Magician-priests of Knotsman culture-faith. A Bailiff will have back-turned limbs and bent bones, a ripple-work of raspberry knot-gourds breaching the skin like fruit pressing against slick robes. They are known to trade in souls and will carry 5 minor Phylacteries and Magic Jars. The Phylacteries hold the enslaved souls of those who tried to escape their debt to the Knotsmen by suicide. Bailiffs talk in strangulated gasps and come carrying chests and folders of papers, binders of accounting and receipts. They and are assisted by usurers. Instinct: to claim flesh-debt

• Heal you, at a price
• Curse a creature to list the value of their possessions (including body parts)
• Take ownership of your body

These poor pale slaves were caught. As legitimate Gordianite spawn, they are allowed atonement for betrayal. They carry one great knot outside the gut. The upper intestine has been teased out through careful surgery. A loop is pulled outside the skin. Experts tie it unbreakably. No food can be digested until the knot creator slips his work. He will do this at the end of each watch if the Usurer has done well. A different Knotsman ties the knot each day in patterns only they know. If they die, the Usurer must starve. Instinct: to survive

• Save their tie-master

Young men with no children, or shamed old men whose children fled. They weep from armour-pressure on their knots. The Knights are one of the few Veins travellers to wear heavy armour. The barbed quarrels of their metal crossbows carry ultra-thin fishing wire. Instinct: to serve

• Obscure vision with smoke bombs

These are adult male Knotsmen with living children in the clan. They have not yet been crippled by twists of flesh. They make up the expeditions you are likely to meet. The ones sent out on child-hunts in the dark. Instinct: to kidnap

• Break bones
• Capture with barbed nets and clawed chains