secret organization · assassination and espionage guild

Brotherhood of the Blood Moon

„Only silence and death."

A secret network of assassins, spies, trackers, and silent executors that arose from the desire of the desert goblins to regain power over the southern deserts after their crushing defeat in the war against the Drow.

🚪 Requires stealth skills at level 3. assassination espionage desert revenge rivalry with the Skull Hunters
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Guild Seal

Type secret organization
Category assassination and espionage guild
Founded ~850 IC
Place of origin the western border of Thal Veyr and the southern deserts
Model organizace a secret network of approximately 25 training sites tied together by oaths, messengers, marks, and hidden contracts
Entry fee no ordinary fee; entry is paid by service, by silence, and by blood
Related Quri desert goblins Thal Veyr Drow southern deserts orcish settlements Green Sea Skull Hunters hired assassins espionage stealth contracts Circle of the Red Moon Night of the Second Moon shadow war

📖 About the Guild

The Brotherhood of the Blood Moon is one of the most dangerous secret organizations of southern Ulvenor. Its members do not win wars on the open field, do not carry banners, and do not raise fortresses that can be besieged. Their war is waged in silence, in the shadows of tent cities, in the corridors of trade houses, on the rooftops of the harbors by the Green Sea, and among the dunes, where a track is lost in a single gust of wind. The Brotherhood specializes in killings, espionage, blackmail, surveillance, sabotage, and the silent removal of those who stand in the way of its goals or of its clients.

🌍 Role in the World

The brotherhood represents hidden war fought with quiet steps, poison, information, and precise strikes. It works as a dark stealth organization, enemy, secret patron, or path into dangerous contracts.

Themes: assassination espionage desert revenge rivalry with the Skull Hunters

🎭 Public and Hidden Face

☀ Public face

To most people the Brotherhood of the Blood Moon officially does not exist. In some towns it is spoken of as a superstition invented by merchants to explain strange disappearances, poisoned commanders, and dead envoys found without a single trace of struggle. In the southern deserts, however, its name is spoken with care. Old goblins, orcish leaders, and smugglers from the Green Sea know that if the sign of the red moon, carved into bone, wood, or leather, appears above a tent, someone has already been sentenced.

🌑 Hidden face

In truth the Brotherhood of the Blood Moon is not only a hired organization of assassins. It is the heritage of defeat, of revenge, and of a long-term plan. Its oldest core still believes that the desert goblins were robbed of rule over the southern deserts by cunning, by drow cruelty, and by their own fragmentation. Every contract, every alliance, and every killing may serve not only the immediate reward but also a greater aim: to weaken the enemies, to gain influence among the desert tribes, and to prepare the day when the goblins will again become the true rulers of the south.

⚖ Philosophy

Core belief
Strength is not in the blow that everyone sees, but in the decision after which the enemy never wakes again.

Hodnoty

silence patience precision revenge secrecy survival shadow loyalty the ability to wait the strike at the right moment

Rozpory

The Brotherhood speaks of the liberation of the southern deserts and the return of goblin strength, but today it takes in contracts from many patrons who have nothing in common with Quri's original dream. Some training sites still believe in the restoration of goblin rule, others now see in the Brotherhood above all a source of wealth and power. This inner split is one of the greatest hidden conflicts of the entire organization.

⏳ Origin and History

The Brotherhood arose in the year 850, in the time of the great defeat of the desert goblins fighting for the western borders of Thal Veyr against the Drow. This defeat was not only a military failure, but a deep wound to the pride of the desert tribes. Many leaders fell, the trade trails were lost, the water sources passed into the control of the enemies, and whole groups of goblins were forced to retreat deeper into inhospitable regions. Quri then understood that in open war his people could not win if they fought by the rules of a stronger rival.

From a small group of survivors and exiles, the Brotherhood spread further over the following decades. First among the desert goblins, then into the orcish settlements, the smuggler trails, the frontier markets, and at last to the regions around the Green Sea. The organization gradually turned from a tool of goblin revenge into a professional network of hired assassins and spies. Even so, its oldest training sites still preserve Quri's original dream: the southern deserts should be not only a place of survival, but a realm of those who have learned to kill without sound.

