It took only 100 years or so after Gallic settlement for the piracy to emerge. They say it was easier for the Police back then: just nail a few pirate ships, and the system is safe for a long time. The Gallic Brigands were unheard of at least for two more centuries. By now, however, they have become a big thorn in our side. You can't just wipe them out: there're too many different groups and leaders out there, all spread across Gallia. It would probably take the entire Royal Navy to cleanse Gallia of this vermin once and for all; but they are always occupied with something more urgent: first the Council, now the Bretonian campaign. Emilien Rousseau, an ex-officer of the Gallic Royal Police
History has seen many Brigand groups rising to fame and fading from sight for one reason or another. However, there's one thing that hasn't changed for centuries: there's always some other Brigand group to pick up the fallen banner and keep going. After all these years Brigands have probably become one of the few things you can't change about Gallia (other things being monarchy, wine, freedom fighters, and the corruption of Gallic Royal Police).
Les Damnés (known to Sirians as "The Damned") are one of the newer Brigand groups to emerge on the grand stage which is the Gallic underworld. Although they haven't emerged until recently, their origins go back to the times before the invasion of Taus by the Royal Navy. Back then a rogue Royal Navy unit attempted to seize one of the Brigand bases for themselves, having no other options. It's a matter of viewpoint whether they succeeded or failed: in the end they became what they sought to conquer, and for a while Legion des Damnés became a force to be reckoned with in Gallic underworld.
As time passed, however, the Legion lost people and needed to recruit new people, pureblood Brigands being obvious candidates. It was one of those Brigand purebloods, Christine Armand, who eventually decided to break away from the Legion and to settle in Picardy. Armand planned to gather followers and gain more power to overthrow the Legion, but power struggles in Boulogne drew more and more of her attention, so the newly established group never took to space.
As more time passed, the Legion became history (at least that's what most Brigands in the Core Worlds think), and Armand finally managed to secure some foothold on Boulogne. Now her new group known simply as "Les Damnés" (the name is probably due to Armand's sentimentality) are attempting to spread their wings on a larger scale, both in Gallia and beyond. How will this attempt end? Only time will tell.
Objectives
Steal, ravage, pillage, plunder, smuggle, earn money, gain power, enjoy the newly obtained power, cause chaos and mayhem, plot against the competitors, lose the power already gained and start again, take revenge on the competitors who took the power away from you, live in poverty or live in luxury, enjoy the free Brigand life; sometimes various weird combinations of all those things. Oh, and don't forget to pretend that you're out there to help the poor, it always works! Christine Armand, a pureblood Brigand from Epernay and an ex-member of the Legion des Damnés
Zone of Influence | Zone of Operations
I can assure you freedom and riches. But only if you're willing to step into a life of crime. If you wish for freedom and life, take it. Etien Fitzroy, a pureblood Brigand from Montbard and an one of the ex-leaders of the Legion
Although these words don't quite specify how far the Brigands should venture, they are some sort of a Brigand motto. There are lots of opportunities out there, waiting for enterprising Brigands. They just needs to remember of the risks: pirating or messing with people outside Gallia, Taus or Kyushu means biting more than they'd be able to chew; that's why Brigands resort to trading outside of their established hunting grounds and don't start the fight themselves.
The pirating grounds are as mentioned above: Gallic Core and Border Worlds, Tau Systems and Kyushu. Buisness arrangements with people outside thse areas are possible, but are limited to trading/smuggling. Still, common sense should be excercised when dealing with outsiders: there's only so much oil that we can take with us.
Diplomacy
It's simple, really. If you see fellow Brigands, don't think twice and help them out. There can never be too many friends. If a Council or Maquis vessel asks for assistance, think what's in it for you, but try to help them out as well. Allies are hard to come by too, you know. Same thing goes for Unione Corse, just try not to annoy them, you never know whether they'd be willing to claim a bounty for your head.
Back in the times of the Legion the Outcasts used to be allied with Brigands, but we exercise a more careful approach. We want Nox on our bases rather than cardamine, oui? Still, consider them neutral and feel free to try and arrange a deal. Same goes for the Gallic Junkers, unless they're explicitly hostile towards us. Consider them all potential business partners.
Things get more complicated as far as the IMG are concerned. On the one hand they might be of some use to us as friends, but on the other hand, they'd make very nice pirating targets. Guess we'll leave it up to fate and see how they'd treat us first. Same goes for the Colonials, although they'd probably attempt to push us away from the Taus. Watch out for those suspicious Freelancers as well. Who knows what's on their mind!
Gallic corporate convoys? Pirate them or make deals with them if they have any interesting offers. Gallic Royal Police? Bribe them, fight them if you think you can take on them, run away if you can't. The Royal Navy? Almost the same rules apply, just don't try to bribe them and run away more often.
Ranks
Are you serious?! We are Brigands and we are free, we don't need some big guy telling us what to do, otherwise we'd be just another monarchy. Seriously though, as a Brigand you're free to do whatever you like, as long as you don't mess with the boss. The boss is free to punish you for messing with their plans because they're Brigands too and probably have more clout than you do.
It doesn't mean that you can't try to overthrow the boss, but still it works better when we reach the agreement. Prove that you're good, though, and you might get the respect of your fellow Brigands and a fancy title. Claude Bertrand, a Brigand pureblood from Marne
Looks good in terms of content though the formatting could be a bit easier on the eye.
Also the encounter I had with you guys (I was HdR|Adrienne.Bellerose), especially with 'the butcher', today was quite pleasant I must say! Keep it up and look forward to working together in the future too!
