Creating Flavorful Bandit Clans

[nakedonmyfoldin]

In a lawless borderland, bandits run rampant. The nearest city doesn't have the resources to patrol the wilderness. So since the business has such lucrative potential, there is a huge increase in the number of organizations on the road.

My question here is, how can I spice up these clans so that they are each unique and distinctly interesting. What traits can identify them?

[Geddy2112]

Motive, membership, and mobility. Or why, who, and how? You already have where(forest) when (whenever) what(highwayman encounter)

Motive: Why do these clans raid? Are they simply taking advantage of the quick lucrative gains? Are they the sickest puppies out to murder and butcher their targets? Are they splinters of a tribe who knows no other way? Are they defending their homeland? Does their religion make them highway bandits? Are they dirt poor brigands raiding to simply survive?

Membership:Who is in these clans? Are they orcs, with maybe a couple goblin slaves and some human women they captured? Are they a group of particularly racist elves? What about a group of ex prisoners, spanning multiple races? Is the group a family? Ex military? Religious cult?

Mobility: Does the tribe only stick to one area? What is their base of operations? Do they have horses and wagons, and if so do they have these regularly or only take what they can steal? Do they use water transportation? What about magical transportation?

[BowStreetRunner]

Some are local barbarian clans. They consider the land to be theirs and feel they have the right to do as they please with trespassers. So class-wise you will see more barbarians, totemists, warblades, or whatever passes for barbarian classes in your campaign. These groups would be racially homogeneous - so one might be a bugbear tribe while another is a lizardfolk tribe.
Some are actual outlaws, all members of different classes each wanted for various crimes and banding together for mutual gain.
Some are deserters or ronin who are all former soldiers.
Some are refugees who mostly have NPC classes.
Some are actually in the service of a neighboring realm, masquerading as bandits while in fact pursuing the political goals of their ruler.

[nakedonmyfoldin]

Some are local barbarian clans. They consider the land to be theirs and feel they have the right to do as they please with trespassers. So class-wise you will see more barbarians, totemists, warblades, or whatever passes for barbarian classes in your campaign. These groups would be racially homogeneous - so one might be a bugbear tribe while another is a lizardfolk tribe.
Some are actual outlaws, all members of different classes each wanted for various crimes and banding together for mutual gain.
Some are deserters or ronin who are all former soldiers.
Some are refugees who mostly have NPC classes.
Some are actually in the service of a neighboring realm, masquerading as bandits while in fact pursuing the political goals of their ruler.


Beautiful, some great ideas to get the creative juices flowing. Thanks mate!

[Elder_Basilisk]

Who are the "bandit" clans raiding? If you are imagining a group of scattered, beleaguered villages with camps of bandits throughout the forests and areas in between who are profiting by raiding traders and travelers, you probably won't be able to come up with a flavorful and realistic way to distinguish the bandits because the scenario is not very realistic.

Isolated villages don't trade with each other much--that's why they're isolated. Travelers and merchants tend to avoid dangerous roads or travel with enough protection to make them likely to get through. And robbers who realize that there is no one able to oppose them in the villages generally become robber barons in short order.

A more realistic scenario combines the bandit clans and the villages. Village A is controlled by bandit clan A. Village B was always full of bellicose troublemakers and they started raiding Villages A, C, and D as soon as it became clear that no-one could stop them. Villages C and D tried to maintain their social system for a while, but had to appeal to bandit leader C* (who had been operating in their lands when the local city did have the resources to protect trade) for protection. There's a group of orcish refugees/an orcish warband that just moved into the area. They lost their territory in a war with a nearby orc tribe and migrated looking for a war they could win. There's also a group of fanatical Hextorite cultists who are gaining territory in villages E and F because 1. they are organized, 2. they are funded by a nearby Hextorite nation, 3. they are more ruthless than the other groups, and 4. While they persecute a lot of different people, they actually enforce some semblance of justice for humans in their lands unlike the groups who control villages A and B or the orc warband. Village G is "protected" by the one military unit the nearby city actually sent, but the local commander uses his authority to abuse the locals and steals his soldiers' pay (at least those who aren't in the same tribe as him), so he's really no different than the bandits and is actually worse than the godfather figure who now rules villages C and D.

In this kind of scenario, the "bandits" will be distinguished by race and class (orcs vs humans), religion (Hextorite cultists, Gruumsch worshipping orcs, everone else), dress (the bandits of village G wear the uniforms of the city's military, the orcs wear tribal garb, the tribe in village B may have distinctive dress and tattoos, etc), tactics (village G still uses more or less military tactics, the orcs are conquering territory, village A demands protection money, village B simply comes in the night, kills steals and rapes, etc), preferred atrocities (village A's bandit leader, kills anyone who disagrees on the spot, village B burns down the house of their opponents and kills their families, villages C and D start with a beating for internal dissidents and work their way up; for external foes, they prefer a crossbow bolt to the head and leaving the body in the village square; the orcs kill all the men, old women, and children, add the women to their harems, and take their foes' homes (standard ancient world ethnic cleansing), the commander of village F prefers crucifixion, and the Hextorite cult likes ceremonial flaying followed by ritual sacrifice) and narrative arc (the orcs are refugees turned maurauders, the local military commander is turning into a bandit warlord, the godfather in villages C and D is turning into a feudal lord, the Hextorite cultists are transforming the people under them, etc).

Looking at analysis of modern Syria or late 19th century Afghanistan might provide some real world examples.