Menaçça

Far off in the Imperial Periphery exists the realms of the Marchesi, a small, dense cluster of counties nominally subservient to the city of Verana and its Bureaucrats but maintaining a large degree of autonomy vested in The Marchesi themselves; allowing them to levy taxes or raise armies of their own accord. In the county of Aerbul, under the iron-fisted rule of Biriccio Stirma is the Menaçça of the woods. The Menaçça were a band of well-armed and ravenous bandits which once ravaged the scattered imperial colonies in the Northwest, reaching as far as the settled lands of the Salgueri where they menaced the hilly north of the province while the pastures were vacated for the winter months. Through their decades of terror they amassed a great fortune of weapons and armors. Upon the appointment of Biriccio's father, Osco, the bandits were reigned in, consolidated into a variety of military garrisons ruled by appointed castellans who oversaw them. Under the rule of both Osco and his wicked son, the banditry became organized and formalized, nonexistent tariffs, head taxes, and tolls were implemented across Aerbul, their violence backed up by the legal authority of the Castellans who managed them and profited off their terror. Despite the uptick in robbery the peoples of Aerbul seemingly rejoiced, welcoming the stabilizing hand of the Stirma family without realizing that the "protective taxes" they were paying were imposed by the same men who years prior had simply enacted these taxes through violent raids and force.

Castellans of the Woods and Curas Pradairo

Without the Castellans of the woods, the Menaçça would be nothing more than scattered bands of pillagers. The Castellans themselves are the greatest profiteers off these thuggish enforcers they protect, collecting shares of their thievery upwards of 70% depending on their authority and intimidation among them. Curas Pradairo, a powerful Castellan hailing from Porto Salguero, is often regarded as the firmest of the Castellans of the woods. Unlike his peers, he has fully organized his bandits into a group of powerful mercenaries and skirmishers, raiding into the territories of his fellow Castellans to compete for dominance, and then selling their services for a premium once they've exhausted their will to contend. Curas maintains the largest castle of the Castellans of the Woods, and the largest standing army of over 500 Menaçça, 200 Salgueri bandits, and potentially a thousand or more decently trained conscripts who tend the sparse fields of his subdomain outside of their military service.