Anzu Riders of Tel

As their name implies, the Anzu Riders of Tel are a military order who form such deep rapports with moderate anzu (winged quadrupeds that are bigger than nightstalkers but smaller than feathered dragons) that the otherwise fiercely independent creatures allow themselves to be knightly mounts. Created initially as a subgroup of the Antediluvian Sagasingers, they are split into the modern loyalists of V'Shaat (who still bear the above name) and a schism group called the Anzu Riders of Jura, who swore allegiance to its first king shortly before the nation's birth.

Much like the anzu themselves, the Riders are only an echo of their past heights.

Appearance & Heraldry

See also: The Anzu Riders of Tel Image Gallery (External)

History

The Anzu Riders of Tel are distant cousins of the modern, V'Shaatian Dreadnoughts, both sharing a common ancestor with the ancient, plane-hopping Sagasingers. Under V'Shaat's direction, the original Anzu Riders were double agents who infiltrated the Devastators of the Colonial God Indu'una, who specialized in the taming and military use of megafauna like drakes, anzu, thunderlizards, baloths and the like.

From the Devastators' eventual defeat was born the Riders, named after the Battle of Tel Sound, which most historians believe was the first signal of the ultimate defeat of Indu'una's army.

The Anzu Riders of Jura

Two decades later, the order would experience a substantial schism event, wherein about half their soldiers declared their allegiance to the first king of the newly-born nation of Jura, Galbraith of Kunisia. Though the young king was a great hero in the Insurgent Wars, subservience to a monarch is an unforgivable sin to the independence-minded, V'Shaatian Riders of Tel, and into modern times the two orders have no relationship.

The Second Age

The majority of the Anzu Riders of Jura would later withdraw their service when Olcadan of Dhund transformed the nation into an expansionist empire. Some of the defectors would rejoin the V'Shaatian Riders; the rest formed a paramilitary called the Blazing Archons, who are headquartered among the Ten Thousand Islands, Coreward of Jura and Kallor.

Profile: Most Rider heraldry features a rampant anzu.
Illus. Eoghan Kerrigan

Banner art credit: Fadly Romdhani, Wayne Reynolds

Type

Military, Knightly Order