Fangshields

The Fangshields is a widespread organization of good-aligned monsters and talking beasts dedicated to watching and guarding the places where "civilized" races do not dwell, and countering the actions of evil monsters and organizations. While most of them act alone, from time to time they assemble in small groups all over Faerûn, searching for news of evil monsters and their plans - and striking to kill when they have the advantage.

History

For years, the membership of the Fangshields was nothing more than a few followers of Lurue who tried to keep an eye out for signs of evildoing. The group's numbers remained low, since members lacked easy ways of contacting each other when separated by stretches of "civilized" land. They preferred to remain hidden and pass information to other groups with more resources at their disposal, but recent activities by their evil counterparts convinced them to step up their own efforts and band together against these efforts. The recent surge in the number of humans and elves turning to Lurue and Nobanion for spiritual guidance have given~ the traditional members of those faiths greater awareness of the outside world, access to "civilized" resources, and helpful allies to pass messages using human-built roads. With news of evil organizations hiding in pockets of the wildlands, the good monsters decided to take more decisive action. Drawing on their humanoid allies, the members of the Fangshields have established a network of allied creatures willing to fight evil on a larger scale.

The Fangshields Today

Most Fangshields members worship Lurue, Nobanion,or Selûne, but some serve other deities. They welcome any non-humanoid good creature into their ranks, as well as lycanthropes and other occasionally humanoid creatures; this more for practicality than because of prejudice against civilized folk, because some members have a hard time telling humanoids apart, and they worry that evil spies could infiltrate their company in the guise of friends.

The Fangs have three semipermanent bases of operation - one in the Silver Marches, one in the Shining Plains, and one in Aglarond (though rather than built structures, these are natural landmarks easily recognized by the group). Smaller meeting places can be found in just about any terrain. In many ways the Fangshields act like the Harpers - spying on enemies and launching surprise attacks, but rarely taking large-scale action for fear of drawing too much attention or depleting the group's numbers.

The Fangshields hope to develop a strong network of allied monsters keeping watch in the wild areas, able to call on each other for defense and information. All but a handful are creatures native to FaeriTh (the few exceptions are some celestial counterparts of Faerûnian creatures), but they sometimes get advice and guidance from celestial servants of their three primary faiths.

The organization contains several smaller groups, such as the White Pack (a pack of good Selûnite werewolves), the Plainsrunners (a pack of blink dogs), the Ivory Charge (a small herd of unicorns), Stormwind Aerie (an extended family of giant eagles), the Maned Brothers (four wemic paladins of the Legion of Lions) and Thunder Ride (a troop of centaurs). These groups tend to be the military arms of the organization, responding in unison to threats or calls for help. Other members include awakened animals, dryads, lammasu, a guardian naga, a storm giant, a young bronze dragon, a nymph, giant owls; an androsphinx, sprites, treants, hybsils, and pegasi.

The organization has just over three hundred members, though no meeting has ever contained more than forty of them due to geographic factors. Perhaps another three hundred friends of the organization know it exists, but outside those select few, most of the people of Faerûn are unaware that the non-evil monsters of Faerûn are allied for any purpose.

The Fangshield's Foes

The group keeps a sharp eye out for the People of the Black Blood, the Cult of the Dragon, beholder cults, and the Zhentarim, all of which employ evil monsters or intrude upon the wildlands as part of their goals for control of Faerûn. The Fangshields consider evil humanoids such as orcs and goblins mortal enemies because of their many abuses and attacks in the past. Evil dragons are the group's greatest enemy, for a dragon can devastate a large area in a short amount of time; normally the Fangshields call for allies from outside the group when a dragon threatens, The fangshields oppose the church of Malar because of its deliberate focus on the dark and cruel parts of nature, and the Red Wizards for their horrible experiments such as the black unicorns.

The Fangshields' Allies

The Fangshields count the churches of Lurue, Nobanion, and Selûne as strong allies, less so other nature-oriented faiths, and tend to keep most other groups at arm's length. Good barbarians, druids, and rangers are the most likely to get a friendly response, sorcerers and wizards less so (since these arcane spellcasters have a long history of hunting monsters for spell components and experimentation). They avoid civilization unless they can travel in disguise, for they have been hunted by the ignorant as evil beasts on more than one occasion. As their numbers grow, they are spending most of their effort on information, defense, and finding like-minded allies.

Membership in the Fangshields

Politics within the organization is rather strange; nominally all members are equal and there are no leaders, but monsters of the same subgroup (such as the centaurs) tend to voice their opinions as a bloc, while the weaker or single creatures tend to defer to the stronger or more gregarious ones. Only the senior members can invite new creatures to join the group, and only if at lease three of them agree to the invitation. If a creature accepts the invitation, he, she, or it swears an allegiance oath to the Fangshields. Part of this oath says that if the new member ever turn to evil, its life is forfeit at the teeth, paws, and horns of the rest of the members.

The Fangshields don't like collecting dues in the form of money, preferring services and magic items and tools they cannot easily manufacture themselves, such as healing potions and items specially made to fit nonhuman shapes. Simple armor and magical disguises are particular favorites. They use the small amount of coin they collect for paying expenses for their humanoid contacts and allies. In theory, the Fangshields have a large pool of treasure to draw on, but it is scattered over a hundred individual lairs separated by miles of distance, and no centralized account of who has what exists (though some of the more lawful minds in the group would like to make such a list to facilitate an exchange of items so they end up in the possession of those who best can use them).

Members of this group are called "Fangs" or "Shields" interchangeably - each monster has its own preference and tends to introduce itself with its preferred title (fangless monsters tend to prefer "Shield," for example), but both are correct. They're not very, concerned with formality, and many don't use the titles at all.

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Organizations of Faerûn
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