Does your fantasy setting have special forces?

A guard force that serves the 'people'. Act as secret police to root out political dissidence and subversive threats that may undermine the social integrity of the empire.

In reality they are just a bunch of state licenced bullies who go around and intimidate, shakedown, imprison or outright assassinate anyone who gets on the Lord Secretariat's shit list.

Nobody messes with them, mostly because they're always impeccably dressed and sport the coolest masks at the yearly royal masquerade.

Yeah they're called adventurers and they just happen to be only my player's characters.

Yup, the mage marksmen of the University of the Arcane Arts are known to have slaughtered entire armies seeking to loot the knowledge of immortality from the ancient library. Every piece of equipment and clothing they wear has been enchanted by the Eternal Archmage. Almost all members have apprenticed under the Eternal Archmage at some point in their existence.

Yes, its an organization of artificers and mages that create gear for and finance an anti mage strike team, the actual men put forth are from a monastery dedicated to antimage styles. They focus on grappling, tripping, and generally forcing a caster to submit without casting a spell.

I've made a point of inserting a blatant bridgeburner rip off into my last couple of campaigns. One player recognizes it and thinks it's great, one player hasn't picked up on it yet, and two players haven't cracked a book in like ten years

In my world they come in two varieties, the Silver Knights and the Troika Organization.

The Silver Knights, in a military/nobility context, aren't too different from the knights of medieval Europe. They swear fealty to the king and serve as elite heavy cavalry, but their job description doesn't end there. They act as the officer corps of town militia's across the country, and train their troops to the point where the line between 'peasant militia' and 'standing army' are blurred to the point of uselessness. The Silver Knights also work abroad as diplomats and 'military advisers' for the king's allies.

The Troika Organization is the anti-magic secret police of the BBEG's empire, to put it in simple terms. They work to detain and indoctrinate magic users for purposes unknown, They serve as political commissars in the imperial army, and work abroad as assassins and diplomats. They also step in whenever the city guards or army can't take care of the problem. Each agent is a skilled combatant, some know magic, and some specialize in the usage of guns and explosives (the artificer taught them how to make guns and gunpowder.)

>special

of the blue bus variety?

Closest thing my campaign setting has is dark knights, Final Fantasy style. The way I fluffed them is that they're elite soldiers who are so devoted to a cause that they're willing to carve out a chunk of their own lifeforce and convert it into power, to fuel their various abilities. Dark knights are a harbinger that a conflict is going to escalate and become an order of magnitude more bloody and violent, and that the liege who sent them has officially cased to fuck around.

>officially cased to fuck around
I meant to type ceased.

...

cool idea

The Vigil. An organization created by the paladin order of the Empire to destroy evil and other threats to the world and the alliance of kingdoms. Consists mostly of paladins and clerics from the paladin order and outstanding mages from allied kingdom. Essentially russian spetsnaz with magic and holy powers.

>rumor that there's a necromancer infiltrating the local hospital
>hospital is burned to the ground, hundreds dead
>there was no necromancer

Isn't that your average paladin?

>there was no necromancer
Well, not after that there isn't.

Pretty much. In my campaign it went like this:
>bordering empire launches a terrorist attack with the help of necromantic artifacts, ressing dracoliches and hordes of undead across the major cities
>a Vigil killteam (players) is sent with orders "Avenge the fallen" and "Let none survive"
>capital, a trading center and three other cities of the enemy kingdom are nuked/wiped out
>enemy kingdom's government executed
>uncovered the plot of sci-fi elves to destroy the world
>sci-fi elves stopped and executeed
That shit was operator kino

I'd rather just have a rag-tag group of young adventurers rise to the task.

Maybe more? I am all for some good operator rpgs.

There are a bunch. There are the knights and spy masters and similar loyal servants of the various lords and ladies, of course. There are small mercenary bands with very special skills, but they ask good gold for their services. And there are some more or less secret orders who have an elite core, sworn to a common purpose.

