semi-public guild · combat and mercenary guild

Brotherhood of Warriors

„Honor and strength decide. Whoever proves himself wins his reward."

A widespread fighting brotherhood that gathers warriors, marksmen, duelists, mercenaries, and users of battle magic who wish to perfect their skills and gain access to dangerous, well-paid contracts.

🚪 Open to anyone who fights actively or uses combat magic. professional violence mercenary work dirty work of the powerful honor versus contract
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Guild Seal

Type semi-public guild
Category combat and mercenary guild
Founded ~77 IC
Founders officials and military advisers of the Empire during the reign of Martinec I the Merciful
Place of origin the early Empire of Magnursar
Model organizace a network of joined branches with their own masters, shared rules, and the sharing of information
Entry fee no fixed entry fee, although some branches require the candidate's own equipment or an entry contribution
Related mercenaries warriors battle magic Empire of Magnursar Martinec I the Merciful Great War nobility city watch black contracts weapons armor combat artifacts patrons political intrigue

📖 About the Guild

The Brotherhood of Warriors is a guild meant for all who understand fighting not only as a necessity, but as a craft, a livelihood, and a measure of their own worth. Unlike the Adventurers Guild, which takes in a wide range of travelers, seekers of fame, and beginning heroes, the Brotherhood concentrates above all on those who already actively fight or want to bind their life to violence, protection, war, or armed service. It does not matter whether the member uses a sword, axe, spear, bow, crossbow, shield, bare hands, or battle magic. The only thing that matters is whether he can hold his ground under pressure, follow orders, keep discipline, and survive tasks that an ordinary soldier, guard, or adventurer would refuse.

🌍 Role in the World

The brotherhood shows the pragmatic side of power. Nobles, cities, and wealthy patrons use it where force is needed without too many questions. For players it can provide training, equipment, well-paid tasks, and morally gray choices.

Themes: professional violence mercenary work dirty work of the powerful honor versus contract

🎭 Public and Hidden Face

☀ Public face

Outwardly the Brotherhood of Warriors presents itself as a respected combat guild that raises capable protectors, improves the level of armed individuals, and offers training to those who wish to perfect themselves in fighting. The branches often look like a combination of a training yard, an armory, barracks, and a hall of fame. On the walls hang weapons, banners, old shields, and the names of fallen members who became famous in the service of towns, nobles, or imperial interests.

🌑 Hidden face

The true nature of the Brotherhood, however, is more complex and darker. From its founding it was not only a place for the training of warriors, but also a tool for tasks that could not always be linked with the official army, the town administration, or the noble houses. The Brotherhood learned to move on the border of legality, honor, and necessity. Its members may protect a caravan, lead the training of a town militia, or hunt bandits, but they may just as well be hired for intimidation, sabotage, torture, pillaging, paid killings, or the removal of a person who has become inconvenient to the powerful.

⚖ Philosophy

Core belief
Fighting is the trial of truth. Words, birth, and titles mean nothing if a man cannot hold his ground when a blade rises against him.

Hodnoty

strength discipline resolve endurance the ability to complete the task respect for proven skill loyalty to the brotherhood and to the contract silence

Rozpory

The Brotherhood often speaks of honor, but its idea of honor is neither knightly nor pure. Honor, according to the Brotherhood, means fulfilling the accepted task, not betraying one's own group, not revealing the patron, and not breaking under pressure. It does not necessarily mean mercy, justice, or compassion. It is precisely this contradiction that makes the Brotherhood an organization that may feel heroic or repugnant depending on who hires it and what task it is given.

⏳ Origin and History

The Brotherhood of Warriors arose after the end of the Great War, in the period of the reign of Martinec I the Merciful, when the Empire was trying to restore order, stabilize the provinces, and turn a war-shaped society into a working realm. The imperial officials and military advisers realized that the army alone could not be used for every task. There were situations where one had to act swiftly, hard, and unofficially. Some deeds were useful to the realm, but too dirty to be carried out by soldiers bearing the imperial banner.

Through the following generations it became clear that the founding of the Brotherhood had been a remarkably clever step. The branches began to spread across the Empire, first in important military and administrative centers, later in most of the larger towns. The members of the Brotherhood became sought after not only for imperial tasks but also by nobles, town councils, wealthy merchants, and provincial governors. With time the organization drifted away from its original direct tie to imperial politics and went through an inner change. Today it is no longer above all a secret tool of imperial officials, but a standalone network of hard mercenary branches that have kept the old methods, the old contacts, and the old willingness to do work that others refuse.

