Necro Shroud

One of the three great dark guilds, foremost home of murderers, killers, thugs, and assassins for hire

Structure

The Organizational Structure of Necro Shroud is excessively simple - at the head of the entire guild sits a being who holds the title of "Nokizaru", earned through a rigorous examination and several tests of skill, wit, intellect, leadership, and more, though sometimes it can be passed on to worthy successors or inherited if the previous Nokizaru dies unexpectedly.
The Nokizaru acts as the head of the entire guild, coordinating their affairs on a continent wide scale and beyond, handling the acquisition of contracts, distribution of the guild's agents, the handling and and filing of the guild's finances, and much more - beneath the Nokizaru are the ranks of the Jonin, who serve as the Guild's Executive Officers, each in charge of one of the guild's bases of operation across the continent(Typically taking the form of nondescript villages, small featureless complexes or in areas of minor influence, simple houses or buildings). These Jonin, despite their position, can be rich and powerful like wealth local lords or landowners, or simple village leaders living in more modest conditions...or, in rarer cases, simple killers, assassins, or the like organizing a local movement or militia.
Beneath these Jonin are the ranks of the Genin, who make up a vast majority of the Guild's forces - they are the ones who are hired out as mercenaries to whosoever can afford their services, taking up whatever role the hirer asks of them and serving until the end of their contract or charter. In less organized areas, they can take the form of whatever people exist in a given area trained in or who have a fondness for death, murder, and life's more darker pursuits, who operate under the Guild's banner and adhere to its codes in a more free-spirited and whimsical manner in exchange for the weight working as an agent of Necro Shroud gives them, as well as the resources and connections working for Necro Shroud gives them.
Despite this level of organization, in many places the 'codes' that the guild and its agents operate under are often as simple as 'go out and kill' or 'kill all members of this organization'...though in many more locales, more strict 'codes' may be put in place as needed.

Culture

The culture of Necro Shroud is what one might expect from a vicious guild of killers, murderers, assassins, and thugs-for-hire - it is a vicious evironment where one's worth to the guild is measured in the blood and death one has spilled and spread for it. It is a place where savagery, psycopathic tendencies, sociopathic mindsets, sadism, and all manner of vice and ill-natured means and ends are encouraged and rewarded - though the one thing that is not tolerated is a wanton disregard for order or rules: Before anything else, those who work for Necro Shroud are expected to follow the rules laid out by the Guild's Leader and their superiors, and any who cannot focus their love of murder or their skill in killing are rapidly disposed of.
Addtionally, they have a strong culture of secrecy - the first vow each member of Necro Shroud takes upon their initiation is not of obedience, but secrecy; they each vow to take all they learn while within the guild to their grave, to not share any such information with any outside the guild, and to never operate contrary to the guild's interests both during and after their time working in the guild's employ.
Finally, they have a strange obsession and guild-wide fetish with trophies - it is common for members of Necro Shroud to get tattoos or take trophies to commemorate their kills and contracts, and universally each member of Necro Shroud is given a tattoo or similar marking somewhere on their skin or a common article of clothing to denote their membership...though often, such a marking is hidden through means either mundane or magical.

Public Agenda

The agenda of Necro Shroud is money, as it is with most Dark Guilds - they care nothing save for profit and their bottom line.

History

The history of the dark guild Necroshroud is something of a mystery - little is known about the formation of the Dark Guild that has risen to become one of the top three Dark Guilds operating in the modern day and one of the legendary three Dark Guilds of the Raughata Alliance. They were known to have formed several centuries to the modern day and even shortly before Jilixia Worldthrone's duel with Osmantha the Indomitable, and many believe they formed shortly before, during or shortly after the fall of The Shaoshu Empire, and the remains of one of its many secret agencies or spy groups.

Life is a gift. Death is a commodity. Tragedy is our currency.

