So these guys seem like fun easy to hate villains - more so than the dottari as they are bullies rather than hired city watch
I think a point is raised that the dottari are slowly replaced with Thrune loyalists compared to those from the start
I wish they had been who I had encounter my group post curfew - my PCs brutal and arguably OTT reaction would have been a little more palatable
However unless I am misreading they broadly disappear after book 1 apart from seemingly their leader in book 4.
Have other people kept them in throughout the later books ? What about advancing them like the later books to sign the dottari? It doesn’t make the a great deal of sense but there should be some who get more power from their antics . And the levelling up of the guards can require a bit of mental gymnastics to explain as well.
And is there any value in mentioning their leader earlier as he seem to just appear in book 4. But with mention of a leader I find it hard to imagine that they really have a hierarchy. But there is presumably someone riling them up more than just Barzilai himself...
I've had them in the background harassing supporters of the Silver Ravens. But I make sure that I present them as nothing more than Thrune supporters that are saying that these Raven 'anarchists' are terrible people. Occasionally I'll toss in an aggressive jerk for the PCs to beat up but the CCG aggressor was nothing more than a loud-mouth that should be knocked out rather than killed. (Killing any of them would be seen as extreme and the CCG would use that to their advantage.)
(Look to the current climate in the US as an example. Tombus, the CCG leader, is simply a tough bully that thinks he's stronger/more important than he is.)
I homebrewed a street war against them as the big blow against Thrunism in book two, complete with leadership drawn from some Sarini siblings. The Sarini siblings had class levels and I just kept the Queensmen the same, just having more of them as fodder in battles. The Swashbuckler Sarini and fake Acadmy Wizard Sarini provided challenge and flavor, while the mooks made the PCs feel bad ass. (Also, I had the Qs hire a sorcerer and an adept for the final battle, once they started losing a lot of these.)
The PCs won that, so I plan on having Tombus leading a rival monk dojo in book four, as my party has an unchained monk. Rival dojos are a trope of the martial arts movie.
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I've portrayed them as a para-military civilian group driven by cultural angst - they don't like the free-wheeling individualism of their fellow Kintargans (insert your own comparison to alt-right militias here.)
Given this is exemplary behavior from Barzillai's Inquisitor of Asmodeus point of view, he's readily adopted them and used them to supplement his own forces.
They serve a social order based on worship of the LE Prince of Darkness. Of course they have a hierarchy. Hierarchy-free groups are just the kind of thing they hate.
I haven't fleshed them out much (yet) and I also noticed they disappeared after Book 1. I'll probably have them running around bothering NPC's in Book 2, attending in force at the Ruby Masquerade and reinforcing the Dottari in Book 4.
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Given this is exemplary behavior from Barzillai's Inquisitor of Asmodeus point of view, he's readily adopted them and used them to supplement his own forces.
This is contradicted by the text. Barzillai is a statist, and doesn't have much patience for private organizations like the CCG.
Which is not to say that someone else, in his inner circle or out of it, could not see the value in a street-fighting "mass" organization. I liked Roguerogue's idea of the Sarinis backing the CCG.
Given this is exemplary behavior from Barzillai's Inquisitor of Asmodeus point of view, he's readily adopted them and used them to supplement his own forces.This is contradicted by the text. Barzillai is a statist, and doesn't have much patience for private organizations like the CCG.
Which is not to say that someone else, in his inner circle or out of it, could not see the value in a street-fighting "mass" organization. I liked Roguerogue's idea of the Sarinis backing the CCG.
I don't think its contradicted by the text. Or the text itself is contradictory. The CCG are the primary antagonists disguised at the rally/riot that opens the AP. A riot that was deliberately created to justify a crackdown. They make up the guard force at the Salt Works for what is a government forced labor operation. And they setup their own excruciations without opposition from the Dottari. This isn't some CG, laissez faire government - this is a rigid hierarchy inspired by Hell. If you're doing something and the government doesn't stop it - it's sanctioned by the government. Barzillai may be trying to maintain some plausible deniability on the CCG but if so, it's pretty feeble.