It just struck me, Blaidd's occupation with hunting traitors is kind of odd, given his primary goal is to assist Ranni in accomplishing her dream. But then again, his adoptive brother, Rykard, was once a royal adjudicator. During the Shattering, Rykard fed himself to the Eternal Serpent, abandoning his former duty and converting his manor into a pit of blasphemy.
Before Blaidd was tasked with dispatching deserters, perhaps these hunts were fulfilled by Rykard and his Gelmir knights? After his disappearance, the Gelmir knights abandoned their demigod, and were seemingly slaughtered either during an attempted revolt, or by the invading Leyndell forces, or perhaps even both.
Ranni was targeted by assassins in the past, some of which who disguised themselves as allies. I wonder if she would have normally employed Rykard's services to deal with them until he was no longer available, at which point the hunts were appointed to Blaidd? Regardless, he certainly expresses a sort of unnerving zeal for the job, lol.
...Hmm. Then maybe Darriwil was only ever pretending to serve Ranni before he was identified as a threat? Another Bloodhound Knight is found in Gelmir Hero's Tomb, as if standing guard over their late master's remains; another appears to have been imprisoned within the walls of the Volcano Manor. If they were loyal to the knights of Gelmir instead of Rykard himself, then I suppose they could perceive both Rykard and Ranni as traitors to the knights of Gelmir, and sought as such to bring them both down? Much like Blaidd, the Bloodhounds are said never to abandon their masters once they have chosen them. If Darriwil ever served Ranni, it must have only ever been tangentially so, unless he's truly the only Bloodhound to break this unspoken code...
