Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Sgt. Udo's Howling Kommandos

Recently the party in my weekly Nightwick game has become the head of a small mercenary company.  They've named it after their official leader, played by Jeremy Duncan.  The first group of six bandits was encountered in a refugee camp outside of Lychgate.*  They were originally in the employ of a strong boss known as Big Jean, which the party slew.

Toothless Tom Smiler (deceased) was a younger man with a tangled black hair.  He had all of his teeth and often smiles big, broad smiles.  When asked why he was called "toothless," he produced a small pouch filled with teeth and gets another big grin on his face.  He met is end during an attempted mutiny.

Fingers is a medium built man with a large mole, a scraggly beard, and a scar over his left eye.  He is missing the index and middle fingers on his right hand, and you notice that he often attempts to favor it until he remembers that he's missing his fingers.  He personally strangled Tom Smiler to death during the mutiny.

Dunderheaded Mutch is an enormous man with a greasy mop of curly, red hair.  His face is blunt and imbecilic.  He often moans to himself, and though he seems capable of conversation, Tom Smiler noted 
that Big Jean always kept him under supervision.

Dwardie the Fool is a short man with a pot belly whose nose has clearly been broken several times.  He occasionally sings strange, nonsensical songs and dances around like an idiot; however, during times when silence is of the essence you note that he grows quiet and still as a mouse.

Brother Odo claims to have at one time been a priest, but he is also the bandit who believed that the Sun is the God of Law and that demons come from the moon.  He is a rough-looking man with salt and pepper hair and pug nose.

Wamba Big-Member is a boastful Karslishman that makes his fellow bandits uncomfortable.



From left to right: Fingers, Wamba Big-member, Nalla the Lad

It turns out these men were members of a group of bandits living in a ruined manor house south of Hommlet. While passing through the ruins of Hommlet** - and desperately trying to avoid pig-men - they found a number of other bandits in the company of a devil-man.  After slaying their diabolic leader, they added the following miscreants to their band:

Mumbling Marion is unintelligible to everyone in the party except for the other Kommandos.  He is a dirty man with a square head and few teeth.  He enjoys hitting things, which he does with a noiseless intensity.

Nalla the Lad lacks a tongue, so it is difficult to know much about his life story.  He is a thin man who carries a banjo, but you have not seen him play it.

Little Jean looks very similar to Big Jean, but is much smaller.  The other bandits assert they were both from some overly inbred village in Averoigne.  He did not seem saddened by the news of Big Jean's death.

Red Bill is a portly man with a mean snarl.  He can be a bit hot headed, but Fingers assures you he has no love for his former masters and will likely be a loyal - if ornery - companion.

Handsome Jack is missing his noise, and has a prominent brand on his face marking him as a heretic.  When asked about his heresy, he says only that he "stood up to a noble."  It is unlikely that he was handsome before his punishment.

Darbus and Dunbar are twins, and they would be identical if their faces were not both hideously scarred in completely different ways.  Darbus has a scar running across his left eye and his chin has a cleft from an old sword wound.  Dunbar's nose seems to have been broken several times, and his ears are both swollen and cauliflowered.  Or perhaps it is the other way around...


*The Dark Country has seen some really rough times lately, with the White Lady's awful pig-men destroying most of the farmland around Lychgate, a peasant revolt in the south, and a looming invasion by Arnawald, the Black Eagle of Waldheim.

**Hommlet, which lay near Lychgate, was destroyed a few weeks ago by pig-men.

2 comments:

  1. There are banjos in the Dark Country? Probably brought in by crafty potato bears.

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    1. I figured if I had anachronisms with the food and fauna, I might as well have banjos too. In for a Harnic Potato, in for a pound as they say.

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