A Strider scouting ahead of the main Legion forces
Striders are blighted Nyss scouts sent ahead of the Legion to spy on troop movements and to assassinate sentries and other targets of opportunity deep within hostile lands. Their transformation has reduced them to bitter vassals, enhanced their killer instinct, and honed their talent for slaughter. Striders sadistically and gladly kill the lowest animals or murder any unarmed innocent crossing their path. They savor the grim satisfaction gained from each death because it is one of the few emotions they are still able to feel. Striders have fallen upon defenseless villages in northern Khador in the dead of night, barging into houses to slay every last man, woman, and child they meet.[1]
The blight brought a special gift to these rangers who once patrolled the wilds. As it consumed them, their legs deformed and lengthened. Their bones stretched as if pulled on a torturer’s rack while their calves snapped in half to be reshaped into new leg joints. The bones of their feet fused and reformed, and their nails hardened into claws able to grip the earth. These alterations turned them into swift hunters able to run at full speed across solid ice, hurdle logs, weave through underbrush, and easily leap across small streams.[1]
Keeping to the shadows and trees, striders instinctively approach from downwind and strike from blind spots. Enemies fleeing the Legion are quickly overtaken by these fleet-footed assassins, who cruelly toy with their prey before granting the mercy of death. Despite being transformed into ruthless killing machines, striders still maintain one vestige of their former lives: after each slaughter they perform a ritual in which they dip a single raven’s feather in the blood of every kill. They wear ever-growing cloaks of these feathers to remind them of their role in the many deaths created by the Legion’s passing.[1]