🏛 Current State

Organizace
a network of joined branches with their own masters, shared rules, and the sharing of information
Central leadership
Yes
Presence
the great cities of the Empire, military centers, frontier fortresses, trade hubs, and some free towns outside the imperial borders

In the present day the Brotherhood of Warriors is one of the most widespread combat guilds of the Empire. It is not as open and romanticized as the Adventurers Guild, but among the people who live by fighting it has a strong reputation. The branches share among themselves information about contracts, debtors, traitors, capable members, and dangerous clients. If a task arises that exceeds the borders of one town or a whole province, the branches may work together and put together a larger combat group. This ability to coordinate is one of the reasons why the Brotherhood remains useful for the nobility as well as for town administrators.

🚪 Guild Entry

Entry into the Brotherhood of Warriors is open to almost anyone who can prove combat usefulness. Origin, race, social standing, and former reputation are not decisive, as long as the candidate can hold his ground in the trial and is not too great a risk for the branch. The Brotherhood admits former soldiers, mercenaries, young nobles thirsting for glory, street brawlers, marksmen, hunters, mages specialized in combat, but also people for whom ordinary society can no longer find a place. In some branches the past of the candidate is not closely examined. In others a dark past is, on the contrary, considered proof that the candidate knows how the world really works.

  • an active ability to fight
  • use of a weapon, battle magic, or another form of direct combat
  • willingness to undergo the combat trial
  • the ability to take orders
  • basic physical or magical readiness
  • willingness to bear the consequences of violent contracts

⚔ Trials

01

Trial of Steel

Tests the basic combat ability of the candidate and his willingness to continue even after the first hard blow.

The Trial of Steel is the best-known entry trial of the Brotherhood. The candidate must hold his ground in direct combat against a guild member, an instructor, or several weaker opponents. The aim need not be victory, but proof of usefulness. The Brotherhood watches the stance, the work with the weapon, the defense, the courage, the ability to react to pain, and the willingness to go on even at the moment when the situation worsens. Those who give up too soon are not admitted. Those who let themselves be ruled by anger and endanger the rules of the trial may be refused just as quickly.

Checks weapon attack defense roll endurance strength dexterity battle magic stamina
02

Trial of Command

Tests whether the candidate can carry out orders even in a confused, painful, or morally unpleasant situation.

The Trial of Command is less showy, but very important to the Brotherhood. The candidate is placed in a simulated task in which he must protect a chosen target, hold an opponent, retreat upon command, or fulfill a brief that changes mid-task. The masters watch whether the candidate can put down his own pride and place the task before personal glory. The Brotherhood does not want only strong fighters, but people who will not wreck the whole operation by deciding to play hero.

Checks discipline perception intuition tactical thinking self-control cooperation
03

Trial of Silence

Tests discretion, loyalty, and the ability to keep a secret.

The Trial of Silence is used mainly in branches that work for influential patrons and take in sensitive contracts. The candidate is given part of an information set that looks important, and is then exposed to pressure, bribery, interrogation, or a false chance to reveal something. The trial may last an hour, a day, or several weeks. Many candidates do not even realize that they are going through a test. For the Brotherhood silence is as important as strength, because a single careless tongue can ruin a branch, a patron, and all the members involved in a task.

Checks willpower deception resistance to pressure intuition self-control negotiation

⚙ Guild Functions

Combat Training

The Brotherhood provides training in melee, in shooting, in work with the shield, in group tactics, in the protection of a target, in fighting in tight spaces, and in the use of battle magic. The training tends to be hard, practical, and aimed at survival, not at the beauty of technique.

Mercenary Contracts

The branches take in paid tasks from nobles, towns, trade houses, holding stewards, and private persons. These contracts may be wholly lawful, for example the protection of a caravan, but also half-lawful or outright criminal, if the patron is influential enough and the reward high enough.

Demanding and Uncomfortable Tasks

The Brotherhood is known for taking on tasks that other guilds avoid. It may be intimidation, debt-collection, interrogations, abductions, the silent removal of an inconvenient person, the guarding of a secret meeting, or the cleansing of a place so that the real patron is never named.

Supply of Armed Groups

In times of local conflict, of noble disputes, or of frontier crises, the Brotherhood can quickly put together a group of capable fighters. These people are not an army in the proper sense, but on a smaller scale they can replace a unit of veterans.

Sharing of Combat Experience

The branches pass to one another information about tactics, dangerous opponents, weapons in use, the gear of enemies, the weaknesses of monsters, and the abilities of important fighters. Thanks to this, the experience of one branch may quickly become an advantage for the whole Brotherhood.

