This page describes Blood Red Roses' social and religious groups, including Barbarians (Fens men and Wildfolk), the Evil and the Faith (and the Mage Hunters); and the New World's nobility, trade and commerce, soldier's life and crime and punishment.

The Barbarians (Servants of Evil)

Fens men

The closest barbarians to the Algandy border are the Fens men, cultural and linguistically of the same base stock as the Algundians. Their lack of social contact with the League and unstable politics has resulted in them being culturally about 500 years behind Algandy in development. The Fens men are divided into hundreds of rival petty kingdoms, each incapable of posing a threat to the Duchy and the League as long as they remain separate. In centuries past the Fens men raided the League every summer seeking loot and slaves, monasteries and temples were burnt, villages raised and war was a way of life on both sides of the border. On occasion a Fens men great king would come, an individual with the might and the charisma to unite the warring factions and lead them West, at such times the League trembled and great crusades were declared sending countless thousands of men at arms eastwards.

The Fens men are at peace with the league, and have been so for almost three hundred years, wars are still fought between Fens-men kingdoms and the occasional raid occurs on Algandy soil. For the most part these raids are atavistic, an attempt to return to the old ways often stirred up by the war priests of the Fens men, who fear the encroachment of the Faith into their flock.

Trade has become the driving force of these barbarians, they can be found trading all along the eastern and southern borders of the League, travelling huge distances in their crude but sturdy long ships. Many Fens-men princelings now measure their worth by their wealth, by how many warriors they support and how many League luxuries they can serve during feasts.

(The Fens-men are inspired by the Viking culture of Earth's 9th and 10th Century. Once wild raiders are being converted to the new Faith and are merchant adventurers rather than pillagers. Still to the average citizen of the League the average Fens-man is still a giant hairy, madman, clad in chain and furs, and swinging a huge axe.)

The Wildfolk

Beyond the steads of the Fens-men lie the uncharted forests and plains stretching endlessly eastwards. The soil is thin and poor here; unsuitable for farming as it is known in the League, instead mixed woodland grows, with conifers further north and deciduous forest further south. Beneath the forest gloom live a people known as the Wildfolk, barbarians more primitive and superstitious than the Fens-men. The Wildfolk are divided into thousands of tribes, each with a deeply ingrained suspicion of their neighbours and countless grudges and blood feuds. The Wildfolk have subsistence farming, they keep pigs, and sheep and prize cattle and horses as a sign of wealth and status, they have smiths capable of working bronze into spears and swords, trade or steal iron weapons from more civilised peoples.

Raiding and battle are a way of life for the Wildfolk, raids are driven by three things; a need for battle prestige for leaders, sacrifices for the gods and spirits, and stealing food and cattle from their neighbours. When raiding or at war the Wildfolk paint themselves with blood and plant dyes, blues, green, reds, whites and blacks. Clad in clan tartans and armed and armoured with spears, knives and leather vests they rely upon hit and run tactics, or honour duels fought by clan champions.

The religion of the Wildfolk is dark and bloody, the Gods and spirits demanding frequent sacrifices which the shamans are eager to supply. Deep in the woods there are groves that sacred, painted with the blood of both men and beasts, and filled with the bones of centuries of victims. The shamans are skilled at controlling the Lost; a shaman's status comes from how many he is able to herd and to the fame of his undead when they were alive. In battle the Lost are sent forward by the drumming and the bone flutes of the shamans, acting as shock troops for the tribal warriors, the Wildfolk have found this particularly effective against black powder weapons.

The tribes closest to the Evil are often warped by its influence, engaging in regular human sacrifice, cannibalism and other aberrant practices. Even other Wildfolk for their frenzy in battle and animal-like fury fears these tribes.

(The Wildfolk are inspired by the Picts, Celts and Teutonic tribes of 100BC to 500BC. The image of the painted savage is a strong one and popular one, so these are included for completeness. The Attacotti-like tribes and the Wendel of popular fiction inspire the most savage tribes.)

The Evil

Deep in the woods, beyond the lands of man lies the Evil, source of all magic in the world. It is the reason the barbarians cremate their dead rather than return them to the earth, it is the siren song that pulls weak men from the path of the Faith and leads them into corruption of body and spirit; it is evil.

