Drowned Ring¶
Contested
This page is named in the open questions The Hangman's name and Hobard's captors and property.
The Drowned Ring was the gang of the northern Warrens, the clay-mine slum of Proturas, ruled from the rope-bridge tavern called the Gallows by "a mysterious figure, known as the Hangman" (S105, S068). Where its southern rival, the Stone Syndicate, ruled by the club, "the ring prefer a more nuanced approach to control and abduct or frighten those which oppose them. Order is maintained through indirect fear and suspicion" (S105). It was broken up with the Syndicate in 834 AL.
Also called: the Ring.
The rite and the ring¶
"Their name comes from their initiation rite which involves dangling the initiate head first, tied by their feet in water until they drown. They are then hoisted back up … and if they manage to resuscitate themselves, they are gifted a special blue-steel ring attuned to their blood (the ring fades to black when worn by anyone else)" (S105, repeated in S061 and S028).
The Hangman¶
The gang's head is known only as the Hangman. Behind the name is "a self-taught female warlock, Esrilla, which manipulates her three lieutenants" (S061). Her strength is said to rest on something that could be taken from her: the campaign's notes weigh kidnapping "the leader of the Drowned Ring" against the "more interesting" course, to "break her power source" (S040, S041).
The Gallows¶
The Gallows is "a tavern built using rope bridges suspended above the Warrens. It is home base to the second of the Warren's large organized gangs, the Drowned Ring. Enemies of the gang are often hung from the bridges between parts of the tavern (many skeletons still remain there)" (S105).
Business and rivals¶
The Ring "run a human trafficking op with the Cutters (they sell undesirables to them)" (S028); the Dockside Cutters take "stray orphans and other undesirables/useless people who won't be missed", and their hidden masters demand sacrifices. Berek Beetleslayer complained that "the Ring has something going on with the Cutters and I 'spect will be lookin on squeezing us too" (S062), and when the Syndicate was weakened by its own civil war "both the Drowned Ring and the Cutters are making moves on their territory" (S039).
The White Hand worked the Ring against the Syndicate. The other gangs "treat The White Hand as a minor rival gang, but they actually know little about them. The White Hand has actually infiltrated both other gang's and has them fighting each other" (S061).
Fall¶
In 834 AL, when Proturas annexed the Warrens as the County of Claydun, "the Stone Syndicate and Drowned Ring have been dismantled. Many of its bosses are captured and a few in hiding" (S051).
Gap
The sources do not name the Hangman's three lieutenants, say whether the Hangman was among those captured or in hiding after 834 AL, or describe the Ring's numbers and crews.
Earlier accounts¶
The earlier story-arc notes call the Hangman "Ezralis" (S028); the later session notes, followed here, give "Esrilla" (S061). The same earlier notes have the White Hand hand the captured relic dealer Hobard to the Ring, whom the Hand were "trying to leverage into an all-out war with the Stone Syndicate"; the Ring held him as "the leader of a mild rival" and bargained over him with the Cutters, "who REALLY want him" (S028). The later session notes give him to the Stone Syndicate instead (S061).