PEOPLE TO KILL AND HOW THEY WILL KILL YOU (Bandits)

The bandit is an underrated sort of monster, because it's a real monster. There are few fire-breathing dragons in our world. There are, however, a great multitude of people willing to do harm in order to get something they do not have. Read a history book. Mere men are capable of terrible things. It's our oldest trade.

Unless stated otherwise, all stats are as follows:
HD 1 (4 HP), AC as leather, 7 morale

Movement: As man.

Morality: As man.

Intelligence: As man.

Attacks: +1 to hit, one weapon (damage as weapon.)

The average bandit is poorly equipped. Their armor is piecemeal, their weapons well-worn. Murder may not be their first resort, but it's higher on the list than it is for most people. It's rare to find any who aren't willing to negotiate, even if it's on uneven terms. They are never, ever alone. Want to generate a gang on the fly? 2d4+2 is a good minimum. Solitary bandits tend to have a very short career in a world where there are people who can eat bullets to the head and make two attacks a round at +5 to hit. Also, they cheat. If they aren't being caught by surprise, bandits will try very hard to do the catching.

Here's a few, split up by region:

The Roetmessen are the disgraced secret police of the cold south's previous ruling dynasties, transformed by a lack of state support into an organized crime ring and sustained by governmental ties even all these generations later. Working as assassins and agents for hire, they shun publicity- their only "calling card" is the dark wounds left by the soot they blacken their knives with. If they want to make an example of you, they'll string you up between two posts and whip you to death.

• Special: While unarmored, the Roetmessen can run at a dead sprint in complete silence.
• Elite: Roetmessen with 6 HP are Operators, and always deal maximum damage against unaware targets.

In the sun-kissed east, the Gentlemen of the Road live on reputation. Their historical basis is unclear; the legend goes that they arose to take an unjust king off the throne until their favored king returned from a foreign war, and they will eagerly recount this origin with a different good and evil king for each group. In practice, the Gentlemen are still no less willing to kill and rob than any other bandit, and besides their quasi-chivalrous ideals, all chapters of the Gentlemen are united by an incredible contempt for foreigners.

• Special: Gentlemen of the Road have morale 9.
• Elite: Gentlemen with 6 HP are Errants, equipped with chain armor, a shield, a heavy lance, and a horse. 

On the western coast, Boucaniers live as outlaws in the truest sense of the word. Their ideals are those of liberty, equality, and fraternity, supported by raiding along the coast and up rivers- it's nothing personal, but what differentiates Boucaniers from standard pirates is that they establish permanent bases with a civilian population to support. In the islands scattered further out in the western sea, Boucaniers become the outright law of the land, with many turning a blind eye to people who would be human vermin anywhere else.

• Special: Boucaniers have earned their sea legs. They can swim and climb well, and ignore any penalties for unstable terrain.
• Elite: Boucaniers with 6 HP are Swashbucklers, and can make one free attack per round against anyone who rolls a 1 on any dice during combat.

Starvation does terrible things to people. Ghouls are born in times of famine, when people die slowly by hunger, so slowly their own body doesn't recognize its own death. In this half-life, the body runs wild to sate the insatiable, teeth filed and fingerbones sharpened to match a mind like broken glass. Every ghoul is hopelessly insane, a human mind turned entirely towards hunger. Consider yourself lucky if they kill you before eating you.

• Special: Ghouls can make two unarmed attacks per round for 1d4 damage each. As undead, ghouls do not need to eat, drink, or sleep, but they still need to breathe and must test morale to not immediately begin devouring any meat thrown before them.
• Elite: Ghouls with 6 HP are Manhunters, carrying bolas (20' range, target is slowed to walking speed until they take a round to untangle the bolas from their legs) and barbed darts (20' range, 1d6 damage, bleeds for 1 HP per hour until healed.) Manhunters can track by scent like a bloodhound.

Humans don't have a monopoly on banditry, of course. We're just the best at it.

The Sons of Cawr Madog are young giant men who, in order to get their more violent impulses out before living a life in the honest trades, come together in raiding bands. Membership is short- most only join for a year, then age out before another takes their place in the rotation. Ostensibly, the Sons are against killing except when necessary, but that's hardly any comfort when a seven foot tall teenager breaks both your knees with a tree trunk. Those with less of a stomach for outright robbery tend to turn towards protection rackets instead, protecting from other bandits in exchange for a tax of food and drink.

• Special: The Sons have morale 6.
• Elite: Sons with 6 HP are Rapparees, older Giants who have held on to the bandit lifestyle and have no qualms with killing. They carry massive pikes and have morale 8. As long as the Rapparees are alive, any group of Sons they're in have morale 8 as well.

