Editing Bandit (section)

==Popular bandit archetypes==
*'''Mugger''' - Lowly miscreants who prey on civilians in a population center for petty valuables, relying on the element of surprise and a settlement's weapon laws to ensure that their victim doesn't retaliate. They usually don't put up too much of a fight and will run if they realize there's even a hint of risk they'll get caught (or worse, mobbed by the angry citizen-folk).

*'''Highwayman''' - Your stereotypical fantasy bandit. Highwaymen prey on travelers, primarily on unsecured highways (as highways linked to major cities and were established trade routes: a lot of money, rich folk, and trade goods regularly flowed through them), holding them up for whatever they can carry and disappearing into their hideout to count and distribute the spoils. That said, they're fully capable of sticking people up in any other location that suits them. 

*'''Raider''' - Bandits who take a more direct approach and the other common archetype. They're much like highwaymen, but they prefer to invade poorly defended areas (like villages and small encampments) to pillage their goods and retreat to their hideout before an armed response force is mustered. Rinse and repeat. Also, throughout history but most commonly in the Bronze and Dark Ages, raiding was the most common type of warfare conducted, so the difference between state-sanctioned raiding and actual bandit raiding was very often pedantic. In fact, the former tended to devolve into the latter as soon as the raiders noticed they could get more money by raiding than they could from military pay- or when a war ended and left the raiders with no skills they could use in peacetime. 

*'''Bank robber''' - One of the most popular in the list. Bank robbers are groups of men who rob banks by: going inside weapons drawn, and forcibly steal the bank's contents using brutal force, then making a quick getaway whilst attempting to evade the law. They're pretty popular in modern settings, getting into intricate planning segments to ensure they get in and out as quick as possible, high-speed vehicle chases, and heated gunfights with the law as they fight tooth and nail to escape with their haul.

*'''Train robber''' - Popularized by old American wild west movies. Train robbers basically rob moving trains of any loot they might have, and since trains were the most reliable form of quick transportation between cities in the old west: they normally carried plenty of valuables (and trains were also normally boarded by rich folk wishing to cross the country). Contrary to popular belief, they rarely jumped from their horses to get on trains (as this was incredibly risky, and hard to pull off from a physics standpoint), and would normally board the train like regular passengers, before signaling to the gang to commence the heist. To get off the train: they normally forced the engineer to engage the brakes. Alternately, they had some way to stop the train at roughly the right point (again, confederate who boards and then holds up the engineer, or one of the many legitimate ways to get a train to stop (doing stuff to the rail, etc.)), or alternately derail the train; either way, historically, passengers were small fry that a robber wouldn't be that interested in; the focus was usually on gold or payroll that was being shipped alongside them in safes.

*'''[[Slavery|Slavers]]''' - Normally considered the most despicable of all bandits. Bandits don't usually bother with kidnapping, as a ransom is typically too problematic for anyone but a well-connected syndicate to handle (as you need to find someone willing to shell out a lot of money for this person, then ensure they can't trace you back), and taking captives brings in a lot more heat than than usual. And even then, trying to move live cargo around and trying to find a good buyer for them comes with it's own sets of problems. Its simply a lot more efficient for most groups to hold people up and take their good stuff, then leave them alone; after all, inanimate goods generally don't fight back or escape (although see "Cattle Rustlers" below). 
:Slavers however, say "fuck that", and in addition to the usual fighting and looting, they'll take prisoners home to sell on the slave market, with their captives' welfare usually being an afterthought, unless they were important/valuable enough to ensure the extra hassle of keeping them well fed and maintained. Slave raiders are terrifying to civilian-folk: while it's depressing you can always get material possessions back one way or another. But how're you going to cope with losing friends and family? Once they're sold off, it's highly likely you're never going to see your loved ones again, and you'll be tormented to death not knowing if they're still alive or not. Hence, slave raiders typically attract the most attention, either from law enforcement and or local militia, as anyone in charge will want them gone as soon as possible (and from a less moral PoV but one that might be more common in a society that uses slaves itself: slavers are taking away your workers and taxpayers, how dare they cut into your fortunes and cost you good money to hunt them down?).

*'''[[Viking|Sea Raider]]''' - A fearsome cross with a [[Pirate]]. A Sea Raider raids coastal settlements then gets on their boat and runs away before the local lord can assemble his forces to deal with them. Among bandit types they have the narrative advantage of not needing even a temporary settlement to engage in their acts (allowing them to not just be criminals but ''foreign'' criminals) and being able to rip off all that cool Viking stuff. It was also believed for decades that sea raiders caused the collapse of several civilizations at the end of the Bronze Age.

*'''Banditos''' - Bandits with a little more ethnic flair thrown in, these are wild-west bandits with ponchos, sombreros, and pistolés representing the general lawlessness of the early Texan border (and then romanticized in western fiction.) They're also known for their ravishing handlebar mustaches. Actors that are actually Hispanic are completely optional. [[Webcomics|May or may not ride raptors into battle.]]

*'''Marauders''' - In the middle east there were a fair number of places where it was too dry to raise crops but you could raise sheep, goats or camels which were home to various nomadic pastoral peoples who'd supplement their income by trade, weaving, dealing in odds and ends and some banditry on the side. Since a tribe of nomads would be a set of family units who'd been at this way of life for centuries or millennia, they tended to have a more sustainable outlook about things: kill a merchant and you can rob him for everything once, shake his caravan down for some stuff and let him go and you can do it again and again.

*'''Cattle Rustlers''' - Men who steal cows. Common in the Wild West, but has been around ever since free range animals existed (sheep rustlers were and are a thing, for example, and in fact are still a problem in Scotland as of 2019). Cattle were just the most valuable animals, and the most likely to require a gang to steal because domesticated cattle are goddamn '''big''': small cows weigh "only" 600 pounds (270 kg), but the big ones can get up to 2500 pounds (1100 kg). Why all the risk for cows, though? Well, back in the olden days a single healthy specimen of cattle would fetch anywhere between $20 (or around $500 today, adjusted for inflation) to $90 ($2,300 adjusted for 2020 inflation). And if you wanted to diversify your earnings, you could always process them for milk, meat, hides, and fertilizer (bones and unusable organs). To top it off unlike a chest of gold, bundle of swords or a Ming Vase, cows can move themselves and you can lead them along. As you can imagine, whatever you did: you had a lot of mileage with cattle, and any cattle rancher worth their salt would gladly put a round through you in a heartbeat, if you so much as think of stealing one of their livestock. (Not like this stopped them from engaging in it themselves on occasion, which could boil over into intense feuds.)
** Note that other kinds of rustlers and animal thieves have pretty much been a problem since domesticated animals have been a thing, and still exist all around the world. You're just most likely to encounter the Cattle Rustler in fiction, since they were, historically, the most organized and violence-causing of all animal thieves.

*'''Asian bandit''' - Any Asian historically set action-focused work will usually have bandits, due to the usual reasons: They make good asskicking-fodder, and in most historical eras require almost no setup or explanation. Usually more likely to be de-romanticized and non-glamorous than American or European bandits. While there are some heroic bandits in such works, they are usually either cases of the Bandit being misguided (and thus become Heroes under the patronage/tutelage of an Old Master(tm) or other parochial figure), or the result of state corruption (and thus usually willing to turn away from banditry when that becomes a realistic option); either way, if they're to be in any way Heroic, the Banditry is an act of desperation. As mentioned above, China had frequent bandit problems in its history, leading, among other things, to the rise of the Shaolin monks and their brand of Kung-Fu for self defense.