Badger’s Talon

The Badger’s Talon are an elite special operations unit of the Miwoc military. Unlike most Talon-sized units from Miwoc, members are not drawn from a single of the major religions in Miwoc, but rather come from a mixture of the Immaculate Faith, the Hundred Gods Pantheon, and the Cult of the Zenith. With a few highly-skilled exceptions, most members of the Talon are Essence-users (Enlightened Mortals, Godblooded, and occasional Dragonblooded), trained in Martial Arts and with some limited access to artifacts, and many have received training from officers of the Imperial Legions or senior members of their respective faiths.

The Talon has two duties within Miwoc. The first is to carry out the higher levels of internal policing: should a religious figure from one of the nation’s three cults call for open violence against the others, or commit some crime requiring them to be detained, the sight of bailiffs of differing faiths carrying out the arrest might inflame tensions. The religiously-neutral Talon is called in during such arrests to ensure the populace knows the matter is one of Miwoc, not one of its faiths.

The Talon’s second duty, and reason for its high level of training and equipment, is to provide counter-infiltration and reconnaissance forces along the border with the Confederation of Rivers. While peacetime has meant the number of troops stationed on the border has been much reduced, infiltration by rangers of the Seventh Legion remains a constant concern, and the Realm cannot devote sufficient Exalts to the frontier

The Talon is named for the Badger, a furred beast native to Miwoc and the River Province. A tunnel-dweller with a distinctive white stripe, the animal is not aggressive but if provoked is a fierce and tenacious combatant.