Rendrakian Assembly

The Rendrakian Assembly traces its lineage to the Rendraki nomads of the Red Plateaus, whose communities existed long before Zandros conquered the region and the Red Wars began. During the wars, Rendraki families were displaced, divided, and drawn into competing armies and settlements. At the wars' conclusion, Drakos and Radella Avyngard formed the broken land into the kingdom of Redrein. The majority voted for their monarchy, but not all Rendraki accepted the result as a reason to abandon their identity or their criticism of inherited rule. The Assembly began as a network of people who kept cultural records and argued that the Rendraki should not vanish into the new kingdom. For generations, its work was quiet and local: teaching fragments of language, recording family testimony, keeping customary practices alive, and preserving practical knowledge of the plateaus. Its character changed as the old nomadic way of life became less familiar. Five hundred years later, none of its descendants has known life before the Red Wars, and none can simply return to the old routes as their ancestors did. The Assembly now preserves a culture partly through reconstruction, debate, and careful admission of what has been lost. Its defining crisis arrived when the Shroud of siros seized the kingdom. The Assembly could feed and arm people but lacked the warriors to defend them. When the Drakos heir promised court representation in return for aid, the Assembly accepted an alliance with a bloodline it had long criticized. That decision made it a political actor rather than only a custodian of memory, and exposed old disagreements about legitimacy, independence, and survival.

Faction · Lawful Neutral

Rendrakian Assembly

Among people who have received food or shelter, the Assembly is known as organized, dependable, and stubbornly protective of its own.

Type: Revolutionary movement and…
Size: 521 members
Reach: Regional
Base: A Redrein settlement near the central routes across the Red Plateaus; the Assembly keeps its exact meeting site private.

Overview

How it began

The oldest Assembly account says the first keepers met after the Red Wars, when the Red Plateaus were broken by conquest and the Rendraki scattered among new settlements. They had opposed Zandros's conquest, then watched the majority choose Drakos and Radella Avyngard as king and queen to end the wars and give the damaged land a government. A smaller number of Rendraki believed that one ruler had merely replaced another. They particularly distrusted Drakos's dragon nature and the precedent of rule descending through his bloodline, even though his descendants were human. The first keepers did not claim that the vote had been false. Instead, they argued that a kingdom could be lawful and still erase the people who had helped make it possible. They collected songs, family accounts, customary judgments, and fragments of route knowledge, and formed an assembly to preserve them. Across five centuries, war, settlement, and the loss of elders turned the keepers into a regional network with stores, scribes, and local delegates. The watershed moment came during the Shroud of siros seizure of Redrein. The Assembly had food, rations, and weapons, but not enough warriors to fight a determined force alone. The Drakos heir asked for aid and offered a political voice in return. Facing an enemy that would likely destroy both the monarchy and Rendrakian communities, the Assembly accepted the compact. The decision ended its posture of absolute refusal toward Drakos rule, but did not settle whether the bargain was wise.

How to know them

MottoWhat was carried can be carried forward.

EmblemA red circle left open at the top, with a dark iron line crossing its gap. The circle represents the plateaus and the interrupted line of Rendraki life; the open break recalls that the Assembly claims continuity without pretending its lost past can simply be restored.

Colours

Dust red, Sun-bleached linen, Dark iron

Signs

An open red circle, representing a culture whose line was interrupted but not ended.
A dark iron crossline, representing the obligations people carry between generations.
A strip of undyed cloth worn inside a sleeve by members who serve as messengers.

DressThere is no required uniform. Members often wear dust-red cloth or a narrow band of undyed linen inside the sleeve, visible mainly to other Assembly members. Escorts favor practical dark clothing and carry a small iron token marked with the open-circle emblem. Public representatives avoid dress that implies military rank.

Standing

AlignmentLawful Neutral

AgeApproximately 500 years in its present form, with traditions and records claiming roots in the nomadic Rendraki culture that predated the Red Wars.

WealthModerate in stores, records, and regional connections, but poor in coin and formal military resources. Its apparent wealth is largely food and equipment reserved for emergencies.

What they say they want

Preserve Rendrakian culture and make its history part of Redrein's shared record.

Secure the political voice promised by the Drakos heir.

Protect communities from the Shroud of siros and restore lawful government.

Ensure the settlement of the Red Wars does not mean the disappearance of Rendraki identity.

What they are doing now

Help the Drakos heir oppose the Shroud of siros without surrendering the Assembly's independent command or stores.

Secure a written, enforceable place for Rendrakian representatives in Redrein's court and councils.

Recover, verify, and teach surviving Rendraki songs, law customs, route knowledge, and oral histories.

Protect Assembly supply caches and civilians from both the Shroud and opportunistic local commanders.

