Narixian Witchkillers
The infamous masked hunters who prey on men and the beasts that dwell within their hearts, most feared of all the warriors of Narixia
Structure
The organizational structure of the Witchkillers is exceedingly simple - though not necessarily out of any great desire for secrecy or for some grand organizational reason, but more out of sheer necessity due to the nature of the Witchkillers themselves. As the group's members so frequently change identities and personas in the course of their work depending on the task at hand, the organization is broadly broken down into various specialized "units" that are grouped according to the type of prey they tend to specialize in hunting, or the type of tasks they are best suited to dealing with, with the only organizational structure within these units being simple and direct without any complicated rankings or classes to minimize confusion when members acclimate to new personas and identities.
Typical Witchkiller Units
While not universal between all Witchkiller Organizations in the various Narixian clans across The Narixian Empire, the below "units" make up the most commonly held specializations of the Witchkillers and what type of task or prey they specialize in. Each of the various units together make up a singular "Witchkiller Squadron" that serves at the behest of a particular Narixian Chieftain of one of the various Narixian Clans of The Narixian Empire - it is almost unheard of for Rogue Squadrons to exist outside the Empire's control, but it is not impossible nor unheard of.- The Tower-Topplers: The oldest of all the Witchkiller Units, and the only surviving unit from "The Founding Five" original units that endures relatively unchanged into the modern-day. Specialized in hunting down witches, warlocks, rogue practitioners of magic, and all prey who require the touch of a specialized mage-killer to take down. These feared Witchkillers specialize in assaulting magically fortified positions without being seen, unmaking all manner of magical circles and spells, and fighting all manner of magic practitioners form arcane casters to blended spellknights to witches and more. The Witchkillers of the Tower-Topplers tend to design their masks to be as unsettling as possible, favoring unsettling imagery of demons and dead loved ones - anything to make their targets flinch in fear or surprise to interrupt their precious casting.
- The Redfingers: The most feared of all the Witchkiller units, the Redfingers are the Witchkillers who take on the extremely difficult task of hunting down fellow Narixians, exiles of the Narixian Clans, and Traitors to The Narixian Empire - it is they who handle the jobs the typical armies of the Chieftains and the Clans will not, who will perform the most insidious and heart-twisting acts of monstrosity in the name of defending their Clan and Country from any and all internal threats. These Witchkillers are veritable psychotics, even by the standards of the Witchkillers, and favor shock-and-awe terror tactics on a colossal scale - setting entire villages alight, targeting women and children first, and attacking with freakishly unnerving zealotry to undermine, demoralize, and destroy their foes before they even engage them in personal combat. The Witchkillers of the Redfingers design their masks to be as simplistic and monotoned as possible, preferring one-tone or two-toned masks of one or two colors in simple patterns, to dehumanize themselves as much as possible - the less their masks resemble people, the better for their grisly work.
- The Beastburners: One of the more unsettling Witchkiller Units, the Beastburners are those who hunt the most monstrous and inhuman prey of all - be it hags, animals, warped and misshapen beasts, and any other monstrous creature that rears its head such as Lamia or Harpies. These Witchkillers specialize in tracking, foraging, identifying, and hunting all types of beasts and monsters that call the land of Zheng-Kitar home, and are they who are most familiar with the Cycle of Spawning that gives birth to monsters(Sacred Cycle of Safura the Survivor) and how to best deal with any monster that may arise. They are brutal, savage, and as unforgiving and wild as beasts and monsters themselves, hunting their prey on all fours under the light of the moon with maw and claw, tearing limb from limb and flesh from flesh in fits of rapturous ecstasy, forgoing all semblance of tactics or strategy beyond animalistic instinct and pack tactics to hunt and tear apart their foes in grisly displays of gore. Their masks tend to be savagely animalistic, carved or made in the visage of great beasts or monsters with fur or scales or other inhuman body parts adorning the mask to make them that much more inhuman.
