Worldbuilding: bandits and villains

1. Copper Blades

Tactically efficient bandits known for carrying distinctive copper-plated daggers. They use their uncommon combat coordination to attack larger merchant convoys. Led by Copper Bobby, who supposedly wields a solid copper sword.

BIG FIVE - There Were Times Of Courage, by Sebastian Gromann

2. The Drove

Grotesque brigands who wear raw, leathery pig skins, including masks and hoof-decorated boots. Rumored to be cannibalistic. They loosely take command from the Hog, a huge warrior who was once a renowned knight named Sir Hopper, until he abandoned that life seeking easier pleasures.

3. Men of Polis

A well-dressed gang who prefer to take victims out of sight and brutalize or kill in secret. The city guard are in their pocket just enough to leave their hidden crimes without investigation. The leader is Father Bizzie, who fronts as a moderately successful innkeeper.

4. Heatrazers

Zealous marauder cultists who set their weapons aflame and ritually scar themselves with burns. The high priestess Pyela fights alongside her men, fighting with gauntlets that somehow burn without crippling her hands.

5. Finest Ones

White-robed assassins who wear masks and always kill in ways that leaves no stain upon themselves. They take contracts about as often as they kill for their own inscrutable ends. Led by a mysterious figure known only as Lord Law, who works alone and kills without leaving any visible wound.

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Notes: shorter post this time, but I like the characters and unique bandit groups. They may seem a bit familiar in some ways.

Guilds for adventurers

Cartographers guild

Principally concerned with mapping and exploration of distant lands for colony and plunder, their presence in more well-known areas turn attention more towards the discovery of lost and hidden places, the types adventurers tend to find. With time their pursuits have branched into knowledge and information of other kinds, and a good cartographers guild library can look like a jungle of strange papers and inscrutable writings. Technically the leader of the guild is the ever-absent Choriam Bangra, currently believed to be searching an underground jungle for an entrance to the Eternal Path. The true power is held by a supposedly temporary council, the eight Chief Scribes.

Olaf the Meat Tenderiser by Ricardo Robles

Butchers guild

One of the most powerful food guilds in the land. Any butcher worth their salt will have guild certification, and for many taverns the certification is a mark of prestige. In the adventuring world however, the butchers guild is mainly known for their meat markets, willing to buy all manner of huge dead beasts (as long as they can be proven edible), and even employing a good number of alchemists. The guild is headed by the Kythel twins, who are known for taking joy in cutting apart large monsters.

Salvagers guild

Once a lower-grade offshoot of the builders guild, this group has found renewed purpose in stripping the oldest, abandoned places of anything potentially valuable. The leader is elected semi-democratically, with votes given to guild members based on their performance. Currently the guild is headed by Saliiz Mernir, known for keeping such a myriad of personal items that their office is almost akin to a junk heap. Their diligent style of precise leadership sharply contrasts with that of the previous head, Erham Loen, who was more of a hands-off, minimalist type.

Early Mourning by Patryk Olas

Burial guild

There are countless places deep in the earth where the dead are left in old stone halls and caves, lost to their gods. This small but spirited group has dedicated themselves to gathering the abandoned dead and giving them their proper rites. They are generally hostile toward practitioners of necromancy, with certain exceptions. There are necromancers in the guild, known as the Stewards, who use their art exclusively to gently guide the dead toward a proper resting place. Many of the guild's funerary rites include sanctification of various kinds to prevent future necromancy, and they usually give rites based on the culture of the one who died, if they can find it out. Word of the burial guild's Grave Tower has spread far and wide, a rising catacomb where the honored dead are interred and the occasional meetings of the guild leadership are held.

Sitting hijabit fashionista by Rabia El Mouden

Mercers guild

Once focused on solely women's fashion, their stakes have broadened to include not just fashion but all manner of far off cultures. It is said by some that a spider controls the guild, though they vehemently deny such claims and believe the rumor was started by their rivals in the weavers guild. Officially they have no overarching leader, only localized chapter heads in different areas. 

Mages guild

Less a meeting of the minds and more a club of magically well-wishers, mostly low-ranking nobles and bored merchants seeking to fill empty days with some mild intrigue. They might have a bit of money for purchasing a fanciful trinket, but their prices can most likely be matched or bettered by a wealthier patron or more practical-minded organization. Their etiquette rules are extensive and stringent.

The Storyteller by Lucas Sorrenti

Storytellers guild

Collectors of tales and folklore, finding their nearest outpost can often reveal the legends of almost every village for miles around.

Killers, competitors, and pursuers

Hunters of Blades

The greatest of warriors can only live in a river of blood. They must cut their way through any who would stand in their path, and must cut away all who approach in challenge. So it is for they who hold the Final Knife, a powerful dagger which can pierce any target, feed on blood, and sustain its bearer. To a Hunter of Blades, this bearer is known as the Quarry, the mightiest among them and also the target of their order. They seek to slay the Quarry and take their weapon, by any means possible. There are many hunters, and only one Final Knife, though within the order are a number of artifacts in their own right, each possessing that same preternatural ability to sever. Any who pursue Shekull, the current Quarry, may call themselves a Hunter of Blades, but only those who have killed and claimed one of these artifacts is a true contender.

