White Lions of Chrace

The White Lions fight the way Chrace lives: directly, without ornament, and to the death. Their long-hafted axes, hunting tools for the great beasts of the northern mountains, split shields, breastplates, and the skulls of things far larger than elves, while the snow-white pelts across their shoulders turn arrows as surely as mail. Around the Phoenix King they form a wall that has never once broken while a king stood behind it.

Admission is not granted but taken: a Chracian must track one of the white mountain lions alone and kill it with the axe, and the pelt he wears is his only credential. The tradition began when hunters of Chrace saved the second Phoenix King from druchii assassins in the high passes, and their descendants have stood closest to the throne ever since. Courtiers find them unbearable (blunt, unbribable, deaf to flattery), which is precisely why the kings of Ulthuan keep them near. In a court of silver tongues, the axe tells the truth.