The Bloodied Hand - Factions & Adversaries
This post provides information on the Bloodied Hand, a powerful and large gang within the city of Ferrum located on the world of Talia. This gang can exist in any world where a city is troubled by powerful thief guilds and the government is corrupted by them. For more information about Talia, you can check out our free supplements Neiko's Primer to Talia and Ferrum, the Canal City. In addition, they are a major focus of our latest adventure, Book 2 - Revolution in Bern, where the party must form their own gang and fight against them to save, or control, the city.
Introduction
The Bloodied Hand is a gang that has quickly risen in power and size. They are a brutal gang of thugs who have employed the use of secret officers to help keep them from being destroyed or dismantled by the city, allowing them to largely work without interference. In addition to that, they are also led by a mysterious leader who no one, but the highest ranking members in the gang know, the District Mayor of Lower Bern, Yuri Aristarkh. This gang was started by Yuri to help hide his underhanded merchant dealings, stealing from other companies and selling to competitors at low prices.
As the gang has grown, they have gotten ever more brazen, committing robberies in broad daylight and even accosting the Ferrum Watch with no reprisals. As they continue, their numbers only swell and violence only increases.
Guide to Absalom, 2009 Paizo Inc.
History
The Bloodied Hand has gone through a number of changes since Yuri first began the gang. Not only has it gone through name changes, but it's ultimate goals have morphed. At first, it was merely a way for a young-Yuri to eat that day. But as he got a taste for power, for cruelty, and for wealth; it slowly began to morph and change until it's only purpose is to spread pain and make Yuri a very rich man, whose ultimate goal is to take control of the city.
This gang was once known as the Olvehawk Boys, where Yuri and his young friends would steal lunches and small amounts of scrap materials from factories. When they found a buyer for a lot of their scrap materials, they realized how much more money they could be making if they focused their efforts on nicer material instead of whatever refuse the factories were throwing in their slag heaps. Over the next few years, their thefts grew in scope until they had three dozen kids under them; their new gang name was the Coppernickers, and had been in and out of prison constantly. It was at this time that Yuri committed his first murder when one of his friends from the original Olvehawk Boys tried to take control. From then on, Yuri never hesitated to add a corpse whenever he took on a job.
As the Coppernickers grew, Yuri realized that they were gaining too much notice from the Ferrum Watch. Yuri was older now, just over his age of majority, and was tired of still being treated like a thug or criminal by everyone, even when he had such wealth and power over others. At this point, he got the majority of the Coppernickers killed or imprisoned by the Ferrum Watch except for a select few that he trusted the most. From a small group of less than a dozen, he formed the Bloodied Hand in the district of Lower Bern, working in shadows and secrets before reinventing himself as Yuri Aristarkh, a well-connected merchant. It's been over a dozen years since the start of the Bloodied Hand, and their presence is a monolith in the district.
Joining the Gang
People from across the city are willing to join the Bloodied Hand for a few reasons; the most often one is that they like the control and power they gain over others, or they want to make money. The gang was started in the poorest sections of Ferrum, making it easy for them to reach individuals who have no other options. For many, they were already committing crime, but it was random and chaotic. By joining an organization devoted to criminal activity, they are no longer committing random acts of thievery, but rather purposeful acts that will help to increase their personal wealth, the gang's wealth, as well as keep their notoriety at a preferred level. The gang wants to be feared, but not so feared that the nobility and ruling class decides to put an end to them.
AP# 29 Mother of Flies, 2009 Paizo Inc.
Recruitment
The Bloodied Hand is always looking for people to join their ranks, with a few different ways of recruiting. They are happy to employ thugs and brutes to swell their lower ranks; but they are also in search of highly intelligent and skilled members to join their upper ranks. They are in need of those gifted with magic, those who are skilled as second story workers, and those who can think about the bigger picture. They aren't just brutes smashing through windows, though they can do that in certain areas of the city if that is the best course of action.
Instead, the gang acts highly logical and with deliberate maneuvers. If they want to destroy a rival guild or gang, they find the best path towards that goal. It could be simply offering work to rival gangs members, leaving their leadership vulnerable without any protection from their lower ranks. Then again, they have no problem hiring an assassin to kill a single politician or not even trying to have a presence in a part of the city until they have taken over other areas.
