Dreadbound

Dreadbound

Dreadbound are hired hunters who take work that town guards and road patrols cannot finish. They track plague-born beasts, cursed relics, and oath-breakers who use law, distance, or fear to stay protected. Most people never meet one. Many doubt they exist at all. In most towns, “Dreadbound” is a word used to scare children into staying close to the well yard after dark.

Place in the current age

After the Plaguelands appeared and open water failed, travel became more dangerous and more controlled. Roads became state assets. Quarantine lines, ration law, and seal checks became normal. Monsters did not become rare. They became part of the map. In this pressure, rulers built more forts, more patrols, and more inspectors. These tools still fail when threats do not fear arrows, do not bleed right, or do not die clean.

Dreadbound work where those tools fail. They do not replace armies. They solve single problems that cannot be solved by a levy. Their work is paid in goods that matter: water allotments, salt, medicine, and safe passage papers. Coin alone is not enough in many regions.

Folklore and denial

Common belief about Dreadbound is layered. Many priests call them a rumor that draws people away from proper faith and proper courts. Many officials call them a lie used by smugglers and rebels. Many nobles call them useful, but they rarely say it in public. A few border commanders keep quiet lists of names and debts.

Records are thin on purpose. Dreadbound do not keep public banners. They avoid registries. They work under false names. When they finish a job, they often destroy proof, notes, and remains that could be studied. This is partly habit, and partly survival. If a court can prove what you did, a court can also charge you for how you did it.

Origins and the “Binding”

Dreadbound training is not a school that takes open recruits. Most begin as border scouts, plague wardens, burn crew hands, or caravan guards who survived too long near the Plaguelands edge. Some begin as failed licensed adepts who fled a registry. A few are taken as children from quarantine camps, because nobody will miss them and their bodies already endured sickness.

Their core change is called the Binding. It is a set of trials, doses, and controlled exposures meant to harden the body and sharpen the senses. The method varies by mentor and region, but the result is similar. Many die. Some live with damage that ends their work early. The survivors gain a narrow advantage: they can function longer in tainted air, they can spot signs of a curse faster, and they can keep moving after wounds that would stop most people.

The Binding is not a blessing. It is not clean. Most Death orders will not approve it. Many Life houses will not treat its side effects unless paid in advance. Fate courts often list Binding methods as “unregistered practice,” which is a polite way to say it is illegal.

Signs and controlled craft

Dreadbound are not common mages. Magic is rare and watched, and most Dreadbound cannot risk open casting. Instead, they use small, repeatable actions that look like hand signs, ward marks, and short spoken triggers. These are called signs in common speech because they are simple and fast. They are meant to buy seconds in a close fight, break a charm’s grip, or force a creature to flinch.

Dreadbound also use field alchemy. They carry sealed vials and dried reagents in waxed wraps. Most mixes are practical: pain control, clotting, poison purge, night focus, and short bursts of strength. Some mixes are made from plague-adjacent tissue or insects, which increases risk. A Dreadbound learns to measure doses with care, because mistakes are fatal.

Tools and methods

Dreadbound fight without ceremony. They prefer weapons that do not rely on perfect steel supply. They use oils, salt, hooks, chains, and weighted nets. They carry wedges for doors and chisels for seals. Their packs often include ash for marking trails and quick burns.

They gather proof in ways that a village can understand. A claw, a tooth, a brand mark taken from a relic, a written confession forced under witness. Then they decide what to keep and what to burn. Burning is common when the proof would start panic, cause a purge, or draw a court’s attention to a method the hunter will not explain.

Targets in their trade

Plague-born beasts are the most visible work. These creatures show the Plaguelands effects in flesh and behavior. They often move along old riverbeds and abandoned crossings, because those routes still guide travel.

Cursed relics are the second class of work. Many are pre-Drying objects that were sealed, traded, or stolen. Some carry sickness, forced behavior, or repeating misfortune. Courts want relics cataloged and stored. Dreadbound often choose destruction instead, because storage creates future victims.

Oath-breakers are the most political work. In Oblivion Vale, oaths and seals decide who eats. When a person breaks a binding vow, steals ration tallies, sabotages wells, or hides plague signs for profit, the damage spreads beyond one crime. Sometimes the law cannot touch them because they own the law. In those cases, people seek a Dreadbound in secret.

How people treat them

Dreadbound are paid well when they are paid at all. They are also treated as unclean. Many inns refuse them. Many towns force them to sleep in quarantine sheds outside the gate. Some well yards will not sell them water unless a local priest signs for it. After a job, people often become afraid of them, even when the threat is gone.

This social pattern is useful to the kingdoms. A Dreadbound who is welcomed becomes a public figure, and public figures can be regulated. So most rulers prefer the hunter to be kept at arm’s length. Some commanders will give them a writ, a seal token, or a travel stamp that bypasses one gate. The same commander will deny it later.

Relations with institutions

Well-wardens and reservoir guards dislike Dreadbound because they solve problems outside the ledger. Contract courts dislike them because they are hard to bind with clauses. Mage registries dislike them because signs look like unlicensed casting. Plague wardens dislike them because a lone hunter can cross a cordon without oversight.

Faith orders are divided. Some Death priests accept a Dreadbound as a necessary tool when undead rise or rot does not stop. Some Life priests see them as a danger because their work can trigger panic and harsh triage. Fate priests often want their names and their oaths, and that is where most talks end.

Scarcity and rarity

Dreadbound are extremely rare. Many die before they take a first contract. Many disappear after a single job. Some are killed by panicked crowds. Some are killed by officials who do not want witnesses. Most people will live and die without seeing one.

In the current year, most reliable counts come from border gossip and sealed logs. These suggest a small number across the whole continent, scattered and not organized. They do not form armies. They do not hold towns. They stop one threat so a road can stay open for another season.

What remains true

If a Dreadbound arrives, it usually means a normal system already failed. It means patrols ran and did not return, or a court delayed until people started changing, or a priest could not keep a boundary. The hunter will ask for clear terms, a clean room for mixing, and payment in survival goods. They will not promise mercy. They will not stay to be thanked.

When the work ends, they leave. Most leave no name. They leave a burned pit, a sealed bundle for burial, or an empty road. This is why most people treat them as folklore. The job is real, but the proof does not last.