Black Slayers
The Black Slayers mercenary guild are a powerful organization whose tentacles ensnare a wide variety of legal and illegal activities. The Slayers provide bodyguards to the wealthy, escorts to caravans, soldiers to supplement existing armies or act as special forces units, training for fighters, and they control some of their own legal merchant houses. The Black Slayers also control and influence many local thieves, smugglers, slavers and assassins guilds.
Structure
The Black Slayers internal organizational structure is secret and subject to much speculation.
However, because the Black Slayers are such a large organization, it not unknown for infighting to occur. Sometimes various branches of the organization are even hired to fight each other. While it is known local branches and various sections operate fairly independently, it is clear that something has always kept the organization unified to the outside world.
History
The Black Slayers were originally a standing mercenary army for hire, which can only be understood in the context of Fultonian history. Ever since the creation of the city states of Gebash (in central Fultar), Fulton, and Atlan (in the southern plains) the military has held a central position in Fultonian society.
The origin of the Black Slayers can be seen immediately after the Guar conquest of Fultar almost a millennium ago. This Guar invasion, the second in the history of Fultar, had a long lasting influence on Fultar. For example, the Guar used Celtic druids to help control the Fultonians which has lead the inclusion of some Celtic deities in the Fultonian pantheon and the diminishment of others. This lead to Ram Kor, the Guar god of war who came to earth as the half-Guar, half-Fultonian warrior, becoming the new Fultonian war god.
The conquering Guar prince Rangan Lat made profound changes in an attempt to exert control over the collapsing Fultonian state and military. Rangan Lat abolished the private armies of the Fultonian nobility and ruled with one central army and navy.
This led to the rise of the mercenaries, including the hiring of foreign armies, companies run by war leaders (often former leaders in the Fultonian army), and great mercenary guilds. Long after the Guar ruling class and the Druidic priests became assimilated the mercenary guilds exerted tremendous influence over Fultonian society. Mercenary bands replaced the private armies of the nobility and merchants, and were even more powerful than the Imperial forces. Mercenary generals were more powerful than Barons and could influence the selection of new emperors.
While mercenaries could win battles and wars they were unable to stop the decline of Fultar's foreign influence, could not prevent internal warfare, and were unable to prevent the invasions and raids of barbarian humans and humanoids, particularly orcs. At the end of the mercenary era Fultar had lost all of her foreign colonies and exerted little control over Northern Fultar, the Celtic lands or the Sua Hills.
In the year 401, the Fultonian Queen Nataxea outlawed all but one mercenary guild and began waging war on the rest. Foreign armies and peoples were assimilated and settled in and outside of Fultar, and the reestablishment of fiefdoms for the nobility all were core aspects of rebuilding Fultar. The one legal guild was the Black Slayers Guild. It took over a generation, but the Crown effectively eliminated the mercenary guilds. It took another generation before Fultar began expanding again. Today, about 500 years later, Fultar is free from real warfare in its borders, controls Northern Fultar and much of the Isles, and has strong arm trading advantages with the Celts, Bevil and Nubia, especially its former colonies.
Because they sided with the Crown during the Mercenary Wars the Black Slayers have continued to exist for over five centuries. Today they are a much different organization. Five hundred years ago there was little control by the nobility over the military. Today the Crown controls the powerful Fultonian Army and the most powerful Navy known to exist. The Barons and smaller lords have their own private armies, which they at least nominally owe service to the Crown, and have re-established the old practices of knighthood and debt service. Also, today many smaller mercenary bands and adventuring parties exist, but none on the scale or influence of the past as the Black Slayers jealous guard their de jure monopoly on mercenary service.
Territories
The Black Slayers are active in all of Fultar, including her colonies and territories, as well as in foreign nations and lands. The Slayers have a stronger presence in borderlands and escorting Fultonians in foreign lands given the overall lack of security. In Fultar proper, they are primarily body guards and hired muscle for rich merchants, caravans, and, occasionally, nobles. However, they are generally hired individually, or in small groups, and their days of massing large contingents in battles is long past.
The Black Slayers have played an outsized role in the borderlands of Northern Fultar, including the free city of Critlip. In the Critlip area the Black Slayers had a stranglehold on the underworld for a number of decades. However in the year 899 a gang war erupted and everything has yet to settle. During their years of domination the Slayers controlled the local thieves guilds, and engaged in the smuggling and slaving activities. One giant thieves guild controlled the guild activities in both Critlip and the nearby coastal town of Ratchin and all the assassins. However the Slayers only controlled the top echelon of the thief and assassins guilds.
In year 899 an aged, Slayer guild master died in Critlip. The head of the assassins, a half-elf/half Celt, named Fin Mac Conner, led a rebellion of the rank and file against the new Slayer backed guild master, Tobin Loganst, a Kozar raised in Critlip. Tobin and Fin were never friends and in the past had engaged in a fierce rivalry. Zarathustra Bahadur sided with Fin Mac Conner and quickly rose up the ranks of Fin's guild of assassins, bards, and rank and file thieves. A year of bloody warfare followed with the Slayers gaining the upper hand by bringing in Black Slayers from other regions of Fultar. In the year 900 the powerful Prince Verum de Lezst, who has considerable influence within the Black Slayers, suddenly shifted his support to Fin Mac Conner. Prince De Lezst then helped to establish a truce between the two guilds. Each guild also controlled a thieves guild in Ratchin, Fin's guild run by a Fultonian thief, Zarathustra Bahdur.
A relatively non-violent cold war has existed between Fin Mac Conner's guild and the Slayers backed guild over the next years. The only major change has been Fin's guild, through Zarathustra, took over Ratchin in 901. Today there are a number of various organizations and individuals with influence in the underground economy of Northern Fultar.
Worship
The Black Slayer's patron deity is Hantithenus.
Time and tide make us mercenaries all
For the right sum of money, a Black Slayer body guard will be loyal against overwhelming odds.
The Black Slayers, when possible, prefer to use superior numbers and strike with surprise. Their loyalty is to gold, and not any chivalric honor.
Type
Guild, Fighter / Mercenary
Deities
The Black Slayers are best known now as providing body guard services to small groups of rich merchants, pilgrims and caravans.
While the Black Slayers are primarily a mercenary guild for retaining and training of soldiers, they also engage in criminal services for hire, and even control many illicit underground operations, including thieves, smuggling, assassins, and slaver guilds.
