Al-Sayf Al-Khafi - The Hidden Blades

“A crown keeps no faith with shadows.”

The Great War has left the Levant a wasteland of trenches, minefields, and shattered cities. Over the Iron Wall, where the armies of Those Who Believe clash endlessly with the Heretics and the Legions of Shaytan, a thousand nameless deeds vanish into the dry desert air. Yet some whispers persist - tales of men who walk in two places at once, who strike from the dark and vanish before a man can cry for help. They speak of Al-Sayf al-Khafi, the Hidden Blade, a cadre of assassins born from the Iron Sultanate’s most secret traditions.

Their origins lie in Alamut, the fortress of the Old Man of the Mountain, whose disciples were infamous even before the opening of the Hellgates. The pact between the Sultan and Alamut is well known: the Assassins serve the Sultanate’s armies in exchange for their independence, but not every disciple marches at the Sultan’s command. Rashid al-Din Sinan himself dispatches hand-picked killers into No Man’s Land. Among these, Al-Sayf al-Khafi emerged as a brotherhood apart - a synthesis of the Alamut tradition with the hard lessons of the scattered Mamluks.

The Hidden Sword recruits from the wreckage of war. Many are Faris who have lost their brothers in the trenches, Mamluks who no longer ride beneath a banner, or scavengers hardened by years amidst the poisoned air of the Levant. They are men with nothing left but hatred of the Heretic and the Demon. An initiate is stripped of his name and bound to silence, then led into a hidden garden where he inhales fumes of concoctions created in secret by the alchemists. In visions, they see time unfold like a corridor of mirrors. To survive this ordeal is to step free of the river of hours and learn that a single moment can be repeated, reversed, or undone. The Order calls this rite Fath al-Tareeq - the Opening of the Path.

Those who endure are given a dagger forged with their own blood, a weapon that grows heavier and more venomous with each life it takes. Apprentices, known as Iron Acolytes, serve as scouts and ritual assistants, often sacrificed to empower the weapons of their masters. Those who prove themselves in the field rise to become Khafi, killers who slip into trenches and command dugouts alike, their strikes unfolding faster than bullets. Above them stands the true Al-Syif al-Khafi, those who can split into two selves, or vanish into the folds of time. Such Masters are feared even among their peers; some say they no longer live entirely in the present, their souls frayed across the past and the future.

The House of Wisdom, that jewel of learning in the Sultanate, knows of Al-Sayf al-Khafi and occasionally directs them. The scholars sometimes dispatch expeditions beyond the Iron Wall to recover tomes or capture Heretic alchemists. When the need is dire, they turn to these assassins, as it is they who can walk the burning fields and return with what others cannot. The Sultan’s court never acknowledges their existence, but the archivists of the House of Wisdom whisper that without the Hidden Blade, half the treasures of their vaults would lie still in the mud of No Man’s Land.

Yet their work carries a terrible cost. Exposure to Hellgates breaks even the strongest minds. Some return speaking in two voices, their memories bleeding across timelines. Others simply vanish, their bodies never recovered. Among soldiers of the Sultanate, the Hidden Sword are regarded with awe and fear. A Janissary might pray for their aid before a night patrol, yet flinch if one appears in his trench. To the enemies of the Faith, they are phantoms. To the Heretics, a curse. And to the Legions, perhaps, little more than a nuisance - until the moment a demon finds itself bleeding from wounds inflicted from two different timelines.

They fight not for banners nor viziers, but for the struggle against the servants of Shaytan. When the cannons of the Iron Wall thunder, their work is elsewhere, in the silence of dugouts, in the burning ruins of Cairo, or in the tunnels beneath Jerusalem. They leave no witnesses, no survivors, and no legacy save the tremor of dread they inspire. Even among their allies, there are doubts. Some claim that Rashid al-Din Sinan sends them not only against the Heretics but on errands of his own, weaving intrigues beyond the sight of the Sultan. No captured Assassin has ever confessed, for none has ever broken under torture.

This set includes 3 bodies and a huge variety of weapons in both STL and LYS format, pre-supported and unsupported.