Guard of Wuthering Snow

A modified visored helmet, with a lining added inside to keep the head warm.

Holding formation and waiting for the enemy is no easy thing in the Eternal Freeze, but the Silvermane Guards of Jarilo-VI are used to it. Cold wind slips through the gap in the visor like a cold iron knife brushing past.

The monsters from beyond the sky have marshaled their army once more, and fully armed soldiers stand ready to fight at the Supreme Guardian's command.

The guards at the outposts often have to lie hidden in the snow for days on end to scout the monsters' movements. Frost freezes the very flesh, sweat and fine fibers coat the soldier's helmet, and hot water must be poured over it before the helmet can be taken off safely. The craftsmen bent the curve of the cast iron helmet's metal plates out of true, in order to reduce as far as possible the drag the helmet has to bear in a snowstorm.

Sturdy, warm, imposing. That is how the making of a guard's helmet has been handed down.

“How can you see the road ahead wearing a mask like that?” Every guard on duty has been asked this question at some point.

Metal gauntlets that glitter with a silver sheen, holding a composite mechanical structure inside.

Invaders bearing the mark of Destruction blocked the honor guard's path. Laszlo Landau ordered the soldiers protecting the Supreme Guardian to fall back, while he stayed behind to cover the retreat.

Even the bravest and most battle hardened captain among the Silvermane Guards had no way out.

The savage, bizarre creatures howled without pause, their assault as fierce as a driving storm, and though the vile things charged in without end, they could not break Landau's lone line of defense. The long, brutal exchange of attack and defense drained Laszlo, and only when reinforcements appeared did he pass out. The soldiers discovered that Laszlo had lost both his hands in that brutal battle.

The finest craftsman forged an exquisite pair of gauntlets as a gift for the hero, so that he could go on raising the banner high.

“Beautiful, but not enough,” Laszlo murmured as he looked at the gauntlets. “These hands can no longer feel the vibration of a violin bow.”

An old Silvermane Guard uniform pressed perfectly flat, its sturdy clasps creasing the cloth into folds.

The old style uniform handed down in the Goethe family was stuffed at the bottom of a chest, and only a soldier's honor could bring it back into the world.

Facing the ferocious assault of the Legions of Destruction, the Silvermane Guards swore to hold the vital pass, and there had long since been no road back.

In the battle to defend Vevalo, Halls Goethe led a suicide squad that held the ravine for months on end, and only when the horns of the relief force rang through the mountains and forests did anyone learn that the heroes had long since been left without even bones. The Supreme Guardian Alisa personally presented medals of honor to the descendants of the hero Halls Goethe at the ceremony, and Goethe, wearing the old uniform, stood tall with his chest thrown out, standing in for the fallen heroes.

What Goethe saw was a uniform and a medal, while what the Supreme Guardian saw was the legacy the heroes had left behind… the future of Belobog.

“Hols Goethe was a true warrior. Be proud to carry the Goethe name.” That sentence is young Goethe's only memory of the Supreme Guardian.

Sturdy silver colored metal greaves that both protect the legs and keep them warm.

The Silvermane Guard field units are often forced by tactical demands to march a thousand miles in a single day through snow as deep as the waist. The exhaustion of the long road and the injuries caused by severe cold put the warriors' legs to the test.

On an endlessly long expedition through the snow, one will now and then meet old friends who went missing long ago.

The Silvermane Guards who run guerrilla operations on the snowy battlefield often hear the howls of Snowplains Wolves around the camp. These pitiful creatures too have been left without shelter beneath the invaders' iron heel. Officer Jaeger of the field unit was a hunter by origin, and making fur goods from wolf manes is his special talent. After the Eternal Freeze came down and dragged on without end, he rarely met these fierce beasts again. On a bitterly cold night a few Snowplains Wolves let down their guard, came close to the guards' campfire, and lay down beside Jaeger without making a sound. And when dawn came, those beasts had fallen asleep forever inside their warm dream.

Officer Jaeger tucked the treated wolf manes into the soldiers' Silver Greaves, to make the long march a little more bearable for them.

“The Snowplains Wolves have not entirely lost their home, and neither have we.” This was how Officer Jaeger expressed his grief for the Snowplains Wolves.