War chief

A War chief is one of the Wanderers, a foreign soul carrying a heart demon where its core used to be. It comes out of the Mist each Turning looking for a kingdom with a war to lead.

It serves in Pyre, the affinity of fire, destruction and war. Undon, the Unmaker holds that affinity and also teaches Reaping, the art of taking ground.

In the Age of the First Sealborn, great kingdoms devoured small ones, so Daegred, the Sunward cast the Law of Equals: a kingdom may strike only kingdoms within reach of its own Weight. The chiefs know exactly when that law ends. It is entrusted to the whole Covenant, and it fails when Virenna's Seal, the last, opens on the final day. The chiefs call that the only honest day of a Turning, when strength meets strength with no law between.

It fights hand to hand, and it grows stronger and harder to kill the longer it serves. In time it plans its employer's battles so that every company strikes truer. Later it draws recruits to the kingdom faster. The card shows what each stage adds.

It is expensive. It is paid in geld alone, a great deal of it, and the sum rises steeply as it grows. It asks no mana. When the pay stops, it leaves. Kill one, and its service ends for the Turning, but its soul goes on, and so does its kind.

The chiefs say the demon wants to lead one war large enough to take the whole Hallow before the Seals open. Whether a chief can be freed is not known.

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