You've been in transit for days now, caravanning with a group of people coming home from a wedding, a metallurgist, and a parts shipment bound for the seacoast. The metallurgist turns off just before nightfall; the rest of the party puts up at a Trokstop where the wedding group seems to be welcomed with special friendliness. There's quite a party; "Let's drink this stuff up before we get home and have to share it with our uncles!", says one of them. After a while it all seems logical for the party to a journey to the terrace up the hill from the Trokstop to sing to the moon. "Look, look up there!", someone says excitedly. You turn your head up. For just a moment there is a crushing pressure on your windpipe and a pounding in your ears, then consciousness fades, never to return. You and your companions are never heard of again. Your spouses decide they've been deserted. Your bosses decide you've absconded with a load of goods. Even if somebody believes in you enough to make the long journey from your home, you cannot be traced f rom the last large city you stayed in, several days before. Your grave is never found. In time you become one more minor mystery in a universe of unsolved happenings. Once a merchant is on-planet, the most economic way to transport his goods is still the slow, old fashioned way. You have to ground-transit your load, sometimes thousands of miles, to its destination. The driver and his co-pilot travel the long highways, spelling each other at the wheel. But sooner or later, you have to stop, for fuel, or food or natural causes. You can't keep moving forever. You get to know the places that welcome transies, where you can rent a cot and get some honest sleep, sleep without the back of your mind watching the road while you dream. Places where merchants and travellers and other transies spend an evening or an hour. Places where there are no hijackers, no enforcement officers, when you can have a cup of the local brew and tell a few stories before you get back in your vehicle and the long miles swallow you up again. Like the caravansaries of old Terra, where the great silk and spice caravans halted for the night, these Trokstops as they're called, are islands of safety in a sea of troubles. But on Terra itself these days, as on Highspire, in the Tikonov Commonality, and in limited portionsof the Capellan March of the Federated Suns, this safety is illusion. One of the oldest of the night predators has begun to take its toll of travellers. One of the oldest and most fearsome of predators - man himself. In the old Terran language of Hindustani, members of this brotherhood were called thag, a word which means deceiver. The word was corrupted to thug, and the name of their cult to thuggee. Yet among themselves, they have always been known as Phransigars from the word for noose. They make their living by stealing, and they never steal without killing. They never attack one of a party without attacking all of it. They murder their victims, and hide the bodies so that the victims are never found. Often a family thinks itself deserted, or a merchant thinks himself robbed by an employee and never know that they are slandering the innocent dead. Kali, the Dark Mother Several millenia ago, almost two hundred years before the first spaceflight, the subcontinent of India on Terra was wracked by civil war and famine. Some of the continent was held by theEnglish, an influential nation in the days before world governmen. Some was held by innumerable small and warring states. The Urdu poet Sauda talks of houses taken over by jackals, no lights showing in the houses because no one could afford the oil, dead bodies unburied, children dying of starvation as a matter of routine. In the popular Hinduism, the people's own practices as opposed to the teachings of the priests, the wives of Shiva the destroyer included the death goddess Kali. On ritual days, the precincts of her temples were carpeted in the blood of slain animals, themselves a substitution for the human sacrifices of centuries before. Her worshipers chanted, "Terrific faced Kali, holding a drawn sword and a noose and a club, wreathed with human skulls, lean, emaciated and terrible. Wide-mouthed, maddened, blood red-eyed, filling the four quarters of the world with your hideous cries... " Priests of the higher Hinduism, ancestor to the Hinduism practiced today, scorned these rites, regarding them as being based on a literal and misguided interpretation of the Vedas. It is a sign of the horror of those times of civil war that this cult became so popular.. Among these worshippers there was an elite. For them the human sacrifices had never stopped. They regarded themselves as a tribe apart, brothers to the tiger. They lived in villages by themselves, or built houses in a group at one end of a larger town. They grew no crops. They lived by murder. They were clever, and patient. The English thought that they had stamped out this cult, but it only went underground. The cult emigrated along with innocent citzens to the stars. A Phransigar is Trained A young person may begin his initiation (or her initiation in the reformed  sect) as early as thirteen years of age. A great deal of importance is given to learning a trade or trades which can be used as camouflage; sometimes a troop of Phransigars will work say, as diggers for an archaelogist, or mechanics at a Trokstop for months