🏛 Current State

Organizace
a secret network of approximately 25 training sites tied together by oaths, messengers, marks, and hidden contracts
Central leadership
Yes
Presence
hidden training sites, abandoned sanctuaries, cave shelters, back rooms of inns, smuggler ports, desert camps, and secret houses in cities

At present the Brotherhood of the Blood Moon is a well-hidden but branching network. Its training sites work with one another, share information, pass contracts between themselves, and provide shelter to members who must vanish from one region into another. At the same time, there is a quiet rivalry between them for prestige, influence, and the most valuable contracts. Each training site has a slightly different style. Some raise mainly assassins, others spies, others trackers, poisoners, urban infiltrators, or desert guides who can make a whole caravan vanish without a trace.

🚪 Guild Entry

The Brotherhood does not admit loud fighters or adventurers thirsting for fame. It admits those who can vanish in a crowd, survive in the desert, listen behind closed doors, and strike before the target realizes he has become prey. The basic condition is the ability of silent movement at least at level 3, but the skill alone is not enough. The candidate must prove that he understands the value of silence, that he is not tempted by needless cruelty, and that he can fulfill a task without the need for recognition. To enter the Brotherhood means to give up the ordinary name and to accept that from this moment a person may be more useful as a shadow than as a hero.

  • stealth skills at level 3
  • the ability to move unnoticed
  • resistance to fear and pain
  • willingness to take a secret oath
  • the ability to keep silent even under pressure
  • basic experience with tracking, deception, or survival in a dangerous environment
  • acceptance of life outside ordinary society

⚔ Trials

01

Trial of Silence

Tests the candidate's ability to move unnoticed and to fulfill a task without raising the alarm.

The candidate must penetrate a chosen space, obtain a small object or leave a sign, and return without being seen. The aim is not the theft itself, but the ability to put down fear, to breathe slowly, to read the surroundings, and to understand that the safest strike is the one of which the target never knew.

Checks stealth perception acrobatics intuition use of the environment patience
02

Trial of the Red Mark

Tests the candidate's ability to track a target, to learn his habits, and to reach him without direct confrontation.

The candidate is given a target he must not kill. He must shadow him for several days, learn his route, his weaknesses, his contacts, and the places where he is most vulnerable. At the end of the trial the candidate must leave on the target the red mark of the Blood Moon as proof that, had this been a real contract, the target would already be dead.

Checks shadowing deception disguises memory work with informants reading routine
03

Trial of Bloodless Death

Tests whether the candidate understands that killing is not always the best or the cleanest answer.

The candidate is given the task of removing a figurative threat without causing visible violence. It may be the gathering of proof, the provoking of flight, the destruction of a reputation, the breaking of an agreement, or forcing the target to leave a town. By this the Brotherhood teaches that murder is only one tool. The true shadow knows when it is more useful for the enemy to go on living in fear.

Checks deception intimidation persuasion espionage manipulation work with evidence

⚙ Guild Functions

Paid Killings

The Brotherhood takes contracts for the removal of persons too dangerous, too well protected, or too politically sensitive for the patron. Public killings are rare. The Brotherhood prefers disappearances, accidents, poisonings, or deaths that look like the natural result of bad decisions.

Espionage and Gaining Information

The members of the Brotherhood watch merchants, nobles, tribal leaders, drow commanders, orcish chieftains, and smugglers. Information is often more valuable than death. A properly gained secret may ruin a house, break an alliance, or open the gate of a city without a single shot.

Sabotage

The Brotherhood destroys supplies, breaks water routes, ruins agreements, sets fires to warehouses, damages weapons, and disrupts the communication of enemies. In the desert the sabotage of a well can be more deadly than the attack of an entire army.

Protection of Secrets

Although the Brotherhood is known above all as a killing network, its members often protect their own informants, hide hunted allies, and make sure that sensitive information does not reach the wrong people.

Long-Term Weakening of Enemies

The oldest training sites still fulfill Quri's original aim. Slowly they weaken drow influence, break apart rival factions, support chosen desert tribes, and prepare the ground for the future return of goblin power in the southern deserts.

