Royal Guard (Children's Anuad)

The **Royal Guard** is a faction that serves as the personal protectors of the Emperor/Empress of the Empire. They are comprised of extremely well trained battlemages and follow a coordinated hierachy of strict command. The faction was created by the Battlemage Raphael Fontaine and headed by him, to prevent any sort of direct attack on the throne.

## History

The Royal Guard is a newly formed organisation and thus does not have much history. They were created by the Battlemage and Security Expert Raphael Fontaine, after a string of assassination attempts in the palace that claimed the lives of quite a number of people. Also, Raphael's then lover Erys (now wife) nearly died.

This inspired Raphael to take elements of then affliation, the Lost Legion, and combine it with other aspects to make a potent defense force that can prevent repeat attempts, since regular guards were not enough, as evidenced by their incompetence.

The Royal Guard therefore serves a very similar role when compared to the historical blades, except they are not blindly loyal to the ruler and temper their total protection with tactics.

## Ideology

The Royal Guard is trained to be extremely, but not utterly loyal to the crown. They will only lay down their lives for a just and fair ruler, and will even go as far to kill a tyrant abusing their power, if such a person comes to the throne, which actually falls within their duties.

The motto of the Royal Guard is "We assassinate the assassins." They guard the Palace extremely tightly and all visitors are subject to close scrutiny. Relatives of the crown are searched similarly to commoners. No special privileges are extended to anyone.

Most of the Royal Guard is human, due to the fact they simply recruit the citizens of the Imperial City, which is mainly populated by humans, and also because humans are more likely to be loyal to a human ruler and so sign up. They do not discriminate between males and females.

The pay of a Royal Guard coupled with the indoctrination is enough such that bribery and corruption is virtually non existent. Corruption is heavily punished and members of the Guard are reviewed regularly.

## Training

The Royal Guard consists of highly-trained men and women with rigid discipline and willingness to carry out the orders of their superiors and protect their fellow guardsmen. All of them are trained to have the mental discipline to overcome the natural human instincts that people possess.

All of them are trained to move in heavy armor, light armor and medium armor, so they can switch armor at a pinch. Also, every Royal Guard is trained to fight with at least three different weapons, one of which is the one handed sword.

Every Royal Guard is further trained to disable and kill with their bare hands, multiple wrestling techniques and more forms of martial art in case they are disarmed. Every Royal Guard is also trained to master destruction and restoration, which obviates the need for any specialized medics. Conjuration, Illusion and Alteration training is available, but rarely taken.

Every Royal Guard is put through extreme physical and mental training and conditioning. All learn survival skills, tactical planning and similar. They also learn teamwork and are trained to immediately respond and predict enemy movements, to avoid downtime.

### Types

**Recruit**: The Royal Guards in training, who are taught magic and how to use a sword first. They will slowly be split into various roles after going though a series of psychometric tests and weapons proficiency tests. Recruits are not required to patrol the palace.

**Guardsman**: The bulk of the Royal Guard. They have completed the rigorous training and conditioning process required to become a full Royal Guard. They are also capable of multiple roles as part of their training, and generally are clad in heavy or medium armor for protection. They can also be sent as elite footsoldiers to battle, if needed, although this is not within their duties.

**Sniper**: The ranged unit of the Royal Guard. They are trained further to use bows and arrows, alongside many long ranged magical spells. They rarely appear on the front lines and are strategically positioned around the Palace to cover choke points. They tend to use bound arrows, to ensure they always have a supply of arrows, and all can perform a bound bow spell. Many are Sorcerers or Nightblades. Light or Medium armor is the norm to facilitate movement.

**Personal Guard**: Guards who protect the Emperor/Empress directly. These people also answer directly to the Monarch and they are trained almost completely in defensive tactics after their basic training. All of them wear heavy armor, wield tower shields and are trained in spear combat. They are also exclusively trained in Templar arts. They are incredibly difficult to take out.

**Special Applications/Asymmetric Forces**: The cream of the Royal Guard crop, which answers personally to Raphael Fontaine and is trained personally by him. None of them wear the generic Royal Guard armor, they tend to have a wide variety of skills and are incredibly adaptable. The most skilled Royal Guard are placed here. Most keep their identity as one of these secret. Known members are Raphael's son Seth and niece Celestine. Their duties include killing the monarch if necessary, handling the most dangerous opponents and even assassination missions on rival rulers, if deemed necessary. They also are deployed to provide support to the regular Royal Guard if necessary.

## Ranks

The Royal Guard's ranking system is unique. The names of their ranks are set up by Raphael

* Commander (leader)

* Inner Council (very high ranking people)

* General (controls three battalion commanders)

* Auxilliary General (aids the general in their duties)

* Battalion commander (6 Section commanders report to them)

* Section Commander (3 contingent leaders report to them)
* Contingent leader (controls 5 patrols)

* Senior Guardsman (1 every 3 man patrol)

* Guardsman

There are also unique positions for non combat personnel

* Coordinator (an administrative position to coordinate every adminstrative section)
* Adminstrator (administrative personnel)

## Tactics

The Royal Guard stations their available manpower at mainly choke points, with regular three man patrols around the palace. In every patrol, there is always at least one male and one female, to ensure that any patrol can search people that are moving around the palace.

The Royal Guard rotates on three eight hour shifts, with one shift patrolling, one shift training and on alert and the last shift asleep. This allows them to have fresh soldiers at all times. When the guard is changed, the previous shift only retreats when the new shift takes over.

The Personal Guard always accompanies the Monarch at all times. At least eight will be in close patrolling around the Monarch, with two always flanking the Monarch. In extreme cases, the Monarch might even be disguised as a Personal Guard, as a Personal Guardsman stands in as a body double.

The Special Applications is only ever called upon when needed. Otherwise, they serve as normal guardsmen. Members of the Special Applications are never members of the Personal Guard.

## Known members

* Raphael Fontaine (Commander)
* Erys (sort of)
* Seth Fontaine (7th in command, Inner Councilman)
* Celestine Fontaine (Special Applications)
* Sariel Fontaine
* Arc
* Eydis
* Lythe ((Secret) Asset)

## Artwork

Raphael Fontaine, the Commander of the Royal GuardArc, one of the recruits of the Royal Guard.Seth Fontaine, the 7th ranked Royal Guard who is part of special operations.