiers were great help, they were difficult to wrangle and limited in number. Konato began looking at ways to train their own lion warriors to augment the levy- and realized that while malcontents and rebels rarely fit in well with the existing elite warriors, the children of rebels could be molded into anything. Local Sunekan elites rejoiced at the results: by using stolen children, local malcontents could be terrified into obedience without impacting productivity, and by using orphans they were able to dispose of children that did not fall neatly into an existing community.
To raise these children properly, the regional chapter-masters were given the authority to take and develop unproductive land. Sunekan states were given an option to simply fund these training camps rather than contribute to the levy. It took a great deal of time for the old levy system to die entirely, but ultimately the child-taking system proved more stable than empire or the local states. As for Konato, the old warrior was approached by The Exorcist's Guild in 606, but worked out a deal: that they would help the exorcists successfully exorcise those military ghosts that refused to step down as long as they were given enough time to finish with the child-soldier-raising bureaucracy. Konato was true to their word, and retired completely from the Order in 625. Instead of resistance and banishment, they accepted their demotion and operated a small ghost veteran's club beneath the temple of Hokzin as a possessed suit of armor for many years. They only actually left that position to intervene in the chaos of the 1400s, after which they traveled to Ruko to file their exorcism paperwork themselves.
From 625 to 1440, the Guardians of Hokzin flourished. Each of the four Quarters of the cult had their ups and downs- the West often struggled due to being sandwiched between the plains nomads and the Ederstone frontier, the East saw great surges of conquest with the occasional major roadblock, the South struggled endlessly in adapting to climate and culture but succeeded militarily, and the North largely sat around fighting plains nomads and heretic uprisings. The more they expanded and the longer they operated apart, they more divided the four quarters became. Tensions rose over if less-active quarters should share more of their wealth with those overburdened with war. The wealthy and largely static Northern quarter was constantly feuding with the expansionist West and East, as it hoarded resources for itself and focused more on defense and keeping the peace than expanding the religion. Some chapters of the Guardians grew decadent and corrupt in their isolation and began to operate as hereditary feudal kingdoms within states. Periodic surges of reform by the Sacred Assembly were able to disrupt this, but relentless low-level corruption in the 1200s and 1300s led to scandal after scandal, which was left up to the local Sunekan states and cult chapters to work out.
In 1439, the stage was set for crisis: the major powers of the Sunekan Assembly were either on the verge of civil war or major fighting between them. The first wave of Prism migrations in the North were beginning to make waves, wielding new and frightening gunpowder projectile "fire lances" as well as chemical flame, and yet more nomadic invasions seemed imminent. In the West, the Nemekan heresy was rising and Stildanian warriors flooded down the coastline. The Suneka was on the offense in the East and was poised to finally crush the heathenous resistance there. Kivishta nomads of the "Exalted Path" were sailing into Sunekan territory with mysterious intent, and the Onetan peoples of the far South had built yet another coalition to remove Sunekan settlements. Long story short, the Suneka was embattled on all fronts and divided internally like never before. The sacred assembly was weak, and the unity of the Suneka seemed gone.
Every quarter began calling for resources from the others, and from their chapters. The overwhelming stress led to a horrible spiral of intrigue, with chapter masters defecting to other quarters or from the cult entirely, quarters fighting one another. From 1440 to 1460, the Guardians fought one another viciously. One general finally rose to subdue the others- the Grandmaster of the East, Inatzin of Kiawa. Inatzin was the greatest of the East's generals, a famous zealot and battlefield mastermind that tried to sit out from the civil war from 1440 to 1452. While the other generals and chapter masters exhausted themselves and grew unpopular, Inatzin won glory over the eastern kingdoms on the battlefield and oversaw the conversion of the rising empire of Amatka in the far East.
