Peace Brigade
The name "Peace Brigade" seems at first something of an oxymoron: a military organization dedicated to peace. Yet to the Peace Brigade, peace can only exist with security, and the organization is dedicated to providing security. They will maintain peace by force if necessary. Thus, their name is entirely appropriate.
The Peace Brigade believes in the single tenet that civilization can only spring from security. All advances—social, technological, philosophical—require an area of stability for their development. The many threats of the current world make such stability rare, and thus squelch any chance for communities to develop and progress. The obvious answer to the Brigade is for all societies to place defence as the first priority, above such concerns as comfort, religious beliefs and previous agreements.
Individuals who have gained the Peace Brigade’s trust can find sanctuary in its well-defended towns, as well as a good chance to buy and sell weapons and other goods. The Brigade is always in need of builders, architects and warriors, and often hires freelance mercenaries for specific projects. Those who oppose the Brigade also hire fighters, and a character who has faced off against Brigade troops a few times is likely to be labelled an Enemy of the Peace, and banned from Brigade-
controlled cities.
Structure
The Peace Brigade operates numerous, large, fortress cities throughout the world, all dedicated to protecting themselves and nearby client cities. Each client city is a walled community, required to send an annual tax to the fortress that helps maintain its defences. Each client city also has a number of outpost communities, which in turn send taxes to the client city. The system works because the smaller outposts can depend on the larger forces of a client city or even a fortress to deal with massive threats, such as Steel Foe bands or Red Death cultists. The larger cities can afford to maintain these forces because they receive the annual taxes of the communities they protect. The biggest Peace Brigade cities are population level 10, with as many as 20,000 citizens. These are some of the largest and most powerful cities found in the Gamma Age; and each controls a network of smaller cities, which in turn control numerous smaller towns. As a simplified rule, a Peace Brigade city controls two communities, which are two population levels lower. Thus a big population 10 city controls two population 8 cities, each of which controls two population 6 towns, and so on. The whole network acts as a small kingdom, with defence and expansion its two main concerns. If multiple population 10 cities are in contact, their combined networks form a small empire. The Peace Brigade is not satisfied to protect its existing holdings, however. It is constantly expanding, sending out construction teams to help fortify and prepare smaller and increasingly distant communities. These teams offer their services to communities at a very low price, asking only that they be allowed to control decisions regarding the new defences and that a small annual tax be paid back to the fortress. Many communities accept out of desperation, willing to take any risk to increase their safety. Those that refuse are marked down for conquest later, with Peace Brigade armies eventually arriving to establish a defence program by force. In either case, once construction of a town’s defences has begun, the safety of the community as a whole is the only acceptable consideration. Outlying neighbourhoods may be declared indefensible and excluded from the Brigade’s planning effort. Homes in kill zones or too near planned walls are destroyed for the good of the community. There is no appeals process; and as the Peace Brigade mans the new defences as they are built, most towns have no hope of resisting by force. Towns being fortified are placed under martial law for the period of construction, which often lasts years. Once a town has been properly readied, however, the Peace Brigade pulls out. In towns that accepted the Brigade’s offer willingly, the original government is allowed to take control once more. Towns that had to be fortified at gunpoint are left in the hands of a ruling council friendly to the Brigade’s aims, though still one drawn from the local populace. As long as the town meets its annual tax burden, the Brigade makes no further effort to control its government. Those who refuse to make their tax payments soon discover it is difficult to hold defences against those who designed them.Relations
The Peace Brigade also makes alliances with other groups, forming mutual defence pacts and coalitions of armies. They are especially fond of making such deals when dealing with “rogue nations.” These are groups too powerful for the Brigade to destroy on its own and too volatile to leave in place, such as marauder groups and towns that have fought off the Brigade before. Any group which threatens to destabilize an area is considered a threat, and the Peace Brigade is willing to work with anyone to overcome such dangers. While these threats often include groups considered zealots and madmen, it can also include peaceful groups like the Brotherhood of Thought, or even doctors and nurses who refuse to fortify a hospital. Once a coalition has done its work, the Peace Brigade reconsiders what alliances are useful to them. It’s not unusual for the Brigade to decide a one-time ally is now a dangerous threat, and form a new coalition to destroy it. Of course the Brigade as a whole has gained a reputation as untrustworthy as a result, but since individual fortress cities are run by independent governors, many are able to convince nearby governments that they can be trusted despite the reputation of the Brigade as a whole.
A society must be judged by its ability to defend itself.
Allegiance
The basic goals of the Brigade, to promote self-reliance and security, are clear and laudable enough to encourage many characters to take allegiances with the organization. Characters whose families were saved by Brigade efforts, or have seen first-hand what happens to communities that are not prepared to withstand attacks, make up the majority of Brigade loyalists. Characters with this allegiance receive a wide variety of materials as trade goods, drawn from the taxes of outlying client cities.Friendly and helpful
The Sisters of the Dragon and the Peace Brigade have similar goals and frequently work together to achieve them. The Sisters do not have the numbers of the Peace Brigade, but their individual members are often more highly trained than the rank-and-file members of the Peace Brigade. As such, the Sisters will often send one or two of their number to serve as religious and tactical advisors as well as officers to Peace Brigade groups. Some Peace Brigade groups are less accepting than others of Sisters of the Dragon, but for the most part welcome the nuns' expertise.
In return, Peace Brigade units that accept the nuns' counsel provide some monetary support to the Sisters' central cathedral in Peri.