Decide whether cultural renewal means reviving nomadic life, adapting traditions to settled communities, or preserving both possibilities.

Where it leads

A Redrein in which Rendrakian people can maintain their traditions, teach their history, and take part in decisions that affect them without having to choose between cultural survival and political loyalty. The Assembly has not agreed whether this future is best secured within the monarchy, through regional self-rule, or through a constitutional arrangement that neither side has yet imagined.

How others see them

Among people who have received food or shelter, the Assembly is known as organized, dependable, and stubbornly protective of its own. Supporters see it as the keeper of a people whom the kingdom forgot. Critics call it a political movement disguising a bid for privilege as cultural preservation. Many ordinary Rendreinians respect its relief work but fear that a court seat and supply network could give it too much power.

People

4 ranks

Speaker of the Red Table

Sada

Composed, procedural, and empathetic without being sentimental. She listens closely, speaks sparingly, and can mistake patience for a virtue even when urgent action is needed.

The Red Table9 members
The central council, made up of delegates chosen by regional circles. It sets policy, approves major uses of shared stores, and interprets the wartime compact. Decisions normally require a two-thirds vote; urgent defensive actions can be authorized by the Speaker and three council members, then reviewed afterward.
Route Speakers34 members
Regional delegates who carry decisions between settlements, negotiate with local authorities, and report disputes to the Red Table. Their influence rests on trust and reliable testimony rather than command over every member.
Keepers118 members
Archivists, teachers, quartermasters, healers, messengers, and organizers responsible for preserving culture and maintaining local supplies. Most members belong to this tier.
Hands360 members
Supporting members, sympathizers, and trained volunteers who distribute aid, copy records, host meetings, and provide local knowledge. Membership is broad, but not every Hand is a combatant.

Other key members

Barek Chief quartermaster and Sada's chief internal critic
Oruwa Kesh Keeper of testimony and archives
Torm Organizer of local Hands and possible successor to Sada
Ilyan Coordinator of armed escorts and security

How they are organised

How it is runCultural preservation network turned regional political and revolutionary movement

Who comes nextThe Red Table elects its Speaker from among its members for a renewable three-year term. A successor requires a two-thirds vote after regional delegates have reported local views. If the Speaker is killed, captured, or unable to serve, the longest-serving Route Speaker temporarily chairs meetings until the Red Table elects a replacement. This process can be slow during a crisis, and Torm's supporters are pressing to allow a broader vote among Keepers.

How they recruitA person usually begins as a helper at a local circle, contributing time or skill before being asked to take responsibility for stores, testimony, or communications. A Keeper and two existing members must vouch for them. New members hear the Assembly's account of its origins alongside the evidence that complicates it, and are told plainly that much of the old nomadic way is lost. Members swear to protect people and records, not to obey every council decision without question.

To join

A prospective member must accept that Rendraki identity is a living community, not a blood test or a claim of perfect knowledge about the past.
Members must protect the confidentiality of vulnerable stores, records, and meeting arrangements.
Those who take responsibility for supplies or testimony must keep accurate accounts and submit to review.
Members are expected to help preserve or serve the community, through teaching, logistics, care, advocacy, or defense.

Operations

What they do

Preserving Rendraki histories, practices, songs, and family testimony.

Distributing emergency rations and maintaining regional supply routes.

Negotiating for political representation and protections for cultural life.

Organizing noncooperation and local resistance against the Shroud of siros.

Training escorts and volunteers to defend people, supplies, and records.

How they do it

Maintain dispersed caches and rotate access so that no single seizure can cripple relief work.

Use petitions, testimony, public assemblies, and negotiated compacts before resorting to force.

Train escorts to protect supply movements, archives, and vulnerable communities.

Copy oral histories and teach cultural practices in local circles, while labeling uncertain reconstructions as uncertain.

Use strikes, boycotts, concealed aid, and noncooperation against authorities who target Rendrakian communities.

When violence is unavoidable, favor defense and evacuation over territorial conquest.

Services for hire

Route escortPayment in coin, useful supplies, or an agreed contribution to local relief
Arranges guarded passage between settlements when the route is open and the travelers do not endanger local communities.
Emergency ration and shelterA modest fee or a reciprocal act of service
Provides food, temporary shelter, and basic aid to displaced people, subject to available stores and local need.
Record consultationA contribution to copying materials and an agreement not to misrepresent uncertain sources
Shares accessible copies of histories, testimony, and cultural records. Sensitive records require review by the appropriate Keepers.
Community mediationA promise to respect the circle's safety and a small contribution to its costs
Introduces visitors to a local circle that can help arrange mediation, petitions, or contact with a Route Speaker.

What they can do

Can move food, messages, and warnings across multiple settlements with less visibility than official authorities.

Holds a growing but uneven archive of Rendrakian oral histories and customary practices.