- The Spiritknives: Secretive and Elusive, these transient Witchkillers are those who seek the most difficult prey of all - the Oni, and all the Ghosts, Spirits, and Outsiders who prey upon the denizens of Zheng-Kitar and the material plane. The fewest in number, they are each individually the most mighty due to the incredibly demanding nature of the prey which they hunt which requires them to be utter masters of reading body language and emotion, of reading the motives of others at a glance and knowing in great and intricate detail that which lurks within the hearts and souls of living beings so as to better identify the shapeshifting Oni. Masters of subterfuge and espionage, they move unseen and strike without being heard, eliminating their prey before they even have a chance to reveal themselves - and as a result, are inhumanly patient: they do nothing without study and careful insight, for they must be sure their prey is truly a ghost or spirit or Oni in disguise, lest they accidentally kill an innocent. The masks of the Spiritknives tend to evoke visages of various Kami(Though the two groups are rarely allies) and nature spirits, or other ghosts or spirits or demons of folklore - or, just as commonly, the visages of Oni themselves in the hopes of earning their Ire by bearing their visage without their approval to more quickly draw them out of hiding.
- The Nuyang Extinguishers: The most recent of the Witchkiller Units, the Golden Legion are a mysterious and extremely secretive bunch that have been slowly and steadily growing in number and reputation ever since their forefathers that would go on to found the legion decades later aided in the assault on Worldthrone Castle and the destruction of Dahmunara Worldthrone. Their tactics are mostly unknown, as they are kept even more secret by the Clans which they serve, but from what little has been gleamed they seem to be masters of many crafts and trades and geniuses of disguise and deep-cover operations - capable of operating weeks or months or years on end in wholly seperate identities before changing back to their original personas. The few that have encountered them speak of them as "Silent and Implacable" and "Staring as if they already knew my entire mind", and describe their masks as resplendent but brutalistic designs evoking metallic golems or various other constructed lifeforms, giving them an extremely odd and unsettling appearance. Notably, they seem to have an almost unsettlingly perfect uniform of a thick, long-sleeved overcoat colored black and trimmed with gold that they each wear - making it almost impossible to tell them each apart from one another.
Ranks within the Witchkillers
The Witchkillers are broken down within their respective units into a series of exceedingly simple ranks that are, at their core, designed to facilitate a highly flexible and highly mobile structure of command that can survive frequent personnel transfers, lost or killed leadership, and similar tragedies on the field with little to no issue. Unlike any other organization on the face of Zheng-Kitar, ranks are not assigned to individuals within the Witchkillers, but their masks themselves - meaning that even if an individual were to die, so long as their mask survives(and thus its matching persona) it can be quickly donned by another and the chain of command continues unbroken.- Leader: The rank given to the creature who organizes an entire unit of Witchkillers. Often the only line of contact between Witchkiller Units and the Narixian Chieftains whom they often serve.
- Captain: The rank given to the squad commanders and hunters who oversee the smaller squad operations within the Units. They serve under the Leaders and direct squads of Hunters on missions and help to direct and organize the extant efforts of the Witchkillers.
- Hunter: The rank given to the base, rank and file soldiery of the Witchkillers. They are distinguished by a combination of length of service and competence during that service, with special attention being given to those who survive great ordeals or are forced to abandon masks and personas due to great traumas had in the line of duty.
Culture
While most important to the culture of the Witchkillers is their masks(See the Sidebar to the right of the page for more info), the culture of the Witchkillers as a whole is a secretive thing - the members of the witchkillers are for good reason likened to barely controlled madmen, as the personalities and even the people behind the masks are often damaged in some form or capacity in a fundamental way. The Witchkillers are trained from the moment of their joining in the nature of their "Grand Mission" - of the "Second Chance" they have been given by the Narixian Clans to serve their people and protect the citizens of the Clans and of the Empire as a whole in a way they could never have dreamed of before; taught from the moment of their joining in the glory of their cause and the righteousness of the Witchkiller's Duty.
To the Witchkillers, what they do is a great and glorious purpose, and a wholly necessary evil to the continued function of The Narixian Empire - they are fanatically loyal to the cause and creed of the Narixian people even in their madness, and ardently think of themselves as "the chosen few" upon whom society itself is built. They have a deep warrior tradition, and while they are often mentally damaged or even deranged, they hold themselves to some semblance of honor and morality - viewing excessive torture, excessive disobedience, and wanton cruelty, and the like as offenses punishable by execution or exile.
