Category:The Brotherhood of the Whip

This section contains canon info from officially published sources

The Brotherhood of the Whip, also called the Brothers of the Whip, was a Nova Vaasan gang of bandits, rebellion, and fiendish cult founded and led by the Black Duke under the guise of a mighty and skilled human man-at-arms.^[1] His group of cultists provided a virtual army to inflict devastation and fear^[1] in the service of their seeming "bandit king".^[2] The Brotherhood's activity climaxed with the destruction of Drataan, then then largest community in Ehrendton^[2]

According to the journal of Lertan Scarhand, one of the Black Duke's lieutenants, the Black Duke inducted new members with a temptation and make the new member swear an oath of service as part of a perverse ritual of black magic. Decades later, Dr. van Richten identified this as a blood oath ritual giving the fiend power over the oathmakers and allow the fiend to always know their locations.^[3]

The depredations of the Brotherhood did not go without reprisal, as recounted in The Beast of Ehrendton by Sir Armand Ironhand ten years after the fact. In approximately 685 BC^[2], Sir Ironhand led a group of mighty knights to best the Blake Duke, not knowing the fiend's true nature. The Black Duke faced them alone, revealed its true form, and single-handedly defeated them all. All of the knights but Ironhand and Jess d’Lurien perished, the final two allowed to escape by the Black Duke.^[4]

Despite the defeat of Ironhand and his knights, the Brotherhood of the Whip was eventually broken up.^[5] The Black Duke was never apprehended, having seemingly disappeared around the time of the Brotherhood's downfall. Dr. van Richten speculates the Black Duke is forming new and violent cults elsewhere.^[1]

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