👑 Leadership

a red moon above a black dune

Circle of the Red Moon

['approval of the most sensitive killings', 'the shaping of the relationship with the desert tribes', 'the settling of disputes between training sites', 'the punishment of traitors', 'the declaration of shadow wars', "the protection of Quri's original legacy", 'decisions about the rivalry with the Skull Hunters']

The Circle of the Red Moon is the highest invisible leadership of the Brotherhood. It is made up of the masters of the most influential training sites, the descendants or followers of Quri's first pupils, and a few members whose true names are not even known to most of the Brotherhood. The Circle does not determine every contract, but it decides on the direction of the organization, on the war with the Skull Hunters, on the relationship with the desert tribes, and on contracts that may shift the balance of whole regions.

🏯 Training Sites

The training sites of the Brotherhood are not ordinary schools or fortresses. They are hidden places where pupils learn to vanish, to wait, to lie, to track, and to kill without needless sound. Some lie deep in the desert, others in orcish settlements, still others in towns as unremarkable houses, warehouses, or inns. Each training site has its own master and its own specialty, but all of them honor the sign of the Blood Moon.

Estimated count
25

Known training-site types

Teaches survival in the dunes, tracking, traceless movement, the ambushing of caravans, and silent killing in open country.

Focuses on espionage, disguises, false identities, work with informants, movement across rooftops, and killings in densely inhabited environments.

Specializes in toxins, sleeping agents, slow poisons, paralysis, invisible dosing, and the uncovering of poisoned objects.

Joins the strength of the orcs with unexpected silence, intimidation, swift attack, and disappearance before the real fight begins.

Works around the Green Sea and focuses on smuggler contacts, the watching of ships, the killing of merchants, the manipulation of crews, and the gaining of information from harbors.

👥 Internal Structure

Leadership style: secret hierarchy of masters tied to the Circle of the Red Moon

Master of a Training Site

The leader of one of the twenty-five hidden sites, responsible for the training of pupils, for the acceptance of contracts, and for the safety of the place.

Shadow Messenger

A trusted member who carries contracts, signs, and warnings between the training sites. Often the only person who knows the way between two hidden places.

Poisoner

A specialist in toxins, sleeping agents, and slow deaths. The Brotherhood respects poisoners almost as much as silent killers.

Urban Eye

A member who gathers information in cities, manages informants, and watches important persons over long periods.

Desert Guide

A goblin or orc tracker who knows the hidden routes through the deserts and can lead members between sites without leaving a trace.

The Brotherhood values discretion more than rank. A young pupil who has learned to disappear may carry more weight than an older member who attracts attention.

🧙 Membership

Typical members desert goblins orcish trackers spies assassins poisoners smugglers urban informants exiles scouts silent killers desert guides thieves with a talent for the shadow former slaves betrayed mercenaries desert seers and sign-readers

Public perception

The public fears the Brotherhood, even though most people do not know how it truly works. In the desert towns it is said that if a man three times refuses to pay his debt, on the fourth night he will see a red crescent on his door. In the orcish settlements the Brotherhood is spoken of with respect, because it has managed to survive where many tribes have fallen. Among the Drow and their allies the Brotherhood has the reputation of a poisonous shadow that cannot be wholly rooted out.

Why people join

the longing for revenge the wish to escape one's past access to secret contracts training in silent killing and espionage protection from enemies loyalty to the goblin desert tribes the prospect of unique rewards the chance to gain power without public standing

📋 Contracts

The Brotherhood of the Blood Moon has no public contracts. Contracts are passed by means of marks, hidden messages, desert messengers, coded tattoos, scraps of cloth, or coins stained with red dye. The one who accepts the contract often does not know the patron. The one who knows the patron often does not know the true reason. This is by design. The fewer links understand the whole chain, the harder it is to break the Brotherhood.

