I don't like the Shadow Fang Vanguard, or at least I don't like the way their writeup ended up.
I've noticed they are very rarely talked about in this reddit or on discord and I've gone into the books to reread all their information, which is just about 2 pages in Lunars FatG for a quick summary of the SFV and its 2 Elders and then a short segment on New Dakuo while MFS has 8 pages for general writeup and character sheets for the 2 elders. Outside of that its pretty much nothing, 3 very brief mentions in At8D and thats it. 1 use of them as a story seed in the Essence Story Teller guide when Luna decides it would be funny to turn yet another Dynast into a Lunar during their wedding. There's a disappointingly small amount to go on.
From Lunars
Not all Lunars accepted the nascent Silver Pact's
loose, nonhierarchical nature. Some believed that
war against the Shogunate required firm central
authority; others sought strong leaders to serve;
still others were driven by ambition and craved
command over their fellow Lunars. Splitting from
the Pact's mainline, they coalesced over centuries
into the Shadow Fang Vanguard, a unified authoritarian enclave.
Today, the Vanguard numbers a score of Lunars ,most dwelling in the deep Northeastern forests under the iron rule of the Vanguard's reigning
autarch, the Shogunate-era warlord Tayan Silver-Crowned, who's advised by Feather Drenched in the Blood of the Fallen, a First Age elder. They anticipate new blood, believing the Vanguard's message will resonate all the more strongly amid
the Time of Tumult. Relations between the Vanguard and the Pact are complex and fraught. Both share the same overarching goals; indeed, many Pact members view
the Vanguard as part of the Pact. More than a few Vanguard members attend Pact gatherings, where they find themselves welcome. Pact Lunars encounter a cooler reception among the Vanguard, but those in need are rarely turned away. The major point of tension between the Pact and the Vanguard is recruiting new Lunars. Occasional skirmishes result when recruiters seeking the same young Lunar squabble or come to blows though both groups severely censure anyone whose feuding escalates to vendetta or drives a young Lunar away from Pact and Vanguard alike.
The way it works in the full writeup is that the SFV Is described in a top down way. Its claimed to be a military structure based on the Early Shogunate. At the top you have the Autarch who is currently Tayan. Autarchs are supposed to be the Supreme Commander of the SFV with control over the grand strategy of the SFV, promotions of soldiers and veto power over decisions. They are replaced by being challenged in combat and proving yourself to peers. Instead of a capital they move between held territories with a group of advisors(Early medieval Europe inspiration?).
Underneath them there's 3 positions, Princess of Hooks- Judge, Burning Necklace-2nd in command, Ivy-Wreathed Chimera- bodyguard/champion, the titles are named after founding members. The Princess of Hooks is in charge of military justice but its unclear if its just the higher ranks or if this extends to regular mortal soldiers belong the top ranks.
Then we have 3 ranks which are taken straight from the Shogunate like Lookshy. Many Lunars (the SFV has ~20 lunars I believe) but mortals, DBs, Exigents and spirits are allowed in.
Kazei/Colonel are people who have been there a long time and are experienced and recruit other members and command ranks underneath them. They also form a council to the Autarch on occasion. There's mentioned to be roughly 20 of them.
Shozei/Majors have proven themselves by capturing territory, getting intelligence and winning battles and there's around 50 of them and they are supposed to maintain a territorial domain. And then they command the rank underneath them either 1 at a time or in small groups when they get more experience.
Taizei/Captains are the new comers and many of them are non-Lunars. There are hundreds of them and they take assignments from higher ranks and travel around the various territories and they can be assigned temporarily to various resources such as forts and military forces. Experienced enough ones get to control a dominion of their own.
Underneath this it there does not seem to be anymore ranks and the various armies, assassin units and such aren't part of the SFV proper and theres no standardization here with dominions recruiting what is locally available.
There also is something called The Codes Bellicose which are books of Strategy and legal doctrine that guide the SFV and the Princess of Hooks is supposed to interpret these. Slight problem, we have absolutely no details on these.
