Ferranel Branchfire's page

To discuss the history of the Steel Razorwinds one must first look to its parent organization, the vaunted Silver Razorwinds of Kyonin.

An organization older than that elven nation itself legend states that when the great Elven empires of old fled the coming Earthfall soldiers and mages fleeing from the devastation combined their skills to preserve what was left of their culture and defend those few settlements waiting to evacuate off world to escape death.

Little is known about its history in Sovyrian outside of Kyonin. Whether the group developed its skills in that distant place or they had always existed and are merely part of the group's mission of preservation few can speculate.

What is known is that upon the elves return to Golarion the Silver Razorwinds came with them. With their penchant for archery, light armor, and wearing face obscuring masks many an observer and spy mistook them for rangers or other such covert operatives. Such assumptions were quickly put to rest as raiders and bandits testing the relatively new nation's strength found rows of masked elves atop walls, hilltops or perched in trees raining storms of arrows and spellfire in unison. These actions, combined with the vigilance of its border rangers and the strength of its mages did much to build the fearsome reputation of Kyonin's borders and build on to the mystique of that mysterious place.

Part knightly order, part school of the arcane, the Silver Razorwinds operate almost exclusively within Kyonin never leaving the country unless an important Elven envoy or religious figure requests them as bodyguards to accompany them into uncivilized lands.

Those few bodyguards and envoys willing to speak of them described the order as staunchly traditionalist even among elves, and though their worldview tends to favor elven culture and history above all others they are at their heart a good organization that does much charitable work and raise a good number of elven orphans both from within and outside the borders of Kyonin.

When the worldwound opened Kyonin, as normal, responded slowly. Citing that many of the martial orders within Kyonin operated independently of the royal house, the queen effectively sidestepped any cooperation with non-Elven powers in the Mendevian crusades and the potential internal struggles such support, or lack of it, might cause..

As the 1st crusade was winding down many Elven seers, cut from the same cloth as those who predicted the Earthfall, gazed into the future and foresaw disaster coming from the worldwound itself. Describing dread armies and corrupting influences sweeping across the planet if the Elves continued their refusal to act.

As with all things the Elves reaction was mixed. The royal house dispatched a noncommittal message to its citizens neither encouraging or discouraging participation. Many martial orders rejected the idea outright, claiming misinterpretation at best and sedition at worst. The Silver Razorwinds were divided in opinion but two companies nevertheless made the decision to make the long journey to Kenabres where, surrounded by monsters and barbarians, they would face destiny head on .

Destiny came in the form of the second wave of 4638. The Four Hundred Martyrs as their songs would call them barely had unpacked into their new barracks when the attack came. Legends and tales speak well of their valor and unwillingness to retreat as the demonic hordes poured in the thousands over the wall, but dispassionate historians would cite their inexperience against the forces of the abyss having grown too accustomed to warding off orcs and bandits forgetting hard won lessons against the demon Treerazer and his abyssal forces in Kyonin itself.

Whatever the truth it died with over half of those elves in the first waves of attack upon the city's walls. Arrows and spells that would tear flesh and burn souls deflected harmlessly off demonic fury and abyssal hide. Half of the remaining elves died later in the following crusade even as they adjusted both their attitudes towards their comrades and their tactics to fit this horrible conflict.

Of those that remained at the crusades end all were forever changed. The xenophobia and distrust that marked the earlier march into Kenabres was all but burnt away in the fires of war. Not only had the remaining elves discarded the stiff traditions that caused them so much suffering but they realized that despite the success of Kyonin versus the forces of the abyss in earlier conflicts there were greater horrors still that the nation was woefully unprepared to face.

The remaining martyrs were fully committed to the cause. Taking oaths of retribution and swearing themselves fully to the cause of Mendev they resolved to not return home again until the worldwound had been closed forever.

Yet, even as they laid new foundations for a proper housing and training complex word reached them from home that the scant fifty elves that were left were required back home. That the defense of "unwashed animals' ' was a waste of precious elven blood and experience. All were equally outraged and most flatly refused instead sending a strongly worded message back to those of their number that remained in their homeland about the importance of the crusade, the depth of the evil they face, and the shame their worthless prejudice brings to those who died on those blackened fields outside the walls.

Of the 50 elves remaining 10 returned to kyonin with the message. Two wished simply to return home, troubled by the horrors they witnessed and wanting to be free of war. Four wanted to bring back the lessons they learned to the homeland seeking reform for their order and their people. Three left in disgust not wishing to let the blood of their brethren wash away their pride as proper elves. One was taken involuntarily to seek treatment with the clerics in Kyonin as their experience drove them completely mad.

