The Ghostbinds

Composition & Manpower

The Ghostbinds never operate as a full battalion. At most, there are 150 active Ghostbinds at any time, broken into glides—a term borrowed from snow animals, typically meaning 6 to 12 members depending on the mission. These glides can form weaves, temporary unions of several glides for complex operations. Due to the psychological strain and metaphysical distortions involved in their work, Ghostbinds are rotated constantly. No one serves for more than three years active—most wash out long before that. Support elements (supply, repair, information logistics) number another 200, though most operate out of Defiance or in forward snowposts and are not considered “true” Ghostbinds.

There is no such thing as a “new” Ghostbind. All members are recruited from existing recon units, elite scout corps, or individuals who have survived multiple incursions into the Driftlands without breaking. A significant percentage are Animysts—especially mammalian or arctic-adapted—and Others with augmented sensory processing or low drift-sensitivity. Some cybernetic scouts and partially Hollowed veterans are brought in specifically for their altered perceptions of time and space.

Training is brutal, nonlinear, and intentionally disorienting. New recruits are subjected to isolation, sense-deprivation, and simulated Drift Events. It is said that to graduate into the Ghostbinds, one must navigate “The Mirror Hunt”—a week-long exercise inside a snowfield maze where your target is yourself, and your failure is someone else's memory.

The Ghostbinds’ standard gear is modular, silent, and whitewashed. Armor is a blend of recycled thermoplastics and chameleon cloths keyed to environmental sensors. They carry cold-core generators to distort infrared signatures and cloak movements in flurries of artificial snow. Each member has multi-band signal masks that suppress sound, light, and smell beyond natural thresholds. Most carry “Softkill Kits”: non-lethal disorientation tools like echo-lures, scent grenades, and drift flares.

As for weapons, Ghostbinds prefer short-ranged, quiet arms—flechette pistols, cryo-knives, magnetically launched bolts. Some carry relics from before the Fall: soundless plasma lashers or phase-rifles with degraded but terrifying output. Heavy weapons are rare but used in traps or as part of the Fogburn Dance. A few Hollowed members have integrated weapon systems—bioplasmic growths, neural spikes, or voice-borne distortions.

The Ghostbinds use very few vehicles, favoring silent traversal. When needed, they employ sledge walkers—spider-legged machines that can move without sound across snow. Small hover skiffs are sometimes used by command or for evacuation, but they are considered dangerous in the Driftlands where sound carries like memory.

Most mobility relies on foot, snowcrawl harnesses, and animal-shaped gait exosuits designed to mimic local fauna. A favorite among the Animysts is the Snow Treader Rig, a bone-and-carbon system that mimics the stride of deer or foxes.

There is no formal rank-and-file system. The Ghostbinds operate on a trust lattice, where each Glide has a Tether—a handler responsible for grounding the others and ensuring no one strays into madness. Above them are the Shadows, former Tethers who now coordinate missions from deep within the Foghold in Defiance’s northern edge.

At the top is Whisper-Glyph, the current commander—a post-Human entity who has reportedly survived three Drift Events and speaks only in pulse codes. Leadership is chosen not by seniority but by survivorship and mental coherence after extended operations. All field command is consensual—a Glide follows because it agrees to, not because it must.

Mirror Nesting

Planting psych-reflective traps that cause drift-sensitive foes to attack their allies or hallucinate betrayal. Veilstacking – Using layers of snow cloaks, sound dampening, and perception warps to pass unnoticed even when standing still ten feet away.

Wound Mapping

Deliberate minor injuries to team members to seed psychic trails that attract Hollowed entities—used to bait or distract. Logistics & Upkeep

Ghostbinds require constant psychological oversight, advanced cloaking materials, and drift-immune rations (regular food warps in certain regions). They have a dedicated supply wing called the Snowbackers, who operate semi-autonomous drop points across the Driftlands.

Their upkeep is extremely expensive for Defiance’s limited resources. Suits alone can cost ten times what standard infantry armor does. Still, their success rate and low casualty output (per mission) make them irreplaceable.

Recruitment & Ritual

Recruitment is invitation-only. Candidates are chosen after surviving a major psychological or drift-related trauma and showing signs of internal stillness rather than unraveling. There are no public ceremonies. The only tradition is the Bone Tether—a necklace made of a carved vertebra from a fallen Ghostbind, passed to a recruit during initiation. Each binds theirs in the way they choose—some add fur, some blood, some code.

The Ghostbinds were founded after the Shattermist Offensive, a failed push to reclaim a northern satellite station buried beneath Rainbow Falls. Only three soldiers returned from that mission, and none spoke above a whisper for months. The unit was officially formed in 89 SE, and since then, they’ve executed over 400 successful infiltration, assassination, and mapping operations into regions other forces cannot even reach.

Their legacy is steeped in myth. To outsiders, they’re ghosts with guns. To the people of Defiance, they’re what comes when the light fails. Children sleep beneath murals of their white masks. Hollowed sometimes carve their sigil into ice before wandering off—some say it’s respect. Some say it’s a warning.