Bandit Guild

[diaskeaus]

So, have you ever wondered why there are hundreds of men and women waiting outside major cities just... hanging around? Of course, in Vanilla Oblivion you see them, they see you, battle ensues, and usually there is a big pile of blood on the ground after, and you take home five hundred gold worth of stuff.

 

If you've got OOO and MMM, then it's quite possible it's not just one or two who are hanging around, but ten or fifteen. At the end of the day, you've taken a lot of souls to your blade and you call it a day.

 

The idea is that maybe those guys sitting outside the cities DON'T attack you. Maybe you are a bandit too. You find travelers on the road and threaten their lives to give you money. You become a Bandit Lord and find people are flocking to join your army because they lost their jobs, were blackmailed or falsely accused by the corrupt Imperial Guard, or are just looking for a way to feed and protect their kids in some tiny little hamlet where the guards don't patrol and regularly are attacked by roving wolves, and the bandits actually (for a fee) will protect those small hamlets.

 

Or perhaps there is something bigger going on, a shadow conspiracy that doesn't delve in magic (although does use hedge magic as a last resort) and seeks to restore the throne to an alternate rule. Perhaps these 'bandits' are paid just enough to not ask any questions and keep instability in the empire.

 

OR -- there might also be a group out there devoted to rooting out bandits, because they know what's going on. So they are trying to get to the bottom of the bandit problem and find out who the major ringleader is, and stop the whole trend of terrorism that has been plaguing Cyrodiil.

 

Either way, you have the potential for two different guilds on opposite sides of the coin. As a bandit you would be able to join and thus NOT get attacked by bandits in the countryside, but you would get attacked by Imperial Foresters and Imperial Guards and other factions that hate the bandits (marauders, etc). They would be your safehouses.

 

Once you have taken enough goods or money (similar to fencing items for the thieves guild) you would rise in status, and eventually be asked to start leading other bandits and helping them learn the trade by accompanying them on missions and making sure they survive if they fail to get enough money.

 

Eventually you would be put into the loop and shown that there is an attempt to spy and bribe members in the government, with the goal of replacing them with bandits, in order to slowly infiltrate the imperial system and control the government.

 

Or on the alternate side, you would be a member of the group trying to taken down the bandits, and would need to take out bandit lairs. There might be a few bandits that are placed in lairs as special characters who have letters, notes, books, or other information relevant to taking down the network.

 

This mod would actually give some credence to the dozens of bandit camps randomly placed throughout the wilderness.

 

You might also be able to double agent and work for both, as long as you don't kill too many bandits so they might notice you are working for the other side, and still be allowed into camps.