Can mobilize local noncooperation, petitions, and emergency mutual aid quickly when trust is intact.

Has enough weapons and trained escorts to defend small convoys or support an ally, but not to field a large independent army.

What they have

Distributed food, ration, and weapon stores accumulated for emergencies, with access controlled by local Keepers.

A network of trusted messengers and regional delegates across multiple settlements.

Collected oral histories, copied records, songs, customary judgments, and maps of old routes.

Public trust among people who have received aid during the Shroud's seizure of Redrein.

A compact with the Drakos heir that gives the Assembly a claim to political representation, though its exact force remains contested.

Where they are weak

The Assembly lacks enough trained warriors to defeat a major military force alone.

Its dispersed stores and records are vulnerable if routes are cut or local Keepers are compromised.

Its cultural authority is contested because its members are reconstructing traditions they never experienced directly.

Internal disagreement over the monarchy, self-rule, and the compact can delay decisions or expose divisions to adversaries.

Its reliance on the Drakos heir for military aid gives the royal court leverage over its political demands.

Territory

Headquarters

A Redrein settlement near the central routes across the Red Plateaus; the Assembly keeps its exact meeting site private.

KindDistributed archive and supply hall

The Assembly has no single fortress. Its central council meets in a storehouse and archive maintained in a Redrein settlement, with its location shared only with trusted delegates. The building is practical rather than grand: thick walls, a guarded ration room, a meeting floor marked with travel routes, and shelves of copied testimonies. The name of the settlement is deliberately not treated as secret knowledge that belongs to outsiders; its security comes from decoy stores and dispersed records, not from claiming a hidden capital.

Lands they hold

The Red Plateaus and their settlement routes

Multiple settlements within the kingdom of Redrein

Dispersed store sites and meeting circles rather than contiguous territory

Outposts

The Split Rock storeA settlement on the eastern plateau routesMaintains a food cache and provides shelter for messengers and displaced families.
The Burnt Track roomA market settlement on a route between several Redrein communitiesHosts teaching circles, copies testimony, and coordinates petitions and public meetings.
The Cleared Slope postA small settlement overlooking an old descent from the Red PlateausOrganizes guarded supply movements and watches for Shroud patrols.

Secrets

The big secret · GM only

The Assembly's archive contains credible testimony that Rendraki representatives participated in the vote that selected Drakos and Radella Avyngard, and that at least some supported the monarchy as the least dangerous path out of the Red Wars. Later generations emphasized dissent and cultural erasure, while leaving that support out of the account. The record does not erase Rendrakian opposition to bloodline rule, but public disclosure could shatter the Assembly's simple founding narrative, divide its members, and give the restored court leverage to question its political claims.

What they really want · GM only

Turn the wartime promise of court representation into a lasting constitutional role for Rendrakian delegates.

Keep enough independent resources and organization to resist any future ruler who revokes the Assembly's protections.

Some members intend to use the restoration crisis to win regional self-rule, even if the Assembly as a whole has not approved that aim.

Preserve the right to revise Rendrakian traditions openly, rather than allowing a court, an elder bloc, or a romantic idea of the past to define them.

Hidden plans · GM only

A bloc of elders wants the wartime compact to become a permanent constitutional settlement, giving the Assembly authority over cultural education, local customary law, and a defined share of council seats.

A younger bloc quietly wants to make the Assembly a vehicle for regional self-rule, even if that eventually means breaking from the monarchy.

Some storekeepers are preserving a reserve of arms and provisions for a future confrontation with the crown, despite the official position that the cache exists only for defense against the Shroud.

The Assembly's most careful historians are withholding evidence that Rendraki leaders participated in the original majority vote for Drakos and Radella. They fear that political opponents will use the record to dismiss all Rendrakian objections, though the evidence also complicates the Assembly's own founding story.

Smaller secrets · GM only

Several supposedly ancient songs were assembled from incomplete verses only a few generations ago. The Assembly preserves them because members find meaning in them, but some elders present them as older than the evidence supports.

The Red Table has understated how much of its emergency food is already committed to families in occupied settlements.

Barek keeps a private ledger of officials who diverted aid, including some who now cooperate against the Shroud.

Ilyan has allowed a small number of volunteers to train with weapons without full council approval.

What insiders say · GM only

Trouble inside · GM only

The central dispute is whether the Assembly exists to preserve Rendraki culture or to secure Rendraki power. The Memory Keepers favor patient research and cultural teaching, while the Red Table's political bloc wants binding authority and representation. Younger Hands are impatient with debates over a nomadic past they have never experienced and argue that a living culture must change. Quartermasters resist promises that could exhaust the stores, while aid organizers argue that supplies kept for a hypothetical future are useless to people starving now. Members also disagree over the Drakos compact: some consider it an honorable necessity against the Shroud, others see it as a new form of dependence, and a few believe the Assembly should help restore the heir only to demand a new settlement afterward.

