Brigands

Difficulty

Every camp has a difficulty from 1 to 10, shown wherever the band is announced: the bailiff's word, F2 > The realm > Brigands in the land, /brigands and the live map (with its skulls). The further from the towns, the harder the band. Their chief is one level harder than his men.

Real gear

Brigands wear and wield real gear, matched to their camp's strength: rags and clubs at the bottom, then padded coats and hunting swords, then mail, and at the top plate with longswords, war hammers and polearms - and now and then a shield. Their armour really stops your blows where it covers them, just as yours stops theirs: strike where they are unprotected, and remember that a helmet guards the head. A hard camp is tougher, but there is a cap: however good their armour, it never stops more than the share shown below.

1. Finding them

   Nobody is told when a band makes camp: ask the town clerk, the bailiff or the herald (see News of banditry below). Bands camp in the wilds, never within 250 m of a house, a village's stall, shop, tavern or delivery point, or a town's edge. F2 > The realm > Brigands in the land (or /brigands) lists every band with its difficulty and marks the nearest on your compass; the live map shows them all.

2. The fight

   They attack anyone who comes within twenty paces. Cutpurses are a fair fight for one person; deserters of difficulty 7 and up call for a whole party in good armour.

3. The price

   When the last of them falls, everyone who struck a blow shares the head prices (and the chief's bounty), gains renown and earns their faction influence in the nearest town. The harder the band, the more it pays: the head price and the renown rise by 15% for every level above the band's lowest difficulty (a camp pays some 400 groschen on average, shared among its hunters; at most 300 for each hunter - 300 alone, 600 for two - and 1,500 in all; no one draws more than 2,500 groschen of bounty a day). A deserter captain of difficulty 8 and up sometimes carries one of the game's quest relics in his baggage, for one of those who brought the band down (see the forge): one chance in 8 at difficulty 8, one in 6 at 9, one in 4 at 10 - and never more than three a week in the whole realm, nor a second one for the same character within a month.

4. The strongbox

   A chief of difficulty 7 or more keeps a strongbox: a 20% chance at 7, rising to 50% at 10, that it holds a piece of silver for one of the band's slayers - a silver cup, a silver chalice at 9, a river pearl necklace at 10. Never weapons or armour: gear is the crafters' work.

Roadblocks

Now and then, while at least three players are in the realm, a band blocks a road between two towns: a barricade of crates, barrels and sacks across the way, with the band beside it attacking anyone who comes near. At most two roadblocks stand at a time. A roadblock works like any other camp - its difficulty, its head price, its renown, its skulls on the live map - and it is announced as a roadblock between the two towns. The barricade comes down with the band: when the last of them falls, or when the band leaves after its hour.

News of banditry

Brigands are never announced in the chat: not a new camp, a band moving on, a roadblock nor a band put down (those who bring it down hear their own bounty). To know where they are, ask: the town clerk (the News of banditry section of the town hall's window), the bailiff at the pillory and the herald report every raid under way, every camp and every blocked road - near which place, which band, since when, and what they are worth - with the distance from you; pick one to mark it on your map. /banditry gives the same report anywhere.

Searching the fallen

A fallen brigand - or a raider in a town raid - can be searched the game's usual way while his body lies there (five minutes for a camp's men, three for a raider). He carries no coin: what he has on him is goods for the crafters, straight into your sack - one load of what his kind carries, now and then some silver ore, and about one body in three hundred one of the rare finds (pure silver nuggets, rock crystals, river pearls, amber). Now and then some food too - an apple, an onion. Never his gear. The first to search a body takes what it holds.