Vanari Bladelords

Bladelords give their lives to a single instrument (the sunmetal greatblade, taller than its wielder and quicker than rumour) and to the forms of its use, each named for a behaviour of light: the flicker, the refraction, the last cut of sunset. Trained past mastery into something like philosophy, a Bladelord does not trade blows. They conduct a demonstration, and the enemy is the proof.

Their formal charge is the protection of the Scinari, whose minds are weapons too valuable to risk, and a Bladelord will pluck arrows out of the air point-first before permitting a mage's concentration to break. Many take up the greatblade in expiation of some private failing; a lifetime of flawless service, they reason, may yet outweigh a single flawed moment. None will say what the moment was. The blade-work says it for them.