Blackfang Guard

🛡️ Blackfang Guard

“Fangs for coin, claws for cause.”
Type: Mercenary Company
Alignment: Neutral (with frayed edges)
Headquarters: Draxigar – Operating from the Eelmarkets and Whispercourt contracts
Notable Leader: Thamir Dren, Half-Elven Warmage and Fleshshaper

🏙️ Base of Power: Draxigar, the Smoke-Wreathed Thorn

Draxigar welcomes the Blackfang Guard not with open arms, but with open contracts. Within its smoke-choked alleys and guild-wracked quarters, the Guard finds ample work as enforcers, monster-slayers, and private militias. Unlike Ashkarin, which limits their presence by law, Draxigar turns a blind eye—so long as coin and blood flow in expected directions.

The Guard holds an unofficial fortress-office known as The Gnawed Gate, a half-sunken warehouse near the western gutter piers. Its windows are arrow-slits, its yard scarred by elemental testing pits, and its cellars are rumored to host golem experiments and darker tests of loyalty. The Wheelmarked allow them to operate only under silent terms of mutual exclusion: no theft, no spies, no double-dealing—so long as it doesn’t interfere with their own business.

⚔️ Overview

Formed during the Second Hollow Frontier Push, the Blackfang Guard were originally Ashkarin’s favored fist in the wilderness: containment, extermination, reclamation. But when their methods grew too cruel, too efficient, and too ungovernable—especially during the Ashkarin Golem Slaughter—they were barred from assembling in force inside the capital.

Now, they operate from the shadows of Draxigar and from scattered contracts across the frontier. They are sharp tools wielded by powerful hands—so long as the hands can afford the cut.

🎖️ Structure and Command

Thamir Dren, the Guard's founder and commander, is a half-elven warmage whose body bears signs of self-inflicted fleshshaping: elongated fingers for better spell manipulation, enchanted musculature for dueling, and skin etched with glyphs of contract law.

His control is both arcane and ideological. Each member of the Guard wears a Fang Pendant—a serrated charm of silver or obsidian that marks their oaths and can be used by Thamir to scry their position or activate call-signs. Leadership is earned, not assigned, and many Fangs operate as autonomous cells.

Notable Units:

• The Hemfangs: Veteran enforcers with flame-etched blades and a reputation for surgical brutality.

• The Palebone Six: A squad of bound golems and their masked wrangler, used only when discretion is abandoned.

• The Red Fang Trio: Silent archers and toxin specialists often hired for delicate extractions or assassination.

🧟 Flesh Golem Ban & Ashkarin Conflict

The Guard’s greatest scandal occurred in Ashkarin during a failed contract negotiation where a flesh golem broke its bindings, rampaged through the Merchant’s Crescent, and killed seven innocents. This led to the Blackfang Ordinance: no more than six members can gather within the capital’s walls, and all known golems are to be tracked or destroyed on sight.

Despite the law, Thamir retains his golems—mask-bound constructs armored in bone-silk and runed iron. He claims they are the future of warfare. The Pale Lodge disagrees. Violently.

🤝 Allies, Enemies & Employers

Allies (Unsteady)

• Wheelmarked (Draxigar) – Mutual non-aggression, bolstered by shared contempt for bureaucracy.

• Iron Vow Veterans – Some former knights work as instructors or specialists.

• Archivists & Arcanists – Use them when results matter more than morals.

Enemies

• Pale Lodge – The rivalry is near blood-feud, especially after the golem incident.

• Order of Vaughn – Consider them morally bankrupt and dangerously amoral.

• Ashkarin Council of Seals – Officially censured. Occasionally hired… in secret.

Common Clients

• Rogue scholars

• Exiled nobles

• Outpost governors

• Draxigar guildmasters in need of “firm redirection”

🚩 The Blackfang Standard

Flag Colors:

• Field: Charcoal black – shadowed legitimacy

• Emblem: White fang, downward-facing

• Overlay: Bronze circle etched with glyphs – control over the arcane

• Flanking: Crossed iron chains – discipline, bound force

• Markings: Red droplets or thorn patterns – signify kills, betrayals survived, or blackmarks earned