The Brotherhood of Ash

Purpose:

The Brotherhood of Ash is a martial organization that was put together a generation ago so that particularly gifted and advantaged melee fighters could take their tremendous skill and outstanding equipment to good use. The Brotherhood picks it targets like ancient knightly orders, making quests of eliminating troublesome legendary monsters, breaking the worst of dungeons, and the part that frightens government organizations, destroying government organizations that are repressive, oppressive, tyrannical, or any other collection of adjectives that translate to evil.

This rankles lawful organizations because the Brotherhood is not a fully lawful organization, they do what is right, and might makes right in their eyes.

This infuriates neutral organizations because often legality and morality have nothing to do with each other and a bunch of armored demigods breaking up a legal tax-paying slaving organization in a morally gray land is seen as not very neutral or cool of the the nameless knights.

Evil organizations are their favorite targets, so the animosity is natural and obvious.

Agenda:

Hunt and destroy dangerous Beasts and Monsters that threaten the common people.

Seek out and destroy evil and corruption where it might be found.

Protect the Weak.

Keep the Strong honest.

Leader:

The Brotherhood does not have a leader, leadership is done by consensus and the only time a leader is chosen is when the Brotherhood deems a threat to be severe enough for the entire organization to gather and lend its blades. Then, and only then, is there a Lord Brother selected to lead.

Founder:

As the membership of the order is secret, so is the identity of the first Ash Brother

Membership:

There are estimated to be approximately a dozen Brothers in the order, though this number fluctuates. Each brother, a man of wealth, power, and influence, has the ability to put large numbers of soldiers, heroes, and adventurers to their causes.

Resources:

Even the Guild of Adventurers-Upon-Return worries about the wealth and weaponry the Brotherhood seems to have. The knights are equipped with epic and legendary equipment, sourced from unknown dungeons, and accordingly are unrecorded and unregistered in their inventories and lists of known legendary weapons, armor, and accessories. Each brother has a suit of full plate armor with a high gorget and great helm, all of masterwork quality and most are assumed to be, like their weapons, epic or legendary level gear, and made of epic level materials.

The Brotherhood has the money to hire entire mercenary armies, to charter entire guild companies of heroes, and even bring forth armies conscripted from different kingdoms and duchies of the realm.

Symbolism/Colors

None.

The Brotherhood doesn't have heraldry or banners, no colors, no flags. They seldom speak, and they give no names, and rarely has one ever been seen without their helm. They are generally recognized when someone realizes the knight in the relatively plain battered armor and worn blade actually is wearing a suit of admantine steel full plate and carrying a Flaming Sword, both of which would be lordly equipment and shouldn't look so ... used.

History/Origins

Here be the Answers for the Brotherhood of Ash

The founder and first circle of brothers were organized fifty years ago. They were all noble and royal sons of the Cridhedun that had all ended up being educated in Terrasquestone. This is not remarkable, it is common for young princes and other nobles to attend the great academies of the storied city of the orange stone fortress. They are expected to become educated, able to read and write, do math, perform magic, understand the importance of statecraft and economics, speak new languages, and learn lordly arts of intrigue, dancing, the actual arts, and the rest one would expect of a semi-magical boarding school for elite boys.

The things that drew them together were a common complaint and a common location. The complaint was common among young nobles, that they were too coddled and too protected. They were drilled in swordplay and strapped into armor but were never allowed to test themselves. They were taught philosophy and theology, thaumaturgy, and the power of praxis, but never allowed to try it. For young boys raised on stories of knights and princes slaying dragons and rescuing princesses, this was exceedingly lame. The location was the training hall of a world-famous man-at-arms and master of many forms of swordplay, and his training weapons, wasters, were all made of the same wood, ash.

The incident came on a darkling holiday in Terrasquestone, a night when the crypts and hidden places around the city groaned and shuddered and monsters would emerge to stalk the streets. On this night, the princes were fully expected to be secured in their various safe places, while adventurers and the guard fought monsters in the literal streets of the city. The wealthy held rooftop parties and soirees. They all gathered in the most anonymous armor they could find and spent the night running the streets, breaking open mausoleums, entering abandoned warehouses, and the like, leaving a trail of dead monsters in their wake. All of their skills were keen, their blades were sharp, and they had a taste for it.

These sons of privilege sought to temper themselves to greater effect. They gathered in secret, they started raiding dungeons and honing their skills even further. This was done without knowing the amplification factor of the dungeon, so their skill soared. Where their peers learned the sword, the nascent brothers were learning multiple sword schools, gaining combat mastery, combat mobility, improvised fighting, and entering their own tier of capability. But they were fighting and killing in the dungeon, and in the same dungeon they sparred with each other.

Their teacher, Master Turransol Sangdron, realized their actions and had to push himself so as to remain a worthy teacher for such students. He quickly organized all of these brothers into the same training cycle so he didn't have to deal with a single student who was a whirlwind of ash while other students were struggling with which end of the waster was supposed to be the sharp end.

Within the year the Brotherhood was initiated as a warrior's lodge. They would need the tools of brotherhood and secrecy to protect them. These were the cream of the crop of nobles, of paramount breeding, the best education, and strength of character. This was a stark contrast to most of their kind, who formed fraternities for things as trivial as wine-drinking clubs, to bawdy gentlemen's clubs devoted to debauchery and railing demihuman women for the interracial excitement. To find princes who wanted to aspire to the lofty ideals of the ancient traditions was something else.

Something their families would vigorously and violently oppose.