From its location beyond the lands of men its sends out waves of corrupting energy, invisible to the eye that fuel magic. Anyone can tap into this flow of energy, anywhere within the League, as long as they know the correct incantation and are desperate enough to carry out the ritual. Power comes swiftly to the magician, the ability to curse his enemies, to tip the odds of fate in his favour, leads to wealth and influence, but as in all things there is a price. Each time magic is used there is a chance that it will twist its user, the more frequently magic is used the more likely it is that the practitioner will be affected. Mutations caused by magic could be as minor as a squint or paleness of the skin through to horns, a multiple extra eyes, or a complete change of shape. Horrifying as physical mutation can be they are as nothing compared to the mutations of the mind, madness, phobias, strange urges and compulsions, are but some of the possible effects.

Eventually all traces of humanity are gone and the former magician runs off into the woods and mountains as a creature of evil, a beastman. Often these find each other and band together as packs of monstrosities attacking and killing whenever they can, most over time start to drift eastwards as if summoned by their master.

Not only magicians are affected by the Evil, people of weak will or simple mind often are snared as are those whose hearts are truly black with evil deed. Then there are pagans, hidden deep in the quiet places of the League, in the forests and mountains, and deep within caves. They practice the old ways as they were before the coming of faith, often degenerate and inbred they are willing servants of the Evil in the false belief that it is one of their Gods or spirits.

Closer to the Evil, along the barbarian border of Algandy and in the barbarians lands themselves the power of magic is stronger. There the dead do not rest easy in the ground, but rise and walk again seeking to destroy the living and serve the Evil. The time it takes a body to rise depends upon the state of the deceased's conscious and how close to the evil they are. In Algandy it takes around seven days to rise, and only then if the person was already tainted, for some of the barbarians the dead can be up again within hours. No matter what condition the body is in or whether it rose naturally or at the command of necromancy, they are known universally as the Lost.

The Lost are not the only creatures of the Evil, other things exist in legend, cockatrices and jack-in-the-greens, hydras and dragons, all originally natural creatures warped by magic.

The Faith

The Golden Empire worshipped a varied and constantly expanding pantheon of Gods and Goddesses, including the cult of the Emperor Deified. With the coming of the barbarians all but one of the religions collapsed, and that religion was wounded and changed. Initially know as the Twins, the sister of Light and the sister of Darkness was a religion emphasising balance, stability and learning. When the Emperor was murdered this single act was considered to be vile enough to unbalance the world and topple the Empire, so momentous was the act that the sister of Light was slain. As the barbarians swept across the empire the sister of Darkness went mad with sorrow, temple altars cracked, priests killed themselves and the end was upon the world.

Gradually the Goddess came back to her senses, and with fury sent storms to blight the barbarians meanwhile inspiring the leaders of the few remaining legions to great acts. The barbarians were halted at four great battles, each a desperate struggle for the survival of civilisation, the League was born and with it a new faith.

The sister of Darkness tried to compensate for the loss of balance caused by the death of her sibling became the Grey Lady, also known as the Maiden of Sorrows for the tears she shed for men and Gods. The tenets of the faith were simple and for everyone, it was the duty of all to protect civilisation from the forces of barbarism, and as the barbarians had been inspired by the Evil then the Evil was the ultimate enemy and must be fought wherever it was found. In the early years the Faith was instrumental in brokering the alliance that became the League, later military religious orders were formed to expand the Leagues boundaries and to bring war unto the servants of Evil. On occasions when the barbarians have risen up again to attack the League the Faith has declared crusades and sent tens of thousands of men-at-arms southwards and eastwards.

In the modern day the Churches new enemy is spiritual complacency in the populace and the progress of science. In the heartland of the League the barbarian frontier is a long way away, there has been no invasion or crusade for centuries, the military orders have become moneylenders and political brokers, even some priest no longer believe in Evil as a physical thing. New technology, particularly the printing press is frowned upon, now books of magic can be mass-produced and spread, encouraging more servants of Evil whom would never have been able to find someone to teach them the rituals. The world is changing rapidly and the church is losing it control over the souls of the people.

