A secret division of the King's Dark Lanterns, the Shadows will do whatever it takes to serve their country.
Hierarchy
Captain Terra leads the King's Shadows, and reports directly to Captain Vron of the Dark Lanterns. The Shadows operate entirely separately from the regional divisions of the Dark Lanterns, as their primary purpose is to cut through the bureacracy that is endemic to the Citadel. This has been known to create numerous conflicts within the Citadel, as the Shadows flagrant disregard for ordinary procedure and protocol leaves other commanders aghast.
Underneath Captain Terra, agents exist in a relatively flat structure, respecting each other's skills and specialties. Captain Terra will create strike teams and apoint a leader within the team, but leadership of a strike team does not confer any special privileges or resources beyond what is necessary for the mission.
Recruiting
Unlike the majority of the Lanterns, the King's Shadows both recruit from within their parent organization but also individuals not already involved in Citadel work. This both maintains plausible deniability for the Shadows while also preserving a certain amount of independence from oversight. One of the more notorious ways this has gone wrong was when the Shadows tried to put together a team of aberrantly marked individuals. After many bloody missions, the team decided they had spent enough time on government payroll and decided to go rogue, forming what is now known as House Tarkanan.
Missions and Methods
The King's Shadows perform covert operations even the Dark Lanterns are reluctant to perform. Assassinations, supplying cultists, and any other sinister activity could come from the King's Shadows. The only rules for the King's Shadows is don't get caught, and if you are make sure it can't be traced back to the Citadel. As such, there's an expectation that once an operation is underway all the agents go dark - no Shadow ever expects someone else will extract them from a mission going south.
The exception is when King's Shadows agents pose as members of the other branches, usually to ride on the coattails of ordinary law enforcement activity. Whenever the King's Swords break up the plans of the Royal Eyes, a member of the King's Shadows may stop by to extract some extra information. Similarly, if the King's Shadows get a tip about an attempted break in at a facility guarded by the King's Shields, they may choose to intervene by posing as the King's Wands.
Resources
The King's Shadows receive both direct funding as part of the Dark Lantern's budget but also from a variety of questionably legal schemes. The Shadows have agents on the inside of the Aurum who will direct some of their often-illegal and nearly always-unethical profiteering back to the Shadows.
In terms of personnel and information, the King's Shadows will typically draw upon Dark Lantern resources. The exception, of course, are sources developed by the Shadows - deep, deep cover agents and the like. If the shadows learn of a plot they rarely escalate it up the chain of command, instead preferring to keep information within themselves. Members would justify this by pointing out that the Lanterns have been compromised on a number of times and that information should be kept on a need-to-know basis. Others would say that this is just more evidence the Shadows do whatever they feel like and refuse to answer to anyone.
Source: Homebrew
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