Black Crusade

Current Status

The Black Crusade is now led by Lyssandra DeVayn, a brilliant and unsettling tactician rumored to be a living magical husk—kept alive, empowered, and partially altered by forbidden rituals once studied in tandem with Vincent Edwards III. Following Vincent’s violent death and subsequent resurrection as a lich in service to the Dread Pirates, DeVayn seized the helm with calculated precision. Her rise prevented the total collapse of the Crusade and consolidated the surviving loyalists under a single banner.
  Under DeVayn’s command, the Crusade has restructured its fleets along the southern and eastern seas, abandoning Vincent III’s erratic conquest doctrine in favor of strategic control of harbors, debt-brokered alliances, and destabilization campaigns. Though they retain pockets of militant zealotry, DeVayn’s pragmatic leadership has shifted the Crusade from ideological fanaticism into a political machine driven by maritime supremacy, covert influence, and targeted strikes.
  In a historic pivot, Lyssandra DeVayn has offered to meet personally with Persefani DeSirrus, leader of the Free Seas, to discuss terms of potential surrender, ceasefire, or limited alignment. Many fear duplicity—others see the first sign that the endless wars between pirate factions might finally change course.
 

History

The Black Crusade began as the Black Bandanna Crusaders, led by Vincent Edwards Sr. and later violently overtaken by Vincent Edwards Jr. and his son, Vincent Edwards III. Their lineage carried an obsession with “purifying” the seas, eliminating undead, unholy forces, and eventually any who stood in the way of their dominion. They were feared for scorched-earth tactics, no-survivor engagements, and ideological fanaticism influenced heavily—and at times directly supported—by factions of the Scarlet Crusade.
  Vincent Edwards III ascended to full command after mutilating his own father’s authority and, eventually, his father himself. III ruled with relentless brutality, forging unholy alliances with corrupt Alliance nobles, kidnapping Vincent Edwards II, and extending the Crusade’s reach across the southern and eastern waters. After losing both arms in a battle against his father, he obtained magical prosthetics from a mysterious elven benefactor, becoming more arcane construct than man. Under him, the Black Crusade entered a volatile three-way deadlock against the Eternal Crusade, the Red Dawn, and the Blackwater Company.
  But Vincent’s reign ended abruptly when the Dread Pirates ran his flagship aground, slaughtered his crew, and claimed him as a prize—twisting him into a lich bound to their will. His disappearance sent shockwaves through the Crusade, leaving a brutal power vacuum.
  Into this void stepped Lyssandra DeVayn, once a shadowy advisor and arcane researcher among Vincent’s inner circle. Unlike her predecessors, DeVayn was not driven by the dogma of purity or the scrap-addiction of endless war. Her swift consolidation of power, ability to redirect surviving Crusade warbands, and her willingness to speak with rival powers demonstrated a new era for the faction—one of cold strategy, opportunistic diplomacy, and a reawakening of the Crusade’s long-buried political cunning.
  Today, the Black Crusade stands at a turning point. Between the growing threat of the Dread Pirates, the weakening of old alliances, and DeVayn’s unexpected invitation to Persefani, the future of the Crusade—and its place among the Free Seas—remains uncertain for the first time in its history.
 
  Diplomacy