The Brotherhood grew, and they assumed their noble stations, with warrior princes becoming kings. Ironically, they were not warrior kings. Having tasted blood and death, they were not keen to send armies into battle, and were much better statesmen. When something was wrong, they were more inclined to act on it with individual focus, and were accordingly popular leaders among their peoples, but often not so favored in the intrigues of court.

Their children were sent to Terrasquestone.

Some of those children were chosen for the Brotherhood of Ash.

And the order continued and slowly grew.

As they grew, they undertook quests. Groups of brothers would raid distant dungeons and return with wealth in magic items, weapons, and armor. The Brotherhood coffers soon filled. Their arsenals became grand, and a few did perish. This steeled the others to know that this was no game. They drew stronger bonds of friendship and became brothers in blood and steel.

The activism of the Brotherhood is relatively new. In the past most of their work was hunting troublesome monsters in areas that couldn't afford hiring guild adventurers, or were considered not important enough to warrant the crown sending knights. They kept doing these things, slaying monsters and raiding dungeons, but they found more corruption growing.

They decided to start fixing things, making the pursuit of a social goal part of their area of interest.

When the Brotherhood went to war with necromancers and warlords no one complained. When they toppled pocket dictatorships and tyrannies ensconced in infernalism and slavery, people cheered.

When the Guild of Adventurers-Upon-Return in Irdrograng was sacked, its members beaten and disarmed, and three of its guild masters executed, people were upset. This was slightly tempered when the guildmaster's crimes were revealed. Then, the nobility was inflamed, they were benefitting handsomely from this illegal activity and were fine to turn a blind eye so long as the gold was put in their hands. Complaints were made, the adventuring guilds became involved and people started trying to find out who the Ash brothers were, to take them down or bring them to heel. In the eyes of the powerful, these warriors without masters were considered to dangerous to leave untended.

The great irony was that in many cases the Ash brothers sat at the feet of their fathers at these very meetings. They knew how and where to avoid trouble, and they would lay low until the heat was off, spending their time training, in school, or away raiding distant dungeons.

Actual Membership:

The Brotherhood of Ash is composed predominantly of princes, typically first and last born princes, as these tend to get the most extreme of the coddling, one for being the heir apparent and the ruling houses demanding no danger come to them, the other for being the youngest and always being treated as a boy regardless of their age. Middle princes are poorly represented, though these are the group most likely to be allowed to go adventuring and join guilds, they are neither first in line nor the baby of their mother's eye.

There are currently three active 'cells' of the Brotherhood, functionally three different classes/grades of members. The Freshmen are in their first three years of schooling in Terrasquestone and are splitting their time between school and the Gyre, and going to dungeons like the Strahldaz Obelisk, the Zochamis Abyss, and the Lannodred. Hitting these easier dungeons is letting them rank up quickly as well as letting the Freshmen kit out with better gear. The Brotherhood has impressive arsenals, and these items are loaned out as needed, but they generally expect a brother to eventually have his own gear and not rely on their handouts very long. There are fifteen Freshmen Brothers

The second class is the Sophomores, who have been in academy and Terrasquestone for three to five years. They explore further afield and take more time to find and hunt the most dangerous monsters. They do this for the experience and the loot drops, not for gold or accolades from guild or crown, which the other adventuring organizations rather require.  This is the most active group, and have mostly kitted themselves out and would have made names for themselves if they had names they shared. There are currently twenty Sophomores.

The Junior Brothers are in the last years of their education and are on the cusp of leaving school for their noble obligations. This is where they do their last hurrah, and carry out the sacred act of forging their sword. This is a ritual carried out in the Gyre, where they bring the raw materials they've gathered and literally forge the blade they will carry for the rest of their lives. This is a task assisted by a Senior Brother, so they are not required to become bladesmiths to complete this task. The current batch of Juniors is small, just six. Some of this has been malady and mischance, with three brothers moving on, and two perishing, the rest was the initial class being smaller than average for their years. This is seen as a potent of hard times coming.

The last group of brothers are the Senior Brothers and these tend to be the young princes who stay on in Terrasquestone and become teachers, administrators, and remain in contact with the martial schools so they can lead the upcoming Brothers in their training to become the very best, to become princes worthy of the epics and the sagas.

Actual Resources:

The arsenal of the Brotherhood of Ash in Terrasquestone, located near the Guild of Champions Colosseum, has enough high-tier equipment, weapons, and armor to fully equip an adventuring company in top tier material. There are several dozen full plate suits of Tarasceen steel, engraved and enchanted (on the inside) but battered and worn from years of hard service. The arming chambers have racks of swords, cases of daggers, walls bedecked with one-handed axes, short-handled hammers, and other melee weapons. The main hall has more shields than the Terrasquestone Civic Guards own, and all are of superior or better quality.

The amount of wealth contained in dungeon gemstones and precious metals is enough to induce nausea in those who see it. The Brotherhood has a hoarding that would please a great red dragon. They want for nothing, and the wealth means almost nothing to them, because as princes, what are they going to do with a mountain of gold? They are already princes, in line to become kings, archdukes, and the like. What, pay bills? They are princes, not bankers or money lenders, that is the realm of the merchant and the wizards, a profession far beneath the nobility.

Symbolism/colors

The Brotherhood wear a wooden ring on their right hand to show their membership in the order.  They will also have a tendency to have a piece of wooden jewelry or accessory. This is easily overlooked, and most rightly assumed that it is part of a training tradition from Terrasquestone, and it is no secret what princes attended which arming schools and finishing schools. Those schoolyard friendships run deep and this is to be expected, and is no more strange that the magi who carry similar traditions with their rings, rods, wands, and staves, or learned men with their color and pattern-coded stoles depicting their rank and alma maters.