Pipers

The Pipers make up one of the eight divisions of Wing Bind, the Reverse London agency charged with protecting and controlling the dragons of the BURN THE WITCH world. Also styled the Conservation Rangers, they answer to their director Tronbone Takkinen and, like every Wing Bind agent, are witches and wizards who cleared a special examination to join and who earn both pay and promotion points for their work. Their assigned zodiac sign is Aries.

Where other divisions fight, the Pipers tend. Their remit covers the domestication of dragons and the gathering of the useful resources those creatures yield, along with tracking down and seizing dragons that have been reared illegally. In the field they can be spotted by a shepherd's-check mantle and a trumpet-shaped instrument called a Pipe, and they carry oddly built firearms known as Witch Kits. Should a rampaging dragon threaten and no one else stand ready, any Piper may be summoned to deal with it, since agents can be reassigned across duties in an emergency.

The division is directed by Tronbone Takkinen, while Billy Banx Jr. serves as its commanding officer, a post he holds after being demoted out of the Sabres. Its best-known agents are Noel Niihashi and Ninny Spangcole, the pair of young witches who carry out much of the frontline dragon work across Reverse London.