Shield bearer

A Shield bearer is one of the Wanderers, a foreign soul whose released core left room for a heart demon. It comes out of the Mist each Turning and stands in whatever line pays for it. It serves in Lumen, the affinity of order, law, light and protection that Daegred, the Sunward holds.

It fights hand to hand, and it grows stronger and harder to kill the longer it serves. In time it rallies the army before battle so that every company endures more. Later it restores part of its employer's losses after each battle. The card shows what each stage adds.

The first lesson of its kind comes from the Age of the Given Word. Ysme of Lumen held the Greenmother's Ox, and its thirst starved her own wards. Flint's lord broke his given word and struck at exactly those thin places. A shield must be fed before it is trusted, the shield-carriers say. The Covenant's mark makes others trust such a lineage more slowly, and it ends at the Turning's reset.

It is paid well in geld and costs a little mana, more as it grows, and it leaves when the pay stops. Kill one, and its service ends for the Turning, but its soul goes on, and so does its kind.

Shield-carriers say the demon wants to stand in front of something and never step aside, and that the Wanderer it lives in is still looking for what that is. Whether one can be freed is not known.

Player-visible facts