Red Sashes | Fantasy Faction Generated by CharGen

Overview

The Red Sashes began as an improvised escort during the flood years. For several seasons, their work was practical and small: carrying food, helping the Choir reach isolated households, and walking people home after tense public meetings. Their first triumph was reopening a washed-out footpath with local residents and keeping supplies moving through a winter when the town's main road failed. As Latchmere recovered, the Sashes took on more formal patrol duties. Their presence discouraged theft from food carts, but it also made them the first armed group many residents saw at a public gathering. A few captains began deciding which speakers were safe to escort and which routes were too dangerous, giving them quiet influence over who could be heard. The watershed moment came when deaths associated with transformation accumulated at the Choir's infirmary. The Choir locked the infirmary and retained the list of the dead. The Weighers called for publication and civilian oversight. Red Sashes stood across the entrance while the demand was argued, and no inspection took place. The standoff protected the Choir's custody of the records, but it changed the Sashes in public memory: to supporters they had prevented a frightened crowd from entering a vulnerable ward; to opponents they had used weapons to bury evidence. Since then, the Sashes have expanded their relief routes and tightened internal discipline. Their food work remains real, and so does their willingness to obstruct scrutiny. Their founding lesson, once about guarding a pot of broth on a dangerous road, now serves both the people who carry the pot and the people who want to control who may look inside the infirmary.

How it began

During the first hard flood season in Latchmere, Choir speakers tried to carry broth and clean bandages to families living beyond the town's raised paths. Their first food train was robbed, and two volunteers were beaten badly enough that the next trip was canceled. A group of ferrymen, porters, and worshippers returned wearing strips cut from a discarded red awning. They walked beside the next cart with staves and hunting weapons, and the food reached its destination. The strips became the Red Sashes' sign. The origin is recited as a lesson that service must be able to defend itself, though later members would add that defense is not the same as command.

How to know them

MottoCarry bread. Stand between.

EmblemA red strip of cloth tied around a plain white hand, palm outward. The hand is meant to signal aid before force; critics say the red cloth makes the hand look like a warning.

Colours

Dried-blood red, Undyed linen, Mud brown

Signs

A red strip tied over a white palm
A plain bowl carried on food routes
A single stitch in the inside of the sash for each season of service

DressMembers wear ordinary work clothes with a strip of red cloth tied at the wrist, upper arm, or shoulder. Escorts add a pale linen band around the forearm so recipients can distinguish a guard from a carrier. There is no standard armor; members use practical coats, padded layers, or whatever protection they can maintain.

Standing

AlignmentA mutual-aid movement with a coercive edge. Members disagree sharply about whether armed protection serves the vulnerable or gives its bearers power over them.

AgeFourteen years as a recognized body; its customs reach back to the flood years.

WealthModest in coin, comparatively rich in stored food, practical supplies, and goodwill. Its reserves are vulnerable to a bad season or a break in the relief routes.

What they say they want

Ensure Choir speakers can travel and speak without intimidation.

Bring food and essential supplies to households beyond town.

Protect the sick and bereaved from crowds, exploitation, and retaliation.

Keep aid work independent of political factions.

What they are doing now

Keep the locked infirmary and the list of transformation deaths under Choir protection.

Prevent the Weighers from making the death list public or placing the infirmary under civilian oversight.

Maintain safe passage for Choir speakers and food carriers beyond Latchmere.

Keep the Sashes from splitting between those who favor negotiated oversight and those who favor armed resistance.

Where it leads

A Latchmere where aid can reach every household without permission from the wealthy or the well-armed, and where people who serve the vulnerable can defend them. The unresolved question is whether the Sashes imagine themselves as temporary protectors or permanent guardians of that system.

How others see them

To recipients of their aid, the Red Sashes are the people who still come when the roads are flooded or dangerous. To many residents near the infirmary, they are armed gatekeepers who invoke protection whenever someone asks a difficult question.

People

5 ranks

First Sash

Sela

Compassionate but guarded, with a gift for calming a crowd and a habit of withholding information until she thinks it is safe.

First Sash1 member
Sets policy, negotiates with the Choir and town authorities, and can authorize armed deployments. Major decisions are supposed to be reviewed by the table of ward captains.
Ward Captains5 members
Coordinate patrols, food routes, and local volunteers. They vote on leadership policy, though the First Sash can call an emergency deployment without a vote.
Road Sashes18 members
Experienced escorts who plan routes, train volunteers, and carry weapons on dangerous journeys. Their authority outside town is broad and only loosely supervised.
Open Hands46 members
Unarmed or lightly equipped members who cook, carry food, tend the injured, keep accounts, and accompany Choir speakers.
Mended31 members
New volunteers in a three-month probationary period. They may help with supplies but cannot carry faction weapons or enter the infirmary.