Hey there! Former member of +LE+, |Salopards, and Brigs| ... if that list tells you anything, it's that piracy has been challenging in Gallia. It's gotten better, of course, since they removed the trade lane guns, and will even more once the Gallia downsize I submitted gets implemented. Anyway, while it's good to see another Brigands group (I might be interested in joining), I'm curious as to a few things:
- Is this just a revival of the old +LE+, or are you just borrowing from the back story? It certainly sounds similar. If it is, have you considered that a more conventional approach to a Brigands faction might fit better?
- Most Brigands groups I've seen treat the Outcasts as Unfriendly (piracy targets), due to all of their allies (Council, Corse, Maquis) being Hostile with them. Back in 4.85, that was not so much the case, but since then the Gallic Junkers actually became a separate thing from their Sirian counterparts, and various bits of Gallic lore have been hammered out. As a result, the Brigands probably shouldn't be on neutral or friendly terms with the Outcasts. If you choose a non-negative stance, you may run into problems if your allies are around.
- Will you be interested in plausible future relationships with some Bretonian and Kusarian underground factions?
- Jarl already mentioned formatting being a bit off (I recently helped him and Lunatic start a Maquis faction, though we don't know how far that'll go); do you want a hand with that? I'd be happy to help out. My Skype is on my forum profile
(03-15-2015, 01:19 AM)Teerin Wrote: - Most Brigands groups I've seen treat the Outcasts as Unfriendly (piracy targets), due to all of their allies (Council, Corse, Maquis) being Hostile with them. Back in 4.85, that was not so much the case, but since then the Gallic Junkers actually became a separate thing from their Sirian counterparts, and various bits of Gallic lore have been hammered out. As a result, the Brigands probably shouldn't be on neutral or friendly terms with the Outcasts. If you choose a non-negative stance, you may run into problems if your allies are around.
I'd argue that it would be fine to do a neutral stance with Outcast, Discovery is full of factions that have allies with two groups that are actually enemies with eachother. Sure they might have to RP it right but I don't think it is necessary to be enemies with OC just cause their allies are as well. Of course I might just be biased since I am part of an OC group =P.
Will you be following the lore card that states that the Brigands have contacted and made some arrangements with the Liberty Rogues? That at the very least puts you on neutral ground with the Liberty criminal element. Whether you take that as something pre-established, to be worked out, or ignored entirely is up to you of course.
(03-15-2015, 01:14 AM)Loki557 Wrote: Glad to see another Gallic faction starting up. Had a fun insulting match RP on my GRP when I came across one of you setting up a ship.
And I'm glad the GRP are around to give us the challenge ;-)
(03-15-2015, 01:19 AM)Teerin Wrote: <...>
I've had a chance to PM you on Skype, but I thought I'd better write here as well for the record.
First of all, about the +LE+ part. It's not the revival of it, more just a reference to the old faction I enjoyed being in. All characters in |LD are pureblood Brigands, it's just that they crossed paths with +LE+ earlier, so I decided to reflect that in the storyline just to add some continuity. Besides, the name was fancy, so why not use it?
Other than this little reference to +LE+, I think that these brigands are as conventional as they can get.
The current attitude to the Outcasts just reflects that LD| haven't met them before, and I have no idea what will happen once we do. Hence they're not friendly (like in the case with +LE+; back then the cooperation with the Outcasts was a result of some lengthy RP), probably not going to become too friendly any time soon (Cardi vs Nox thing) and might end up our competitors if things get out of hand.
The same goes for Bretonian and Kusarian underground factions: we just haven't met them yet, so we'll see happens when we do meet them.
I definitely could use help with formatting... The forums have changed while I was away.
(03-15-2015, 01:37 AM)GrnRaptor Wrote: Will you be following the lore card that states that the Brigands have contacted and made some arrangements with the Liberty Rogues? That at the very least puts you on neutral ground with the Liberty criminal element. Whether you take that as something pre-established, to be worked out, or ignored entirely is up to you of course.
Well, that part of the lore could use some development, I think. Besides, there're plenty of various Brigand groups IRP (the way I see it, every Brigand base is an unlawful Freeport of some sort) who may've had deals with Libertonians (those living on a base in Rousillon come to mind). This is not to say that we're going to ignore that part of Brigand lore, we'd just have to (re-)establish contact first.
(03-15-2015, 01:48 AM)Lythrilux Wrote: Someone needs to drop the bomb.
What's your attitude on sharing Ascos?
Ascos... Most interesting topic! You know, I could give a long speech about the importance of an Asco in a Brigand's life: it saves the Brigand from hordes of those angry Royal Navy NPCs, it provides shelter and food (in the form of pirated credits), its design is magnificent. Each and every Asco is masterfully crafted by the finest Brigand engineers and handed down in Brigand families, serving generations of enterprising people. In a way, it's just like a Katana for a Blood Dragon; it's a rare, one-of-a-kind ship.... except for the fact that quite a few people seem to have been flying those anyway :-) It's not like our opinion is going to change anything, right?
On a more serious note (although I was pretty serious about Ascos being a rarity, that part is well-established in the lore), Ascos are something the Brigands wouldn't part with. Well, there're always exceptions to the rules, and there're always some Brigands out there who don't care that much about what they sell and to whom. As for Les Damnés, for now we're just trying to acquire ships for ourselves. However, some mutually beneficial arrangements might be the case in the future.
Well, I tried to change the way the post looks, not sure whether it has improved or not. In the end we also decided to put the tag in front of the names (well, it's more like "We finally put some credits aside for reserving the tag").
In other news, Le Chat Noir Nightclub is now open! People are welcome to post in that thread just like in any watering hole. It's the place for you to meet Les Damnés or other characters who may be on Boulogne at that time. This is a universal thread which might serve as a message dump, a watering hole, and it might work as a recruitment thread too (because it occured to me that I never mentioned recruitment in the opening post).