Blood Armor by Alexander J

Honor Bearers

The stronger a foe you face, and the greater of their strengths you strike against, the more honorable your contest. Long ago, the Mail of Honor was rent, each ring of the invincible chainmail separated and scattered far across the realm by means unknown and unimaginable. Each of those rings holds a tiny fraction of the mail's incredible power, but those who have gathered them cannot wear it until the day they unite them all. There is only one way to do this, they have found; through fair duels. The Honor Bearers have long known not to kill their fellows, as the links they hold will only flee and become lost once more. When two knights challenge each other however, they find themselves encircled in golden flames, and wielding similar weapons. The flames serve to bar escape or interlopers into the fight, and the weapons do no harm save for taking a link from whoever's flesh they first strike, and granting it to the victor. One can enter into this order by either finding a Link of Honor in the wilderness, or by convincing a knight to duel them despite yet bearing no links. It is said that whoever finally wears the Mail of Honor will become truly invincible and unstoppable, but they have contested for decades and none are closer to success than years more of victory.

Duel of the Fates by Zezhou Chen

Pursuants

Speak no oath unless it may be the last thing you say. There is power to be had if one seeks an old Appellant and slays them, power to be drunk from their clay skulls and eventually bled back into the Hungering Well when the slayer becomes and Appellant themselves. The well's Pursuants each have taken up a cause, and proven themselves worthy of its gift by defeating one of those half-living hosts, the remains of another who has fulfilled their own final duty to themselves, in doing so giving up that self to the means of another. The worth of those who aspire to quest must be challenged, for the failures leave the well's power to trickle out unattended, into the world beyond it. Perhaps once the well itself was some god, spirit, or knight, driven by its own willful purpose, driven eventually to seek power and become an eternal cycle of purpose, power, and exploitation. Now there is no means by which it can be gleaned whether this was ever true, or even if it still is seeking out some hidden goal.

Noble Lord by Dominik Mayer

Dark Magic

Dark magic is a destructive force that draws power from the oldest and greatest of emotions; fear. A dark mage cats their spells from a mirror, which holds the fear and turns it into dark power. The simplest spell is to release all the power within the mirror at once, in a burst of destruction. It is similar to an explosion, but for the lack of concussive force or fire; the black burst simply obliterates anything it touches. With practice, the mage usually learns precision and control, enabling them to mete out energy and utilize it more efficiently, perhaps focusing the release into a narrow beam with longer range or multiple projectiles.

To gather their power, a mage must gaze into their mirror and focus on what frightens them. This perverse form of meditation will never seek to overcome or learn to live with these fears, for if they do so then power will be lost. Instead, mages simply fixate upon their fears and paranoia, warping their minds and twisting their souls over time.

There is no upper limit to how much fear a mirror can hold, but the more it is given, the harder it will be to control. Like filling a wineskin, it can stretch but will start to leak, and when you pierce it the contents may come gushing out when a more controlled stream might have been preferred. Mirrors will also leak when left idle for too long with power inside, becoming tarnished and shadowed. It is for this reason that most dedicated mages will keep a polishing kit along with them, as it takes much more focus to use every iota of darkness each day than it does to simply clean the mirror regularly. Some say that when a mirror is completely consumed by this darkness, it changes into a new metal, a black silver that has special properties. There isn't much evidence behind this however, and the mages themselves are unwilling to confirm or deny these rumors.

Most dark mages either come from or were trained at the white palace. Built of polished sandstone, it lies near the edge of the northern desert. The entire building is white, so that no dark magic can be hidden there; despite their many powers, no dark mage can create light. They are paranoid, distrustful, and violent people overall, and there are plenty of stories involving an unlucky traveler or villager being slaughtered for any small slight or even nothing at all.

The order of Light’s Shadow comprises the largest organized group of mages, though organized seems a stretch. They control the white palace, using it as a meeting center as well as a place for training new mage apprentices. They currently work with the kingdom of Orisria, centered in the jungles to the south of the desert. This is how they have access to the fine silver used to make their arcane tools, though the specific power structure of the order is quite hard to pin down due to frequent backstabbing and mysterious deaths.

Seppam the gnoll is a dark mage from the deeper deserts, near the famous volcano of the sands, who uses a mirror of obsidian. Some say her mirror can hold more power than others and never tarnish, but she is not part of the order, and refuses to share her secrets.

Sir Markim is a knight errant who is rumored to be a dark mage, though he does not carry any mirror openly, or keep a polishing kit. He’s even known for using a spell that creates a sword of darkness, but mages look down on personal combat as brutish and needlessly hazardous, while most warriors see mages as weak and paranoid, so it’s unlikely that someone would put the two together.

Followers of the Shattered Path

Many have heard of the New Map, the enormous library of records and charts kept by the Markers of the Shattered Path. You have likely met a Walker of the Shattered Path, travelling on a Shard to add to their tales. But few realize the full scope and history of the faith.

The story begins with their origin. It is said that the makers created our world, and when they had finished, devised the First Map. It held record of all things in this world, including the hidden road to paradise. However, the Unwalker refused to leave mortals with the First Map, as it could only travel where we have not tread, and so it stole the map so that it alone could know the path to paradise. When all things are discovered, the last Follower of the Shattered Path will find the Unwalker, and will guide all mankind into paradise with the First Map.

Those who seek the Unwalker are known as Walkers of the Shattered Path, and are known far and wide thanks to the inquisitive nature of the sect. It is possible for anyone to become a Walker, so long as their heart is free and their life is a journey, but there are a few simple rituals required to become an official member.

One begins their journeys as a Seeker of the Shattered Path, travelling with an elder Walker on one of their Shards. When the journey is complete, the Seeker will then record it in the New Map, writing their story and crafting their maps. Here they decide whether they will go on to become a Walker or Marker.

Markers are the scribes and recorders of the order, scribing the journeys of every Walker in their Shards, adding to the New Map with tales and maps of every exploration. They are reclusive, though it is not unheard of for one to journey in search of their own Shard, even after finishing their Seeking, it is considered uncouth to do so repeatedly.