The remaining forty spent the better part of the years between and during the 3rd and 4th crusades rebuilding their numbers and revising their philosophy and tactics to fit this new theater of war. Relying on the staunch faith of paladins and priests over the pride of elven magic and steel as well as entertaining concepts of non-elven members into their order were subjects that caused many nights spent in hot debates over how to proceed.

The first change was the obvious one. No longer referring themselves as the Silver Razorwinds they opted for Steel Razorwinds instead. This name change had many layers as would be expected of elves. Silver was pretty but impractical as a weapon and all but worthless against demons. Steel was similar in look, but tempered by fire into a hard and flexible metal that could hold an edge extremely well. It was both a statement of separation and a criticism of the old order. The Steel Razorwinds would not allow its pride to blind it any longer to the evils of the world, nor would it suffer the blatant racism and xenophobia of the home country.

Next were the tactics. Adherents to the wisdom that a dead foe was one that could not do any more harm the razorwinds would rain devastating volleys of arrows and spells to destroy enemies outright. While this tactic worked well enough against the cultists and undead that the demons would often field alongside their hordes of minions the demons themselves often proved resilient in the extreme, laughing in the face of terrible storms and swimming through lakes of lava and acid only to snatch up crusaders and drown them in the same.

Working with fewer numbers than ever and relying more on the holy steel of those who face the demons in hand to hand the steel razorwinds focus now on hindrance and support whittling down enemy numbers with precise arrow fire as the demons struggle to move through an array of spells built to ignore their resistances and stop their ability to teleport in and amongst them. Until recently the order operated in small squads between two and five people supporting larger groups of archers and infantry to target down important enemy targets or limit the capability of the enemy's elite formations. And in the case of cultists and undead the tried and true tactic of burning them all and shooting down the survivors is still a tried and true strategy.

The final point, and the one most controversial, the point where essentially all Silver Razorwinds would call them traitors for, is the introduction of non-humans into their ranks. This was more than a change of policy. This required an adjustment in thinking, training, and discipline of the whole order. A student couldnt be expected to spend several months mastering a spell to perfection. An insubordinate soldier couldnt be sent into the forest to meditate on their failings for six seasons and a day. Time, and the demands of warfare, simply did not allow for the patience and nuance of elven tradition. On the other hand there were some races just not suited to the training, even modified, that would see them through to becoming competent Razorwinds.

In the end the remaining martyrs attacked the problem from two fronts. Traditionally razorwinds would come either as foundling elves from lands in and beyond Kyonin, being raised within the order by older members to eventually become members themselves should they have the talent, or as children of the members themselves following in the footsteps of their forebears. This tradition was kept and the remaining martyrs had already adopted a number of children rescued from the horrors of war while they were on campaign.

The second was to accept those who came to the order for training. However these aspirants had to be young, no older than adolescents, they had to speak fluent elven, had to know how to fire a bow and prove to have a talent for magic.

The modern Steel Razorwinds are not all that dissimilar in appearance from the silver. They still wear the full faced masks as a means of protection, intimidation, and obfuscation to prevent the targeting of officers. They still train and work speaking exclusively elven to one another. And their philosophy still revolves around the preservation of elven ideals and history.

At its heart the razorwinds are an elven organization and many would-be students dropped out quickly when they realized the remaining thirty or so martyrs would train them for hours on end about elven history, culture and etiquette with little instruction on the bow or the arcane arts. The faces and ethics may have changed but the mission remains the same and numerous elven relics and personal belongings lay in the storehouse on the razorwinds complex awaiting the return of the one forced by war to abandon to come and reclaim it. Carefully catalogued, this storehouse may be one of the few places where one can get a glimpse of old Sarkoris before its destruction.

Recently the razorwinds, now consisting mainly of half elves, humans, tieflings, aasimar, and others but especially a large number of elves left orphaned by the first and second crusades, have reached numbers where they can field entire companies again. No longer needing to limit themselves to small squads seconded to larger platoons they now have the forces to make real impacts on much larger fields of battle. With rumors of a 5th crusade in the works and promising results of the new tactics with large numbers of the razorwinds taming the fields the martyrs are excited about proving their concept to those who insulted them in their homeland and providing a meaningful contribution to the crusade as a whole both to satisfy their oaths of retribution and triumph over their past failings once and for all.

