Guard Faction

So I was thinking about the guard faction last night and this morning, and there are a couple of ways to go with it and I wanted to get people's opinions.

The first is to make a highly structured city-guard style hierarchy that begins with players on the bottom doing patrols and performing minor investigations, the next level being purely investigatory and enforcement (no patrols at all), then higher ranks having duties like being attached to the lord marshall's palace.

The second is to make pcs belong to the lord marshall's guard in an investigation-specific unit. This would limit their enforcement powers around the city, make it much more centered upon the leadership of rookroost rather than the well being of the city, and provide a more pointed adversary for good pcs to avoid. Think of them like detective/inquisitors.

The problem with the first is that the lower guard ranks would be pretty boring and we run the risk of player bullying. The problem with the second is that detective/inquisitors will likely be just like the church of Iuz PC's, just with a guard uniform on.

Anyone got any thoughts to help straighten this out?

As the guards are corrupt, they are all about themselves first, the well-being of the leadership (so long as it benefits them) second, and the well being of the city a distant third.

The problem with putting them directly under the leadership of the palace guards is it would allow the players to confirm dirty little secrets that would be have only been rumors otherwise.

I would prefer the PC guard faction not be required to patrol, or guard a gate... we have npcs for that. I think they should be a newly formed task force responsible for uncovering "seditious activities". While there may also be such an organization in the employ of the Church of Iuz, the guards would answer only to the General, and can tell the church of Iuz to stick it where the sun does not shine. In addition, should this unit discover the church of Iuz is holding persons of interest, they should march into the temple and take such person into custody. This will be setting up animosity between the Church and the City which could have interesting implications in the future.

Edit: I want people to fear the church inquisitors of Iuz... I want them to be terrified of this guard unit. They should be along the lines of the Gestapo.