Category:Legions of the Imperial Guard

The Imperial Guard are considered an elite grouping within the ranks of the Imperial Legions of the Scarlet Empire, the most trusted and best equipped of the Scarlet Empress' military forces.

Membership

The current active Legions of the Imperial Guard are as follows, along with their headquarters:

1st Imperial Legion (Citadel of Purifying Flame, Scarlet Prefecture)

2nd Imperial Legion (Glittering Citadel, Vatamu)

3rd Imperial Legion (Bastille of Thirty Faces, Metaia)

Duties and Privileges

By tradition, each Legion banner of the Imperial Garrison bears a particular treasure: a lock of the Scarlet Empress' hair, encased in a vial of crystal. That such a thing is of use in hostile sorcery is not lost on any, leaving the enemies of the Realm to seek these banners with all their strength while the Legions themselves defend them with the most intense devotion. Such a gift is a sign of the true trust the Empress placed in her Guard. These locks have never been taken in battle... on the single occasion one fell, the vial itself was taken and kept safe until the tide of battle turned and the cloth was recaptured, while the banners of both the Empress Own Guard and the 5th Legion were safely returned even after those forces met their ends (the Guard's lies within the Empress' panoply in the Imperial Manse, the 5ths returned to the Castle of Flying Cranes by Tepet Arada). Following the treason of Vondy Beulen, the 4th Legion saw its vial emptied and the lock taken back to the Realm... the empty vial was kept a part of the Legion banner by successive commanders, until it was removed by strategoi Sesus Dochao and replaced with the royal coronet of Azerban.

The Imperial Guard were also the only Legions ever permitted to keep their headquarters within the Scarlet Prefecture in peacetime, another sign of great trust along with a great responsibility to fend off invaders and threats to the Throne. Since the Scarlet Empress' disappearance, this unwritten policy has shifted with redeployment of House-controlled Legions, most notably the quartering of the 6th Imperial Legion in Arrosa and then the return of the 4th Imperial Legion (cast out of the Guard) to take the Imperial Garrison.

The Imperial Guard also once contributed elite soldiers to join the fangs of special guards for the measuring tools of the Righteous and Accountable Ministry of Weights and Measures, though in recent years this has shifted significantly and while the 2nd and 3rd continue to serve they now stand alongside Legionnaires from the 6th Imperial Legion (replacing the 1st Legion as part of the Deliberative negotiations which saw the Legions brought under House control) and 9th Imperial Legion (replacing the destroyed 5th Legion).

History

Founding

At their origin, the terms 'Imperial Legion' and 'Imperial Guard' were synonymous, both referring to the military forces raised directly by and in service to the Empress in the wake of the Great Contagion rather than forces originating from the armies of the various Gens and daimyos who had sworn fealty to Her. The first of these, and most elite of all, was the Empress' Own Guard, born of the band of young Exalted warriors who gathered at the gates of the Imperial Manse and swore their blades to the hero who had saved Creation, followed by the first five Legions raised by Imperial Decree in RY40. As old Shogunate forces faded, replaced by the system of further Legions and their auxiliaries, the original Legions kept the title of Guards and the honour of defending the Empress' capital.

Original Membership

Empress' Own Guard (Hall of Eternal Dedication, Imperial Palace)

1st Imperial Legion (Watchful Stronghold, Imperial City)

2nd Imperial Legion (Glittering Citadel, Vatamu)

3rd Imperial Legion (Bastille of Thirty Faces, Metaia)

4th Imperial Legion (Brazen Stronghold, Imperial City)

5th Imperial Legion (Citadel of Purifying Flame, Scarlet Prefecture)

Changes to the Guard

The most significant change to the Imperial Guard occurred in the wake of the third Realm invasion of the Scavenger Lands in RY88. The defection of the 4th Legion's strategoi, Vondy Beulen, to Lookshy saw the Scarlet Empress strip the 4th of its place in the Guard and leave them in an undeclared exile from the Blessed Isle which has only recently come to an end. The Empress' Own Guard was destroyed in that same war, fighting to the last at Melevhil, and though that military force was declared destroyed and disbanded, not to be reformed, the Empress did not strike their name from the rolls of the Imperial Guard, perhaps as a permanent memorial.

The ranks of the Guard remained unchanged for centuries from that point, until the disastrous destruction of the 5th Imperial Legion rendered that Legion inactive.