Where imperial order runs thin, the roads belong to the bold.
The empire’s authority is thinnest on the frontier, and into that gap step the bandits — deserters, broken men, dispossessed peasants, and captains with ambitions far above their station. They prey on caravans, isolated steadings, and travelers foolish enough to ride the back roads alone. With no standing law but a passing company of swords, they are the most common work a warband takes, and the bread and butter of a young company’s purse.
Most are a nuisance: a dozen hungry men with stolen spears and a defensible camp. But the frontier breeds worse. A clever, ruthless captain who wins a few fights draws more men, takes a strongpoint, and stops running — until what began as a gang of brigands has become a small army holding its own stronghold and answering to no lord at all. Left long enough, such a captain can grow into a warlord, and the clearing of one bandit camp becomes a campaign to bring down a power that threatens even the great cities of the border.
They take their names from the same stock as everyone else on the march — a Frankish or Talins given name, an ugly epithet earned along the way. The Black. The Faithless. Iron-Glove. Cold-Blade. By the time a captain has earned one, they are usually worth the bounty.
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