Magical Malcontent and the Imperial Watch

There are rumbles of discontent across the Noble board of political conversation regarding the recent report from Fastheld Keep detailing the current number of active officers within the Imperial Watch.

Some Nobles detest the thought of the expenditure being spent on those 20,000 officers, and claim the Imperial Watch operated just fine with the traditional 10,000 of the Emperor's Blades. Others darkly offer that the expanded pool of Watchmen and women is nothing more than a Zahirian plot, instigated by the Crown Regent, to force the Noble Houses into their respective corners of the Empire and out of the bigger picture.

Those that contest such rumours point to the other functions that the Imperial Watch serve beyond the security of the Empire, such as customs inspections, road construction and repair, landscape and engineering projects, and the continued maintenance of the Aegis Wall.

Advocates of the Imperial Watch also state that the resurrection of the House Guard has empowered the Noble Houses to look after their own territory free of Imperial intervention, allowing the Empire to focus on keeping the trade lanes safe for Merchants.

However, such logic is largely ignored by the malcontent social circles, for the truth is an inconvenient pill to swallow. One suggestion that seems to be gaining popularity among the anti-Shadow Amnesty advocates is the notion of using 5,000 of the Imperial Watch to create a "Shadow Guard" within the Empire to police the use of Magic in Fastheld. The Mark itself would not be needed THEN, they cluck, for who better to root out the deviants than the "loyal" Touched Citizens themselves?

Supporters of the Shadow Amnesty deem this idea to be madness, but cannot deny that the sting of the Church of True Light is still painful, and no doubt contributed to the quick retraction of the formation of the Order of the White Dragon, which would have served the same function of this "Shadow Guard", albeit in a somewhat less sinister sounding way...