Gray Gardeners

Gray Gardeners

(Organization)

Leader

Unknown

Alignment

Unknown

Headquarters

Litran, Galt

Scope

National (Galt)

Members

The executioners of Galt

Images of Gray Gardeners

Source: Campaign Setting, pg(s). 74 (1E)
Night of the Gray Death, pg(s). 4–5, 64–65 (2E)

See also: Gray Gardener

The Gray Gardeners were the hooded executioners of Galtan justice, and were violent, mob-ruled, and rarely just. During the ever-changing Red Revolution that soaked Galt in blood for over 50 years, the Gray Gardeners remained a constant. They watched revolutionary leaders rise, and then separated their heads from their bodies scant months later. The Gray Gardeners were the guardians and maintainers of the final blades, the guillotines which remain the most feared symbols of Galtan justice. They were officially disbanded after a thwarted coup in 4721 AR, though many members whose identities were never revealed likely survive, and several final blades remain unaccounted for.

Background

The Gray Gardeners remained a constant in Galt due to their anonymity. All members of the Gray Gardeners wear gray silk veils to protect their identities. Several different Revolutionary Councils have demanded that they reveal themselves, the secrets of the final blades, or to merely open their financial accounting, but refuse all requests for transparency and often judge questioners to be criminals worthy of execution.

The Gray Gardeners realize that anonymity is their best protection from the bloody justice of mob rule. They are based in the city of Litran, where the presence of their imposing Gray Monastery serves as a stabilizing presence that keeps away roaming mobs that plague the rest of Galt. Despite this stability, Litran is not a welcoming place, as the Gray Gardeners are not friendly towards outsiders.

Though wildly popular with the Galtan mob, Gray Gardeners were rightly feared by certain members of the populace for their abilities in tracking and interrogation.

Fall of the Gray Gardeners

A Gray Gardener.

This page contains spoilers for the following products: Major plot points in Night of the Gray Death.
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Unbeknownst to its populace through the decades of chaos, the unending cycles were in fact the orchestrations of a conqueror worm and its cult, with the Gray Gardeners acting as its public arm. Its deployment of the final blades was a plot to compress enough souls to release a gray death, a massive disaster of undeath that would destroy the nation. The Gardeners themselves manipulated much of Galt's chaos, staging execution festivals and funding the bandits that terrorized its rural regions, and were empowered by a psychic network of worm prophets.

The Gardeners staged an attempted coup in 4721 AR in which they opened their Gray Monastery headquarters for the first time, and in an unprecedented act of transparency claimed they would unmask themselves. However, the announcement was a ploy to consolidate Galt's ruling class into one place and release a gray death upon them.

A band of foreign Firebrands thwarted the plan, which resulted in the destruction of the Gray Gardeners, the Gray Monastery, and several of the once believed indestructible final blades. As of 4723 AR, these adventurers were believed to still pursue the destruction of the nation's remaining final blades.

References

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