The Narrow Clan
Gold? Coin? Why do we let ourselves care for such things? Money has only ever judged wrongly, because it is nothing but fleeting values. Ravenna divides itself by nature, deluding true worth with the very thing they claim determines it. To hell with it all I say!
~ Eddie Pearce ~
People nowadays speak of the Narrow Clan as a children's scare story, a tactic to encourage good behavior. Like a place full of evil that you will end up in if you're not careful. But very few know the harsh upbringings this crime ring sprang up from. Like many stories, it starts with one thing: poverty.
Eddie Pearce had never seen much value in the concept of silver and gold. Perhaps it was his impoverished life with his mother, Elisa and two younger brothers, Leon and Turner after their father disappeared. Or maybe it was the simple fact he didn't have anything to place value in anyway. Then again, money was exactly why he and his family lived in the narrow alleys of the Ravennian capital, Mendago. Slums called the Narrows.
Everyday was a test for survival. And some days, it was tests for crimes. No one in the family had the capability (or the money) to keep all four fed, but his mother tried day after day. However, Eddie, Leon, and Turner knew what kind of business she was involved in, and it wasn't a good one. Ardor's Lodge, the underground hideout that practiced smuggling, hit bounties, and, in Elisa's case, prostitution.
The brothers resorted to their own petty crime to care for their mom. They stole food to give to her and sold what she gave to them so they could give her the money too. Whenever she pried, either brother lied it was because of an apprenticeship they had picked up at a customs house down in the Minuda Docks.
But one day, Eddie's crime took a wrong turn at a local bakery when he made away with several loafs of bread. Someone followed him at every turn, and he ran. But the pursuer cornered him, wrapped in a cloak. To his surprise, it was his mother. She told him she had followed him, Leon, and Turner for a while and knew exactly what all three were doing. She pleaded they stop doing it, even if it was all for her.
In the end, Eddie never gave an answer. But he never stopped. At least, until the day Elisa never turned up again. Eddie was frantic, thoughts an army of worry and worst-case scenarios. But, from a friend who served at the lodge, a woman named Blain, he learned Elisa had turned herself in.
Blain had always been a shoulder for Eddie. And especially now, she did her best to console him. As someone who hated the wealthy nobles, she assured him the redcoat royals who stockpiled their pockets were the ones to blame. She thought she had kept his flame alive. But in reality, she had sparked a different one.
were closed down, imported and exported goods were cut off, and the capital was thrust into a massive economic depression over the course of a single year. A depression that left the Royal Spires, the city's capital district, an open target to be taken by Eddie.
But Leon and Turner could not recognize their own brother anymore. When Eddie assembled the clan with the objective of taking the spires, Blain at his side, and controlling the city, the two knew Eddie had lost their vision. He had forgotten about their original ideal, and worse, about their mother. He only cared for power now. And so, to their heartache, they devised a plan to send word to the spires of the attack and the clan's locations. And send word they did through a crimson guard patrol.
Not a few days later, Eddie called them to him at the west river side down in the vacant Minuda Docks. Blain and other clansmen were with him. He spoke to them about how much he loved them. But more importantly, he voiced his regret at what was to come next. Swords and arrows were pierced through Leon and Turner, and their bodies were nudged into the dark river bottom by Blain. Eddie had known of the message they sent, and even so, he still cried for his brothers.
But the message had still reached the spires, and crimson guard began rallying to begin an absolute purge across the capital. After hearing Blain's pleas, he knew there was no hope for the clan in Mendago anymore. And so, gathering them all together one night as the torches of soldiers filled the streets, Eddie and Blain guided everyone they could to the riverside where boats and small dinghies had been set.
One trip after the other was made, and soon the crimson guard were on who remained. Fights broke out and deaths started to take a toll. In a last ditch effort, Eddie stayed behind, pushing Blain onto the last ship to ensure the last of the clan escaped. Eddie Pearce, the Pioneer, died on that night. The Night of Yellow Knives.
And he never did get to see his mother again.
structure were made, and Blain oversaw it all. From the heart of their operations in the cliffsides of the Bramble Thicket, word in and out went through Blain first. So terrifying was her regulation, that she earned the nickname "Three-Eye" Blain. And so frightening a clan she made it.
Forming the Narrow Clan
Eddie, Leon, and Turner wondered what to do next. Their crime was always for their mom, but now she was gone. However, Eddie did not share the heartache and tears Leon and Turner did. His heart was full of rage. It wasn't like they wanted to do crime. It wasn't like she wanted to do crime. But they all had to. This whole city was consumed in the power of money. Coin was the only way to prevent criminals, however the rich hoarded it all for themselves, leaving the poor with nothing. And to Eddie, he couldn't stomach these people still had the nerve to call crime illegal and avoidable. Together with his brothers, Eddie banded them together. As their own faction, they would work restlessly until they finally achieved the insurmountable. Not ridding the kingdom of the wealthy. But ridding it of its attachment to wealth.Suddenly petty theft wasn't petty anymore. Armed burglaries, commercial sabotage, and other gold-centered heists became common practice. Over time, the brothers reached out to others like them, and their numbers grew. One day, Eddie even saw Blain standing with them. A simple trio grew into a larger group. A man and his wife, Fergus and Bridget, together with their son Paidrag also joined. Eddie decided a name for themselves was appropriate. The Narrow Clan.
Felonies and offenses sprang up in Mendago day after day. Ravennian authorities, the crimson guard, struggled to keep it in check, let alone keep the weapons and armor they carried, especially given the kingdom had just come out of a major war. Banks and commercial firms
The Narrow Clan was shattered, a fragment of its former self, more homeless than they had ever been. These zealots were now wanderers heartbroken and grieving the loss of their saint. And Blain was no different. But where others were sad, she grew angry.
She wouldn't let this be their end. In her rise to power, her claim to Eddie's former throne, she showed the clan this was merely a new beginning. Under Blain, things changed drastically.
The clan split off across the land, establishing hideouts in Ravenna's many settlements. Underground rings were formed, pivotal connections within the Ravennian social
Current
With Westerin's greatest war yet, the Great War of Westerin now in the past, the land lies solely under the control of the Tenelean Empire. Under imperial rule, the Narrow Clan remains in active hiding, at war with Tenelean ideals as much as they were Ravenna's. Hideouts and dens are spread from one coast to the other, and Blain's sphere of influence has even begun expanding out to the islands of the Imperial Collective.
They proclaim me a saint, so I let them. They declare me their hope in trying times, so I let them. They call me a pioneer, so I let them. I give them the vision of whatever they want so long as it turns away their attention on matters such as money and poverty. For someone to adopt this vision I have, they must first no longer view a coin as a resource, but worthless.
~ Eddie Pearce ~
Founding Date
1539 AC
Type
Illicit, Rebel
Leader
Notable Members
Clan Breakdown
Ever since Blain had taken over leadership over the Narrow Clan, the crime ring has held a more organized and clear structure that many would say resemble a common military ladder of authority. The Narrow Clan is spread all across the continent today, and as such is divided into different sects. Each sect is run by a sect leader. A sect leader has two narrow officers which they appoint. Each narrow officer has two subordinates called shadow hands which they also appoint. From there, the four shadow hands of a particular sect work as a council to manage and lead the rest of the sect.
Though each sect has its own sect leader, Blain as the Narrow Queen automatically assumes the authority of the sect leader for whichever sect she is ever amid.
Their belief is more a plague than a rapture. A plague that lost my parents. A plague that I cut myself off of.~ Paidrag
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