The Broken Chain
In a world where immortals walk various groups work to capture them. This is the special forces of a massive immortal worship religion. Only the best of the best ate giving breeding rights in the golden cities. Members of the Broken Chain are the worthy that grew bored of their lives of infinite sex and feasting.

immortalpedia.wikia.com/wiki/The_Broken_Chain

I never got into Wraith Recon, as I wasn't super into 4e, but it always drew my attention, as this was the basic premise. Did anybody play it? Was it good?

Yes, tehcnically. In most nations it's only the Royal family that has it's own professional commando groups. Partially because it's illegal for anyone else to do so (no king wants to be assassinated by his own dukes) and partially because of the expense crack commando teams require. With the money you spend on a spec ops group you could buy 3-4 times their number in knights or mages.

Most nobles hire out specialized mercenary outfits instead.

Yes. They're basically elite rangers who track down rogue warlords/necromancers/dangerous/criminals/etc. They have a crystal implanted into their chest that explodes when they die like a killswitch. The setting has gunpowder so I guess they're very primitive MiBs? They're not that strong dice-wise but the tavern rumor mill says they are immortals, so my PCs haven't tried fucking with them and I'm going full Tucker's kobolds if they do.

The Huntsmen were exactly as they sound, they accompanied the king during his hunts because back then the king had to hunt for his own damn food with the added perk that a huge track of land was his to hunt on.

however, over time the kingdom faced a situation that would threaten to destroy the royal family so a plan was made where the King's two children would be split up to ensure continuity of the royal line. One child would go on to become the heir to the throne while the other child would be taken in by the Huntsmen and groomed to be the leader/successor. This effectively created a branch family dedicated to protecting and preseving the royal bloodline and in the event the king/queen should die the head of the huntsmen would assume the throne and the process starts all over

Let's see
Manastra has the Royal Halberdiers. While they also fill the role of elite infantry, many Halberdiers are cross-trained in infiltration. However, they still have a heavy infantry mindset so the Royal Halberdiers infiltrations are more like St. Nazzaire raids, hitting the enemy like a sledgehammer to the back. Spying is right out and assassinations are difficult to recognize due to the shear volume of dead bodies.

The Kingdom of Rigoli has the Shadow Knights. The Shadow Knights are selected from a small set of knightly families chosen for the task. Trained from childhood (y'know, like typical knights) they're quite good at what they do but because only knights from these few families can become Shadow Knights their numbers are always few.

Rigoli is a merchantile Oligarchy so there isn't a full time professional spec ops team. There is, however, a large base of professional thieves, spies, and assassins universally known as Black Knives. So named for their habit of blackening their weapons with burned on carbon (think seasoning a cast iron pan) Black Knives are mercenaries used in the secretive conflicts between merchant houses and Guilds.However, many Black Knives are professional rivals so large scale operations usually wind down to cluster fucks.

Wytherwyn has the Scout Corps. Actually a reconnaissance force, they're often co-oped into special operations. A large and informal group, the Scouts aren't actually trained for special operations so while they can sortie often and in force, they usually don't perform so well.

Sasaha is a confederacy of clans that wouldn't allow a special forces group to exist for political reasons. That being said, there's an informal network of "handpicked troops" that generals can call on. However, without any formal training they tend to suffer from a lack of institutional know how.

Has that every led to dynastic squables with the Huntsmen becoming Kingmakers?

They look cute, user.

This has only been a recent development so far spanning a generation an a half.

The current King's Brother is in charge of the Huntsmen and the King's daughter will be taken in to be groomed by her Uncle for leadership while her brother (born first) will go on the assume the role of King.

That said, there is nothing that stops the sibling from having a family and their own children and with the immediate threat reduced the King's brother had his own children with one of the members of the Huntsmen.

Tensions are bound to arise especially when you are lead by a cousin who gets to be a leader for no other reason because they were born.