killing contracts

  • the removal of a drow commander
  • the silent death of a merchant by the Green Sea
  • the disappearance of a treacherous informant
  • the silencing of an envoy before the closing of an agreement
  • the killing of a chieftain who sold a water source to the enemy

espionage tasks

  • the shadowing of a drow caravan
  • the obtaining of a list of secret allies
  • the uncovering of a supply route
  • the planting of an informant in an orcish settlement
  • finding out who funds the Skull Hunters

sabotages

  • the fouling of supplies of an enemy expedition
  • the damaging of a bridge before the movement of troops
  • the destruction of arrow stores
  • the breaking of a water line in a desert fortress
  • the stirring of confusion during a market

internal tasks of the Brotherhood

  • the uncovering of a traitor among the initiates
  • the carrying of a precious contract between training sites
  • the protection of a master from the Skull Hunters
  • the testing of the loyalty of a new training site
  • the recovery of a lost record of Quri

shadow war

  • an attack on the network of the Skull Hunters
  • the stealing of a contract from a rival organization
  • the deliberate framing of a killing on rivals
  • the ruining of the reputation of a rival killer
  • the taking over of a smuggler route without open battle

💰 Rewards

🎮 Gameplay

  • unique contract rewards
  • access to secret information
  • special stealth training
  • contacts among spies and smugglers
  • rare poisons and tools
  • hidden shelters between training sites
  • false identities
  • the chance to gain contracts with high rewards

📜 Narrative

  • the reputation of an unseen executor
  • entry into the world of shadows
  • access to the hidden conflicts of the southern deserts
  • the chance to shift power relations without open war
  • contact with Quri's legacy
  • taking part in the shadow war against the Skull Hunters

⚒ Material

  • unique weapons from contracts
  • ampules of poison
  • masking cloaks
  • silent blades
  • desert talismans
  • maps of secret trails
  • false seals
  • black contract coins
  • jewels taken from targets
  • rare information exchangeable for services

🎖 Ranks

  1. 1

    Dust Listener

    The lowest rank of a candidate who is still only being watched and used for small tasks. The Dust Listener carries messages, watches the streets, learns to keep silent, and often does not even know the true name of the person who gives him work.

  2. 2

    Initiate of the Moon

    A newly admitted member who has passed the first trial and knows the basic signs of the Brotherhood. He receives simple shadowing tasks, learns to work with false identities, and may not take killing contracts on his own.

  3. 3

    Red Shadow

    A full member able to work alone. The Red Shadow may shadow targets, deliver warning marks, carry out smaller sabotages, and take part in killing contracts under the watch of more experienced members.

  4. 4

    Silent Blade

    An experienced assassin or spy who has already fulfilled real contracts and proved his reliability. The Silent Blades are the chief executors of the Brotherhood and often work outside their own training site.

  5. 5

    Master of the Blood Moon

    The leader of a training site or a very experienced member who may admit new candidates, approve contracts, and decide on the life or death of traitors.

  6. 6

    Member of the Circle of the Red Moon

    One of the highest-placed members of the entire organization. These masters decide on the long-term aims of the Brotherhood and guard Quri's oldest legacy.

🏰 Halls and Rooms

A training site of the Brotherhood of the Blood Moon rarely looks like a guild seat. In the desert it may be a half-buried sanctuary, a cave behind a dry waterfall, an abandoned fortress, or a camp that moves every few months. In the cities the training site tends to be hidden under an inn, in the back part of a bathhouse, in a spice storehouse, in an abandoned cistern, or in the house of a merchant who has long ago stopped trading only in wares.

Rooms hall of silence room of false faces poison chamber training yard in the dark store of disguises map room crypt of contracts sleeping room without names desert observation post chamber of the red moon

The places of the Brotherhood feel quiet to the point of unnatural. Even where many members live, no one speaks loudly. Steps are muffled by carpets, sand, or cured hides. On the walls hang maps, masks, empty sheaths, and symbols of the red moon. A newcomer quickly understands that every sound is a mistake, every needless word a weakness, and every trace an invitation for the enemy.

