The Windlords

A gentle breeze. The faint sounds of footfalls with unseen sources. These are the signs that only the most perceptive will uncover when a Windlord is around. They travel the many lands of Comalan in secret without any discernible number to their ranks or limit to their reach. Hailing from the veritable metropolis of Aeros Academy, these spies and champions of transparency fulfill what many consider to be a vital service to the people of Galeon: making the information that people need accessible to all. They are the watchdogs who inform people of any dishonesty of the people in power the world over, and the official intelligence agency of both Galeon and its Erisian ancestors.

The Windlords as a whole call themselves the Order of Aeros, which finds its origins in the First Age. Back then, many people of Eris had been inspired by a class of intellectual elites known as the Windtalkers to meditate on high, windy hilltops, which are believed to this day to be spots of communication with the Gods. They sought mental and spiritual enlightenment from the mind of Crane himself, as the Windtalkers claimed to have found. It is widely believed that Windtalkers would make up stories of their treks of discovery, but the people who followed in their alleged footsteps would find true enlightenment. What many would find telling of the Windtalkers is that those whose hilltop voyages could be corroborated reacted far differently to their experiences than these supposed prophets did.

Those who were determined to have actually meditated on the hilltops were Eris soon began to meet each other in secret, a revelation that was once made by an Erisian knight known as Artemis the Unrelenting. He reported that this secret group of true enlightened had mastered and comfortably exerted an unusual control over the air itself, a property that surely contributed to these people being dubbed the Windlords. From their discovery, the first Grandmaster of this group unveiled their intent to gather and share information for the good of their society. It was at this point, in the two-hundred-and-fiftieth year of the first age, that construction began on a massive tower encompassing an entire city worth of space that reached upward of fifty stories in height. They began to stock this tower with copies of any book, scroll, or document they could find in an effort to consolidate information in a timeless collection. They called this place Aeros Academy, a structure so large that it can be seen from almost anywhere in the western side of the country.

The Windlords had always had an adversarial relationship with the Windtalkers' who often consolidated information as they had, but always seemed to hoard it to their own benefit. While the Windlords worked constantly to provide information to the public, the Windtalkers actively discredited their social rivals to the point of campaigning for their arrest as menaces to society. This campaign of slander would, in turn, lead the Windlords to investigate the Windtalkers personally, leading to a decades-long power struggle.

At the end of this conflict, the Windlords stood victorious and would consequently guide Eris through its transition into Galeon and bring democracy to the country. For this, the people of Galeon felt a gratitude for the windlords that lasted less than a year into the Second Age. The reason for their downfall was equally simple and complicated: they had turned their skills toward a place Crane had never intended them to see.

The Windlords were said to have infiltrated the mythical Skyres city, an adventure that could only be corroborated by scant reports of inebriated windlords bragging of their intent to gather the secrets of Crane himself. This was the treasure everyone believed to be contained within the ancient city of dragons located somewhere in the sky. Whatever truly transpired on that year was lost to history throughout the entirety of the Second Age, when people could only gather that the survivors of that faithful mission had returned with complete amnesia and curse marks in the shape of Crane's symbol; a tattoo in the shape of Selon Res, the last dragon.

In the span of a single week, the Order of Aeros was completely decimated, without a single member able to retain an iota of the Windlords' legacy. Curiously, these curse marks were passed on to the offspring of these Windlords, a phenomenon which slowly developed into a cultural stigma towards the descendants of those who dared to steal the secrets of the God of Knowledge himself. It wasn't until the Third Age that the Windlords would find their redemption. At this time, Richard Blackstone--the First Avatar of Crane-- had visited Galeon and gathered everyone he could find who possessed one of Crane's curse marks. He had been charged with reviving their order with the specific intent of helping him to resist a powerful cabal of evil creatures known as the Knightmares. 

In the Third Age, Windlords retain the controversy of old, but on a larger scale due to their increased international activity. The people of their homeland generally regard them with positive feelings, although modern Galeans feel more concern about the secrets and power they hold compared to their Erisian ancestors. While they venerate the Order's stance on transparency of information, they critically speculate on the possibility that the Windlords might use their power to destabilize other countries. 

In Resta, they are considered professional rivals to their own organization of spies, Royal Army Intelligence. In their efforts to maintain the tactical superiority they had cultivated throughout the second age, RAI regularly spies on the windlords in turn. 

In Heron, they are feared for their perfect infiltration abilities and general air of invisibility. Heronite lords have a long history of using the Windlords' exploits to sew distrust in their rebel elements. It is not uncommon for the Lords to blame any information gathered on them by the Heronite resistance, a movement of feudal abolitionists, on Windlord intervention.

To the people of Tanis, windlords are generally regarded with indifference. To the elves, windlords provide a necessary service to their people. But since Tanisian society is inherently transparent, they feel the least fear toward the prospect of Galean infiltration. They often pride themselves on having nothing to hide, and will often welcome Windlords as honored guests.

Meanwhile, the people of Midania typically hold more distrust for Windlords than anyone else. While the human citizens of the country's satellite territories hold superstitious attitudes toward their perceived lust for power, the sai'mul of the mainland are brought up on tales of Erisian sabotage of what was once the Akisian empire. Their oldest citizens, who lived through the First and Second Ages, stand as the only people who can testify to the dangers of Windlords intervening in the affairs of other countries.

All in all, the Windlords' reputation is one they defy every day. While they do not discriminate in the subjects of their investigative endeavors, the Order of Aeros has a very strict policy against unnecessary intervention. While Aeros Academy is rife with all of the world's secrets, they curate all of the information they gather and release only what advances their core ideals of an open and just world. They have many critics who question the value of their judgment in this matter, but with their mastery of stealth and wind magic, no one can stop them from doing what they do.