Night Stalkers from Marvel

Within Clyde’s gang is a smaller group that calls themselves the ‘Vengeance Hounds’.  I can’t go into too many details because the members will be getting their profiles posted throughout April.  No sense in spoiling their moments.  Yet, I can talk about how they operate as a ‘mini-gang’ and demonstrate how layered vampire society can be.

As stated, Clyde’s gang has the core members and the outer groups.  The Vengeance Hounds fall in the middle of these two factions.  They are part of the inner circle, but interact a lot with the lower level vampires.  Part of the reason for this is because they act as mercenaries, which means they need to bring more on for bigger jobs.  This also makes them the recruiters of the gang since they interact with others more often than thieves like Clyde and Mab.  Any problems are passed through the Vengeance Hounds, which is another job.  You can tell that they serve an important purpose similar to the trusted advisers of a noble.

I thought one of the hardest things to do would be to figure out what they were doing after the Great Cataclysm.  It actually turned out to be the easiest once I went through with the mercenary idea.  This helped them transition to the war pretty easily.  Not official soldiers, but a special force sent on missions and into battles.  Similar to Mab hunting powerful enemies, the Vengeance Hounds went after larger targets such as bases, weapon storage units, and enemy special forces.  With battles, they would be unleashed to attack from the shadows and hunt down escaping enemies.  As before, their numbers would change depending on the job, but a difference this time is that they don’t have as much control over their membership as before.  The nobles they work for choose their added forces from their own armies.

A big part of the Vengeance Hounds’ story in War of Nytefall: Loyalty is them deciding on what to do in the face of the Dawn Fangs.  Unlike Mab, they have integrated with the new world to a greater extent.  They want to join Clyde, but they also have positions and loyalties to their new lives.  Getting the gang back together means they would sacrifice something.  They differ from the nobles too because they are not part of that higher level of society, so they don’t have that big an attachment.  For the Vengeance Hounds, every member needs to choose between returning to their old lives and staying with their new one.  This is what happens when loyalty gets spread between multiple factions even if they’re friendly with each other.