Strength and Honor, how the Guardians play politics
Hallisan's primary followers, "the Guardians of Valor" or simply the Guardians want to encourage honor, bravery, chivalry, and skillful hard work.
Most of Scarterra's civilized world lives under some form of a feudalistic monarchy and the Guardians very much are in favor of this system of governance involving mutual interlocking ties of feudal duty and obligation. This means the Guardians serve as guardians of the status quo in large swaths of Scarterra.
They commonly work to support kings and queens directly, and they also support lords and ladies at every strata of the feudal hierarchy.
Halllisan, named by Zeta Gardner
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"Every Guardian is required to able proficient in marital arts or have a useful crafting skill with metalwork being especially prized. Many are skilled warriors and craftsmen.
We Guardians commonly volunteer our holy warriors in order to bolster the armies of lords and ladies whom we deem to properly uphold Hallisan's ideals.
Their craftsmen commonly provide high quality goods to feudal lords at steep discounts. We Guardians are among Scarterra's best at crafting magical items which we provide to just leaders at cost.
If a king or queen strays from Hallisan's path, we do not retaliate or harm them, we simply withdraw our aid. The mere threat of us removing our aid is enough to make sure that kings and other lords listen well when we speak."
The Guardians dominant political strategy works well when the king is already well dispositioned to the Guardian's ideals. One of the founding fathers of the Kingdom of Fumaya, was a holy warrior of Hallisan. Guardian values were essentially baked into Fumaya's royal charter.
If a high ranking Guardian so much as frowns in disapproval, Fumayan lords and ladies are quick to take corrective action. I understand the situation is similar in Kingdom of Kantoc and the Dwarf Kingdom of Meckelorn.
This strategy only works if the ruling class is well inundated with Guardian virtues. Elsewhere, of course the Guardians can and will withdraw their support from leaders they disapprove us, but once a Prince is accustomed to operating without Guardian support, he or she will shrug their shoulders and move on with their life. This is what happened in Kingdom of Swynfaredia where the Swynfaredian Guardians are now essentially a Paper Dragon. Now they are stuck in a prison of irrelevance and seemingly have no means of escape.
-Ragani the gnome GuardianRagani summoning Sam the spirit eagle by Zeta Gardner
"In Fumaya. we Guardians have never had to worry about the king or queen shutting the door on us, figuratively or literally, but Danuta is right in that Guardians outside of Fumaya are not always so lucky.
We have a lot of backup plans. First, much like the Masks are prone to, if the king and queen stonewalls us, we can always offer our aid and counsel to lower ranking Lords and Ladies. Actually, in Fumaya the king and queen are staunch worshipers of Hallsan and we still offer our aid and counsel to lower ranking nobles. Redundancy is not always a bad thing, and every level of the feudal hexarchy deserves our attention.
Speaking of which, If the ruling lords and ladies shut us out, we Guardians will reach out to the heirs of the current rulers and try to secure the next generation's support. Young lords especially are eager to demonstrate their valor or honor.
Finally, if all the nobles shut us out, we still have the guild. Hallisan's Gift to mortalkind was metalworking, but Hallisan looks favorable on every man or woman whom crafts useful things with their hands. The Guardians have a lot of influence in trades guilds, and the trades guilds can put pressure on landed nobles.
Finally, we take a leaf out of the Keepers' strategy book and try to maintain good working relationships with other Nonagon priests and warriors.
We lots of arrows in our quiver."
-Havro the peasant farmerby me with MidjourneyThe Guardians are honorable and just, I won't deny that.
Don't tell them I said this, but they they often seem overly focused on the nobles and ignore us commoners...unless the commoner is in the militia then we might get some attention, if only to give an inspiring speech about sacrifice before sending them to battle. They might also pay some attention to commoners that have a high rank in a trade guild then a commoner might get a pat on the head for demonstrating hard work and skill.
There are a couple good ones, but most Guardians see us as feudal obligations requiring protection, not as people."
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