📜 Guild Rules

  • The name of the Brotherhood may not be spoken before the uninitiated without cause.
  • A contract is fulfilled in silence, unless the opposite effect is explicitly required.
  • The patron is protected until he breaks the contract.
  • The target may not be warned unless that is part of the contract.
  • A traitor of the Brotherhood has no right to trial in the light.
  • A training site may not hand a member over to an enemy unless he has been marked as a traitor by the Circle of the Red Moon.
  • The red mark may be left only by one who has earned the right to do so.
  • Needless cruelty is a mistake, unless it brings benefit.
  • A shadow that longs for applause is no longer a shadow.
  • Quri's legacy may not be sold to the enemies of the desert.

⚔ Rivalry

Main rival
Skull Hunters
Relationship
secret rivalry over the position of the foremost hired killing organization

The Brotherhood of the Blood Moon secretly contends with the Skull Hunters for the reputation of the most effective killing organization of southern and eastern Ulvenor. The Skull Hunters tend to be more direct, more brutal, and more obsessed with trophies, while the Brotherhood rests on silence, patience, and the control of information. The rivalry between them is not always an open war. It is often a matter of the stealing of contracts, the planting of false trails, the elimination of informants, the humbling of one before clients, and silent duels over whose name evokes greater fear.

Points of conflict

  • rivalry over wealthy clients
  • the fight over smuggler routes
  • the poaching of informants
  • the mutual blaming for botched contracts
  • the elimination of a rival's pupils
  • the dispute over who is the true master of silent killing

🗡 Conflicts with Other Guilds

Skull Hunters

main rivalry

The Skull Hunters are the greatest rivals of the Brotherhood in the field of hired killings and intimidation. While the Hunters rest on brutality, trophies, and a reputation of fear, the Brotherhood prefers silence, disappearance, and control of information. Both organizations secretly try to prove that their own method is the more effective.

Adventurers Guild

indirect hostility

Adventurers often unknowingly disrupt the contracts of the Brotherhood, protect targets, or investigate disappearances that were meant to remain unsolved. The Brotherhood does not consider them its main enemies, but treats them as unpredictable, disruptive elements.

Brotherhood of Warriors

cautious rivalry

The Brotherhood of Warriors takes in dirty tasks, but usually with greater strength and less subtlety. The Blood Moon despises them as loud tools, while the warriors consider the assassins cowards without the courage for open battle.

Order of the Ancients

dangerous distance

The Order of the Ancients knows that the Brotherhood exists, but acts against it only when its contracts threaten magical artifacts, scholars, or the balance of wider powers. The Brotherhood avoids the mages, because a powerful mage is a target who may kill even after death.

🤫 Guild Secrets

1 · Publicly known

The public knows the Brotherhood only as a fearful tale of killers who come in the night and leave the sign of the red moon.

2 · Suspected by many

Many merchants, nobles, and tribal leaders suspect that the Brotherhood truly exists and that it has training sites scattered from the southern deserts as far as the Green Sea.

3 · Known only to members

The members know that the organization arose not only for the sake of money, but as a long-term tool for the restoration of goblin power after the defeat against the Drow.

4 · Deep secret

The oldest masters of the Brotherhood preserve Quri's last plan, called the Night of the Second Moon. According to it, the Brotherhood is one day, in the course of a single night, to remove several key leaders, merchants, and drow allies, so that the southern deserts may fall into a chaos out of which the united goblin tribes might rise.

⚠ Risks and Problems

Loss of original purpose
The more the Brotherhood takes contracts for money, the further it strays from Quri's original aim. Some training sites now serve wealthy clients rather than the desert goblins.
Rivalry with skull hunters
The rivalry with the Skull Hunters may grow into a real shadow war that will harm both organizations and reveal their networks to enemies.
Internal splintering
Roughly twenty-five training sites are held together by oaths and a shared symbol, but their interests are not always the same. Some want political revenge, others wealth, and still others pure killing perfection.
Drow retaliation
The Drow have never forgotten where the Brotherhood comes from. If they manage to find several training sites at once, they may launch a sweeping hunt that would force the Brotherhood to return to its roots or to perish.
Moral decay
Members who long kill for hire may lose the ability to tell apart just revenge, necessity, and ordinary killing for a reward.