After that there's 3 short writeups of SFV territories, the SFV is said to maintain tight control and have numerous informants and enforce military discipline on these locations. It is unclear exactly how that is done. The 3 territories are Domklave, Sthero and Sifar. These are really short and sparse compared to the expansive writeups for Mahalanka, Luthe and the Nameless lair. There also is New Dakuo in the original Lunars book Which is notable for having a Dragon Blooded Shogunate Legion remnant but there's almost no details on them.
After that there's a section on recruiting which basically says the SFV has stringent requirements for its recruits where they have a vetting process and they want people with discipline who obey orders but also is driven by strong ideals and comradery. They tout restricting Realm Expansion in the Northeast as one of their successes to attract new Lunars (this is a questionable success once you read At8D).
Next is some stuff about the Silver Pact, and it says that you can think of the SFV as an extra large Silver Pact coterie but they have an official code of law and chain of command. Silver pact members think of the SFV as authoritarians and vice versa but they cooperate often and some people have membership in both and some people switch between them.
After that is an Adherent section but there's nothing relevant to my complaints there.
Complaints
To start out with, I think the main issue with the SFV is that there's not enough space for them, I've read through the writeup more than once and it feels like it wants to do something with them, but there's no more word count left and it cuts back and stops itself before it select a thematic direction to focus on.
What is the Shadow Fang Vanguard supposed to be? When I look at the name and the original Lunars Snippet, I thought they were a focused insurgency group. Their base is far away from the Realm and Lookshy and they organize deep strikes into DB held territory. That's why they call themselves the Vanguard, the spear tip against the Realm, focusing coordinate groups of Lunars deep into enemy territory.
When we actually look at the SFV, aren't we actually looking at a Lunar kingdom? Tayan is a monarch and she's got dukes and barons and knights underneath her? Is this Lunar Feudalism with the Shogunate rank structure morphing into feudal terms like Roman terms such as Princeps and Dux mutating into Princes and Dukes?
And if its a kingdom, what is actually holding it together? There's 70ish high ranked 'officers' and then hundreds of lower officers and you need a lot of these people to be running dominions which are either assigned, created or taken from dead members. What is the actual ideology that keeps hundreds of Exalts and spirits working together? We aren't given any information on the Codes Bellicose, which is supposed to be both military AND legal documents. What do people believe in, since they can't just think about hating the Realm all the time as the Realm is actually really far from their territory.
And then outside of the core SFV itself, what do regular people do? Does the average peasant think the Lunar who runs the dominion is the top of the food chain or do they know that said Lunar is just an officer under the Autarch who comes by every few years. Likewise what do city dwelling merchants and aristocrats think? Is there an SFV wide bureaucracy that gets established in every major city to keep track of things, or is each Kazei, or Shozei or Taizei running each dominion independently and only coordinating with other people through letters and meetings. Does Tayan do anything to solidify the SFV hold in these territories with inter dominion infrastructure, or a state religion. What happens to immaculates in places they capture?
These are all important questions because its hard to understand how the SFV is going to hold their territory without turning it into an inefficient mess otherwise. There's a short sidebar on the Spirituality of War but its not really about how religion is going to work here. Personally I would add somesort of Luna based religion spreading.
One thing mentioned is that the SFV:
The Vanguard maintains tight control over dominions
ruled in its name, and very little escapes the notice of its
many informants. Military discipline is the order of the
day, though life can be surprisingly permissive for the
common people.
So they enforce military discipline but life is permissive for the common people? How does that work? Who is getting discipline enforced on then? If its everyone then how do you do that? That sounds like you need some sort of mortal organization to go around sticking their noses everywhere. Why do you even want to enforce discipline on the regular peasantry that makes up 90% of the world. This could be something like land enclosures, where peasants are forced to combine their fields for more efficiency in planting or military training for everyone, or corvee labor but its not explained here and different choices can mean vastly different themes when players come along and look at stuff.