Other key members

Brynjar Kelm Road Sash captain and likely successor
Ona of the Silt Cut Food-route organizer and internal critic
Stjorn Ward captain responsible for discipline

How they are organised

How it is runVolunteer relief association with armed escort cadres

Who comes nextWard captains select a candidate after a resignation or death, then the full active membership confirms the choice by a spoken vote. In an emergency, captains may appoint an acting First Sash for one month. There is no clear rule for what happens if the captains split evenly, and Brynjar has begun gathering support before any vacancy exists.

How they recruitCandidates begin with unarmed service and are paired with a seasoned member. After a season, they speak before a ward captain and explain when they believe force is justified. Weapons are not a reward for seniority; they are assigned for specific duties. In practice, captains vary in how strictly they enforce this rule.

To join

Complete a season of unarmed service, usually food carrying, cooking, or household support.
Accept the rule that weapons may be carried only for an assigned escort or patrol.
Swear to protect people in need without demanding religious agreement in return.
Disclose close ties to the Choir, the Weighers, or any household directly affected by transformation deaths.

Relations

6 factions

Ally · Close ally

Choir

The Choir relies on Red Sashes to escort speakers, carry food beyond town, and keep gatherings from being broken up. The alliance is genuine but strained by the Sashes' insistence that the locked infirmary and death list remain under Choir protection.

Operations

What they do

Escorting Choir speakers

Carrying food and household supplies beyond town

Providing volunteer patrols on vulnerable routes

Training members in de-escalation and basic defense

Mediating disputes around aid deliveries and access to the infirmary

How they do it

Escort Choir speakers through crowded or hostile areas.

Carry food, blankets, and basic supplies to households beyond town.

Use visible patrols and marked routes to discourage theft or intimidation.

Negotiate passage with local residents before using force, when time allows.

Stand between officials, crowds, and the locked infirmary when access is disputed.

Services for hire

Road bundleFood, medicine, or a reciprocal day of labor when the recipient can offer it; no fixed fee.
A carried bundle of staple food or basic supplies to a household on a known route.
Walking escortA meal and clear agreement about destination, route, and acceptable risk.
One or more escorts for a speaker, messenger, or vulnerable traveler.
Peace lineA public request and the cooperation of both sides; the Sashes do not promise a ruling.
A pair of trained members who help keep a tense meeting orderly and separate people if a fight begins.

What they can do

Can organize a relief run quickly using household contacts and known routes.

Members can recognize one another by small variations in the red cloth worn at the wrist or shoulder.

Experienced escorts know which raised roads remain passable in bad weather.

Can bring a large, visible presence to a meeting without relying on official authority.

What they have

A dependable network of food carriers and household contacts across Latchmere.

Experienced escorts familiar with the raised roads, ferries, and outlying routes.

A store of dried food, blankets, basic medical supplies, and repair tools.

The trust of many Choir speakers and families who have received aid.

A small cache of weapons and protective equipment held under captain-level control.

Where they are weak

Their authority depends on public trust, which the infirmary dispute is steadily eroding.

The relief network is difficult to protect without making it look like a political instrument.

Their weapons and training are insufficient for a sustained fight against a well-equipped force.

The faction has no agreed procedure for reporting misconduct by a captain.

If the hidden records are exposed, members who acted in good faith may be blamed alongside those who chose concealment.

Territory

Headquarters

Latchmere

KindRepurposed net-mending shed and food store

The Sashes keep a modest meeting room and supply store in a former net-mending shed beside the town's raised road. It smells of wet rope, lentils, lamp oil, and drying bandages. There is no weapons rack in the public room, but a locked cabinet in the back holds patrol gear and the names of volunteers authorized to carry it.

Lands they hold

The meeting shed and supply store in Latchmere

The raised roads and ferry approaches used by relief routes

Temporary food caches beyond the town's main gate

Outposts

North Road PantryThe raised road north of LatchmereA food cache and rest stop for carriers serving isolated homes.
Reed LandingA ferry landing beyond the eastern reed bedsA meeting point for escort parties and a place to transfer supplies when the road is unsafe.

