The Black Fox Inn

Fortified Inns dot the trade lanes of the Empire, safe sanctuaries for the merchants and nobles and their retinues, promising a warm meal and a safe night's sleep. Clouds of colour fill their wagon parks in the form of well garbed men, well bred, and well fed horses populate their stables. This though, is not the case for The Black Fox Inn.

   Ruffians, armed with axes and bows stand guard at the Inn's doors and grizzled longbow men stand atop the Inn's stout stone tower. A camp of poachers and bandits fills the gap where merchants once stowed their carts, encircling a cooking pit and decorated with hanging furs and trophies of the hunters. No horses now populate the stables, and fletcher and blacksmith ply their trade, a form of "membership only market". The numerous road and forest patrols merely march past the Black Fox Inn, bare;y making eye contact with the grim faces that watch them pass, and the local noble frequently "forgets" to send his tax collectors. On the rare occasion a merchant or noble approaches the doors of The Black Fox Inn, it is for one reason, to do business with Rolf Rudeger, captain and founder of the Black Fox Company. Born from the bandit group known as "The Rudeger Gang," the company was a group of poachers and cut throats, highwaymen and petty thieves, it's first members formed from the Rudeger family, who were run out of town for their un-neighbourly ways. The Rudeger Gang made their way in the woods, waylaying travelers and merchants for anything they couldn't find or make in the woods. Upon moving in to the Black Fox Inn, the group attracted attention and respect from many of their fellow wayward woodsmen.

   Rolf's two most trusted are his cousins, Volkhard and Reuban. Rolf trusts family best, and given that he served in his hometown's watch with them, they know how each other work. Apart from Rolf's son, and a small number of relatives and family friends, the rest of the Black Fox Company are hired from the woodsmen, poachers and runaways which inhabit their Inn, allowed to stay as long as they do their part in protecting this "Poacher's Haven" as most of the men have come to call it.

Awesome!  

Cheers! It's fluff for two possibilities of warband, if the Hochland Bandit Warband is accepted in a campaign/game, I can use those, either that or Reikland, with the story and look of bandit/poacher types.

Cool stuff! I'm always the player with more fluff and background stories than actual gaming skill, so I really love stories like this.

Hah! That will probably be the case with me, there should be more to come