The Order of Schwarzhirschjäger

The Order of Schwarzhirschjäger are an elvish order of the King of Elfland dedicated to the destruction of the fallen Elven paladin Aesop and the hunting of and eradication of ghouls. The followers of this order come from all of the Elvish tribes (though they tend to favor the Lawful and Neutral orders more than the Chaotic). The Order is generally only found in the Great Forest north of the Eight Cities.

The ranks of the Order supercede the normal Elvish titles as follows (their symbol is in parenthesis):

Requirements

Followers of the Order must be Elves, and they must take the King of Elfland as their Patron. They must originate from the Great Forest (also known as Elfland) and choose one of the 9 tribes of the appropriate alignment. They must take Graveborn as one of their optional languages.

Followers of the Order can own no property other than the most bare necessity - an exception is made for money, jewelry, etc which can be leveraged as payment, bribes, etc to gain more information about Aesop. They cannot take mates or sire children, since they are already wed to Death. Once per month on the New Moon they must send a raven or owl back to the Great Forest to report any new information.

History

Aesop, Princips Exsulare of the Great Forest, Fallen Champion of the King of Elfland, The Black Stag, He Who Walks Alone, Lord of Ghouls, Betrayer of Clans, Shadow Immortal, Last Chief of the Weir. Once the greatest Elven prince serving the King of Elfland - now, a servant of dark powers in a quest for immortality, and power.

Long has the King of Elfland known the lost secret of elvish immortality, and long has he refused to divulge it, unwilling to unbalance the powers of Acheron by subverting its natural order. Aesop, greatest of his champions (some believe him to be the King’s son, though no one knows for certain) long hoped that the secret would be passed to him - that hope turned to pleas, then demands, when Aesop’s wife Lirazel grew ill and Death came to her doorstep. His begging falling on deaf ears, Aesop turned to dark powers to aid him in his quest for immortality.

What they delivered was something twisted, and foul. Forced to destroy Lirazel by his own hand, it is said that Aesop’s fury burned the Unmarred Wood, and that he murdered the Tenth Clan of Weir (of which he was Chief) and fled into the forest in his rage, taking some of the secret power of the King with him. The King gave one command, and never spoke of it again - find Aesop, and kill him. It is said that the King then cloaked himself in sorrow, and that is why he is rarely seen, only in dreams and in portents.

Those that followed him to kill him were instead destroyed themselves; the few survivors that returned reported a creature grown more unnatural than imagined, black antlers sprouting from a skull ravaged by undead, twin eyes (sacrificed to the Three Fates for preternatural ability, it is said) burning in empty sockets. Aesop slew the great tree Malloc and fashioned a blade from His root, and unearthed the forgotten secrets of The Transformation, changing the Elven knights who followed him into horrible ghouls under his complete command. Aesop adorns his antlers with the tartans of fallen enemies, much like the ribbons the mortals tie to tree limbs to honor the dead; but instead of honor, it is an eternal mockery to the noble souls of those who would bring him to justice.

Thus the Order was formed, a way to keep young elves from throwing their lives away in pursuit of the Black Stag. The Order selects certain elves with promise and trains them in the ways of killing undead. Any information gleaned about Aesop is shared among the group - from this sharing, it was discovered from Sheelba of the Eyeless Face that only a single elf holds the key to diminishing Aesop’s power to the point where he may be destroyed (the discovery was made by the Jäger Saturn, long presumed dead). As such, each member of the Order works alone, though they often enlist the aid of other non-elves to their cause.