Guard- Mother of rifles

>After the first world war, a war no one was prepared to deal with, the after affects came into play in horrifying manners
>Soldiers, having been separated during artillery and mortar strikes over no mans land found themselves alone and out of their minds with fear
>Soldiers were no longer firing in unison as a line formation, but one on one, and their minds were becoming riddled with guilt over surviving or causing mass casualties
>The fallout was horrible, and means to dampening those effects were sought after by a multitude of countries
>the answer came from a combined effort on 1921 from the Nordic countries and Germany, following the trail of a particular ritual that was used to imbibe swords and other such weapons with the spirits of elementals
>First trials of the ritual found that the elementals were too unruly in the form of rifles, causing harm to the user, or simply bursting the rifle in flames or covering it in sheets of ice.
>An alternative was offered by the way of altering the ritual and binding, instead, a female spirit due to them being stronger than male spirits (and as one clever Swedish scientist noted, it would go over better with troops using the weapon)
>The first trial of this binding was done on a Gewehr 1888 found in the German armory, and was given inspection and found in good condition
>What came out of the rifle after the binding... no one was prepared for
>Instead of a surely elemental hurling insults and projectiles at them, a woman of almost unnatural beauty stepped from the pedestal the rifle laid upon, her uniform so crisp and clean... some think no even humans could do such a job
>She introduced herself as The Mother of Rifles, and that she had been sent as the first envoy by The Great Mother, to oversee the implantation of her daughters and their care
>She was also sent to instruct on where to find deeper soul wells
>Of course the secret never stayed a secret

>Once the ability of finding wells was let loose upon the world, every country with the manufacturing ability began to tap into their regions well, some small skirmishes even breaking out over control of them
>Within a short span of time each country was pumping out what the Mother of Rifles coined 'Waffegeists', the weapon spirits, and it changed warfare from then on in
>Soon soldiers were able to find companionship in their rifles that could change forms, either being their rifle during use or as a crisply uniformed female otherwise.
>Their worries and guilt became shared, increasing the efficiency of platoon sized and battalion size elements due to decreasing the need for counselings and mental wellfare checks
>There were small... hickups that were dealt with due to regulations that had to be put into place, with much delegation from the Mother of Rifles herself
>As with all new technology there was discrepancies that could not be over looked, and all things have their problems. Even magical rifles
>It became a problem with rifles could not be easily shared amongst troops. While some rifles were fine with it, others found it degrading and would refuse to be operated by other soldiers besides their designated shooter
>The same went for when a Waffegeist would lose their D.S, their emotional state being so distraught that they would stay in rifle form, refusing counsel from other rifles or even the Mother of Rifles herself
>The first rifle to feel these effects was a Kar98, her designated shooter having been crushed by a falling of barrels while unloading supplies during training
>Her mood became so foul and unwieldy that the spirit itself began to leak its own moroseness in her surroundings, cursing some soldiers to have bad luck befall them
>The Mother of Rifles, seeing one of the War Daughters in pain, consulted with whom she would tell no secrets of and came to the German Army with an answer

>an Anvil of Sorrow was crafted, and with it a hammer inscribed with runes of breaking, so that the spirit would be released peacefully
>If it was not done as so, the Waffegeist would be torn asunder and tossed into the Realm of Darkness, never to see the light again until found by The Great Mother after time
>The anvil and hammer were placed in what would be called Serenity Gardens, usually in the middle of military graveyards. The Mother of Rifles thought it was more fitting this way.
>The Kar98 was brought from the armory where she was kept (the armorer actually having a shelf crack onto his head while holding her) and had her bolt shattered that very afternoon, the bolt being where the spirit was stored.
>Her broken bolt and stock were buried at Order Arms beside her designated shooter, her soul at rest
>The hammer and anvils around the world would see much sorrow and use at the end of WWII, coming only a few years after the first Kar98s breaking, the graveyards expanding faster than anyone expected