The Band of the Ruby Sark is a tentative title to a series of short fantasy stories by Strix Obscuro. Taking place in the same universe as The Kast Saga, these stories depict the Band of the Ruby Sark, a company of hired adventurers run by an amoral lunatic.
This series contains examples of:
- And I Must Scream: Drossie was once a normal woman who spurned Narillo's advances. He had her turned into a greybod - a sort of golem - and naturally, she was forced to serve him. After several years, she's beginning to have difficulty remembering her life as a human.
- Crapsack World: The Ruby Sark operates in a land that is divided up into several corrupt city-states surrounded by crappy little towns. And beyond that is a wilderness full of all manner of dangerous beasts.
- Even Evil Has Standards: One reason people still willingly sign up with the Ruby Sark, despite its notoriously high mortality rate, is that every member of the band gets an extremely generous life-insurance plan, and Narillo never, ever tries to weasel his way out of it. In the highly-likely event of death, the adventurers' families are cared for.
- Redshirt Army: Every adventure tends to kill at least half of the Ruby Sark's numbers.
- Team Mom: As one of the longest-serving members, Aretia finds herself in this role, keeping the band together in their usually-hellish travels.
- We Have Reserves: Narillo generally assumes that he'll always be able to hire more people.
