Bannerless

Name: @Bannerless (無旗)

Description:
The @Bannerless are not an army. They are the wind after a battlefield’s silence—the forgotten, the forsaken, the unburied. Found throughout @Senkatano – The Forest of Forgotten Banners , these ronin, mercenaries, and oathbreakers form a loosely tangled web of fractured brotherhood. They bear no crest, no color, no oath to any lord—but their scars bind them.

Though chaotic by nature, they adhere to an unwritten code: survival without shame, honor without banner, and death without regret. They are ghosts that walk with steel, storm-born when rallied, and as difficult to extinguish as memory itself.

Symbol: A torn standard buried point-down in earth, wrapped with frayed cord.

Leadership:
No formal leaders.

Initiation Rites:

• Blade Burial – interring one’s former weapon in the Grove of Shamed Steel.

• Drink of Dust – sharing rice-wine laced with battlefield ash.

• Namecast – speaking one’s forsaken name to the fire.

• The Stand – surviving a night alone in enemy-marked ground.

Values & Tenets:

• A man without a master is still a man.

• Broken oaths birth truer blades.

• What is forgotten may still strike.

• Fight for the one beside you—not the one above.

Recruitment:
One does not join the Bannerless. One becomes Bannerless. Those cast out, escaped, or shattered drift to Senkatano. Some are welcomed. Others are tested. All must endure.

Operations:
They serve as mercenaries, bodyguards, and guides. In times of strife, they band together under temporary codes—raiding tyrants, rescuing the lost, or defending places no lord remembers. Then they vanish.

Reputation:
Feared by samurai and pitied by peasants, the Bannerless are a reflection of Kakureta’s unraveling. Warlords despise them. Villagers feed them. Shrines leave offerings in silence. Their vengeance is never loud—but always returned.

Known Rivals or Threats:

• @Clan Hisakari , for betrayals never forgiven.

• @Kakureta’s Imperialists , who name them as lawless renegades.

• Any who prey upon the powerless.

Whispers Say:

"Their honor is rust—but it still cuts."
"One Bannerless once held a pass against three armies."
"They do not kneel. They only fall—or rise."
"Their blade is their voice."
"To wear no banner is to carry every ghost."