Vigilant Order of Watch Keepers

The **Vigilant Order of Watch Keepers**, more commonly know as **The Watch**, is one of the world's most powerful organizations. They are dedicated to protecting the people from themselves. With a heavily military structure, they use the symbol of a shield engraved on their plates. When finding danger to the general populace, they often react heavy-handed and somewhat arbitrary, or at least it may look that way to outsiders.

The Watch is vigilant in their peacekeeping in cities where they are tasked with doing so, like Fel Sadanis which was one of the few cities where they had full control, and where they were fiercely dedicated to keep it that way, controlling the Bank and Guild closely. They also operate in the DKE for example, but don't have the highest authority there and have to defer to the law (i.e. the Citizen running the city). Nevertheless, among their full bases within the DKE there is one that keeps its own, independent teleportation pad.

## Organization

The Watch is run from the remote island of **Vigilance**. Only members of the Watch are allowed to travel there. From there, Warden Vatreece commands the Watch. She rarely leaves Vigilance, but does so when the situation requires. She is also the most powerful Mentalist ever since the fall of the Majistraal

The Watch has at least six ranks in their organizational structure:

* Prospects (Wooden-plate unawakened members who are trained and evaluated for Awakening from early childhood, to ensure loyalty)
* Officers (Bronze-plate awakened, levels 1-24)
* Sentinels (Silver-plate Awakened, levels 25-49)
* Guardians (Gold-Plate Awakened, above 50)
* The Warden
* Custodians - any outsiders considered truly worthy by the Watch may receive this very special rank; Rain is among them.

Watch officers are required to take a skill called *Reading* (presumably a hidden one) as early as possible that allows them to reveal lies and untruths in people's soul; and they are required to train this skill. Procedures of the Watch, such as Threat Assessment, require an Officer to preside and another one to witness; with higher-level Sentinels (who have higher ranks in the truth-telling skill) to be brought in whenever required. For the sake of operational security, Guardians may be taught the self-discipline to control a counter-reading skill that *prevents* reading from lower levels.

The Watch has established several builds that they deigned as optimal for their organization's purposes. The Watch requires officers to take and follow these archetypes to the letter - like Swordsman, Firemage, Dagger Warrior, Tamer, etc. Each archetype may have further specialization branches; but new archetypes are rarely tried. Some specialized roles are rare, others are needed in larger numbers. Advancement into higher levels (raising the Level Cap) is handed out both based on general assessment of aptitude and loyalty, and whether someone with a specific role is needed.

When communicating over distance (Message Scrolls etc.) the Watch are using codes to ensure security and authorization.

The Watch employs crafters, but they are secreted away on Vigilance.

### Threat Assessment

Awakened who are dealing with the Watch are subjected to threat assessments, either directly or indirectly, in order to observe them accordingly and to prevent harm from happening. That assessment first questions the level (low rank is Bronze 1-10; mid-rank is bronze 11-20, etc.), then the nature of their skills (AOE (radial or directed) or otherwise) and then the damage they are able to inflict on people, property and equipment via spells or other skill-based abilities.

* Category 1 threats are capable to inflict more than 1000 standard damage.
* Category 2 threats are capable to inflict more than 5000 standard damage. Val was a category 2 threat, two years before he met Rain.
* Category 3 threats are capable to inflict more than 10000 standard damage in an area of 16.4 m; Rain falls in that category
* Category 5 threats include Ameliah.

### Lairs

The Watch regularly explored lairs in the Badlands, where they trained their officers and sentinels. They meticulously name their lairs after a certain scheme: Location - Element - Lair - Date. The following lairs were found, exploited and destroyed by the Watch, as evidenced by the existence of accolades:

* Badlands Cold Lair 3040 11 24
* Badlands Arcane Lair 3055 4 19
* Badlands Heat Lair 3057 2 8
* Badlands Heat Lair 3059 3 8
* Badlands Heat Lair 3059 9 2
* Badlands Cold Lair 3060 1 4

## History

The Watch is one of the oldest organizations in the world, having survived the fall of the Majistraal. A few hundred years before present time, they signed the Treaty of Halfstone that since regulates Awakened law in Ekrustia.

Warden Vatreece fought against Potentate Fecht of the Empire of Adamant at some point, probably to overthrow the oppressive regime. That particular conflict ended, supposedly due to divine intervention, as it threatened the fabric of reality. Since then, the leaders of Watch and Empire didn't engage in direct conflict again.

For the history, structure and members of the **Watch of Fel Sadanis**, see that specialized article.

## References

1. ↑ Chapter 13
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Chapter 63
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Chapter 68
4. ↑ Chapter 108
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Chapter 93
6. ↑ Chapter 109
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 >Chapter 101
8. ↑ Chapter 109
9. ↑ Chapter 100
10. ↑ Chapter 104
11. ↑ Chapter 72
12. ↑ Chapters 93, 136