> [!infobox|wikipedia] > # Hand of the Empire > [![[Hand_of_the_Empire_small.webp|cover hsmall]]](Hand_of_the_Empire.webp) > ###### Faction Information > Attribute | Details | > ---|---| > Type | Faction | > Category | Imperial Enforcement Order | > Allegiance | Imperial loyalist | > Base | [[Val Luminor]] | > ###### Status > Attribute | Details | > ---|---| > Status | Active | The Hands of the Empire are the [[Valtorran Empire]]'s elite enforcement order — an instrument of absolute loyalty deployed wherever the [[Empress Morganna Eventide|Empress's]] will demands more than ordinary soldiers can provide. Recognisable across [[Valtorra]] by their dark red cloaks, they carry authority that supersedes rank, commands resources without question, and makes the full weight of Imperial power felt in any room they enter. Soldiers, law enforcers, garrison commanders, and hunters at once, they are the Empire's iron answer to resistance, dissent, and anything the regular legions cannot be trusted to resolve. ## Purpose & Goals The Hands exist to preserve Imperial authority wherever it faces meaningful pressure. They are not a standing army — that function belongs to the Imperial legions — but an elite force deployed when the Empire needs certainty rather than numbers: to break resistance movements before they take root, to enforce the law with an authority no local magistrate can match, to remind occupied populations what the word Imperial means in practice. A single red cloak at a city gate or on a road checkpoint signals that the garrison is not simply going through the motions. Beyond individual deployments, the Hands serve a systemic function: they are visible proof that the Empress's reach extends to every corner of the continent. Governors may be corrupt, garrisons may be complacent, but a Hand of the Empire does not negotiate and does not leave without completing the task. The knowledge that they exist — and will act — is part of what keeps the Empire's indirect-rule structure intact. ## Structure & Leadership The order carries a single title: Hand of the Empire. There are no named sub-ranks. Seniority, operational experience, and assigned role determine command in any given situation; a Hand with years of field authority commands differently from one newly graduated, but neither holds a formal rank that distinguishes them from the other. The flat structure is deliberate — every Hand is equally bound, equally certain, and equally answerable to Imperial command alone. Above the order as a whole sits the Dread General, a position commanding all Hands and reporting directly to the Empress. For decades that role was held by [[Dread General Gerard Blackmarsh]], who served from near the beginning of the Imperial conquest until his death at the liberation of [[Val Noren]]. The position is currently vacant. ## Uniform & Insignia The Hands' most recognisable feature is the dark red cloak — full-length, deep crimson, worn over Imperial plate armour and paired with a steel-crested helmet. The combination is distinctive enough that Red Cloak has become common shorthand for the order; a person who has never heard of the Hands by name knows immediately what a crimson cloak means when it appears on the road. The heavy armour and formal bearing complete the picture. Senior Hands in field command wear more elaborate kit — heavier embellishment, larger pauldrons — but the crimson cloak holds across every assignment and rank. The authority the uniform carries has made it a target for impersonation by those seeking to move through Imperial-controlled territory unchallenged. ## The Order of Ravens The [[Order of Ravens]] is the Hands of the Empire's most longstanding quarry. A standing kill-on-sight order against all Ravens has been in effect for roughly fifty years, since the Order abandoned its traditional neutrality and turned actively against the Empire. Any Hand encountering evidence of Raven activity — agents operating in the field, safehouses, network infrastructure, credible rumour of their presence in a city — is authorised to act immediately and without escalating to local authority. The Hands have driven Raven nests underground and killed its members across the continent. The Ravens, for their part, consider the Hands the single greatest occupational hazard of resistance work. ## Notable Members | Member | Status | Notes | | ------------------------------------------------------ | -------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | [[Dread General Gerard Blackmarsh\|Gerard Blackmarsh]] | Deceased | Supreme commander of all Hands; held the title of Dread General for decades; killed at the liberation of Val Noren | | [[General Korvas]] | Active | Decorated Hand whose conditioning was disrupted under unknown circumstances; identity suppressed as Vaeleran until Blackmarsh restored him | | [[Draedan Coldsteel]] | Deceased | Commanded the Val Noren prison transport; killed by lightning, Session 1 | | Talerius | Deceased | Field commander of the Val Noren garrison during the liberation; died by suicide rather than surrender | | Commander Murand | Deceased | Overseer of the Skyreach facility; killed during the operation to destroy it | | Gorath | Unknown | Stationed at Val Miriel during the party's time in the city, and questioned the Green Gryphons | ## History The Hands of the Empire predate the Empire as it currently exists. When [[Empress Morganna Eventide]] arrived on [[Valtorra]], she did not conquer by force alone — she built a core of absolutely loyal followers first. The Hands were her earliest and most thoroughly bound: the first officers whose loyalty was not earned but restructured. As the conquest of each city followed the same pattern, the Hands grew from a personal retinue into an institutional order, formalising what had begun as individual bindings into a replicable process with a training programme and a graduation rite at [[Val Luminor]]. With the conquest complete and the continent under Imperial rule, the Hands shifted from instruments of conquest to instruments of maintenance — keeping provinces in line, hunting dissent and resistance, commanding the garrisons that the surrendered royal families could not be trusted to control alone. The order served this function reliably for decades under Blackmarsh's command, reaching its greatest uniformity and reach. Whatever flaws the Empire's indirect rule might contain, the Hands have been a consistent constant: present, capable, and beyond persuasion. The liberation of Val Noren ended that era. Blackmarsh's death and the simultaneous suicide of five Hands on the liberation bridge left the order without its supreme commander and without its most prominent garrison presence. The