👥 Internal Structure

Leadership style: hierarchical leadership founded on strength, experience, and the ability to win contracts

Branch Master

The highest authority of the local branch. He is usually a veteran, a former officer, a famous mercenary, or a person who has survived so many dirty tasks that he knows the price of every order. The master decides on the acceptance of contracts, settles disputes, treats with patrons, and chooses which members are fit for dangerous operations.

Armorer

Keeper of weapons, armor, training gear, and combat artifacts. A good armorer can tell the quality of a fighter by the way he cares for his blade, bow, or staff. In wealthier branches he is also in charge of distributing rewards in the form of gear.

Combat Instructor

A member responsible for the training of newcomers and the keeping up of the combat level of the branch. The instructors of the Brotherhood are hard, direct, and often cruel, because they believe that pain on the training yard is cheaper than death in the field.

Contract Scribe

The person who records contracts, the conditions of rewards, oaths of silence, obligations, and penalties. In the Brotherhood the scribe holds more power than it might seem, because a properly recorded contract may decide whether an act is deemed a service, a betrayal, or a murder.

Shadow Broker

An unofficial go-between between the Brotherhood and clients who do not wish to step in by the main gate. It is through these brokers that the darkest contracts come, which never appear on the public board.

Brother in Arms

A rank-and-file full member of the Brotherhood. He may take contracts, take part in training, receive rewards, and be summoned to greater tasks if the branch master considers him reliable.

The Brotherhood prides itself on the impression of brotherly equality among fighters, but in truth it is strongly hierarchical. The weak obey the strong, the new obey the experienced, and anyone who breaks a contract, endangers a task, or betrays a branch quickly finds himself outside the protection of the Brotherhood.

🧙 Membership

Typical members former soldiers mercenaries duelists heavily armored warriors archers spearmen manhunters battle mages caravan protectors town brawlers bouncers retired guards young nobles thirsting for combat prestige veterans with no place in ordinary society

Public perception

The public sees the Brotherhood of Warriors with both respect and unease. To ordinary people its members are hard fighters who can shield a village, escort a caravan, or clear an area of bandits. At the same time it is known that where several members of the Brotherhood appear together, it is usually not ordinary training. People avoid them in the inns, the guards watch them a little more closely, and patrons treat with them carefully, because everyone knows that the Brotherhood does not only do clean work.

Why people join

the desire to improve at fighting access to better weapons and armor the chance to win well-paid contracts the need to belong to a strong armed group escape from poverty or one's past gaining protection from the law or from enemies the longing for respect the wish to fight without the limits of ordinary military service

📋 Contracts

The public board of the Brotherhood usually contains contracts for protection, escort, training, the hunting of bandits, or the strengthening of town patrols. Truly sensitive contracts, however, never appear on the board. They are passed through the branch master, the contract scribe, or the shadow broker in a separate room, behind closed doors, and often without names.

public combat contracts

  • the protection of a caravan
  • the escort of a noble
  • the training of a town militia
  • the strengthening of patrols in a dangerous quarter
  • the protection of a construction site or trade warehouse

mercenary tasks

  • an action against bandits
  • an attack on a raider camp
  • the seizure of a bridge or ford
  • the protection of the border of a holding
  • fighting beside a private retinue of a noble

uncomfortable tasks

  • intimidation of a debtor
  • recovery of lost property
  • the abduction of an important person
  • destruction of a rival's supplies
  • silencing of a witness
  • interrogation of a captive

secret operations

  • sabotage of a weapon depot
  • removal of an inconvenient officer
  • an unmarked attack on behalf of an undisclosed patron
  • the cleansing of a place before the arrival of an official army
  • the protection of a secret meeting between noble houses

💰 Rewards

🎮 Gameplay

  • quality weapons
  • better armor
  • combat artifacts
  • access to combat instructors
  • training in special techniques
  • contacts among mercenaries
  • better-paid combat tasks
  • the chance to build a reputation among warriors

📜 Narrative

  • respect from armed groups
  • access to unofficial information
  • the chance to work for nobles or powerful patrons
  • winning allies in the underworld and among the soldiers
  • a reputation as a man who can complete a hard task

⚒ Material

  • swords
  • axes
  • spears
  • bows and crossbows
  • shields
  • light, medium, and heavy armor
  • magically strengthened weapons
  • protective amulets
  • battle potions
  • pay in coin

🎖 Ranks

  1. 1

    Initiate

    A fighter who has asked to join, but has not yet passed all the trials. He may take part in basic training, but has no access to better contracts or to the real secrets of the branch.

