s&box

1.2

25 August 2026

Bandits. Famine, a crushed revolt and years without a home put men on the road. A thief goes on living in his own village, wears its colours and looks like any neighbour, and quietly lightens its store and the crown's purse month after month. The village grows poorer with no war and no siege, and the player sees the number long before he sees the cause
Once enough of them gather in one place they stop hiding and leave together to raise a camp: tents around a fire, deep in the woods and well away from any yard. The land around it goes black on the map and carries the band's name behind a bone mask, so a gang reads at a glance and never looks like one more kingdom
A band lives on what it takes from people. It robs the villages around it, holds the road and shakes down travellers, and kills the ones who refuse to pay. With nothing left to take nearby it ranges further, and when robbery is not enough it buys food with stolen gold from the very villages it robbed
Stolen gold buys steel. A band nobody beats off climbs five tiers of weapons, and the village that let it live has armed the men who will sack it
Raids. A band picks a small village within reach and marches on it. The village can call a bigger one for help, and whether help comes is a real roll: distance, kinship, whether the defender is at war and how often this village has begged before. A refusal goes into the chronicle too, so the player can see that nobody is coming
Once in its life, and only if the village is left with nobody to defend it, a band can settle into it for good. That land stays black even after the last villager dies: taken is taken
The crown answers blood, not theft. From the tenth killing the dice are rolled every month, and each further body makes the roll heavier. When it comes up, a village musters its warriors and they walk there: a real march that can arrive too late, and a real fight the crown can lose
A band card opens on the camp or on its name: how many they are, how much they have taken in a lifetime, what lies in the camp right now, what they carry, who they are marching on and who is hunting them
A dark mage. One in the whole world, and only where a scholar of a library that knows alchemy is driven by madness or a curse in a kingdom that has spilled enough blood. He turns his back on people and raises a black tower far from any village
From the tower he raises the dead as outlaws of his own, sends plague and lays curses, and every one of his victims is counted. When the count grows past ten the kingdoms stop counting their own quarrels and come for him together