The Silent Legion

“The Silent Legion,” proclaims the ancient jest the Quiet long ago appropriated for their own use, “is the empire’s only all-volunteer Legion.” It is black comedy whose core of truth makes it all the more cutting, for among the victims of despair, death was all too often a conscious choice. Yet the Silent Legion’s ranks are a perpetual source of surprise for wraiths who expect a morose collection of suicides whose final living acts failed to end their tormented existences. Here, too, are the terminal cancer patients who chose death with dignity, surrounded by loved ones, the self-effacing nonentities who led lives of quiet desperation until they simply stopped living, the troops encircled or left as sacrificial rear-guard detachments, whose only option was to reenact Thermopylae, the forgotten martyrs whose faith availed them nothing against counter-revolutionary fervor or authority’s cold indifference, the school shooters whose revenge power fantasies crumbled at the first resistance from intended victims, and the silent millions whose final living regret was that they had made no difference in the world. Despair wears many faces. Not all of them are blue-lipped from poison or smeared by a shotgun blast under the jaw.


The first few weeks after death and Reaping are critical for the new Quiet. Whatever measure of peace or freedom they hoped to find postmortem, the Underworld isn’t it. Left to her own devices, almost every Silent Enfant attempts suicide again, hoping to finish the job this time. Some do a better job of it than others — for every wraith who frantically scrabbles to slit wrists that don’t bleed, another swan dives into a Nihil and never comes out. Fortunately, centuries of practice have made the Silent Legion adept at the combination of counseling, mentoring, discreet Arcanos application, and direct intervention necessary to arrest suicidal recidivism before another one of its new members volunteers again — this time for Oblivion. Most Quiet Reapers operate in loose Circles to ensure a variety of approaches are available to match each recruit’s temperament. If a freshly Reaped wraith truly isn’t capable of dealing with the Underworld, Quiet Reapers suggest Steel Martyrdom: voluntary soulforging as a lastditch escape from despair that doesn’t feed Oblivion.


As with any other cause of death, not every suicide victim (or victim of despair) becomes a wraith. Only those with strong drives or social connections — usually unvoiced, denied, or even suppressed beneath the level of conscious acknowledgement — cling to life after death. Silent Reapers ruthlessly exploit these Passions and Fetters to demonstrate to their charges that wraithly existence can bring a fresh start.


This approach’s perennial danger is that it encourages violations of the Dictum Mortuum. The ensuing conflicts drive the Silent Legion’s most vicious internal disputes. As an Imperial organ, the Legion is bound to uphold Charon’s laws, yet its recruit retention methods stretch the bounds of legality. Those Quiet whose formative interactions paid off are among the most liberal of Hierarchs, while those whose early experiments brought only more regrets become sorrowful but unforgiving enforcers. Legion history records no Quiet Lord taking a side in this eternal debate.