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The Dividers

Profile

  • Kind: Group of mercenaries
  • Purpose: Fight for a living and spread the Awaken faith
  • Founded: Emerged within the last ten years from Ripped Banners companies, with no clear founding date
  • Organizational state: Active
  • Scale: 300–500 fighters per company. Together they are much smaller than the Ripped Banners.
  • Reach: Mainly Algeron
  • Influence: Limited, strongest among their fighters and the poor they recruit
  • Stability: The Nortens brought new strength to the Dividers and their fading faith.
  • Headquarters or seat: No permanent headquarters
  • Leader: Independent company leaders, including Sorrel Saw
  • Reputation: Many call them cultists.
  • Symbol or identifying mark: Blue facial stripes, with the number of lines marking experience

Purpose and Agenda

The Dividers fight for a living and spread the Awaken faith.

Organization

The Dividers are split among largely independent companies. Dividers may have their own teams. Sorrel Saw is one of their leaders.

Membership and Culture

Recruitment

They once attracted a wider range of recruits. Stories of their rites and the treatment of their own people began driving recruits away. They accept desperate people, those who are easily deceived, and outcast Nortens. Rituals often drive unconverted members away, after which the Dividers recruit replacements.

Northern Traditions

The Dividers have roots in the culture of the Nortens. Linemarks are mercenaries from the Nortens.

They cover their faces during raids. Blue stripes painted on their faces help conceal their identity. This practice comes from tribal rituals in the mountains, and the number of lines marks experience.

As a group, they often call themselves marcs, murks, or merks, nicknames inherited from the Linemarks. Among the Dividers, marc is still a common rank, and many wear the traditional blue facial stripes. The ‘murks’ form reflects the Norten accent.

Company Nicknames

Typical nicknames within the companies include:

  • Hollow
  • The Mourner
  • Fingers
  • The Halfman
  • Downborn

Ranks and Conditions

These descriptions can overlap. Someone can be a marc, Quiet, and Runed at the same time.

  • Marcs: Marc is the official rank for recruits accepted as ‘one of us’ by the company’s existing marcs. Hyllen and Rorke hold this rank and serve as vanguards.
  • The Quiet: The Quiet have not yet embraced the Waker.
  • The Runed: The Runed have undergone the rune ritual, covering their bodies in runes. They include veterans and highly skilled warriors.

Operations and Practices

Raiding and Mercenary Work

The Dividers roam and raid caravans. They also travel between mercenary contracts.

The Dividers feed the poor and protect peasants from other mercenaries, but exploit the desperate people who join their ranks.

They hire beggars and other lowborn people, arm them with large weapons, and use them as cannon fodder.

Rites

The company’s Awaken guides lead rites in the Waker’s name.

Runic Markings

The Runed inherit an ancient ritual once used to strengthen warriors serving an empire. Their runes make them better vessels for strengthening magic, but break their minds over time.

Reach and Assets

The Dividers have no permanent headquarters.

  • People: Fighters organized in several companies, with Runed warriors and vanguards among them
  • Resources: Mercenary pay and plunder from raids
  • Notable assets: The Runed and their body markings
  • Sources of power: Their fighters, Awaken connections, and runic magic

Relations

  1. The Awaken: The Dividers’ leading figures belong to the Awaken, the religion of the Waker.
  2. Norten hordes: They frequently fight barbarian hordes.
  3. Ripped Banners: The Dividers remain formally part of the Ripped Banners. They were already distancing themselves from that tradition before the outcast Linemarks joined, and the merger strengthened their independence.
  4. Algeron: Their main area of operation

History

Beginnings

The Dividers began emerging from Ripped Banners companies within the last ten years. No clear founding date or single founder is identified. Sorrel Saw was among their earliest members.

The Raiders and the Monk

Linemarks who join the Dividers are often outcasts among the Nortens, rejected for misdeeds such as raiding their own people.

One such group took Sorrel Saw, a monk of Erathul who was a thrall, as their guide. He later became their leader.

They had to fight in the south to survive and returned only after another war in the north. They survived by raiding, but were hunted. Sorrel guided them to places where no one knew them.

Undead Defeats

The Dividers suffered heavy losses against undead legionaries before Sorrel’s expedition into an undead crypt.

The Dividers were already forming when Sorrel entered the crypt as a Linemark. He emerged as a Divider and began bringing Nortens into their ranks.

Sorrel was the expedition’s sole survivor. The Dividers recruited again afterward.

Other Campaigns

They were also sent to the war against Nevaria.

Many Dividers failed to return from an encounter with creatures from the north.

Notable People

  • Sorrel Saw: One of the Dividers’ company leaders
  • Har Black Blood: Zealot who returned changed
  • Albrecht the Insane: Har’s companion, troubled by guilt
  • Torsten Teeth: Fanatical shield fighter
  • Oswald: Axeman who left the company
  • Sigmund The Indecisive: Unconverted archer under Sorrel’s protection
  • Caspar the Homeless: Exiled, ruthless fighter
  • Burkhard the Butcher: Merciless, superstitious swordsman
  • Rupert the Broken: Retired fighter who trains recruits
  • Folk the Misguided
  • Bruhn The Drum: Known for beating opponents
  • Berthold Dead Head: Pessimist who dislikes thinking
  • Gunther the Drop: Left behind to die
  • Ulfert the Indecisive: Killed fighting brigands
  • Meinholf the Dirty: Poacher and longtime Awaken convert
  • The Cut: Killed after charging into brigands
  • Malte Beggar: Former beggar, a fury in combat
  • Strongboy
  • Hyllen: Vanguard who uses a large mace
  • Rorke: Vanguard trained in southern weapons
  • Vaettir the Bear

Currents

  • Pressure: Northern creatures have seemed increasingly restless of late.
  • Active move: Recruit new fighters and strengthen Awaken influence within the Dividers.
  • At stake: The Awaken’s influence within the companies as new fighters join