Welcome

Rena

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Compared to the warlike Banner, the Crimson Saber is—by a good margin—the larger, older, and more storied hegemon in the New York City ruins. Presiding over uptown Manhattan and the Bronx, all the way up into Yonkers and Connecticut, the Saber lords over the vast majority of the surviving stragglers. But the dense populations actually made the Crimson Saber's organization relatively natural and simple. The real genius in one of the largest hegemons in the world comes from their ability to sustain a sizable army of powered humans, keeping their competing interests in check long enough to achieve the greater good.

Since the area was such a hotspot for straggler activity, the region naturally lent itself to frequent interactions. Instead of violent clashes, these survivors learned to negotiate with each other, eventually forming the current landscape of straggler parks, gangs, and hegemon houses. Out of these interactions, the Saber's great families emerged as key figures in the population, quickly distinguishing themselves as individuals who had all the answers. And as is also natural amongst striations and hierarchies, they begin to exert their power more and more liberally, until eventually, their existence broke off from the mainstream straggling population, and their idealogies diverged with schism.

After this schism, where the hegemon figures separated themselves from the everyday stragglers and the social classes stratified further, names like the Wolvords, the Furoys, and the Latimers emerged amongst the Saber, eventually becoming a part of a twelve family contigent that currently leads the Saber. Unlike the Golden Banner, this contingent came into existence rather peacefully, with a general agreement of leadership. However, where the Banner hashed out their disagreements in the open and with the sword, the Saber often settled their disputes discretely, and with the tongue.

The history of the hegemon—with their naturally forming hierarchy and frequent, "diplomatic" disputes for power—molded the Crimson Saber into a fiercely strategic organization, ruling through logistics and tactics. They have expanded greatly since their relatively humble origins, and split further from the mainstream straggler population until they—within a generation—preside over them a de facto rulers. Commerce, assembly, protection, and crime and punishment in the region are all executed by the Crimson Saber. To some of the stragglers, the Crimson Saber has even come to embody the post-Fallout government.

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The actual background of the Golden Banner is as mysterious as the hegemon operations themselves. It's difficult to say what made the Golden Banner succeed where other groups have failed, but most of the founding's details revolve around the powerful and influential Kingsolver family. With their slew of capably powered humans, the Banner quickly seized a stable lifestyle for themselves after the Fallout, and with their steady influence, they gradually expanded their authority over other families in the region.

The region the Banner currently resides over—the former boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens—used to be considered untenable. The former region's large population centers ensured a large number of Walkers, and the terrain of the regions ensured that there were few pockets for stragglers to survive. The Crimson Saber, the older of the two hegemons, wrote off the region as an impossible cesspool of death and destruction, and made few attempts to dominate over the territory. This left a power vacuum, and dozens of remaining encampments struggled for control over the surviving resources in the area.

Unlike the Crimson Saber—where the dense population centers and frequent interactions led towards natural hierarchy, the Golden Banner's origins were founded through strife. Warring clans of proud survivors competed for territorial dominance, each hoping to stake their claim on a piece of the pie. Civil discussions were scarce, and most of the interaction consisted of violent discourse, with the business end of a weapon becoming the key instrument of all negotiation. As a result, these warring clans became extremely warlike and hawkish, and the Golden Banner reflects this violent past.

Out of these bloody disputes, one family, the Kingsolvers, eventually rose above the rest. On the backs of two supremely giftd members of the family, Earnest Kingsolver and his young, adoptive brother, Cosmo Grimaldi, the Kingsolver clan purged their staunchest antagonists, and eventually united the land under iron fist rule. But the Kingsolvers were hardly one trick ponies. They learned to adapt their system, ultimately utilizing diplomacy and psychology to build a network of allies. Over time and out of necessity, they integrated into a tight knit community—it became the Golden Banner against the world, or at least, that is the attitude adopted by its members.

And unlike the Crimson Saber, the Banner does not rule over the people as much as they terrorize them into submission. The Golden Banner is renowned for their ruthlessness and willingness to shoot first and ask questions later. Each and everyone one of their members are trained killers; each of them are willing and able to make their presence felt upon the remnant population.