The Cutters

The Cutters

A gang of ruthless teens who control the dockside alleys, tavern backdoors, and the shadowed fringes of Mosstone's night life. Known for their brutal initiations and obsession with knives, they are feared by younger urchins and ignored at great risk by the town guard.

🔻 Leader: Woad

• Age: 17
  
  

• Appearance: Dirty blond hair, shaved on the sides, pale blue war paint smeared across his face. His left eye is milky white — stabbed by his own brother in a Cutter rite of passage.
  
  

• Personality: Cruel, calculating, and magnetic. Woad enjoys inflicting fear. He treats his followers as tools and trophies.
  
  

• Weapon of Choice: A curved bone-handled knife taken from a Crimson Exchange corpse.
  
  

• Notable Trait: Believes pain is the truest form of communication.
  
  

• Secret Ambition: Wants to sell out the Mossbite Rats to the Crimson Exchange for a seat at their table — and doesn’t care how many of his own Cutters die in the process.
  
  

🪓 Lieutenants

Skarn

• Age: 16
  
  

• Role: Muscle. Ex-apprentice blacksmith with scars on both arms from a forge accident. Towering and silent.
  
  

• Weapon: A horseshoeing hammer wrapped in iron wire.
  
  

• Quirk: Barely speaks, but has a tattoo of a rat being skewered on his forearm — personal vendetta against the Mossbite Rats.
  
  

Mira "Cling"

• Age: 15
  
  

• Role: Enforcer, informant, and manipulator. Slippery, with an acid tongue. Former Mossbite Rat who defected.
  
  

• Appearance: Wears dozens of chains, ribbons, and metal trinkets — everything she’s stolen or earned.
  
  

• Weapon: A belt lined with throwing nails and short glass daggers.
  
  

• Motive: Wants Thistle dead. Was once her friend… and believes Thistle betrayed her during a failed heist two years ago.
  
  

🔪 Cutter Culture and Tactics

• Initiation: Recruits must spill blood — their own and someone else’s — in a single night. Many don’t survive.
  
  

• Uniform: All Cutters carry at least one blade. Most wear jagged sashes or belts lined with sheaths, pins, or carving tools.
  
  

• Code:
  
  

  • “Bleed before beg.”
    
    

  • “Snitches get stitches, then ditches.”
    
    

  • “What you cut is yours to keep.”
    
    

• Turf: They dominate the Old Fishmarket, the dry-dock shanties, and parts of Brineshade Lane.
  
  

• Activities:
  
  

  • Shakedowns of small vendors and lone travelers.
    
    

  • Illegal knife-fighting tournaments behind taverns like The Pickled Pike.
    
    

  • Working as muscle for smugglers who don’t want Crimson Exchange involvement.
    
    

  • Selling stolen knives or weapons to hunters or desperate militia.
    
    

⚔️ Relationship with Other Factions

• The Mossbite Rats:
  The Cutters see the Rats as children playing at crime. They've maimed several Mossbite members already, and are planning a full-on “rat hunt” to flush them from The Hollow.
  
  

• The Crimson Exchange:
  Woad wants recognition and power. He’s been sending gifts (bloody daggers, secrets, drug samples) to a CE liaison named Delira Vance, hoping for recruitment.
  
  

• Town Guard:
  The Cutters often act as unspoken enforcers in places the guards don’t want to patrol. Bribes, fear, and plausible deniability keep them safe — for now.