400.99.20 Artifice

Originally practised by the Executors of old, Artifice represents all that the Manipulator bestowed upon His chosen cadre of graceful assassins. A combination of survival techniques, minor deceptive magic, and mind-over-body exercises comprises the body of this school's teachings, forming a solid bedrock for the rest of the profession's mythical tradecraft. Rumour has it that Severn left portions of the process of His Grand Artifice in their hands, a pale imitation that ensured that His servants left no trace as they wandered the lands in search of Ankyrean renegades.

In addition to necessary bushcraft and shadow charms, students of this field also study the process of summoning demons from actualised fears and elemental shadow. Through minor spellwork derived from other planar sorcery branches, an Executor can establish a coterie of atramentous accomplices linked to the primal terrors lurking within mortal minds. Accompanied by these creatures and their own deadly shadow, these echoes of a lost age sow bloody horror upon the battlefield through bellicose grace and sinister strategems.