  2. 2

    Blade-Sworn

    A newly admitted member who has taken the basic oath to the Brotherhood. He is given simpler combat tasks, escorts, watches, and training missions. He is watched by more experienced members and is still being judged on whether he is usable for more demanding work.

  3. 3

    Brother in Arms

    A full member of the Brotherhood who has proved strength, discipline, and reliability. He may take ordinary as well as dangerous contracts, has access to better gear, and his name is kept among the records of fighters on whom the branch can rely.

  4. 4

    Veteran of the Brotherhood

    An experienced member who has survived a greater number of fights and fulfilled demanding or sensitive tasks. The veterans often lead small groups, oversee new members, and are entrusted with tasks that require not only strength but also a cold head.

  5. 5

    Master of Steel

    A highly placed member of the Brotherhood who may lead training, represent the branch in negotiations, and decide on the makeup of groups for important contracts. The Master of Steel need not be the strongest fighter in the room, but must be the one whose order the others will accept.

🏰 Halls and Rooms

A branch of the Brotherhood of Warriors feels like a sterner and rougher building than the ordinary guild. It often stands near the barracks, the town gate, the weapons market, or the quarter where mercenaries move. It usually has a training yard, an armory, a hall of contracts, a room for private negotiations, lodgings for members, and sometimes also underground spaces meant for interrogations or the storage of sensitive gear.

Rooms main hall training yard armory hall of contracts lodgings for members private negotiation room interrogation room spoils storage infirmary hall of the fallen

The atmosphere of the branch is hard, loud, and tense. One can hear the strikes of wood on wood, of metal on metal, the shouting of the instructors, the heavy steps of armored men, and the muffled talks at the tables, where one does not discuss heroic legends, but rewards, risks, and the names of people who are not to live to see another week.

📜 Guild Rules

  • An accepted contract must be fulfilled, unless the branch master decides otherwise.
  • A member of the Brotherhood may not reveal the patron of a non-public contract.
  • A member of the Brotherhood may not kill another member without an approved cause or duel.
  • Spoils and rewards are divided by the contract, not by a feeling of justice.
  • The order of the group leader during a task is binding.
  • Betrayal of the branch is punished by banishment, by being handed to enemies, or by death, according to the gravity of the deed.
  • A member may not take a contract that directly harms his own branch or its protected patron.
  • The public name of the Brotherhood must be guarded, even when the task itself is not clean.

🗡 Conflicts with Other Guilds

Adventurers Guild

rivalry over combat contracts

The Adventurers Guild and the Brotherhood of Warriors often compete in the field of protection, the hunting of dangerous creatures, and actions against bandits. Adventurers consider the Brotherhood too cruel and unclean, while the Brotherhood sees the adventurers as loud amateurs who often survive only by luck.

city watch

strained cooperation

The town guard sometimes uses the Brotherhood as a reinforcement, but at the same time fears its influence. If a violent act occurs in the city and members of the Brotherhood are nearby, the guard usually suspects them first.

merchant guilds

practical alliance

Merchants often hire the Brotherhood for the protection of caravans and warehouses, and for dealings with debtors. As long as the roads are dangerous and the money is in motion, the Brotherhood will be useful to the merchants.

🤫 Guild Secrets

1 · Publicly known

The public knows that the Brotherhood is harder than ordinary guilds and that its members take in dangerous combat contracts.

2 · Suspected by many

Many people suspect that the Brotherhood from time to time carries out intimidation, debt-collection, and dirty work for the nobility.

3 · Known only to members

Full members know that part of the contracts is never recorded publicly and that some agreements are protected by silence even after the death of the patron.

4 · Deep secret

The oldest branches still preserve records from the period after the Great War, which prove that the Brotherhood was from the beginning created as a tool for unofficial violence in the service of the rising Empire. If these documents were to reach the public, they could harm the reputation of some old noble houses as well as of the imperial institutions themselves.

⚠ Risks and Problems

Moral corruption
The Brotherhood can turn an ordinary fighter into a professional, but it may also teach him that every problem has a violent solution. Members who long take in dirty contracts often lose the ability to tell necessity from comfortable cruelty.
Political abuse
Nobles and town powers may use the Brotherhood to remove rivals, to cover up their own crimes, or to push political interests. The members may then become pieces in a game whose real meaning they do not know.
Internal rivalries
The branches work together, but they also compete for wealthy clients, prestigious contracts, and influence in the provinces. In extreme cases the rivalry may grow into silent wars between groups that outwardly should belong to the same brotherhood.
Dangerous reputation
Once a member of the Brotherhood is known as someone who fulfills black contracts, he may gain respect, but lose the trust of ordinary people, honest guilds, and lawful institutions.
Dependency on patrons
Some branches are so dependent on a particular noble or patron that they cease to be an independent guild and become merely his private armed hand.

