2025 Apr 30: The Warrior-Brotherhoods of Caeledor

 Warrior-brotherhoods are a common cultural institution among the northern humans and wood elves. Basically a group of young warrior-aristocrats (often sporting multiple sorcerers) and their retainers, they roam the lands looking for glory and riches. Their lives consist of killing monsters, looting ancient barrows, attacking nearby settlements, and generally being both incredibly useful and a huge headache for the local rulers. They are also invited to the councils of their relatives, where they usually advocate for aggressive foreign policies, hoping for a war where they can gain money and prestige fast, and perhaps find an older noble willing to permanently giving them some kind of title.

In Caeledor specifically, they sometimes ambush caravans carrying tin if they haven't paid the customary amount for protection to the local rulers, or if they paid to the wrong rulers (wrong in this context means that they aren't on friendly terms with the brotherhood in question). They also often act as both the standard response to something nasty crawling up from the mines and eating the workforce, or as impromptu expeditions into old shafts, and the natural caverns that the mines sometimes intersect.

 Art by Giuseppe Rava