waiting for the most profitable moment. The Soon, or apprentice at this time takes one of the old Indian names. As the Phransigars allow entrance into the tribe by adoption, the Soon may have any physical appearance whatever. The Soon begins as a scout, sent to watch for approaching strangers during a killing. He is kept away from the sight of death, but given an equal share of the proceeds. (Phransigars share equally between the most senior and most junior members of a party) The second time, he is told that the money is the proceeds of a robbery; the next time, he is informed of the fact of the murder, but not allowed to witness it. The fourth time he is allowed to witness; it is presented to him as a special privilege, one that is only for adults. Once he is accustomed to the idea of death, he advances to gravedigger. The next stage, at age 16 or 17 is that of Shumseea, one who holds the victims' hands. The young Phransigar is conditioned to feel that only members of his cult and his tribe are truly human. They are led step by step to have no empathy, no mercy at all for their prey. Each Soon must kill once, as an initiation, but only those youths who are courageous enough, and in the course of their bloody apprenticeship prove that they can hold the victim helpless without pity or protest as he is being strangled, can hope to achieve the final rank, that of Bhurtote, or strangler. A youth who believes himself to be worthy will seek out the most resolute of the Bhurtotes as a gooroo or teacher and beg him to teach the art of strangling, the proper tying of the rural knot and other such sacred matters. He will ever afterward show this man the utmost respect, bending to touch his feet every time they meet.  With every expedition there will be three men, collectively called Hilla; who are in charge of the most necessary parts of the enterprise. The Beyla chooses the places of murder and burial; the man who carries the kusee, or sacred pickaxe; and the man who carries the goor, the sacred coarse sugar for the dedication ceremony, sugar the color of the tiger. Methods The Phransigars are taught to follow centuries-old guidelines. They do not strike at all unless every member of the party can be killed. Their chief object is the ritual murder, with the proceeds of robbery being seen as the Goddess' reward for their piety; therefore they never rob without killing. They choose only victims who are not on an exact schedule, or whose whereabouts on any one day are not easy to pin down. They never strike close to home; you are nowhere safer than in a Phransigar village! Nor will you find a more scrupulous, more hardworking group of laborers than a Phransigar band which is plotting to kill you. Merchants who have become saur, (escaped from a murder attempt) have been known to comment that the Phransigars were the "best workers I ever had", and to refuse to believe that they had been the attackers. Phransigars prefer to become friendly with their victims, to lull their suspicions utterly until the party comes to a tuppul, or convenient killing ground. Suddenly the Beyla gives the Jhirnee signal, and the thing is done in moments. A typical Phransigar attack involves several days of comradeship, followed by death, a swift assessment of the loot (transport vehicles and their contents, personal valuables, etc), and the utter disappearance of the victim's remains. This last is accomplished frankly and brutally by the cutting and breaking of the body until it fits into an impossibly tiny space. The Lughae, or senior gravedigger, makes a study of burial of bodies in different sorts of terrain with the object of disguising the grave and discouraging scavengers which might cause the grave to be discovered. The watchwords of the Phransigars are caution and patience. Balance against this the fact that killing is a holy act to them; that a Phransigar will feel unworthy and dishonored if he has been unable to kill for Kali several times a month. A Phransigar who has been unable to kill for several weeks may become desperate. Impelled by his need to please his Goddess, he will begin to take chances. Why may he not have been able to kill? In addition to tactical reasons such as the victim party being too large, too well known or well armed, or having (long range communications gear, there are reasons for aborting a kill which the Phransigars consider plain common sense. An outsider might refer to these as superstitions: A shower of rain that does not fall during the rainy season is cause to abandon an expedition. A funeral of anyone from your village is a bad omen, while the funeral of a stranger is a good one. Another good omen is a party of weeping friends saying goodbye to a bride. During the first week of a journey, a traveller wearing gold is exempt from killing, because gold is a sacred metal. If a hat or head covering catches fire, the wearer is dreadfully unlucky, and must be sent home immediately so prevent his bad luck from becoming general. If a hare runs across the road, the party must turn back. If wild cats fight during the first watch, it is a good omen; if later, it means bad luck. In addition, any smelter of metals, carpenter, stone cutter, a professional laundryman, a blind or disfigured person, a worker in ceramics, or a cowherd is regarded as sacred to the Dark Mother, and not to be harmed. A party travelling with any one of these, or with