Bandit

For the sake of this article a Bandit is aa type of criminal which has removed his/herself from the bulk of society, dwells mainly in the wilderness (or in the seedier parts of a population center) and makes a living engaging by various means of armed robbery (or "banditry"). Since there is strength in numbers, bandits will often gang up, and depending on their infamy and wealth: these numbers can range anywhere from a handful of thieves, to having enough to rival a nation's armed forces. Solo bandits also exist, although they're either highly proficient robbers that they don't need any help (or against the idea of sharing their spoils), or a rookie with more balls than brains.

There are various permutations of this, but the common theme is that if you traveled from town to town there was a good chance that you'd be waylaid by armed people which would try to extract the valuables from your person by force.

History

In general for most of the history of civilization crime was bad. Really Bad. The worst areas of the modern first world pale in comparison to that of the middle ages as far as crime goes. This was a time where most people were dirt poor and for most civilizations there was no form of police that cares about anyone other than the nobility. In the Middle Ages, towns would have guards who'd protect the gates and deal with with riots, laws that required that random townsfolk to patrol the streets at night with torches and chase away suspicious people, bounties were put out for thieves captured and rich people would have guys patrol their neighborhoods to catch anyone who looked suspicious. The countryside did not even have that and there were many nooks and crannies were ner-do-wells could lurk.

The worse off a country was, the more bandits it produced. If your cottage gets burned by a party of knights on a raid and the choice is letting your family starve or stealing some stuff from some passing merchant who never sold anything you could afford, a fair number of people would steal from the merchant. Robin Hood might have been a work of fiction, but men who steal from the rich and give to the poor when taxes were too high are not unprecedented. How much of this is altruism and how much of it was public relations would be something that varies from case to case. After all, if you provide a bit of treasure to people who have little enough to begin with, they're less likely to rat you out to the local knight (who they probably hate anyway for taxing them to hell and back).

Roll in Tabletop Games

Bandits are great upper-low tier villains for a campaign, as they can come from diverse backgrounds with plenty of legroom to work with. They can either be desperate townsfolk mugging passers-by to survive, a couple of assholes who can't be bothered to earn an honest living, to a unit of veteran soldiers who went rogue after realizing banditry is more favorable than serving in the military. Additionally, just about any race with some semblance of sapience can become bandits.

This leads to a variety of quest ideas from: some guys jump the party wanting to loot your stuff, there are some jerks out there robbing people on the highways that the King wants taken care of, to a well-organized crime syndicate who has total control over the region that you have to bring down or play nice with.

See Also

• Pirate - The bandits of the sea.

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