Razboyniki

Write about an organization that is terrorizing a town in your world.

When the settlers first landed on Lazarus there were those who didn't want to be involved in the hurly burly of carving out a place on the frontier. They wanted to lord it over others, to make others do the hard work and give up the fruits of their labor to them. Such individuals were called a variety of names, usually thugs, brutes, villains. And for a while they managed to extort a living from others. During the Cafeteria Carnage such individuals did thrive as they became part of the emerging criminal sphere. But even so some still realised that life in the settlements was not for them.

And so some began to wander, to live off the land, to hunt and eat the local wildlife (and stray wanderer's if rumour is to be believed). They became highwaymen or as the Soviet American's dubbed them Razboynik (plural Razboyniki). At first they were not a menace, being few in number. Only to travelers and isolated farmsteads were they a danger along with the other things that lived on the continent.

During the Lost Years though and the First Dry War there numbers began to grow. Instead of a few isolated brigands, razboyniki started moving in groups raiding and pillaging. For fifteen years the razboyniki kept people concentrated into the settelemnts, villages, towns and nascent cities. Ironically they did more for forging social unity then anything else had and as a consequence they in turn gained a degree of freedom that the would not have had in settled areas. The problem was though, these were not rugged frontier folk striving against a harsh regime, these were brutal, vindictive rapers, raiders and ravagers, intent on carving out their own domain.

Still despite this reputation some saw a certain romantic appeal in the 'noble' razboynik, a person who robbed from the rich to give to the poor. Most of the time those who harboured such nonsense were nowhere near the continued raiding of this vile, mendacious monsters. Over time the numbers of the razboyniki grew (which begs the question were they really as vicious vile and monstrous? Why would people flee to such a group?)

Lazerene history has two distinct periods, the Settlement Era and the current Consolidationist Era. Yet between those two periods there lies a gap, a gap of some seven years. Historians dub this period the Interregnum. It is the shift between Settlement and Consolidation, it is generally treated as if it were merely a transition phase between two eras of history. In fact it was anything but.

This period from 2212 to 2219 CE is known unofficially as the Highway War. Rather than continually allow themselves to be raided and slaughtered several rural communities banded together and hired mercenaries. Mercenaries from Monolith City, Krasnygorod and Nova Luxor. Somehow the rag tag band of mercs dubbed Seven managed to cobble together a fighting militia from the various towns inhabitants. And then they went to war. Brutal vicious war, because Seven brought to the wilderness years of guerilla and corporate warfare experience.

By 2219 the razboyniki had been beaten and the settlers knew the value of their own strenght, more importantly they knew the value of the resources they could use to help them. But even though raids stopped for a time, the razboyniki were not destroyed. And in time they learned their lesson, they learned to not get too hungry, to not appear to threatening, for as long as they looked like jackals then lions would not tear them apart. The moment they appeared like wolves they knew that dragons would descend upon them.

Currently as things stand in 2336 these are the only remaining groups of razboyniki

• Kell's Phalanx
• The Four Horsemen aka 4H
• Legion

There is a rumour of a fourth razboyniki host in the furthest wild reaches of the continent, but no one has heard if this is true and even the other hosts scoff at such a thing. Still authorities in Utopia wonder, they also wonder if the remaining hosts are strong because of numbers or because of some other disturbing factor...