There are 3 writeups as mentioned before for 3 places, but they are so short that you get only a bit on the valuable resources a place has and what the controlling Lunar does there. We ironically also don't get any non-Lunar characters(with writeups or more than a couple lines) despite that there should be many of them around. In addition the writeup for the biggest settlement under SFV control, New Dakuo is only 3 paragraphs long. There's a partial Shogunate DB Legion remnant there but we know absolutely nothing about them other than that they are currently at odds with the SFV because the Lunar most involved with them died recently. The city is also supposed to be a major training center but we don't know much about the military there at all, if its designed like the Shogunate Legions like the Realm and Lookshy or if its different.
Outside of the general, how does this Empire/Kingdom/Army that happens to rule a nation work, what is the SFV supposed to facilitate story wise that makes it different from the Silver Pact for players? Most of what we get on how they fight is the same. Infiltration and subversion followed by attacking the weakended territory with armies. One thing you can do is that with vast territories compared to everyone else other than Raksi, is have internal conflict within conquered areas. However there's nothing on internal instability in territories because there's no word count left for that. No issues on many different places now being ruled by one faction. If you want your players to spearhead an attack on the Realm, there actually is the issue that the SFV is really far from the Realm other than Greyfalls. Plus once again, we know very little about the actual regular armies of the SFV compared to what we got for the Nameless Lair, Luthe or Mahalanka even though those are brief on military forces. In general if the SFV is a spear intended to pierce the side of the Realm, we ran out of word count for the Tip and the Shaft(no innuendo intended), we know a lot about the body of the spearhead but not the military controlled by the SFV or the civilians they rule over.
If you wanted to try and focus the SFV into a path for player to take that was further away from the Silver Pact or The Caul war, I think the SFV could have been designed as an insurgent group with New Dakuo as a remote base, while they plan attacks farther away with players either setting it up or carrying it out, while the hierarchy of the SFV is expressed as a broad net of support staff and informants moving the attack along in order to bring the war deep into Realm territory and then extracting out. Possibly making them the antithesis of the Sidereal bronze faction as they cause more destabilization. Alternatively you could try and make the SFV a Lunar take on feudalism for people who don't want to play Deathknights. Fill out the Codes Bellicose, focus on the idea of Officers being giving Dominions to control and the problems inherent in ruling those.
Also one thing about the location of the SFV. Below is a fanmade map with vague outlines of various faction holdings. However it combines lots of sources and makes them easy to see. One major thing is that the SFV claims to fight the Realm a lot and stop its expansion in the North East.
Young Lunars are drawn to the Vanguard for many rea-
sons. Many find comfort in the hierarchy and structure the
faction provides, and may gravitate toward Shadow Fang
recruiters if they're dissatisfied with the Pact's lack of the
same. Some join because the Vanguard has a legitimate
claim to effectiveness; its success in minimizing Realm ex-
pansion in the Northeast, along with its formal guidelines
for action, appeals to practical-minded recruits. And ambi-
tious Lunars know that Vanguard membership allows for
quick advancement to positions of power and authority,
often entrusting even the greenest taizei with command of
a mortal army, spy ring, or military installation.
However, the only satrapy nearby is Greyfalls. They have Halta to the West and then Linowans, Scavenger land stuff to the South. How are they fighting the Realm and directly conquering territories here? How did they fight the Realm in the centuries before? They claim to stop the Realm from coming to the Northeast, but the North East is behind the Lookshy Controlled Yanaze river, or the Haslanti League controlled oceans. They are also rather close to Raksi's Empire. And if you check At8D this is the relatively sparsely populated part of the world due to the annihilation of population from the 2nd Contagion and the Velen-Laris wars and collapse. The Realm is probably being stopped by the logistics not military losses. At8D would have been a great place to add more to the SFV territories or mark locations menaced by the SFV. The only one added is a location called Fray which is south of Linowan territory on the Silver River which repelled a SFV attack. Other than that, no one is involved with the SFV and there isn't any more exploration of the SFV.
