#malice swordshadow

We see a lot of 'cubs this' (with Rytlock and with Efram), I heard a lot of speculation about 'cubs that' in fandom spaces, we see a lot of 'ohoho relationship/mating drama' (from Rytlock/Crecia and also Almorra/Bangar). We do NOT see ANYTHING about warbands, supposedly the building-blocks of charr society.

Even the charr player's old warband is mostly disbanded/defected to Dominion.

I have yet to see any real warband dynamics in canon.

Even in the books! Rytlock's 24 'bandmates are fair game because they're offscreen. And Anet has consistently refused to show any of them. Even Rytlock's dynamic with Crecia is pretty much just "we're old exes" and never "we grew up together. we fought together. our bonds are deeper than those of biology, than the fact we have a cub. I stabbed you once and you knew I didn't mean it because we are 'bandmates." Sure, Crecia mentions once "ohoho we used to see the ice elementals here as cubs."

But in the books! Sea of Sorrows for instance! iirc the majority of Sykax's warband is unnamed! Ember Doomforge, again, no mentions of warband! Rytlock nor Malice nor Almorra talk about inter-warband relations!

we never see any warbands larger than 6 members.

And this is all because, OBVIOUSLY, who wants to come up with 12-18 whole characters when it's just the one who's relevant to the story? Coming up with 6 is hard enough it only happens in special occasions. which doesn't include the legit actual player character.

(the player character, whose warband is decimated to TWO flaming members (including yourself!!) in the tutorial, and! yay! fun lorebuilding! you get to rebuild the warband. this adds a flaming total of TWO members. now you're at flaming four. FLAMING FANTASTIC. the player-flaming-character gets FOUR 'bandmates. this is atrocious!! and tbf if you compile all the options across all the branches you might end up in the (low end, probably) of 12-18. which is fair!)

but like. I do sympathize. I really do. characters are hard. names especially! which would be the bare minimum yknow. have an 18-member warband with zero dialogue but! they do have names! that wander around Ascalon. not even an event chain just average-sized warband representation PLEASE.

like. I did it myself. I invented a warband and I BARELY got them to 6 members. I had name, gender, profession for each of them. they were minor characters so they didn't even get the development that Ryland's Steel got. names, professions and the vibes from that. I felt so bad for only giving them 6 bc I was reinforcing the stereotype!!

but, so, uhhhh

I have been handed an OC. from a friend. who has given me full creative license to write abt them in my story.

I gave him 23 'bandmates. They all have names and genders. They're split up into who is whose sparring partner and who bunks with whom. That is all.