someone leading a female goat, may not be harmed. Remember, the whole party must be killed, or none of them may be. A desperate Phransigar may attempt to influence such a person to leave the party, or may even attempt to kill one privately. His pious companions will be forced to restrain him or even to kill him to prevent such sacrilege. A Phransigar who feels he is successfully fooling a party will not become desperate. The more trusting a victim has become, the more Mother Kali will relish the sacrifice. Time spent in this active preparation of prey is part of the "stalking process" (remember, they are sibling to the tiger). Military Uses of the Phransigars Phransigars may in some circumstances consent to act as elite commandos. They are trained to be credible and likable, so they find little difficulty in an open approach to their victims. If they must use covert tactics, it will be a khomusna, or lightning raid and quick withdrawal, never a planned, long term assault. Do not believe for a second that their caution reflects a lack of courage. They are brave to the point of fanaticism. Offering one's own death to Kali while attempting to bring her a sacrifice will insure an afterlife of nonending bliss. If caught in the act, Phransigars see no reason to surrender; they seek to be killed in battle. If defeated and cornered, a party will strangle or smother each other, with the last man attempting to burn the bodies and throw himself onto the sacred fire. Phransigars will always go in parties of three or more; they will not do solo missions. They are at their best in groups of five to fifty. A group as large as three hundred has been known, but it was too difficult to control and soon broke up. These groups expect to have periodic meetings in which everyone's voice will be heard. They expect to demand, and get, explanations from the leaders and to talk over present and future courses of action at great length. If given a chance for each to have a say the group will then meekly do exactly what the leaders tell them that the group has decided to do. If they are restrained from free speech a group will eventually turn on its leader. Such times of discussion will not take place during the stalking process unless the group is close to breaking apart. The chief military problem with the use of the Phransigar is acquiring them in the first place. They are hard to identify. Once they suspect you have identified them, they will prefer to kill you to protect their secrets. If you can convince them to listen, you come to the greatest barrier of all. They do not hire out to infidels. Killing is a religious dutythe proceeds of a robbery are the reward the Dark Mother gives for performing the duty. The destiny of such a victim is written invisible on his forehead from the day he or she is born. Killers for pay are profaning Kali's very nature. The mercenary viewpoint is totally alien. If you can convince Phransigars that you are a higher servant or priest of Kali (and remember, they will discuss you and your signs of holiness at length), there is a very good (50-75%) chance that they will agree to accomplish your goal. This agreement will frustrate the military mind; they will accomplish your goal by their own means and in their own way. There have been cases of clever officers who recruited Phransigars to their cause only to be tied up and have their mission performed to four thousand year old specifications! Romano Liao, Duchess of Sian, is known as the Lady of Highspire. Some elements in its population insist that she is the human avatar, or human embodiment of Kali, and is therefore to be worshipped and obeyed as if she were the goddess. The Duchess has never acknowledged these claims - but if it is true, she might be the first military mind ever to successfully use the Phransigars. Phransigar Weapons For ritual killing, they use only the rumal. The knife may be used as a backup weapon, but if it is used, the body may not be counted as a sacrifice to Kali. The rumal is 18-30 inches long, with a silvercoin consecrated to Kalitied in one corner. The end with the coin is whipped around the victim's neck, while the strangler holds onto the other end. A quick tug with both hands, "the same gesture you use to tie off a bale", one informant tells us, and the deed is done. The reformed sect uses higher technology. They have been known to use monofilament garrottes; there is one story of an infantryman's combat suit being modified with the neck fastening chemically treated to respond to the night chill by contracting rapidly, constricting around the neck and strangling the unwary victim. This story is unsubstantiated, so without seeing physical evidence, this writer refuses to believe it possible. The illustrations accompaning this article were taken from the drawings of an English military officer, Captain John Paton, who served in the campaign against the original Thuggees in the mid - Nineteenth Century on Terra. For the ThirtyFirst Century versions, see the scenario on page 43. Phransigars The Strangler Cult The Strangler Cult Tragedy: Phransigar Style Ramasee: The Secret Language Origin of the Phransigar Tuponee: The Ritual of Sacrifice Back to BattleTechnology 7 Table of Contents Back to BattleTechnology List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1988 by Pacific Rim Publishing. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com