Thieves' Army
The Invader War was not won by the Queen’s levies, by a Vinyotian trade lord’s army-for-hire, or the Datu’s Causeway military. It was won by outcasts, criminals, and brigands. An outlaw organized outlaws into a force that spread across every front of the war, ambushing Invader supply lines and assassinating their officers. Years of slipping through the fingers of authority prepared them to be a nimble and relentless enemy, which crippled the opposing war effort. But what happens to a well-organized Thieves’ Army and its popular, charismatic leader when their war ends?
Criminal Coordination
City watch and law enforcement are stymied by the Thieves’ Army throughout the Beast World. Anywhere they haven’t spread their roots is trying to keep it that way. The Army has established itself as a more competent and dominant criminal enterprise than any past attempts at such organizations. Their runaway success is thanks to two differences in approach: the way they treat their people, and their patience.
Get Them Early, Get Them Surely
The Thieves’ Army raises their “infantry” from the same stock as any street gang. Some of their officers and suppliers are the bored and wealthy, but most soldiers of the Army are young, poor beasts and brethren. They recruit these forgotten souls with the promise of purpose, fraternity, and wealth.
Eager recruits learn to be loyal and defer to a commanding officer. The Army’s commanders use the same mental training that the militaries they fought alongside gave them during the war. The result is a crime empire with efficient communication, a strong command hierarchy, and a tight-lipped force from top to bottom.
Once a hungry cutpurse finishes training and starts their work for the Army, their struggles disappear. Charges for minor offenses vanish and cell doors are mysteriously unlocked. There’s a bunk to sleep in every evening and always a way to get what’s needed for the work. Most importantly, there’s bread on the plate and soup in the bowl.
A Growth Opportunity
When the Thieves’ Army scouts to begin engagements in a new city, their opening move is usually to spend money. Benevolent “delver crews,” whose pockets overflow with Army coin, buy up the debts of struggling businesses. When the grateful owners of the business ask what they owe for having their lives turned around in an instant, the crew simply asks the owners to remember their names, assuring that they’ll be in touch.
Meanwhile, recruiters posing as new-in-town drifters find where the city’s poorest lay their heads at night. Free meals and generous gifts accompany glowing speeches about a mysterious contact in another city. They talk up how much better life has been since starting their new side job. Effective recruiters flip a city’s underworld from a mob who would kill anyone daring to mention the Army to one begging to meet their new commanding officers.
Once the scout team has laid the groundwork, moving into the city is quick and painless. The city’s local gangs are absorbed, enlisted, and put in training. Stragglers unwilling to cooperate find themselves framed for a shocking crime and dragged before the law in the city. Reputable business owners testify to their guilt and the inconvenient elements are eliminated. Street crime in the city plummets. And then, the work begins. In cities where the Thieves’ Army is strongest, every “freelance” criminal reaches a crossroads:
“Join, Leave, Quit, or Die.”
The Operations of a Brigand Brigade
By spending money, the Army makes money. Lots of it. The mission is to buy and move goods cheaper than any legitimate business. The Thieves’ Army loans money as an institution of last resort. A marble quarry’s foreman will lean on the scales during an inventory weigh-in if he’s repaying his daughter’s tuition. As an officer tells a recruit: “lending it out hurts, but no one complains when the interest comes through.”
When misbehavior happens in an Army city, someone might be watching who will profit from knowing later. A trade lord will find room below deck for an extra box or two when he fears losing his family to a letter describing his infidelity. As an officer tells a recruit: “your fingers can earn you a meal, your ears can earn you a fortune.”
There are other methods, too. An inspector who spots the crates moving through their city gates will wave you through if one breaks his legs and promises to do worse if he tells. As an officer tells a recruit: “sometimes you have to break their legs. "
Heroes of the People?
Over a decade after the war’s end, most people (and especially beasts) still admire the Army, remembering their heroism during the Invader War. Army leadership maintains their image by avoiding crimes that would be too unpopular. The perception of the Thieves’ Army is as a band of freedom fighters who break through stuffy bureaucracy for the good of the underdog.
It’s true that Army operations punish murderers and their work tends to raise up the commoner. It’s also true that those aided by Army operations are drawn into a world of “owed favors” that put them at risk of running afoul of the law. Moreover, while the Army might act one way as an organization, when the individuals in an organization have alternative ethical viewpoints, the effort to keep them in line can fall deadly short.
The Strategist at the Center
All Thieves’ Army operations flow through their elusive mastermind and founder. General XXXXXXX is a Vinyotian wolf who fought with his soldiers on the Invader War’s front lines. It cost him his left arm, but he won the undying love and respect of his officers.
His life experience is a perfect storm for the demands of the work. In his younger days, XXXXXXX was the captain of a trade lord’s flagship. He brushed elbows with pirates so often that eventually he became one, himself. With his extensive network of criminal contacts, brilliant strategic mind, and a pragmatism that compels the morally questionable sort, he assembled the Thieves’ Army and won the beasts their war.
After the conflict ended, XXXXXXX was ready to disband the Army and retire with public honors from every body of leadership in the Beast World. Then, he saw the lack of post-war support for the veteran footsoldiers. They faced falling back into desperate poverty, while the families of his former enemies bathed in millions of gold in public aid. Thus, XXXXXXX stepped into shadow and committed to providing that same aid for his own people. He would do so at the expense of a nobility that forgot them once they were no longer useful.
The True Target
The highest echelon of Thieves’ Army officers knows the cause at the center of General XXXXXXX’s mind: the complete elimination of slavery. XXXXXXX personally reassigns the most vicious murderers recruited into the Army into his “Special Section.” This powerful and exceptionally well-funded force is at XXXXXXX’s beck and call.
When XXXXXXX receives credible word of a slaver operating anywhere, he oversees the Special Section in the field. The most grisly crime scene any lawman oversees is the aftermath of a Special Section operation. Trafficking slaves is a vanishing rarity. Even speaking the word aloud raises fur on the neck of anyone with passing familiarity of the Special Section’s methods.
The 'Departments' of the Army
Over the years, General XXXXXXX meticulously thought of the rapid expansion of the Army and its stability. With this in mind, he devised a pseudo-structure of his organization. The following are the 'departments' of the Thieves' Army known to the intelligence agencies and the criminal underground: