Cryptguard

Closest to the throne, the delusion burns brightest, and the Cryptguard are its proof. Chosen from serfs whose devotion outshines even the courts' fanatic norm, they stand sentinel over dais, gate, and banquet, believing their scavenged iron and sharpened bone to be silvered polearms and ancestral shields polished mirror-bright. Their vigils last for days without complaint; their king's honor is their single thought.

In battle they form the unbroken ring around the court's kings and courtiers, holding doorways, stairs, and breaches with a discipline that has embarrassed professional soldiery. More than one assassin has died an arm's length from a Ghoul King, astonished in his final moment at how well the shambling wretches of the courts can drill when the dream requires it.