A guild of assassins, operating across borders and willing to kill anyone for the right price. Their symbol is a curving ram’s horn, depicted as either being painted red or actively dripping blood. They claim to worship Thendros, and have been known to offer significant discounts on any contracts targeting necromancers or those who have offended the Saint of Death.

Every time a Churning starts, the Shepherds begin recruiting among the new Veilwalkers, offering prizes for the ones who can assassinate the highest number of other would-be Shepherd recruits in Veilguard. The Shepherds view this exercise as a way to train new blood up in a way that doesn’t result in jail time or blood feuds. The other Veilwalkers have learned to be wary of getting caught in the crossfire during this Assassination Game, but they also have taken to placing bets and watching with amusement as the assassin trainees murder each other in ever-more-creative ways.

Note to Players: The Red Shepherds are an evil organization, full stop. They are murderers for hire, and they don’t try to sugar-coat that fact. They’ve only survived as an institution because they’re good at operational security and keep the organization’s structure separated out into cells. The only exception to this is the Assassination Game they put on during a Churning, when Veilwalkers are invited to take part in a competition of friendly mutual murder.

Your character can still take part in the Assassination Game without joining the Red Shepherds. The assassins will start offering you jobs if you show promise in their game, however, asking you to assassinate targets either during Downtime or at the next event in exchange for significant sums. Whether you take them up on their offer is up to you, but be aware that murder of someone outside of the Assassination Game is a capital crime in most nations, and that if you’re caught your character will be executed and you’ll need to create a new one.

Each nation has its own sub-sect of the Shepherds, with its own name and national quirks.

• Aurendale: The assassins of the Dale call their organization Crowsgarden, and they like to wear crow masks while actively out on a contract.
• Cerulean: The Schola Atropos are a philosophical sect of assassins, and tend to be very choosy about which contracts they take, spending quite a bit of time debating whether a proposed target’s Fate should be to die by their hands.
• Rivermark: The Jardin Rouge are made up of the classiest of Scalmurks; their unofficial uniform involves some sort of blood-red rose design somewhere on their garments.
• Vauldan: The Imperial Gardener's Society is run by a small council of elderly assassins, who almost invariably hand out contracts via some sort of plant-based messages. It’s considered either a high honor or an imminent execution to be invited to visit one of the leaders’ personal gardens.