At each point, they are looking for the right tool for the job. The shadow officers keep a close eye on their recruits, judging them with a practiced eye as to their skills and ability. If someone has shown a propensity for locks, they won't be wasted on gang activity that involves bashing skulls. They value skill and ability.
Goals
While wealth is of interest to the gang, it is only a means to an end. Yuri's focus is increasing his power within the city. To this end, the Bloodied Hand has been making headway in recruiting the rich and powerful of the city. They are the purveyors of almost every vice imaginable, bringing in huge amounts of money every week. The key to doing all of this, though, is what their operations look like based on the clientele they are trying to attract. Nobles and well-to-do merchants don't want to go into a vice den that is well known to deal with criminal activity, instead, they want to go to upstanding establishments that are known for having a great wine selection, for the best cigars imported from distant lands, or where the greatest minds in the city congregate to discuss politics, magic, and science. It wouldn't do if the Bloodied Hand was overtly portrayed as running these establishments, and so subterfuge is employed.
With that said, the Bloodied Hand has no problem sending out their members to visit violence against store owners to pay protection money, but they only do so in certain areas in the city where there isn't any consequence for doing so. Lower Bern's Watch never ventures into the poorer neighborhoods of the district, and so the Bloodied Hand can freely prey on anyone who lives there, extracting more with the promise of violence and death.
In other areas, a gentler touch is required. The money they extract from the poorer districts is used to bribe the Ferrum Watch and inspectors. They buy up expensive businesses, cutting their prices to below even what it costs to produce the item, and make themselves known as the best in the area. One of the ways they are able to cut their prices so low is because they steal most of what they sell, or they force the producers to sell at too low a price or risk watching everything they worked for set on fire.
Organization
Much of the upper ranks of the gang are purposefully clothed in shadows. While it does mean that the lowest ranks of their organization can be tricked by outsiders into claiming they are important members of the gang, it is a trade-off that the leaders are willing to take. To maintain a veneer of respectability, they keep any mention of their names far from Bloodied Hand's activities. When Yuri wishes to give his orders to the gang, they are passed on to the Blood Captains, who pass that on to their Shadow Officers, who then pass it on to their different teams based on what the goal is.
Blood Leader
Yuri Aristarkh, 2022 Art by Hasel-Anne
Cloaked in the shadows is the infamous Blood Leader. The broadsheets of Ferrum are filled with rumors of who this person could be, ranging from the Lord Mayor of Ferrum herself to important families throughout the city. Yuri himself has even been named a few times, though it has always been carefully done by the printers that the Bloodied Hand controls. They hope to add as much confusion as possible, and by naming Yuri, along with every other District Mayor, they only further the rumors and gossip.
Yuri Aristarkh's vision for the gang is that it helps him to ascend to Lord Mayor of Ferrum, or perhaps even further. He seeks power over others, and, even if he were to control the entire nation of Ferrum, there are still places that he doesn't control. His drive for power keeps him moving forward, always pressing forward, even if it would be to his detriment. He has a blind spot when it comes to him seizing power, leaving him vulnerable if his carefully crafted plans were to fall apart due to his obsessive need for control.
Blood Captains
Often seen as the true 'leadership' of the Bloodied Hand, they don't claim as much secrecy as him, and so are at least a bit more known than Yuri. They are often considered the 'faces' of the gang, to the gang recruits, though the public is still largely ignorant of them. When someone tells a recruit that they have angered Blood Captain Sharlyn, they may not be able to think of her face or where she is located, but they will know of her cruel wrath.
There are twelve Blood Captains, each with a different focus, though there is some overlap between them. In such cases where there is overlap, the Blood Captains are supposed to give each other a heads up about any major activities they might take on, but that is often 'forgotten' about. While it isn't common, the Bloodied Hand have killed their own recruits a few times due to mistakes such as this.
Blood Captain Sharlyn, 2022 Art by Hasel-Anne
Blood Captain Sharlyn In charge of maintaining the fighting pits in Leifford, Lower Bern, and Westend as well as ensuring that the businesses around the canal docks are paying their protection fees. Her reputation within the gang is that of vile cruelty, delighting in hands-on torture.
