Raiding Tribes

When I say that raiders are the parasites of the desert, no one will disagree. Either unable or too lazy to earn their own living, they feed and clothe themselves by stealing from caravans, lonely villages, hermits, and even the cultivated fields surrounding the cities. Their tribes vary in size from a dozen individuals to several hundred, depending on the territory they work and from whom they usually steal. Although raiders may be scoundrels and cutthroats, they are not fools. They do not prey upon those who stand a chance of fighting back and winning. Tribes numbering no more than one or two dozen prey upon hermits and small parties of travelers. On the other hand, the tribes that plunder caravans number in the hundreds, and those that loot villages have as many as a thousand members. Most raiders make their homes in some forlorn place, such as rocky badlands or a secret oasis in themiddle of a salt plain. Of course, the raiders are attempting to hide their location, but the isolation of their villages also makes it difficult and expensive to send a force to destroy them. This tactic works all too well; I can count on my fingers the number of raiding tribes that I know to have been destroyed in retribution for their thievery. Usually, the raiding tribes pick their leaders through a hierarchy of violence. The most deadly (often a Defiler) is the leader. invariably, he chooses the most dangerous and toughest tribe members as his assistants, ensuring their loyalty through special rewards and treatment. The other members of the tribe are kept in line through the threat of force. If the leader is a wizard, he will seldom tolerate the presence of another wizard in his tribe. If the leader is not a wizard, one of his assistants is usually a Defiler who jealously guards his position in the tribe.