(with thanks to Mark Matthews who gave me the idea)

Mage Hunters

237 years ago High Priestess Constanta IV authorised a crusade within the League following an outbreak of necromancy in Graymeer County, the necromancer was slain but only after four towns had been destroyed and thousands of graves had been desecrated. The fact that the necromancer had been a Bishop of the Church shocked the Churches inner council, they decided that an audit of the spiritual health of the community was necessary. Father Jules d'Aubaine was summoned before the churches High Council, and requested to form a special crusade, to investigate all reports of service to Evil and to take the necessary action to eradicate it where they found it. Humbly he accepted.

Father d'Aubaine was a man that history has studied well, described as a brilliant scholar of Canon Law he had already made a name for himself assisting secular authorities in several successful murder investigations. He spent six months reviewing priests until he selected ten to assist him along with the Order of the Beggar Knights, a small military order devoted to the faith and different to the other orders by its vow of poverty. Within a further six months the crusade had unearthed almost a dozen servants of Evil, and shown proof of conspiracies going deep within the church hierarchy. His mission proven Father d'Aubaine was given a free hand to pursue his quiet war, to raise troops under its banner and to seize the wealth of the guilty to finance the war. His dark robed troops became known as Inquisitors for their interest in all things and all matters that might lead to sin.

To this day the silent crusade continues, its soldiers feared and misunderstood by the populace who see them only as spies and torturers, not realising what horrors they fight on a daily basis for the sake of all.

The New World

A new spirit is sweeping across the League, men of education are gathering to question the essential nature of the universe. Men of science are treading new paths, the printing press was invented less than twenty years ago, black powder, child of the alchemists genius, has revolutionised the concept of war since its introduction ten years ago. Now the shape of the world is under threat, some have suggested that the world is round and not flat and that things stick to it due to some sort of attraction similar to magnetism. More astounding is the idea that the world goes around the sun, and that the stars and moon are not attached to celestial spheres that form a shell around the world but seem to rotate due to the spinning of the world.

In the cities of the League, universities are springing up, rivalling the Church run schools and colleges, catering to the growing middle classes. With the advent of the printing press it is suggested that a quarter of the population are now literate and the percentage is growing each year.

The arts are taught as well as philosophy, medicine, the natural sciences, and mathematics. Students and scholars have become a common sight on the streets of the Leagues metropolises.

Noted Universities:

The Huldmann University in Losse

The Walstein academy of artillery and logistics

The Free Thinkers college of Natural Philosophy

The University of Phoenice.

The Nobility

The ruling classes of the League are a varied group bound together by the right to rule. The majority of states in the League are ruled by a hereditary ruling class, lead by a king, a prince or in the case of Algandy an Archduke. Other states in the league have different leadership styles; Phoenice maintains a senate in the style of the old Golden Empire, representing the interests of their clients in debate. The Burgermeister, a citizen of the state elected by the masses to oversee the city for a period of ten years, rules Losse.

In Algandy the Archduke rules, sets all policy and law and represents the Duchy to the League council. Below him in rank is the Earls council, composed of the eleven Earls of the Duchy, as well as maintaining there own lands they provide advise and council to the Archduke upon request. Each of the Earls in turn has a number of nobles below them who swear fealty to the Earl and in turn administer his land and justice for him. In order of importance the ranks of nobles are:

Archduke

Earl

Baron

Edda

Landsgrave

(the lowest rank of landed nobility, the title normally goes with a couple of villages or other means of income)

Carls

(the lowest rank of noble, literally the title allows to holder to maintain, a mail byrnie, a sword and his own shield device. Carls have no feudal right to property and often serve as the bodyguard of a higher rank noble, in such cases they are known as Huscarls)

Freeman

Bondi

(Originally a class of slaves, the bondi are now treated as peasants, bound to the land in the service of a noble and tending the lords fields. Formerly the Bondi required their Lords permission to marry or to travel but such customs are falling by the wayside. This social class grows smaller each generation as Bondi families buy their freedom and join the swelling ranks of Freeman.)

Slaves

(Prisoners of war or bought straight from the barbarians across the border.)

In recent years the power of the nobles has been challenged by the swelling ranks of the middle classes. Many merchants are now wealthier than their feudal landlords; add to this that the trade guilds have been eroding the privileges of the nobility. Several towns in Algandy are now free cities, swearing fealty to no one, their taxes going straight to the Archdukes coffers.

Merchants now look to marry their daughters to the sons of impoverished nobles, buying titles and respectability with the proceeds of trade.