In many ways, they are a fraternity of brothers and sisters linked by a great shared trauma - even when their masks are off, they see unity and strength of shared purpose in each other, in the damage souls of their comrades whom they would and often do die and suffer to protect. They have a strangely fatalistic worldview, seeing themselves as fated to die, but are often strangely hopeful in spite of it - it is a common reaction in the Witchkillers after seeing the worst the mortal nature and spirit has to offer to see the good in the world all the more acutely, and as a result finding the world all the more beautiful in their own, damaged way.
Public Agenda
The mission of the Witchkillers has remained the same ever since it was founded so long ago - protect the Narixian Clans they serve, and seek out and destroy the enemies of those clans of those of The Narixian Empire that the Clans themselves serve.
History
Formed in the winter of 3773 ASK nearly 800 years ago by a secretive group of retired and exile Narixian warriors and mercenaries in the interests of defending the homeland of Narixia that they all loved, the Witchkillers began their long and storied existance as a vigilante group that was completely and totally unsanctioned by The Narixian Empire for the better part of a century. It was not until nearly a hundred years later in the year 3870 that the vigilante group became notable and famous enough after hunting enough creatures across the empire that they were accepted and formalized into the structure of an existing Narixian Clan, who took the entire organization and dismantled it wholesale - integrating its strongest points into its own structure and subordinating it to their Clan Chieftain after the forces of that ancient Clan defeated the Witchkillers on the field of battle.
Ever since, the Witchkillers spread like wildfire across the Clans after one particularly enterprising Narix'Ana formally inducted them into the Narixian Armed Forces and made them a distinct arm of the Empire - where they have survived and thrived ever since.
Kill the self, Kill the beasts.
Founding Date
3773 ASK
Type
Military, Special Operations Force
Alternative Names
The Splitfaces, The Dreamwalkers, The Tarhunters, The Splitface Freaks,
Demonym
Witchkiller
Ruling Organization
Parent Organization
Related Species
Related Ethnicities
The Witchkiller's Mask
Most important tool in the arsenal of the Witchkillers and absolutely vital to the operation of the group as a whole, the Masks of the Witchkillers are, with little exaggeration, the most important item each Witchkiller will ever possess - without it, the group simply could not exist. Due to the extremely psychologically and physically taxing nature of the profession, the need quickly arose not long after the Witchkillers were founded to find a way to empower their operatives to endure the extreme mental traumas that came with carrying out such grisly and soul-crushing tasks - for it became painfully clear after the entire first "generation" of Witchkillers lost their minds to psychosis and could not endure that another way was needed; a way to give the mortal mind a way to endure the burden of killing monsters wearing the skins of children, or burning families alive, of carving out the hearts of men and women you once saw as brother and sister, and all such tragedies the Witchkillers as a group must not only endure, but carry out themselves. Thus came the legendary masks, and the Ritual of Becoming - a process by which a prospective Witchkiller(Typically drawn from the dregs or criminals of society, those who see no paths open to them, the mentally damaged, and those who will do anything to be given another chance) carves or creates his or her mask, infusing its contours with emotion and raw mental energy under the supervision of an elder Witchkiller in a process that will eventually produce a mask that not only stands as a well-made artpiece closely customized and representative of the prospective Witchkiller's emotions, personality, and soul, but also literally embodies a completely different personality that they wish to "step into" themselves when carrying out their work. When these masks are worn, a wholly new personality and identity subsumes the wearer as they are flooded with the raw emotions, feelings, thoughts, and desires of the creator and of all who have donned it since - becoming a new being in the body of the old whose mental fortitude is such that they can carry out the grisly duties of a Witchkiller without going mad. Of course, this process is not without its risks - a mental state or "sickness" known as Subsumation is a common danger to Witchkillers, which occurs when a Witchkiller slowly loses their grip on the difference between their "original" identity and their "mask" identity - the lines of these personalities blurring together in their minds which often leads to manic episodes, schizophrenic mental states, or all-out psychosis if it is left untreated. However, all these risks and more are known and accepted by the Narixian Clans who create and employ these deadly warriors - for so long as the line is ridden between madness and sanity, these deadly hunters can fight back against that which preys on mortals in the night.
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