Hands continue to function — training proceeds at the Palaestra, red cloaks still appear at checkpoints and garrison posts across the continent — but the question of who now commands them at the highest level remains unanswered. ## Relations ### The Valtorran Empire The Hands exist within the [[Valtorran Empire]] as its enforcement tier: above the regular military in authority, parallel to the provincial governors, and answerable only to Imperial command. The relationship is not reciprocal in the conventional sense — Hands do not negotiate with Imperial administrators or seek approval from local authorities. A red cloak in any city means that the Empress's direct reach has arrived, and governors understand this as the price of their positions. ### Empress Morganna Eventide The Hands' loyalty to [[Empress Morganna Eventide]] is absolute by design. She is their ultimate authority and the architect of what they are — the graduation ceremony happens in her presence, and what it produces is not loyalty freely given but loyalty made structural. Hands defend her interests without being asked, act on her behalf without instruction, and will die for her without hesitation. The relationship admits no negotiation, no defection, and no doubt. ### Order of Ravens The Hands of the Empire and the [[Order of Ravens]] have been in active, if asymmetric, conflict for roughly fifty years. The kill-on-sight order is the Hands' posture; the Ravens' methodical infiltration and intelligence operations are the counter. Neither side has landed a decisive blow. The Hands have destroyed individual nests and killed individual operatives; the Ravens have survived underground, cultivated resistance, and instigated rebellions. It is a slow war conducted in the shadows of every occupied city on the continent. ### Voice of the Empire The [[Voice of the Empire|Voices of the Empire]] — the Empire's corps of controlled mages — represent a parallel arm of Imperial authority built on the same foundations as the Hands. Where the Hands enforce with physical authority and martial presence, the Voices project Imperial power through arcane and propagandistic means. The two orders operate alongside each other in garrison cities without a formal hierarchy between them; in practice, a senior Hand commands the kind of immediate respect and resources that most Voices defer to. ## [[The Bloody Nails|Campaign: The Bloody Nails]] #### [[Session 01 - The Rusty Nail]] [[Draedan Coldsteel]], a Hand of the Empire, commanded the prison ship transporting condemned prisoners from Val Noren south toward Skyreach. Cold, authoritative, and entirely unconcerned with those in his care, he was the party's first encounter with the order. He died when a lightning strike pitched him from the upper deck; his body fell just beyond reach of the cells. #### [[Session 04 - To Free a Raven]] During the prison break at the Darmouth Bastille, Ryo wore a confiscated red cloak to pose as a Hand while the rest of the party played captured prisoners. The disguise succeeded without challenge. It was a direct demonstration of how much the order's reputation does their work for them — the authority the uniform carries proved sufficient to move through a guarded facility unchallenged. #### [[Session 08 - The High Road]] An Imperial patrol — a Hand and two soldiers — intercepted the party's caravan on the open road. The [[Finegolds]]' merchant cover held; the patrol moved on. Routine in itself, the encounter illustrated how thoroughly the Hands were woven into ordinary Imperial road surveillance even far from any city. #### [[Session 16 - The Fall of Skyreach]] At the Skyreach extraction point, the party found [[Barak Stormrider]] near death, cut down by a Hand who had compromised their position. The fight was brutal and nearly fatal. As it ended, the Hand recognised [[General Korvas|Vaeleran]] and addressed him as "Korvas" — calling him an old mentor — before being killed. It was the first crack in Vaeleran's assumed identity, though its implications remained unresolved for many sessions. #### [[Session 17 - A New Journey Begins]] On the road north from Camaar, the party encountered a column of a hundred Imperial soldiers led by five Hands of the Empire. In a nerve-wracking social encounter, Vaeleran — bolstered by magic and his own considerable confidence — convinced the commanders that the party were Imperial assets and was warned about the rebellion ahead before being let through. Five Hands commanding a hundred soldiers gave the clearest picture yet of how few the order is and how much authority each member carries. #### [[Session 27 - The Wanted Dwarf]] A Hand raided the [[Green Gryphons - Val Miriel|Green Gryphons]] guildhall in Val Miriel, searching for a druid and a "half-folk" magic user — a targeted law enforcement action aimed directly at party members. [[Porta Hale]] deflected the search with complete composure, and the Hand withdrew. The encounter illustrated the order's civilian enforcement function: not a military deployment, but a pointed investigation with the full authority to search and seize. #### [[Session 32 - The Road to Point Blackrock]] At a fortified Imperial barricade on the road north, a high-ranking Hand recognised Vaeleran's face and identified him as the missing General Korvas. Rather than break cover, Vaeleran leaned into the identity — fielding pointed questions about his absence with enough assumed authority to make the suspicious officer stand down. The party passed through. The encounter confirmed that Korvas was a known and sought figure within the order, and that his disappearance had been noticed. #### [[Session 42 - Liberation of Val Noren]] Five Hands led the Imperial standoff on the bridge during the liberation of Val Noren — heavily armoured, faces concealed, radiating total resolve. When the battle turned and surrender became the only alternative to death, they chose death. Without apparent communication, the surviving Hands killed themselves simultaneously rather than be taken prisoner. The gesture collapsed the morale of the three thousand ordinary soldiers behind them, who dropped their weapons and yielded. It was the campaign's most precise illustration of what the Hands' conditioning produces: people for whom surrender is simply not available as an option. #### [[Session 49 - The Silver Sage]] A recovered memory revealed that the figure the party had believed to be a Hand aboard the original prison ship was not a Hand at all — she was an [[Eye of the Empire]], a covert Imperial operative, using the red cloak as cover. The revelation reframed the campaign's opening and raised a question the party has not yet fully answered: what was she actually there to watch?