> [!infobox|wikipedia] > # Skyguard > [![[Skyguard_small.webp|cover hsmall]]](Skyguard.webp) > ###### Faction Information > Attribute | Details | > ---|---| > Type | Faction | > Category | Military Order | > Allegiance | Independent | > Leader | [[Kaelen Vayne]] | > Base | [[Palisade Eternal]] | > ###### Status > Attribute | Details | > ---|---| > Status | Active | The **Skyguard** are the airborne arm of the [[Circle of the Blade]], the wyvern cavalry that holds the skies over [[Sumara, The Shining City|Sumara]]. To most visitors they are the first face the hidden city shows: silver-and-grey armour and silver-scaled wyverns descending out of the [[Shimmering Peaks]] before a traveller has finished crossing the road — the first force anyone meets here, and the last they want to face. ## Purpose & Goals The Skyguard exist to guard Sumara's skies and mountain approaches for the [[Circle of the Blade]]. Theirs is a watch kept over a city that has spent a century hidden from the world: mounted patrols sweep the high airspace and the passes of the [[Shimmering Peaks]], intercepting anything that arrives unannounced long before it reaches the gates. They are the city's first line of defence — and, for most who come upon Sumara unbidden, its first and most decisive answer. ## Structure & Leadership The Skyguard answer up through the [[Circle of the Blade]] to its Meridian, Commander [[Kaelen Vayne]], who has held the post for over a century and stands as Sumara's de facto authority. Beneath the Circle's officers they are a corps of mounted riders in silver-and-grey armour bearing the crests of the Blade, each paired with a wyvern of the [[Shimmering Peaks]]. They hold the city's high approaches from the air and descend swiftly on any unexpected arrival — typically the first force a visitor encounters, and the last they want to face. "Skyguard" doubles as a personal rank: a soldier of the corps is *a* Skyguard. ### Notable Members | Member | Role | Notes | |---|---|---| | [[Kaelen Vayne]] | Meridian (Commander) | Head of the Circle of the Blade; the corps' ultimate authority | | [[Skyguard Caeryn]] | Skyguard | A young elf of the corps; led the party's arrest on their arrival in Sumara | ## The Wyverns The Skyguard's mounts are a breed of silver-scaled wyvern native to the [[Shimmering Peaks]] and found nowhere else — not imported beasts but creatures of the mountains themselves. Sleeker and smaller than the wyverns of the Material Plane, they are bred for speed and agility, and the bond between rider and wyvern is part of what makes the corps distinctly Sumara's own. From the air they give the city a reach no wall could, sweeping the peaks and the river-crossings long before a stranger reaches the gates. ## History The Skyguard are as old as the [[Circle of the Blade]] they serve, one thread of the martial tradition the Circle has kept intact across a century of exile. Fielded from the [[Palisade Eternal]], the Blade's command tower in the Ironsward, they have spent that century guarding a city the wider world believes lost — a watch grown quiet through long years with little to repel, until the day humans and a dwarf walked the mountain road into Sumara for the first time in a hundred years. ## [[The Bloody Nails|Campaign: The Bloody Nails]] #### [[Session 46 - The Shining City]] The Skyguard spotted the party entering the Luminary Canton — humans and a dwarf, unseen in Sumara for a century — and descended from the Palisade Eternal on their wyverns to detain them. When [[Kai]] raised his hands to cast *Prestidigitation*, a Skyguard struck him with a spear; the party allowed themselves to be cuffed and taken to the Ironsward, the arrest led by a young, visibly out-of-his-depth [[Skyguard Caeryn]]. #### [[Session 51 - The Last Light]] Repaying a debt owed to [[Ayana Syndrosa]], [[Skyguard Caeryn]] met the party in a side-armory of the Ironsward and lent them five sets of [[Zephyr Cuffs]] from Circle stock for their descent toward the [[Vale of Eternal Night]] — on the promise of their swift return.