Many young nobles see little future for themselves and seek to expand their income base by engaging in commerce and financial adventures. Others simply seek to ignore the changes and spend their lives in a whirl of parties, wine, women and song, quick to anger and quicker still to draw sword.

Trade and Commerce

The merchants of the League are on the rise; the expression 'merchant prince' has begun to be banded about in some places to describe the truly successful. The reason for their success has been the years of peace enjoyed by the League and the strength of the new guilds. The guilds are phenomena of the last eighty years growing out of fraternities and social gatherings. Initially all of the tradesmen of the same craft in a town would gather of an evening in a particular tavern, there they would discuss business and matters affecting them. From this grew a way of regulating traders, who through incompetence or sharp practice brought the trade into disrepute. Later training guidelines were brought in regarding apprentices and prices were controlled across the guild. Eventually it became impossible to pursue a trade without being a member of the guild, harassment by guild enforcers and lack of business drove many to join the guild or to flee to the frontier where the guilds are weaker.

A new immigrant to a city who wishes to ply their trade must present themselves to the guild masters, the ruling committee of the guild. Here they must pay an examination fee that varies in amount from guild to guild, and either present a letter of introduction from a known guild master or sit the guilds own examination, with additional examination fee. When trade is scarce the criteria required by the guild increases, after all allowing in another guild member is increasing the competition for a finite market.

It is now rare for a city ruler to employ non-guild members; such is the power of the guilds that if they did it would result in a city wide strike.

There are many notable guilds and trade organisations, almost every profession has a guild associated with it, here are a few of the more common and more interesting:

The United Brotherhood of Stevedores and Teamsters

The Alchemists Guild

The Bakers Guild

The Worshipful Guild of Physicians and Cheurgeons

The Guild of Printers, Illuminators, and Illustrators

The merchants and allied traders guild

The Miners Brotherhood.

Despite rumours there is no guild of intelligencers, or thieves, or assassins. The Guild of Harlots is more of a loosely run protection racket rather than an organisation to regulates its practitioners.

The Soldiers life

Each of the states of the league maintains its own army; each is structured differently based upon the personal tastes of its rulers. In Algandy the army is moulded by the terrain and by its recruits, gone are the massed shieldwalls of axemen that marked the original Algunds when they invaded. The Algandy army is now made up of units of archers, using the famous Algandy longbow and equipped with leather armour and long spears. These units of archers are highly skilled at skirmishing in woodland, moving in loose formation and using hand signals and whistles to communicate instruction over distance. Units of the Archdukes Rangers can be found all over Algandy.

Nobles also maintain there own archers, supporting their Carls and footmen, these soldiers still fight in the manner of their ancestors, clad in mail shirts and using the great axe and the sword. The wooded and somewhat marsh terrain of Algandy makes cavalry an impractical option, but one that has been tried several times. Native Algundians have a certain scorn for the foreign soldiers who have tried to use cavalry tactics against the barbarians, the animal often goes lame, or worse breaks a leg even before the enemy are sighted.

A recent arrival in the Duchy are mercenary hand gunners and artillerists who have come to the frontier to make a living on both sides of the border. The Barbarians almost supernatural fear of guns has meant that raids have often been stopped by a handful of hand gunners or a single volley gun. Work can be found beyond the frontier in the internal struggles of the barbarians, a grey area, it is still legal for League mercenaries to work for barbarians as long as they do not attack the League or supply gunpowder to them.

Mercenaries are a common sight on many of the Leagues road, travelling alone or in-groups sometimes amounting to mercenary armies. Despite the years of peace with its external neighbours the League is torn by hundreds of internal conflicts at all levels. Whether it is a dispute between two landholders over access to a water source, up to the border conflicts between Bruinwald and Drakkenwald and the civil war that rages in the city of Helot. Mercenaries themselves are a varied lot, choice of weapon and style of clothing often reflects the state they hail from, or perhaps it merely shows what was fashionable on the last battlefield they looted.

The origins of mercenaries is as varied as the soldiers themselves, some are the sons of mercenaries and have always been on the move, drifting from one war to another without ever calling a place home. Others are running away, either from a cruel lord, or from crimes, or from dull lives on backwoods farms. And others simply revel in battle and violence.