🪶 Reputation

Among commoners
Ordinary people feel both respect and fear toward the Brotherhood. They know that its members may shield a town from bandits, but also that they may, in the middle of the night, lead away a person of whom one then never speaks again. To poor young men and women the Brotherhood is a path to money and power, but parents often warn their children against this road.
Among nobles
The nobility sees the Brotherhood as a useful and dangerous tool. A properly paid branch can solve a problem faster than a court, an army, or diplomacy. At the same time every reasonable noble knows that the people who work for him today may tomorrow accept a contract from his enemy.
Among soldiers
Regular soldiers have a mixed relationship with the Brotherhood. Some admire its members as experienced fighters, others despise them as hired brawlers without real military honor. Veterans, however, often grant that members of the Brotherhood survive situations into which the army would rather send no one officially.
Among adventurers
Adventurers see the Brotherhood as a harder, more dangerous, and better-paid alternative to ordinary guilds. Some enter it for the training and the rewards, others avoid it, because they do not wish to be tied to dirty work.
Among criminals
The underworld respects the Brotherhood, but does not consider it an ordinary criminal organization. It is too disciplined, too tied to the powerful, and too well armed. It is for this very reason that criminals prefer to do business with it rather than to fight it.

🎭 GM Hooks

Black Contract

The players receive an offer from the Brotherhood for a very well-paid task that at first looks like an ordinary protection job. Soon, however, they discover that the real aim is to lure a particular person to a place from which he is not meant to return.

Records From the Beginnings of the Empire

In an old branch of the Brotherhood, documents are found proving that several respected houses built their power on contracts tied to pillage, torture, and unofficial killings after the Great War. Some wish to destroy the documents, others to make them public.

A Master Who Went Too Far

The local branch master has begun to take in contracts that threaten the stability of the whole town. Part of the members still support him because he brings wealth, while others fear that the Brotherhood will lose the protection of its patrons because of him.

Trial of Silence

One of the characters unknowingly becomes part of the Trial of Silence. What she considers a chance conversation, a bribe, or a plea for help is in truth a test that will decide whether the Brotherhood will ever entrust her with a real secret.

A Contract Against One's Conscience

The Brotherhood offers the players access to an exceptional weapon or artifact in exchange for fulfilling a task that is profitable but morally repugnant. Refusal may mean the loss of the reward; acceptance, the loss of the trust of other allies.

War of the Branches

Two branches of the Brotherhood have taken contracts from rival noble houses and find themselves on opposite sides of a silent conflict. Officially no war is going on, but in the streets people vanish, and the old brotherly oaths cease to hold.

Veteran Without a Name

An old member of the Brotherhood asks the players for help, because his own branch has turned against him. He claims that he only refused to carry out the killing of the child of an important house. The Brotherhood insists that he betrayed the contract and stole the deposit for the task.

🎲 Gameplay Use

Recommended for combat-oriented characters darker urban campaigns mercenary stories political intrigue morally gray choices obtaining quality gear training of combat skills contacts among nobility, soldiers, and the underworld

Mechanical purpose

The Brotherhood of Warriors may serve the players as a source of combat tasks, better gear, special training, and contacts to powerful patrons. It suits characters who wish to gain stronger weapons, armor, or combat artifacts, and at the same time it allows the Game Master to open the questions of the price of violence, of loyalty, and of the line between service and crime.

Progression role

At the start the Brotherhood may offer simple training, protective contracts, and a first set of quality gear. In the middle of the campaign it may become a road to dangerous, well-paid tasks. Later it may draw the players into political intrigue, war between branches, or disputes between noble houses, where it is no longer only about fighting, but about whom their strength truly serves.

✨ Tone and Theme

Themes strength as the measure of worth honor versus obedience professionalized violence the dark side of post-war stability mercenary service and moral compromise the dirty work of the powerful brotherhood bought with blood

Tone: hard, military, pragmatic, morally gray, and at times dark

The Brotherhood of Warriors should not come across as an ordinary evil guild. Its strength lies precisely in being useful, widespread, and often truly needed. It can shield towns, train the weak, defeat bandits, and give people the chance of a better life. At the same time it rests on the principle that almost any violence may be justified by a contract, a reward, or a higher interest.

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