Cazadores Macabras

[Petrogrd]

((A backgrounder for my current force.))

San Aarón de Tranquilidad is an adobe-walled town of some seven-hundred souls, a pale tombstone jutting from the dusty plains beyond Malifaux.

The good people of San Aarón were 'encouraged' to resettle its empty shell, for the similarity of the environment to that of their previous homes and to fill the ever-pressing need for soulstones from the surrounding mines.

The primary reason for their resettlement, however, was a streak of orthodox religiosity which too often ran counter to the aspirations of the Guild. These frictions were hardly banished by crossing the breech, and in some ways became more pressing. A deep respect for the dead caused general outcry against the Guild's policies of soulstone restoration from the bodies of the ill or aged. Two weekly Sabbaths and countless religious holidays and fasts resulted in erratic output from the ever-important mines.

Even worse for the guild, the flow of soulstone from San Aarón had granted the cloistered town an uncomfortable amount of wealth and power. While the town could not shake off the guild's commands, a work-stoppage from a recently rediscovered holy day or a bag of gold in the right hands could do noticeable harm to the Guild's cause in Malifaux.

Negotiations requiring the utmost of subtlety were entered, culminating in the arrival of Lucius, the Governor General's Secretary, to approve the final secret agreement. Under the new terms, miners would be allowed to accept work on the Sabbaths and many holidays for a considerable bonus, although the community would discourage them. Families of the ill or aged could also accept bonuses for the restoration of soulstones via the departed. Aside from the great influx of wealth, the town retained ten high holy days as absolutely untouchable by the Guild or any other interest.

The negotiation culminated on the holiest day of the year, the Carnival of the Dead, forcing a full day's delay before any agreement could be signed. Many of the Governor's men decided to take part in the festivities, but not Lucius; he had received abrupt word of a development which could make all of the heated dealings for naught.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Residents of San Aarón, by nature, bear a strong abhoration of the necromantic Resurrectionists, viewing any that would so defile the dead as utterly inhuman, deserving only to be burned alive and scattered to the winds. The Guild's recruits for the town almost universally seek training to fight these vile sorcerers, and many from the town would become some of the most dogged hunters of the undead known in Malifaux.

Such were band of three young pistoleros, devoutly setting aside their proscribed dark texts to join the revels; purchasing meals for the dead and hell-money from street vendors and cavorting with the masked multitudes. They were surprised, then, to be approached by a city man in an unadorned mask, beckoning them in a friendly manner to the outskirts of the celebration.

When far enough to hear over the roar of the crowd, the dandy assailed them with an entreaty so rapid-fire and clever that the words melted from their memories, leaving only emotions. Horror at what might befall their home, anger at the profane source of danger. Pride daring them into the highest challenge, and greed; Greed for title, wealth, and honor. These words roiled so fast that they forgot entirely their duty to God and the dead on this holy day, and the shame of their blasphemous disrespect.

In the tale spun by Lucius, a band of Resurrectionists stood poised at any moment to raze the town, sacking it for soulstones and the bodies of their victims. These grisly malefactors had raised a vast shambling army of horrors and set it across the plain before them. Since work of any sort was expressly forbidden during the Carnival night, no Guild guard stood ready to fight in the town, and reinforcements were too far to be of any use.

The three could not later remember if the proposal made was a compact, a plea, a bet, or a brazen dare. Although no paper ever changed hands, the three all shared an unshakable belief that the agreement was binding, and held no doubts that the Secretary would make good. They were officially dismissed from their weak Guild deputizations, but armed with the foremost in Guild equipment: peacemaker pistols and the enchanted coffins of Marshals. The Guild would never admit that they had been asked to work during the Carnival. However, if they defended their home and brought in the heads of the Resurrectionists responsible, they would be inducted into the Death Marshals and paid a signing bonus beyond their wildest aspirations.

The three agreed, and were told to wait while additional parties were gathered. Lucius returned in several trips, bring a grizzled watchman, a few mercenaries or bravos, and a "Holy Fool": a violent madwoman given wide berth in the town as a vouchsafed child of God. Lucius whispered his temptations to these others, who all agreed readily. Clutching the armaments provided the Secretary and holding their festival masks tight to avoid the attention of their neighbors, these slayers made their way through the alleys and out a discreet gate, traveling on into the night.

In the plains between Malifaux and San Aarón, high on adventure and the remembered excesses of the Carnival, the Cazarodes met and felled two-hundred of the walking dead.

The next day, Lucius formalized the agreement with San Aarón's clergy and departed for Malifaux.

It has been three months since the Carnival. The Cazadores have yet to find the Resurrectionists behind the plot. They travel in their ragged party clothes, without pay or shelter, living on only what they can scrounge.

They have ceased fantasizing about their reward, as they've reserved their imaginations for the things they will do to the necromancers when they find them.

[Sholto]

I like it - very colourful

[hakoMike]

^what he said.

The concept of the three weary hunters in party regalia is wonderfully vivid. Are there miniatures to existing/planned for them?

[Petrogrd]

Thank you both!

I do have miniatures for them, with some minor conversions from the Lady Justice set. I haven't posted them yet, because my painting skills aren't that great, but I wanted to do a Dia de los Muertos themed outfit more than just the standard Death Marshals.