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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jeremy E Grenemyer" data-source="post: 7526599" data-attributes="member: 12388">Moving on to #11 on the list of thirteen: 11. The Men of the Black HandThe eleven members of the Black Hand speak in clipped sentences and radiate quiet confidence. Their leader, the mercenary-turned-adventuring-warlord Grimmun Bloodtower, survived the destruction of Myth Drannor when the city of Shade came crashing down on top of it, then escaped the monstrous terrors that had been unleashed to defend the City of Song against the mercenary legions that had marched on it. Today, the Men of the Black Hand are organized into two banners of five adventurers each, each banner led by a lieutenant that answers to Grimmun. The Men are not priests, but they make no secret of their veneration of Bane; each wears or displays his symbol openly. This exhibit of faith has led to tense confrontations as the adventurers move through Cormyr, yet the Men have remained on the right side of Cormyr’s law keepers by not rising to petty taunts and by following Cormyr’s laws and the edicts of its Kings to the letter.  In fact, the Men know Cormyr’s laws better than most Purple Dragons.The handful of Harpers present in Cormyr know of the Men, and have crossed swords with them once. Grimmun faced the mountainous Harper Malthar Bearslayer in single combat atop Masoner’s Bridge, north of Sunset Hill. Malthar was severely wounded in a confrontation that saw plenty of swordplay and no magic, his life sparred by Grimmun that the Harper could serve as a reminder to all of the natural order of things. Though dogged by rumors, the Men are not agents of the Zhentarim and no Dark Hands—members of Bane’s Clergy—are present in their ranks. (Long ago Grimmun came to hate the self-serving, backstabbing wars among Bane’s Dark Hands, seeing it as a betrayal of all Bane stands for. He yearns for a church like the one of old: “A coldly correct hierarchy of obedience,” as the former Sage of Shadowdale put it.) Grimmun intends to become Barron of the Stonelands. Unlike others who have tried and failed to erect, fortify and hold a castle within the bleak territory and so fail to earn the title of Barron, Grimmun will build waystop fortifications running from Gnoll Pass east along the border between the northern range of the Stormhorns and the Stonelands, and recruit mercenaries and former Purple Dragons to man them. He expects to leave each of his adventuring companions in charge of a waystop. But first the Men must recover coin and treasure enough to fund Grimmun’s enterprise.</blockquote>

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