🪶 Reputation

Among commoners
Ordinary people fear the Brotherhood as a night sign of death. In the southern deserts mothers warn their children that whoever too loudly betrays his own blood will be carried away by the red moon. In the harbors by the Green Sea it is said that no cabin is locked enough if the Brotherhood wishes to enter.
Among goblins
Among the desert goblins the Brotherhood has an almost sacred but contradictory reputation. Some consider it the last true tool of goblin revenge, others a corrupted organization that has sold the old dream for the coin of strangers.
Among orcs
The orcs respect the Brotherhood's ability to survive, to strike, and to vanish. Some orc leaders use its services, even while despising them as an unfair way of fighting. The more practical orcs, however, know that a dead enemy does not care whether he was killed in a duel or in his sleep.
Among drow
The Drow both hate and respect the Brotherhood. They consider it an ugly proof that the defeat of the desert goblins was not complete. For the drow commanders the red moon is a symbol of unrest, because it means that the past has not yet given up.
Among assassins
Among killers and spies the Brotherhood has the reputation of an organization that values patience more than show. Some regard it as the peak of the silent craft, others as too political and weighed down by old revenge.

🎭 GM Hooks

Red Mark on the Door

On the door of an ally of the players appears the sign of the Blood Moon. The target is to die within three nights, but no one knows who placed the contract and why. The players must decide whether to stop the killer, or to uncover the reason why the contract was even accepted.

The Skull Hunters Struck First

The Skull Hunters have killed an important member of the Brotherhood and left his body in a public place. The Blood Moon wants to answer in a way that does not cause war but ruins the rival's reputation. The players may become brokers, tools, or obstacles.

A Contract on the Wrong Person

The Brotherhood has taken a contract on a person who turns out to be the key to averting a greater catastrophe. Members of the Brotherhood are divided between the duty to fulfill the contract and the pragmatic decision to break their own rules.

Daughter of a Desert Chieftain

The young heiress of one of the desert tribes wishes to enter the Brotherhood, because she believes that only thus can she unite her people. Her house regards this as a disgrace, the Brotherhood as a chance, and the Drow as a threat.

A Dead Man Who Was to Stay Silent

A target killed by the Brotherhood appears again alive, or at least someone is using his face and name. If the Brotherhood failed, its reputation will suffer. If it did not fail, this means that magic, a double, or someone who knows their methods too well has entered the game.

Blood Moon Over the Green Sea

In the harbors by the Green Sea, one crew after another begins to vanish. All blame the Brotherhood, but the real traces point to someone trying to stir war between it, the Skull Hunters, and the trade houses.

🎲 Gameplay Use

Recommended for stealth-focused characters dark urban and desert campaigns espionage stories hired killings morally gray choices conflicts with the Drow orcish and goblin politics rivalry of killing organizations secret contracts long-term intrigue around the southern deserts

Mechanical purpose

The Brotherhood of the Blood Moon may serve as an advanced guild for characters with stealth skills at level 3 and higher. It offers unique contracts, secret rewards, access to information, false identities, poisons, hidden trails, and tasks that cannot be solved by open battle. At the same time it allows the bringing into play of the question of the price of silence, of the boundary between revenge and murder, and of the danger of working for an organization that has its own long-term plan.

Progression role

At the start the Brotherhood may feel like a fearful rumor or an unseen opponent. Later it may become a source of dangerous contracts, secret information, or dark allies. In an advanced campaign it may draw the players into a shadow war with the Skull Hunters, into a conflict against the Drow, or into the choice whether to support, exploit, or stop Quri's dream of the return of goblin rule over the southern deserts.

✨ Tone and Theme

Themes revenge after defeat silence as a weapon the goblin heritage of the southern deserts murder as politics espionage and hidden wars rivalry with the Skull Hunters the loss of the original ideal the desert as the teacher of patience the fear of an unseen enemy

Tone: dark, desert-bound, silent, cruel, espionage-laden, and fatefully vengeful

The Brotherhood of the Blood Moon should not come across as an ordinary guild of killers. Its strength lies in historical pain and long memory. Every member may be only a hired killer, but the entire organization is the shadow of an old defeat that has never healed. In the story the Brotherhood should raise the question whether a future can be built out of revenge, or whether every drop of blood spilt in the name of the past only calls forth another red moon.

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