Secrets

The big secret · GM only

The Sashes helped the Choir move a portion of the transformation death list out of the infirmary after the first standoff. The list was divided to protect it from seizure, but the hidden portion also includes names and notes that could clarify whether some deaths were preventable. Sela knows where the copies went. She has told herself that concealment prevents panic, but the arrangement makes the Sashes complicit in withholding evidence.

What they really want · GM only

Hidden plans · GM only

The leadership intends to keep the death list under Choir control until the Choir can decide which families may be told what, despite the Sashes' public claim to act only as escorts.

A small inner circle is quietly preparing to remove the infirmary's records if the Weighers obtain a lawful inspection order.

Some senior patrol members want the Red Sashes to become a permanent armed authority in Latchmere, not merely an outreach group.

Smaller secrets · GM only

What insiders say · GM only

Trouble inside · GM only

The central division is between the Open Hands, who believe aid earns trust only when it is accountable, and the Road Sashes, who argue that public oversight could expose patients or invite reprisals. The First Sash tries to hold both sides together by delaying decisions. Ward captains resent this, since delays leave patrol members to improvise. There is also a generational split: older members remember the first robbed food train, while newer volunteers know the faction chiefly as the armed barrier at the infirmary door.

Crimes · GM only

Plot hooks

5 hooks

1
A Name Left Off
Low to moderate; investigation, trust-building, and a choice about confidentiality.Reward: Personal connection, access to local aid, and possible evidence about the death list.
A new volunteer asks the characters to find a missing relative whose name may be on the infirmary list. Sela will help with the search, but only if the characters agree not to copy any records they find.
2
Under the Grain
Moderate; negotiation, investigation, or a tense rescue.Reward: Supplies, faction favor, or a new relationship with the Weighers.
A food cart is seized at the gate after officials find medicine hidden beneath sacks of grain. The carrier insists it was meant for a sick household, while Brynjar says exposing the route would endanger the whole network. The characters must establish who sent the medicine and decide whether to disclose the route.
3
The Door and the Order
Moderate to high; crowd management, diplomacy, and competing moral claims.Reward: Influence in Latchmere and access to testimony from either side.
The Weighers produce a lawful inspection order for the infirmary. Sela wants time to move the hidden copy; Ona wants the order honored. The characters are asked to keep the entrance peaceful while both factions arrive with supporters.
4
The Lost Sashes
High; travel danger, a rescue, and a consequential secret.Reward: A decisive say in the faction's internal struggle and potentially life-saving information.
A Red Sash patrol fails to return from a distant food run. Finding them reveals that one member has deserted with a fragment of the death list and another has been injured protecting the cargo. The party must choose which rescue comes first and whether to return the fragment.
5
The Red Cloth Comes Off
Campaign-scale; political alliances, public testimony, and possible street violence.Reward: A lasting change to Latchmere's balance of power and the faction's future.
Someone circulates proof that the Sashes helped conceal the records. The claim is partly true but omits the danger the Choir feared. As Latchmere prepares for a mass meeting, characters can expose the complete story, suppress it, or force Sela to negotiate a new custodian for the list.

Work they offer

1Escort a Choir speaker to an isolated household after threats are made against the route.

2Recover a stolen food cart before its contents spoil or are sold.

3Find a missing volunteer who knows the location of a hidden records copy.

4Serve as neutral witnesses during negotiations over an infirmary inspection.

What gets in the way

Some members treat carrying a weapon as a duty of care; others have discovered that people obey an armed escort.

The faction protects the Choir's infirmary from public access, yet some of its own volunteers want independent medical inspections.

Food caravans are welcomed outside town but increasingly searched at the gates, where officials suspect supplies are being used to reward loyalty.

A Red Sash who refuses an order can be accused of endangering the Choir, even when the order serves a leader's private purpose.

Rumours

1True: Red Sashes have carried food to households that the town's official relief lists do not acknowledge.

2True: Some patrol members use their red bands to get past ordinary searches.

3Partly true: The Choir pays the Sashes to guard the infirmary. The Sashes receive supplies and support, but members deny taking wages for the blockade.

4False: Every Red Sash is secretly a Choir enforcer. Many members are ordinary volunteers who have never entered the infirmary.

5Unverified: A member of the Weighers has been meeting Ona in secret to compare dates from the death list.

Media

0 images

No images yet.

Visual sheet

Turn Red Sashes into a sheet

A high-res, share-ready sheet you can post or print.