Founding Date

4185 ASK

Type

Guild, Assassins

Alternative Names

The Laughing Shroud, The Shroud, Necro Casket, One of the three

Demonym

Shroudborn

Leader

Silus Hotspur

Leader Title

The Nokizaru

Allies

Takamagahara

65

Necro Shroud

65

While officially allies under the Raughata Alliance, the treatise which has bound the three largest dark guilds together in a nonaggression pact, Takamagahara and Necro Shroud get along better than many might assume - frequently contracting each other out and aiding each other in difficult jobs, and often working alongside each other on various tasks.
They mostly go out of their way to avoid each other otherwise, staying strangely neutral towards each other outside of these periods of cooperation - an oddity among the Dark Guilds.

Neutral Competitors

The Ānjao Ascendancy

25

Necro Shroud

25

Though their exact relationship is unknown, the Ascendancy has been on neutral terms with many dark guilds, and Necro Shroud is no exception - the two groups have kept a wary distance of each other, especially after probing each other's capabilities and finding each a worthy match for the other.

Neutral 'Allies'

Necro Shroud

-15

Lethe Labyrinth

-15

While both Lethe Labyrinth and Necro Shroud are technically 'allies' under the legendary Raughata Alliance, this is less of a true alliance and more of a nonaggression pact - an 'alliance' of convenience and neccessity made only to form a united front between the Dark Guilds and those who would wish to destroy them such as The Rasmanthus Guild.
As such, while technically allies, the two monolithic Dark Guilds are more like warily neutral organizations than true allies or openly hostile enemies - they skirt around each other, scheming and plotting to undermine the other in sneaky, less obvious ways such as striking at the smaller guilds beneath the other rather than making direct passes at their rival themselves, all while outwardly presenting as united a front as they can.

Openly Hostile

Necro Shroud

-100

The Rasmanthus Guild

-100

Unlike their Dark Guild Counterpart Lethe Labyrinth, Necro Shroud has no basis of any form of temporary alliance or truce with the forces of The Rasmanthus Guild nor those who would otherwise seek to undo them - as a guild made entirely of killers, thugs, murderers, assassins, thieves, and such for hire, they have no need nor desire to make friendly with their foes.
Instead, Necro Shroud is enemies with most every other organization on the continent - their only defense is their secrecy and the formation of their own organization, and the constant threat of bloodshed on the innocent populace should they be struck out against that keeps them hidden and safe...much to the fury of their more good-natured enemies, who loathe their standing orders to butcher as many innocents as possible should they fall under attack.
Their relations with other groups are often 'kill on sight', and neither side particularly wishes to change that relationship...though sometimes, they are hired by members within their rivals to accomplish tasks for one reason or another.

A Mysterious Leader

Led by the most notorious killer-for-hire on all of Zheng-Kitar and #5 most wanted individual on the continent whose death or capture is worth 100,000 Gold Pieces, Necro Shroud is led by The Nokizaru - and though the title itself has passed to several people throughout the years, none are or have been as notorious as the guild's current leader: A bounty hunter-turned murderer-for-hire by the name of Silus Hotspur.
Wearing a bone-skull mask carved from the head of an Othraka warchief he slew himself, Silus Hotspur, better known now by his epithet "The Nokizaru", is a contract killer who made untold fortunes slaughtering and killing his way across the continent in decades past - known for his near-divine skill with his custom-made Kollar Greatscythe and his vast armory of daggers, knives, and blades as well as his cloak made from the pelt of the legendary spotted dire panther known as "Old Twoclaw" that once terrorized the Narixian countryside, Silus is a threat that even the likes of Osmantha the Indomitable pauses before engaging.
However, thankfully, he is not a man without his scruples nor a personal code - as a killer for hire, he is thankfully a man who can be dealt with and has even deigned to help take down and assassinate other "Most Wanted" targets for a variety of reasons and 'contractors'...killing alongside others one day while attacking them the next. As such, he is commonly known as "The Least Most Wanted" - his scruples and willingness to make deals and take contracts from anyone means that despite his own immense personal power, he is thankfully reasonable when the fancy strikes him...though, if one finds themselves on the recieving end of his near-divine skill at assassination and death, one can do naught but pray. This attitude has, however, given him a somewhat casual relationship with many world leaders and mighty warriors, whom all know each other on a first name basis as those who are in the unique position of both having attempted to kill each other as well as fighting alongside each other with equal regularity.