Blooded Blades

Type

Loose confederation of raiders and highwaymen

Focus

Caravan raids, robbery, and hired violence

Operating Area

Imperial trade routes and nearby cities

Leadership

Independent band captains; Hedra Marr commands one influential band

Headquarters

Mobile camps, temporary lodgings, and contacts who buy stolen goods

The Blooded Blades rob travelers and raid caravans, using violence to take what they want. Several bands share the name, but do not march as one army or obey a single guildmaster. A crew can claim the mark while owing little to another band beyond old favors and a useful reputation.

They also accept paid fighting and occasional monster-hunting work. A captain may escort a merchant one week and rob another the next. Their name brings fear, but its reputation for leaving few survivors also persuades some targets to fight rather than surrender.

Take wealth by force and find buyers for the spoils.
Use a shared reputation and temporary cooperation to take jobs or targets beyond one band's strength.

Captains lead the people who will follow them and distribute the proceeds of their raids. Bands cooperate through bargains struck for a particular job. These arrangements break when a captain hides the haul, refuses a promised share, or loses too many followers.

Hedra Marr's band is influential because it has survived several bad seasons and still pays its members. Other captains listen to her when it suits them. That influence does not make her ruler of every crew using the name.

Band captains — Choose jobs, divide proceeds, and hold authority through the followers they retain.
Veterans — Lead smaller groups and carry a captain's decisions into a fight.
Scouts and raiders — Find opportunities and carry out attacks.
Fences and suppliers — Trade with the bands without necessarily belonging to them.

Highway robbery — Attack travelers and caravans along trade routes.
Urban theft — Spend and steal in towns between raids, sometimes selling cargo back through local contacts.
Hired violence — Take mercenary jobs and selected hunts when the payment looks better than independent raiding.

Find a buyer for stolen cargo that has attracted more attention than its captain expected.
Settle a dispute between two bands before their feud draws a coordinated Guild response.

Deserters, desperate fighters, thieves, and opportunists join whichever band will take them. Some stay for a season; others depend on the group because returning home would mean arrest or unpaid debts.

Captains promise a share and a place by the fire, but cannot provide either indefinitely without a successful job. Loyalty often ends at the division of the spoils. A veteran who thinks a captain is cheating the band may take several fighters away at once.

A captain or veteran accepts someone useful to the band.
Recruits earn standing through work and fighting; there is no common initiation imposed on every band.

Shares of stolen goods and paid jobs.
Companions, equipment, and contacts for selling the haul.
Shelter within a band while its captain can maintain it.

Follow the captain during an agreed job and bring the haul to the division.
Maintain equipment and contribute to the band's camp and supplies.
Honor a negotiated share when other bands cooperate, or accept the feud that follows.

The Open Division — Marr divides common spoils in front of her veterans. Other captains copy it when they need to answer accusations of taking more than their share.
Job bargains — Captains negotiating joint work name the obligations before witnesses from each band. An old failure to pay can matter more than a fresh promise.

Hedra Marr — A veteran captain who remembers a band's losses as closely as its profits. She can restrain her own fighters when needless violence threatens a job, but has no objection to violence that makes the job easier.

Guild Accord — Seeks to stop raids and unregulated violence. Its description of the Blades as mercenaries reflects paid work alongside their banditry.
Silver Vanguard — Competes over some hunting contracts and clashes with reckless methods that endanger others.
Iron Maw — Occasionally employs individual bands. A paid contract would not make every Blade an Iron Maw member or explain the Maw's command structure.
Local fences — Buy spoils and sometimes inform on a band when the authorities offer more than the next haul is worth.

The bands hold weapons, mounts, camp gear, and whatever goods they have not yet sold. Their contacts provide lodgings and buyers, but a captain cannot assume those favors will survive a failed job or an unpaid bill.

History

The name first spread among violent crews moving between caravan raids and hired fighting. Captains adopted a shared mark to borrow its reputation. Loose cooperation followed, but attempts to impose a single command repeatedly ended in unpaid shares and broken bands.