The Fey Wardens

"Hail the Fallen Hero!", c.1600 P.C. by Thimble Moontrock

The Fey Wardens are an order of Knights that operate in Logres. They are one of the oldest orders of knights in Logres, having been founded by the Lord Errant Yvain Urien during the Age of Heroes. They are dedicated to the protection of Logres from Fey, specifically Archfey Titans.

The Fey Wardens are highly secretive for an order of knights and keep their practices and techniques secret. Despite the fact that they have outposts all across Logres and have been operating for nearly a thousand years, very little is known of their magical techniques and rituals. Many mages and warlocks have tried to infiltrate the group to learn their secrets, but few return, either suffering a change of heart and joining the corp, or more frequently, disappearing altogether.

## History

Little is known of the history of the Fey Wardens. The order claims it holds records of its history dating all the way back to the Age of Heroes, although this seems unlikely. According to some preserved questlines dating from that period, the Fey Wardens were founded by Lord Errant Yvain Urien after he returned from a quest into the Low Weeve. Returning solo from the swamps of that region, Yvain returned to Joyeux Guarde to report on the death of his men to the other Lords Errant. Finding aid from his fellows, he began several questlines into the wild areas of Logres, gaining more knowledge on the creatures that killed his men. Eventually, the Fey Wardens as we now know them were founded.

Much later, during the Second Crusades, the Fey Wardens remained neutral to the human conflict. After the crusades came to an end and humanity began once again expanding into unknown regions such as the Rush and the Scarlet Wilds the Fey Wardens shifted their base of operations to Osset, the city on the border of Camelonia and Farregid in the Rush, taking advantage of the new empires advanced infrastructure.

## Notable Known Practices

The Fey Wardens have several known practices that distinguish themselves from other orders. They are barred from marriage or other permanent romantic relations, and are not allowed to sire or birth children. It has been noted, however, that this does not ban them from engaging in casual sexual activity, though apparently they cannot entertain the same partner twice. In order to avoid temptation, squadrons of Fey Wardens (normally consisting of four to six individuals) are composed of knights of the same gender, either all male or all female. This, combined with their sexual limitations, has spawned the popular image of Fey Wardens as homosexuals, though this is not necessarily the case.

Fey Wardens understand Fey creatures to be incredibly manipulative and dangerous. According to legend, Archfey consist of some of the most dangerous Titans to have ever lived, some of them supposedly rivaling the power of the New Gods. Only a handful of humans have ever gone up against an Archfey and survived, and the Fey Wardens expect to die within the line of duty at anytime. As such, death is treated as a moment of glory for Fey Wardens; battlefield funerals are performed quickly and with a rousing chorus of praise for the deceased warrior, before the squadron burns the corpse and moves on.

Fey Wardens make frequent use of natural and divine magics, and many of them have trained themselves to be resistant to the magic of wild Fey creatures, though no one knows how.

## Requirements for Entrance

The Fey Wardens will take nearly any able bodied creature as a recruit. Requiring no noble title, the Fey Wardens are one of the few orders of knights primarily composed of peasantry. This is primarily due to the fact that the Fey Wardens will outfit any of its new members with basic combat equipment, although if a recruit desires more reliable equipment they must pay for it themselves. Most Fey Wardens do end up spending the majority of their earnings acquiring better gear as many devote their entire lives to the cause. This, combined with their short life expectancies, results in the order inheriting the money they've given their knights in the form of weapons and armour, which they then use to outfit new recruits.

The Fey Wardens are less likely to allow Haelians into their rank, as Fey worship is not uncommon in Haelian culture. That being said, much of the Fey Wardens activity occur in Orkney where Fey presence is strongest, and thus recruitment of Haelians in that region is both inevitable and necessary. The Fey Wardens are also more tolerant of exotic races than most other people of Logres, however, given the xenophobia of the average Logres inhabitant, this isn't saying much.

## Standing in Logres

The Fey Wardens entertain a air of exotic mysticism about them in almost all regions of Logres. The order generally operate in highly rural and untamed lands where civilisation has not yet landed. As such, the Fey Wardens have maintained a certain level of anonymity with the people in Logres and rarely get in the way of governing bodies. This wallflower attitude has served them well; few consider the Fey Wardens to be a threat, most thinking of them as a distant curiosity, unimportant to their daily lives. Only the occasional frontier settler, unaware that the spirit they're praying to may be a Fey, is ever disrupted by the presence of a Fey Warden as the order goes to war with the malicious sprites of the region.