Spellcarved soldiers are warforged warriors who engrave magic runes into the plating of their inherently magic bodies, gaining remarkable defensive abilities. Trained and funded by Cyre during the Last War, the spellcarved soldiers were a devastating force on the battlefield—cutting down forces of ten times their number and striking fear into the living and the warforged alike. With the secrets of their arcane augmentation captured with their fallen on the battlefields, spellcarved soldiers stood in the ranks of nearly every faction in the war before the end.
In the aftermath of the war, Baron Merrix d’Cannith’s failed attempt to turn the scattered spellcarved soldiers into his own private army inspired the creation of a loose federation among these warforged—propagating their teachings and maintaining some form of discipline among their ranks. With the spellcarved soldiers’ combat focus leaving them unsuitable for many peacetime pursuits, most work now as mercenaries, bodyguards, bounty hunters, or elite soldiers in the armies of various nations.
Spellcarved soldiers have no official leader, and consider each other peers of equal rank. Their loose federation is bound together by word of mouth, with spellcarved who meet each other sharing news of themselves and what they know of other members. Discipline among the spellcarved comes from self-censure and the threat of gaining the enmity of other members.
There has been too little time since the end of the war for the federation to experience any serious schism, but the looseness of the organization and the lack of clear authority is sure to lead to difficulty should enough spellcarved ever agree on one particular interpretation of the oath they swear.
Spellcarved soldiers have a reputation as deadly warriors. Common folk often attach a great deal of mysticism to the spellcarved, with the federation spoken of as a secret cult of magic among the warforged. For the most part, the dangerous occupations many spellcarved pursue only lend credence to this view. Spellcasters and those familiar with the exploits of the spellcarved on the battlefield tend to have an understanding that more closely refl ects the truth.
Spellcarved soldiers have no enemies as a group, but their reputations and their continued martial activities tend to make folk more prejudiced against them than against normal warforged. The average person who learns a warforged is spellcarved rarely has an initial reaction better than indifferent. Spellcarved make enemies among their own kind primarily by passing along the names of those spellcarved who have broken their oath in some manner.
House Cannith is marginally connected to the federation due to a nonaggression pact that acknowledges the debt owed to them by the spellcarved. However, some members of the house are rancorous about the federation’s decision not to ally itself more closely with the house’s aims. Members of House Cannith are instructed in the ways of the spellcarved soldiers and their oath, but are warned not to exploit it.