Bloodbound of the Red Ring

The Red Ring is unrivaled in its brutality. To satisfy the desperate and demanding masses of Stormreach, a population living on the fringe of a savage continent, the Ring offers sport gruesome enough to satisfy even the most bloodthirsty tastes. Khorvaire’s champions come across the Thunder Sea to prove themselves and instead often get sent home in pieces.

Bloodbound are not average gladiators. They face the fiercest horrors Xen’drik’s untamed jungles have to offer. The lawlessness of Stormreach allows, and even encourages, grisly contests of strength, sweat, and blood.

All this considered, bloodbound don’t survive long without a code and the strictures of the Red Ring’s Blood Council. Obedience, faith in the stablemasters, and a rigorous regimen of training dominate every bloodbound’s life.

The most important distinction made among these gladiators is that between slaves and free bloodbound. Free bloodbound are fewer and fewer every year. Those who have other choices are rarely drawn to a life of constant bloodshed and agony, and the sacrifice made to become a bloodbound is extreme. These days, most stablemasters rely on slaves or recruit condemned criminals from the tribunals.

You live in the blood-boiling heat of the moment. There is no future, no life after the fight, except to fight again until death takes you. The hum of the creatures of the civilized world surrounding the Red Ring is like the droning of so many insects . . . they are not alive like you are. They have not faced a worthy foe in brutal blood sport to the roaring swell of the crowd.

You are god and slave both. You wear a collar like a dog and serve at the stablemaster’s whim, but when you enter the arena, you are the center of the universe. You stand toe to toe with giants, monsters, and other bloodbound in battle fraught with brutality and danger unlike anything mere adventurers can fathom.

Combat

You fight to win, but you also fight for glory. You strive to elicit the best response possible from onlookers as you battle—whether to please the crowds or to terrify foes with the bloody acts you perpetrate upon their allies. You enjoy toying with lesser foes and mangle them in ways that make others think twice about crossing you.

You turn bad situations to your benefit and make the most of any possible advantage. Everything is a weapon: A stack of shelves in an apothecary’s shop can be toppled on foes to cover them in narcotic powders and poisons, a gangplank might be splintered to plunge a foe into the brine below, and even a tureen makes a handy buckler in a pinch.

Advancement

Your exploits outside the Red Ring are meaningless. Free bloodbound are not discouraged from adventuring, since stablemasters see their bloodbound come back from Xen’drik’s interior far harder and stronger than when they left. Even so, the rest of the bloodbound do not care what you found in the giant ruins or how many beasts you slew there. No kill counts unless it is a kill for the crowd, a sacrifice of blood to the ravening mob of viewers—this is your debt of honor to the Red Ring. Winning bouts in the arena gains you the respect and power needed to become a champion.

Most often you are called upon to fight in the Red Ring. On occasion a problem might arise, such as someone trying to extort money from your stablemaster, blackmail him, or pursue a personal vendetta of some kind. In these cases you might be called upon to destroy the transgressor.

Though it is rarely exercised, most stablemasters maintain a contract with the Stormreach Guard that allows the Guard to “borrow” a group of bloodbound for dirty muscle-work, intimidation (when a bloodbound’s reputation in the Red Ring comes in very handy), or particularly “wet” (read: bloody) crackdowns. Private militias strive to obtain these contracts as well, though a stablemaster rarely grants them, and militias can rarely afford them.

Bloodbound slaves rarely leave the arena unless loaned out to the Guard or less reputable organizations as muscle. Free bloodbound can be encountered nearly anywhere in Stormreach. PCs might face bloodbound across the arena or in some darkened alleyway where they serve the characters’ enemies as paid thugs.

Structure

There is little distinction between bloodbound except one—slave or free. The Red Ring is a primary market for the slavers of Darguun; many of the gladiators in the ring are descended from Cyrans captured in the goblinoid conquest of the land. The Code of Galifar forbids slavery, but these laws have no teeth in Stormreach. Few outside the Red Ring make use of slaves, but the Storm Lords have shown little interest in abolishing the practice . . . especially in light of the money the Ring brings to the Blood Council.

Slaves purchased by stablemasters are trained for a life of slaughter and inevitable death in the arena. A slave can become free only if he earns his worth in “favor” from patrons of the Ring. Whether slaves or not, all bloodbound swear an oath to a stablemaster, whom they serve without question.

Individual stables are run according to the whim of their master, but most employ “handlers” to keep control of the slaves and train them for battle. Some of these handlers are the basest scum of Stormreach, who enjoy their roles as vicious taskmasters. Others are retired gladiators too maimed or too aged to continue their careers, who instead pass their skills on to a new generation of bloodbound.

Three stablemasters sit on the Blood Council, the body politic that runs the Red Ring. Dozens of lesser stablemasters clamor at their heels, hoping to one day ascend to the council and claim the respect and wealth that accompanies these highly coveted seats of power.

NPC Reactions

When the bloodbound walk the streets of Stormreach, most people get out of their way. Adventurers and criminals have a reputation for violence, but a bloodbound’s reputation is burned into the minds of hundreds of onlookers every week at the Red Ring. There is no question about their capability for brutality. Some fans of the Red Ring view the bloodbound as living legends and city heroes. Others view them as animals possessing no skill beyond killing.