Headsmen / HEADSMEN

heads·man (hĕdz′mən), noun: An executioner, especially one who executes by beheading.

In every time and in every place, there have always been and there will always be those who prey upon the weak and the vulnerable. Those without conscience, without humanity, without compassion, who murder, rape, maim, and pillage without the slightest remorse. Such monsters cannot be reasoned with, cannot be rehabilitated. They must be destroyed. They belong not in prison but on the headsman’s block, where their head can be separated from the rest of their vile carcass.

The Headsmen is an organization dedicated to hunting down and destroying pirates and other violent criminals, in the hope that they can make the ‘verse a safer place for the law-abiding. Despite their name, they do not literally decapitate their foes. Well…at least they almost never do so. Their executioner’s sword is a heavily-armed fleet of warships, their headsman’s axe a cohort of highly-trained warriors.

Headsmen organization operates in compliance with UEE law. They have a close working relationship with planetary, system, and UEE-level military and security organizations, including the Advocacy. The organization takes contracts directly from official entities, or are subcontracted by another organization, or plan and conduct their own operations.

Operations may be either reactive or proactive. Reactive operations including convoy or high-value asset escort; defensive patrols near “watering holes” known to attract pirates; and responding to distress calls from ships or planetary locations which are under attack by pirates. Proactive missions include reconnaissance-in-force in areas known to be frequented by pirates; bait-and-destroy missions which use an apparently defenseless “victim” as a lure for pirates which are then destroyed; and assaults on known pirate strongholds. The organization will also accept bounty missions to hunt down and destroy specific pirates or groups of pirates.

While the main focus of the organization’s effort is human pirates and violent criminals, they have also operated as militia to counter Vanduul incursions into UEE space, alongside other militia and UEE forces.

Some members of the Headsman organization have adopted the peculiar custom of collecting (when feasible) the helmets of those pirates they have dispatched; the helmets in this case represent the heads figuratively removed by that member.

Headsmen facilitates cooperative play amongst its members in the execution of various counter-piracy missions. Headsmen is neither a hardcore PvP organization, nor a strictly PvE organization; we conduct operations against both player and NPC pirates. Headsmen is a fairly casual, laid-back organization; we adopt just enough rules and structure to enable mission success while allowing members a great deal of freedom in deciding their own course of action.

Headsmen’s Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) is available on our Discord server. Ask for a Discord invite.