Crimes · GM only

Plot hooks

6 hooks

1
The Record in the Dust
Low to moderate; travel, negotiation, and a likely ambushReward: Payment, safe passage, and the trust of an Assembly circle
A Keeper asks the characters to escort a box of copied testimony to a local circle. The documents include a disputed account of Rendraki support for the first monarchy. Someone has learned of the delivery and wants the records destroyed before either the Assembly or the court can decide what to do with them.
2
The Last Measure
Moderate; investigation and conflicting claims, with no purely clean solutionReward: Supplies, local allies, and a choice that changes the Assembly's standing
A settlement's ration store is nearly empty, and the local Keeper refuses to release the reserve without the Red Table's approval. The characters must determine whether the store is truly needed for a coming threat, whether its ledger has been altered, or whether the Keeper is protecting a private arrangement.
3
A Promise Under Arms
Moderate to high; political negotiation under wartime pressureReward: Political access, military support, or a revised compact
The Drakos heir requests Assembly escorts and supplies for a campaign against the Shroud. At the same time, the heir has delayed confirming the promised court representation. Sada wants the compact honored without endangering civilians; Torm wants leverage before the army moves. The party can negotiate, gather proof of the delay, or decide which side of the bargain to support.
4
The Routes That Must Not Travel
High; investigation, pursuit, and a choice about whether to expose internal dissentReward: A cache location, the confidence of a faction within the Assembly, and a possible new enemy
A member of the Assembly has disappeared with route notes that reveal several supply caches. The evidence points toward a traitor, but the missing member may have taken the notes to prevent a reckless raid authorized by Ilyan's volunteers. The party must find them before the Shroud does.
5
The Price of Recognition
Campaign scale; evidence gathering and high-stakes diplomacyReward: A lasting treaty, regional influence, or a contested political settlement
A regional council offers the Assembly lasting cultural protections in exchange for disarming its escorts and surrendering control of its stores. The offer could save lives and bring legal recognition, but it may also leave the settlements helpless if the Shroud returns. The party is asked to investigate the council's motives and advise competing Assembly blocs.
6
Three Things to Carry
High; time pressure, combat or stealth, and a consequential sacrificeReward: The survival of a settlement, an important archive, or a decisive alliance
The Shroud is preparing to destroy a settlement's archive and seize its food stores. The Assembly can evacuate families, save the records, or hold the route long enough for the Drakos heir's forces to arrive, but it cannot do all three. The characters' choice may decide what survives of both the community and its past.

Work they offer

1Escort a delegate carrying the proposed terms of the Assembly's court compact.

2Recover an oral history from an elder displaced by the Shroud before the only surviving witness is silenced.

3Find out who is diverting rations from an occupied settlement without punishing the families who received them.

4Locate a missing volunteer whose weapon training was never approved by the Red Table.

5Mediate between a settlement council and Assembly Keepers over who controls a shared store.

What gets in the way

The Assembly has inherited the name and political claims of a nomadic people, but its members have never lived a nomadic life and disagree about what authentic Rendraki culture means.

The wartime compact with the Drakos heir may preserve their culture, or bind them to the very bloodline they once opposed.

Their stores, records, and networks make them influential, but they have far fewer trained fighters than their reputation suggests.

Some Rendreinians fear that a promise of representation will become a permanent share of government, while Assembly members fear that a temporary promise will be forgotten as soon as the crisis ends.

The Assembly's commitment to lawful procedure can make it slow to act when people are in immediate danger.

Rumours

1The Assembly has enough hidden weapons to raise an army. False, though it has more weapons than it admits publicly.

2Its leaders intend to depose the Drakos heir as soon as the Shroud is defeated. False as a unified policy, but some younger members want self-rule.

3The Assembly's old route maps can lead travelers to safe water and forgotten camps. Partly true; many maps are fragments and their accuracy varies.

4The first Rendraki keepers supported the monarchy before later generations recast them as its opponents. Substantially true, but the surviving evidence is incomplete and does not settle what those early supporters believed.

5The Red Table has already chosen which settlements it will abandon if the Shroud attacks. False, though its leaders have privately debated impossible choices about evacuation.

Rendrakian Assembly

Rendrakian Assembly

Overview

How it began

How to know them

Standing

What they say they want

What they are doing now

Where it leads

How others see them

People

Speaker of the Red Table

Other key members

How they are organised

Relations

Operations

What they do

How they do it

Services for hire

What they can do

What they have

Where they are weak

Territory

Headquarters

Lands they hold

Outposts

Secrets

Plot hooks

Work they offer

What gets in the way

Rumours

Media

Turn Rendrakian Assembly into a sheet