When Inatzin was chosen as Grandmaster of the east in 1452, they could sit out of the fray no longer. They initially focused on peacemaking and negotiation, but in 1454 finally led a grand invasion of the heartlands. Inatzin's victories led to their rise as a traditionalist icon, a nostalgic beacon of what the order once was. This was solidified by the endorsement of the ghostly founder of the Order, Konato. By 1460, the other grandmasters had either died or joined Inatzin, and the seperatist chapters fell in line not long after. Critical to the cleanup of this whole mess was another Sunekan Holy Order: the Keepers of Olkum. In the reforms of 1461, the Keepers of Olkum and Guardians of Hokzin were formally bound together. They began sharing the same recruitment centers and resources, with the Keepers weeding out Guardian corruption and the Guardians acting as enforcers for the Keepers.
The Guardians were unable to order the Sunekan states and avoided interfering in their civil wars and bickering. Instead, they focused on their own stability, and on perfecting sustainable operations without state help. The system they ironed out with the Keepers of Olkum proved incredibly stable. The new policy was one of closer cooperation and constant expansion: the Guardians were to never sit idle, but always work to expand the Suneka. This idea endless war and expansion, which had previously been theologically controversial, was now the express purpose of the order. Peace was disharmony- only in war may a lion fulfill its purpose.
Part of this new efficiency and unity was theological-ideological, but part of it was thanks to technological and magical upgrades. Rather than operate autonomously, the Grandmasters were now able to afford magical communication and teleportation to regularly talk and meet up in person. They also had the technology and infrastructure to hold more direct power over the Chapter Masters. While individual generals and empowered Chapter Masters still held autonomy in this new system, everything was much more streamlined and centralized.
The reforms of 1461 were not just a technological overhaul: they set the Order up for extremely fluid technological adoption and advancement. For the Order of Hokzin was not only bound to the Keepers of Olkum, but the Order of Kata- a much less famous holy order devoted to educational standards and natural sciences. And within that Order is the School of Meskenem: the monks of the Ishthmus, who have long studied the secrets of engineering and natural science with the help of local Octopeople and the famous Orchid of Blue . The engineers of Meshenem and their associate schools have always been the cutting-edge of the Suneka. After 1461, the Meshenem scholars received Guardian protection in exchange for weapons designs, architects, and sapper training. Over the centuries, the Meshenem/Kata alliance has supplied the Guardians with more and more effective firearm weapons. The Guardians have in turn introduced these innovations throughout the Suneka, though they always are two steps ahead of the common state militaries.
The memory of the crisis of the 1400s has always remained close to the leadership of the Guardians. The fear of decadence and infighting is ever-present, and yet it has still happened. No crises on the level of 1440 have taken place, but scandals, skirmishes, and feuds happen now and again. The early 1700s saw an uptick in infighting that culminated in its own reform: the Grand Expedition of 1750. Essentially, troublesome parties were herded onto boats and sent in a massive armada Westward, to protect Sunekan trading outposts and converted communities in the continent of Ukaram. The quarters were then reorganized quietly while the soldiers were bombarded with propaganda about the great victories and perils of the expedition. The 1750 expedition was horribly expensive and seen by many elites as horribly wasteful, but began reaping trade dividends in the 1800s. The expedition grew over time and was raised to the status of Quarter in 1950 (technically a fifth, but they didn't change the name).
The 1750s reordering has held remarkably well, partially thanks to one outside actor: The Empire of Calazen. Calazen launched a massive invasion across the heartlands in 1870. While this was a massive stressor on the Guardians that left them horribly drained, it also enshrined them as heroes. The Guardians gained huge power within states across the Suneka and a powerful enemy to unite their internal factions against.
The Creation of the Holkara
Corruption and Crisis
The Reforms of 1461
The Age of Expansion
Founding Date
570 ME
Type
Religious, Holy Order
Alternative Names
Lion Warriors, The Holkara
Training Level
Elite
Veterancy Level
Experienced
Demonym
Holkaran
Parent Organization
Location
Notable Members
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