Mercenaries are not the only profession to earn a living by violence, three other groups exist; bounty hunters, pit fighters, and protagonists. Bounty hunters earn a living hunting those who flee an areas justice, often a criminal is safe once they have left a province or a lords lands, if their crime is grave enough often an authority will place a reward on their capture or proof of death. Bounty hunters of any ability quickly develop a taste for travel, a memory for faces and an ability to pick someone out in a crowd.

Protagonists are hired thugs, or skilled fencing masters, hired by a third party to give a damaging or embarrassing beating or fencing lesson to a victim. They will pick a fight or see insult in any action of their target, anything that is required to call their victim out publicly. A Protagonists life is such that their reputation quickly develops if the stay in a place too long, with fame come increasing harassment from local lawmen. As such the protagonist if he wants to be successful is constantly on the road. There is a thin line between these and mercenaries, in fact the two will often perform each others job if times are hard.

Pit fighters are men and women that provide violence as entertainment to the peoples of the League. Combat for entertainment dates back to the days of the Golden Empire when gladiators fought for the pleasure of the mobs, in the modern League combat takes many forms.

In the core of the League the old arenas of the Empire are still used, the crowds cheer elegant thrusts and ripostes rather than the messy, bloody carnage of the old days.

In the Western States combat between man and beast is what attracts the crowds, bulls, bears, dogs and great cats are the beasts of choice. But the most common form is the one used in the Northern and Eastern states, a simple fight between two combatants in an enclosed ring or pit. Fights bring in hundreds of spectators a night and betting on the outcome is heavy, on a typical night there will be between 5 and 10 separate combats. The equipment used during a fight will be determined beforehand, what weapons, what armour if any and whether the fight will be to first blood, to surrender or to the death.

Many of the combatants are slaves, or criminals, sold to fight promoters who organise the events, others are free men who enter the pit as a chance for fame and fortune, at least in the short term. Many upon retirement become promoters and trainers themselves.

Crime and Punishment

Law within the League varies from state to state, generally the basic tenets of law, regarding murder and theft etc are the same, nowhere is murder legal. The laws that have the most variety are those of taxation, blasphemy and property ownership.

In Algandy the law of the land is the Common Law, administered by appointed judges of the Archduke called Reeves, the four large settlements of Algandy have a Reeve on a permanent basis. In the rest of the Duchy a Reeve follows a circuit from village to village hearing cases as he goes. Reeves administer high justice, judging cases of theft higher than 100 Crowns, crimes against the state, crimes against the Archduke and crimes dealing with murder or damage greater than 100 Crowns. If such a crime has been performed and the criminal apprehended then they must be detained until a Reeve arrives, often a delay of several months.

Crimes less serious than this are judged by the local noble or by a nobles representative such as a village headman. Fines are the normal punishment for these offences whether in coin or in labour, the most serious punishment that can be imposed is branding, often the punishment for a thief or a defiler of shrines and nobles property. The local court mainly deals in property disputes, where one farmer has moved the boundary stones of his property to the detriment of his neighbours.

Another custom of note in Algandy, with regards to justice is the tradition of the law stones the stone monuments of Algandy's barbarian past. An unwritten law says that a dispute between two men may be settled here by combat, no weapons or armour is permitted, no witnesses are required, the stones themselves acting as witnesses to the combat. Should the combat result in death then the victor is guilty of murder, but as long as no weapon was used then the matter is treated lightly and a heavy fine is charged rather than execution.

Noble justice is administered by the Archduke himself, only landed nobles are eligible to be tried under this system. This dates back to the same period as the law stones, with trial by ordeal and trial by combat still being acceptable forms of determining innocence. Trial by ordeal involves a burn or scald, the clean healing of which proves truth, trial by combat is a fight to the death with weapons, normally axe and shield, champions may take the place of the accused or the accuser in the fight.

One form of justice rarely seen in Algandy are Church Courts, imposed on those found guilty of sacrilege, blasphemy, and oath breaking or consorting with Evil. The Church is not as politically active in Algandy as in the other states hence this court is only convened for the most serious crimes, the high clergy who will act as judges often have to travel long distances to any trial in Algandy. This may result in heretics being transported under guard to states where Church law is stronger and more common.

Who's Who

A who's who of notable people in the system can be found here.

Now read more about the system's characters.