Lockshorn Bandits

The Kings of Khergit, Sarranid, Swadia, Rhodok and Vaegir look at a map with their war council, all following much the same pattern:

The King points out a town which was once theirs. It is theirs by right, and they will use force to make it theirs once more.

Armies are dependent on food, weaken your foe now, so that the next war finds them weaker. Sack the enemy's villages whenever you can. Flee larger armies, and while they are besieging your castle or town, your armies are scattered, one to each lord. Villages on both sides burn.

Someone wins, or the will to fight becomes low. Food becomes scarce.

Many farmers who survived the war find their crops destroyed, or even home and field destroyed. These are the fuel that lights the next fire.

1. Some are recruited into the armies of the one of the Lords.
2. Others start a new group of brigands, or join an existing group.
3. Some few join the hunters to hunt down and punish brigands.

The Lords burned down villages for political and military advantage.
The bandits raid and burn villages to steal all their food and supplies, capturing men and women, for their own purposes.

Larger groups of bandits grow slow on the move. They may decide to build a camp to store supplies and keep prisoners. But they are now tethered to the camp, and the hunters and even noble's armies will fight them if they see them.

Some nobles actually are so poorly equipped and outmanned, and lose fights. Soldiers of the five kingdoms are kept prisoner and sometimes ransomed for money.

Sometimes raiders lose, but generally they keep a pretty even fight against the hunters. Brigand groups don't fight against each other, they've got easier prey.

Some are just looters, with stones and crude clubs to fight with. Others have acquired armor and weapons to challenge soldiers. In some regions, horses are abundant, and the brigands fight on horseback, in other regions they fight and move on foot.

As brigands find success and swell to large sizes, soldiers who find their situation undesirable plot to leave their noble's army and become a brigand force of their own. These are often the most fearsome brigands, equipped with powerful armor and weapons, and well trained by wars and disciplined to fight in a group.

Because of the way they leave, these are often all the same type of soldiers. A group of archers will abandon their lord, or a group of knights or men at arms, or whatever.

They join the brigands with a much greater success, still raiding villages and accosting any who travel afield.

Farmers can't travel to get their farming supplies. Travelling without an army to accompany you becomes foolish. Either great speed, or great strength is required to go from place to place.

Villages aren't safe, but none of the brigands find any desire to try to besiege towns or castles. They have no use for siegeing equipment, and they are designed to be on the move.

Traders move in caravans, guarded by hunters and other paid soldiers. Even then, they can be accosted by bandits, or by their Kingdom's enemies.

Many caravans travel to and from Sarranid, for the kingdom has many goods rarely found elsewhere.

Attack caravans can provide a brigand group a lot of funds, if they can handle the strong guards, but it also puts the brigands on the owning Kingdom's radar in a whole new way. Raiding villages causes upset, but raiding caravans leads to open hostility against the brigands.

When Lords aren't at war, they are busy hosting and going to tournaments, and feasting afterwards. A tournament and feast is often a chance to renew relations with other lords.

There are potential challengers and claimants to all the thrones, but who could hold onto the throne but the duly authorized king without a ton of smackdowns being issued. Only a slow approach would give a noble enough respect of his peers to try to press for such a title.


What is it that makes our little band of Lockshorn Bandits effective at fighting other bandits/

The women haven't been trained in fighting. They don't have money or supplies or equipment.

Starting out, all they have is clever and desperate survival, and the element of surprise, as well as a perspective different from anyone else in the raiding scene.

The bandits haven't been fighting each other. The bandits saw them as men since they had cut off their hair.

How did the Lockshorn Bandits get started?

After being assaulted by Brigands, they were enslaved and brought along with the Brigand group. The brigands were attacked by hunters, and all that was left after the battle were a few hunters who bled out, leaving the women alone. They rummaged through the supplies the brigands and hunters had with them.

They decided to take the fight to the brigands rather than dying on their burned out farms. They cut off their hair at that time, and wore men's clothing and armor to try to fit in with the wandering armies and brigands.

They lost half of the women in a fight with the fearsome Sea Raiders, but were able to hone their craft against a bunch of penniless starving looters, who only had stones to throw and knives to hack at them with.

With time, they wandered from sea raiders territory to Taiga Bandits territory where they had more luck. They found women captured by the Taiga bandits and offered the proposition of joining them. Any men they rescued they released without answering any questions.

What was the Lords' reaction to this?

Lords counted any raided village as lost, so they didn't even notice or have any trouble with the Lockshorn. They didn't have any tolerance for them but also no desire to attack. The situation was already chaotic enough with the ex-soldier brigand groups about, and the wars going on.

With less food available, the Kings were more inclined to find their food from raiding other kingdoms' villages, or taking castles and making the nearby villages part of their lands.

As the number of Taiga Bandits in the northeastern Vaegir lands dropped off, villages were reestablished and people were more often able to travel in safety. But the Sea Raiders continued to occasionally make forays that far out.

The Raiders path forward?

They continued to slowly gain more fighting women, and more of them were skilled. It was mix of losing women to the sword and illness, and recruiting more of them as they defeated brigand groups.

Then, they were attacked by a group of young inexperienced Men at Arms. Not yet fully trained heavy cavalry, and only a dozen of them were in the band.

Nonetheless, Lockshorn Bandits came close to be wiped out in the attack.

A few of the most experienced women were able to form up a decent square, and six of them survived.

A few of the horses of the ex-soldiers were recovered.  This began the period of Lady Blacksaddle's leadership.

While the other women took to the horses eventually, Marie Black, aka Blacksaddle, had already rode with her husband before the destruction of the original village. She was one of the original women who started the group.

With a lance taken from one of the Men of War, she became the first Sword Sister, and leader of the Lockshorn bandits.

Then what?

The Taiga bandits were no longer numerous enough to sustain their presence in Vaegir, so they crossed into Swadian territory, and ran into a small region of forest bandits.