Ferranel represents the first of the new generation of Steel Razorwinds. Found as a small child wandering the remains of a slaughtered refugee camp covered in blood and filth by the then lieutenant Leiara of the second company her fellow Razorwinds tried to discourage her from taking the boy in telling her that priests would be along shortly to retrieve him and take him to safety. Having just recently lost her husband and still overwhelmed by grief she threw their misgivings in their face reminding them of their duty and their mission. Despite the desperation in their crusade and the massive casualties they would take in nearly every conflict protecting Ferranel and other orphans they picked up along the way gave them some hope and a real goal to strive for when those around them seemed satisfied with short sighted and petty gains against their immortal and unimaginably corrupt foes.

In Elven terms Ferranel’s life on campaign as a child was relatively short but had an extreme impact on his life. He knew little to nothing of his birth parents save the nightmares it gave him when he dwelled on it too long before trancing. Growing up among the Razorwinds in the early days of their campaign at the worldwound allowed Ferranel the rare opportunity to witness their history first hand from the fracturing of the Martyrs to the founding of the Steel Razorwind Academy proper. Though his training as a Razorwind began much earlier than even that as almost from that first day he was found he was taught how to defend himself in the brutal Mendev battlefields.

Despite all this time spent training and living with the Razorwinds, being immersed in the culture and history they brought with them, and appreciating the causes they fought for he never himself truly identified with his people as a whole. He had never walked the pristine vales of Kyonin, listened to the polite and pointed banter of Iadaran merchants, felt the stomach churning rush of stepping through an aiudara gate, or seen the world on the other side of the sovyrian stone. And despite his occasional requests to visit, his foster mother, now known as Martyr Leiara, can only speak wistfully of her homeland while simultaneously denying the idea of going there outright. For him, the history and pride of his people and all their accomplishments feel like an obligation thrust upon him rather than a solemn duty.

Instead more than half his life has been spent in a bustling city forever on a war footing scrambling around the feet and sneaking coins out of the pockets of crusaders more concerned with keeping their chins up and their eyes towards the horizon rather than on their coin purse. He grew up around children who outgrew him rapidly, and some who became full grown adults and went off to war to die far in the time it took for him to age an equivalent year. Despite the discouragement from his elders to avoid too much interaction with the shorter lived races for the pain it would cause him he can’t help but feel drawn to them remembering all their names and faces as if doing so would keep them alive even as their ravaged bodies became part of the bloodsoaked soil.

As he’s grown older and come more of age he’s become far more gregarious than one would expect for his kin and laughs easily until the ale starts flowing and he starts to remember the faces of those who left the city to die outside the walls while he was still considered little more than a child, or worse still the screams of those poor souls being rent apart in the refugee camp.
His one endless source of frustration is the speed with which he picks up the skills of his peers. While his tutors and foster mother assure him this is a natural part of being such a long lived and near eternal race he can’t get over the fact that many of the half elves and humans who joined the academy a scant few years ago are already as skilled at the bow as he is who practiced for decades to get anywhere near where he is today. Moreover his skills and those of his fellows are expected to be honed on the battlefield, just how far behind will he be and just how much suffering will his own ineptitude cause his younger peers?

As such he’s constantly trying to prove his worth to those among his comrades much younger than he. Casual observers would consider this as part of the elven inferiority complex, where he has to prove his superiority over the younger races. In truth it’s closer to the opposite, where he has to prove he is just as skilled as they are and not inept in the way he feels in his mind. He seeks the perfection of his craft as an extension of his frustrations and as a means to enact his own form of payback against the monsters that destroyed his old life.

In terms of his old life he remembers almost nothing. He has done some research on the birthmark located on the back of his left shoulder and identified it as a symbol belonging to the riftwardens but has done nothing to approach that secretive group having suspicions of his own and not wishing to complicate his foster family live’s further with their involvement.

Currently, with talks about him and his peers going out into the field properly for the first time Ferranel has felt disquiet. His bow is uncomfortable in his hands, the magical words that come easily to him with each pull of the string have rung hollow in his head and each release of the arrow has felt like an oncoming wave as sure as death itself. While his friends spend the opportunity to get drunk, make bets, and woo women he finds himself staring in the direction of the worldwound itself wondering at the cause of his discomfort.

Ferranel is a tall wiry elven man with silver hair that is typically tied in a ponytail behind him. His skin is pale and shows knots of corded over a frame mostly devoid of body fat. His eyes are completely green and show a deep but troubled intelligence behind them. When on duty or in combat he dons a mask of lacquered wood bearing complex wooden carvings reminiscent of elvish artwork depicting deep forests.