The ambling men would say they have no bandits. This is technically true: there are no bandits because everyone is a bandit under the right conditions. Underground, a country is a few hundred people who aren't starving this week. The cold equation of feast and famine is a zero-sum game, and it is the Sin-Eaters who take it upon themselves to even things out. For as long as they hunt, whether it's for beasts of the underground or whoever is unfortunate enough to have calories to spare, the Sin-Eaters take no name and go unacknowledged by their peers. They are the secret which keeps itself.

• Special: Sin-Eaters test morale the first time one takes damage in combat. On a failure, they'll make a false retreat and follow at a distance, intervening in the next encounter. Sin-Eaters encountered after a false retreat test morale as normal.
• Elite: Sin-Eaters with 6 HP are Blackrangers, the full-time hunter-raiders of the underground. They ignore penalties for fighting in dim light and carry airguns (1d8, -1 to hit for each 40' past the first, must be cranked for 5 minutes between shots.) 

The Protectorate of Yonah has nothing to be protected from but the Empire which protects it; while the Sun and Moon may have stayed its hand in ending its invasion, there are more subtle influences than guns and swords. The Hatchetmen watch from the jungles and mountain caves with utter contempt, keeping their knives sharp and minds bloody. There is no cost these dovemen would not pay to cut off reaching imperial hands, often literally- they nail them to doors as a threat. Not even their fellow doves are exempt, from outright collaborators to those unlucky enough to have something the Hatchetmen need. After all, it is the nature of sacrifice that you must sometimes cut away the rot to save the body.

• Special: Hatchetmen each carry a dose of painkillers and stimulants to be consumed before battle, a clump of resin and leaves meant to be packed under the tongue. Under such drugs, they fight for one more round after reaching 0 HP before dying.
• Elite: Hatchetmen with 6 HP are Zealots, and carry woundguns (2d8, -1 to hit per 10' past the first, -1 damage per point of target AC over 12, takes a minute to reload,) which are effectively sawed-off shotguns loaded with simple flechettes.

The djinn are proud firstborn sons, passed-over inheritors to the world. Many have not forgotten this. Tin-shod King Dyaus may not be able to leave that monumental wall, but his Bashi-bazouks can. These raiders take no regular wage, nor may they expect any recognition by any authority but their monarch, but the riches they plunder are enough to tempt many a djinni into the constant low-intensity war on their southern border. Why die in obscurity in the sunless wall when you can write your name in blood and burning naphtha? Whether screamed or sung, a name may long outlive its owner.

• Special: the Bashi-bazouks each carry a firebomb (20' range, 1d6 in a 5' radius, SAVE to avoid, ignites flammables) and a small length of smoldering match cord.
• Elite: Bashi-bazouks with 6 HP are Akinji, light cavalry. They have horses and carry lances that spray liquid fire (1d6 in a 20' line, SAVE to avoid, ignites flammables, 3 shots.)

While relations with the ophiokorai have improved to an icy neutrality since prehistory, there are some among them who remain loyal to their long-gone creators: the Krypteia. They sleep in the old ruins and anticipate commands from hidden superiors, anticipating the day the serpent-men rise up from the earth to take back what was and is rightfully theirs. Most Kryptai operate only on a cargo cult of an extinct hierarchy, but every once in a while, a Sleeper will find its birthright and take command once more.

• Special: Kryptai act on initiative 12.
• Elite: Kryptai with 6 HP are Inheritors, those who have taken up the artifice of flesh. They have 1 MD and a Biomancer spell. If you don't want to pick or roll, either Shrivel or Monsterize are easy options:

Shrivel

R: 50' T: [dice] creatures D: 1d6 rounds / permanent

SAVE negates. Target loses half of its current HP and loses 6 Strength (affecting the damage it deals). When the spell ends, the lost HP and Strength returns. If you cast this spell with 3 or more [dice] against a single target, the lost HP does not return, and the Strength damage is permanent. The apparent age of the target increases considerably for the spell's duration.

Monsterize 

R: touch T: creature with 0 HD (vermin) D: [sum] minutes

Target vermin (rat, scorpion, termite, etc) becomes huge and aggressive.

HD: [dice]x2

AC: 12

To hit: +[dice]

Damage: [1d6/1d8/1d10/2d6]

Monstrified vermin attack the nearest foe, and casters usually throw the vermin as they cast this spell. Works on goblins and other low HD monsters. There is a 1-in-10 chance that this spell will be permanent. If you invest 4 [dice], the creature also mutates.