Blood Captain Narayan Focused on growing the gang within the district of Canal Hill, Narayan maintains a roster of skilled arsonists, beaters, and thieves. His approach to most situations is to simply kill anyone that gets in the way, a fact that Yuri is trying to utilize by terrorizing the poor neighborhoods in Canal Hill.
Blood Captain Damok His role is to maintain the vice dens in High Cross, Upper Ferrum, and Lantish Town. This includes brothels, smoking dens, and even coffee shops with a specific clientele of the rich and powerful in the city.
Blood Captain Eulalia With a natural gift of gab, Eulalia has been focused on slowly increasing the Bloodied Hand's influence in the offices of multiple broadsheet and news purveyors in the city, including World Talia and The Ferrum Canal.
Blood Captain Osbert He maintains the bruisers and beaters that work within Olve Park, Leifford, and Westend. He often buts heads with Sharlyn, who he thinks oversteps her bounds and roles routinely. In fact, he is currently looking for a way to kill Sharlyn as she got his brother killed in a failed job to take down another gang - a role that he is supposed to fulfill, not her.
Shadow Officers
Below the Blood Captains are the Shadow Officers. If the Blood Captains are the semi-public face of the gang, the Shadow Officers are the unseen hands that enact the will of the gang. These members are shrouded in mystery and each Blood Captain maintains about a dozen Shadow Officers to help them in their mission. Many Shadow Officers hold positions within the government, some lowly positions as clerks for District Mayors, while others might be as high up as the District Chiefs for their District's Watch. Each Shadow Officer has their own ways of communicating with the lower ranks, though often they have lieutenants that are more public about their involvement in the Bloodied Hand and may even wear the unofficial uniform of the Bloodied Hand, that of maroon red with a black hand imprint.
Shadow Officers often utilize dead drops, meeting rooms bathed in shadows, and other ways of secretly giving their information to their inferiors. Those that are magically gifted will even use magic to deliver their messages, like utilizing message cantrips or sending spells.
Lower Ranks
The lower ranks of the Bloodied Hand are set up differently based on what Blood Captain leads this group. There isn't one way for these recruits to be set up, though they try to maintain some type of hierarchy within each one. Each Blood Captain is focused on a different objective and so must be able to best decide how their section of the organization should be structured. Often this is made up of lieutenants who report directly to their Shadow Officers, who then pass on those instructions to neighborhood strongholds that hold anywhere from a dozen to five dozen recruits. These recruits then enact their instructions to the best of their ability, like setting fires or threatening business owners with paying protection fees.
Communication
Due to the Blood Leader not giving his orders directly to his minor thugs and cutpurses, sometimes his orders get carried out wrong or things happen that he can't respond to quickly through the various layers of shadowy dealings. It is an unfortunate trade-off that can't be avoided if he wants to continue to feign innocence to the public at large. When he does reveal himself to anyone of a lower rank than Shadow Officer, it is often the last time that that person is heard from.
Dead Drops
Throughout the city are false bricks, hidden caches, and other subtle places where the common resident isn't likely to look or investigate. In these places, Blood Captains and Shadow Officers may hide messages or materials for their underlings.
Magic
A key way that many Blood Captains communicate with their Shadow Officers is through the use of magic. While not every Blood Captain is magically gifted, they have no problem coercing magic-users to work for them. The Bloodied Hand, through business fronts, has sponsored many magically gifted people to join the Ferrum University of Magic and Sciences, of course, the sponsor quickly ends after a few years when the individual has accrued enough debt and interest that they have no choice but to drop out of school and work for the Bloodied Hand.
The Blood Captains have their magic-users use spells, like sending to pass along their messages to far away Shadow Officers or have their magical messengers walk past Shadow Officers and use message to subtly pass on orders.
Thieves' Cant
A name given to this 'language' by outsiders, thieves' cant is the common language but utilizes metaphors, mispronunciations, and allusions to pass along complicated messages. Often to outsiders, it sounds like daft smalltalk or inside jokes and gibberish between friends, but this language is often thought of as the catalyst for new slang throughout the city and the gang routinely must come up with new phrases and words as their previously concocted words enters the city's common lexicon.
For example, the Bloodied Hand might talk about a bit maker working out of a dollhouse. Bit maker means someone who counterfeits coins, and dollhouse means a brothel, often one that is unlicensed.
Allies
AP# 29 Mother of Flies, 2009 Paizo Inc.
While the gang isn’t known for making friends, they still have working relationships with some in the city. While many of these relationships are built on coercion or blackmail, the Bloodied Hand can still count on these people to help them out when they need to.
Lower Bern’s Watch While neither side will ever formally announce a partnership, the District Chief Bobby Don is a high-ranking Shadow Officer that works directly with Yuri, a rarity within this gang. His position within the Watch is a major asset and helps the Bloodied Hand avoid any dealings with the policing force in their home-district of Lower Bern.
Tribulation “Trib” Quick A talented, and mostly deranged, assassin, Trib is often hired by the gang to deal with assassinations that they don’t want botched by someone less skilled, even someone in their gang. They also utilize him when they don’t want to have a direct connection to the assassin. Trib delights in assassinations where he gets to hurt as many people as possible, spilling as much blood while speaking prophetically to his victims.
Baron Kairon Meci A minor noble with an ancestral home in Lantish Town, Meci is an accountant for many nobles and was coerced into working for the Bloodied Hand. He provides detailed copies of the noble accounts he works on, letting Yuri know how to push nobles by using their vices against them.
Iron Cauldrons A small gang located in Upper Kason that the Bloodied Hand pays to do smaller jobs for them as they don’t yet have a presence in this district. Once the Bloodied Hand expands into this district, they’ll either be consumed or eleminated.
Rivals
It comes with no surprise that the Bloodied Hand has made their fair share of enemies in the city, with the biggest being the city government itself.
Lamplighter’s Guild Located in Canal Hill, the Lamplighter’s Guild is made up of ex-lamplighters who have lost their jobs thanks to magical and gas powered streetlamps. Their grip on Canal Hill is still pretty strong, as many live in this district, but the Bloodied Hand is slowly chipping it away.
Scribes of Mykane Mykane is a god of contracts and the enforcer of divine writs, and it’s worshipers are often assassins, thieves, and lawyers who value the written and spoken oaths that go along with their jobs. The Bloodied Hand has no problem breaking such oaths if it’ll push them further along and the worshipers of Mykane refuse to do jobs for them because of it.
Inspector Hugo Jovan A skilled detective working for the Middleton Watch, he is slowly working to uncover the mastermind behind the Bloodied Hand and attempts to pay him off or neutralize him have all failed so far.
Save Ferrum This group, a gang in all but name, have been fighting the “Good Fight” against the Bloodied Hand since their founding. They first formed as a way to push back against crime, though now they have become a safe haven for people who believe in a radical ideology around the ‘purity’ of Ferrum.
Adventure Ideas
Criminal Intent
A few local street toughs are trying to prove that they have what it takes to join the Bloodied Hand and are making the lives around them miserable. So far there has only been a few break-ins and robberies, but they are beginning to increase their activity, and many fear it is just a matter of time before they begin attacking people in the streets.
Firefighting
Several buildings have been catching on fire lately, and the owners all claim it was by accident but the Watch isn't convinced. Every attempt they have made to investigate keeps getting blocked by the owners, so they are looking for some adventurers to investigate for them. Arsonists are a very real and terrible problem for a city to have and they want to catch whoever is causing these fires and bring them to justice.
An Offer You Can't Refuse
The Bloodied Hand is impressed with the party's recent activities, for better or for worse, and want to hire them for a job. They want to break into the Alia Estate, a powerful family that is said to control half of the government of Ferrum, and steal a valuable artifact. If the party refuses, they have no problem holding a few people hostage to ensure good behavior.
Example Statblocks
Elite Thug
Elite thugs have proven they are more capable than others and are often given greater responsibility. If you wish, you can replace two thugs in an encounter with a single elite thug if you wish to give your players a bit more varied enemies while maintaining a similar balance.
Sniper
Dangerous hunters and assassins, they are trained at launching arrows or firing firearms from a great distance. They rarely engage in melee combat, instead preferring to stick to shadows and high vantage points where they have multiple routes of egress.
Torturer
Employed by nations and gangs, torturers are wicked creatures who have learned that through pain and torment, they can get anything they want out of someone. While not all take as much delight in inflicting pain on others, many are fervent worshipers of Jasada, a god devoted to carnal desires and torture.
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