All the little bits of characters talking about Dry Devil’s forest hideout - and in general, the gang’s past, made me wonder what the hell was happening there. Because there is quite a dissonance between how Kubyenka’s called the camp their home and how other stories and character dialogues paint their situation before the gang broke up due to capture of Devil.
On one hand, we have Kubyenka talking specifically about Adder and Janosh and their “silly adventures”, while referring to the whole group just as “we” (i.e. “We were drunk, but we’re not that stupid… Although… maybe Janosh and Adder are), which gives the impression, he was the closest to these two men, beside Hynek.
Kubyenka couldn’t remember what and where was buried in their old camp, as implied, because being drunk. Which is fair, as Zizka called him a drunkard and through the game we could see the basis of said claim. Similarly, Dry Devil too was called drunkard (and again, not without a reason). Bohuta and Slavek were said they alone could drink all the beer in the inn and even Adder has an unhealthy relationship with alcohol as according to one of his and Janosh’s interactions, it’s hard to tell if Adder is still drunk or getting drunk again. Which leaves only Janosh to be a moderate drinker, or at least compared to his companions.
Considering that Adder “used to wade through the stream every time he went to visit some lass. Or when he was returning”, and how the group A) had tendencies to get drunk and B) buried close to camp different things (body of dead comrade, alcohol, handcannons), this sounds like Devil’s Pack had a lot of free time for fun or at least occasions to get drunk.
Kubyenka’s story about Adder and Janosh deciding to rob a merchant and almost walking up to the Sigismund’s camp is funny, sure, but it also means that at least once Devil’s Pack ran low on food and drink that Adder and Janosh decided to do something about it. And remember Kubyenka’s words about Janosh, how from a dead rat and half of a carrot he could make a three course meal? How often did the gang run low on food for Kubyenka to come to such a conclusion about Janosh’s cooking skills?
Which raises another question: why did Hynek, the leader, not solve this problem? Because the way Kubyenka’s story went, it sounded as something Adder and Janosh decided on their own, not under Dry Devil’s command to get the food. And like, the man is called robber baron, so where did all the money the band stole go if not for the Pack’s basic needs?
Going with another Kubyenka’s comment, before they had to bury old Loudyil, the group “had to fortify ourselves” which suggests the forest hideout was not that safe anymore. Granted, Devil’s Pack had a infamous reputation and Hynek’s actions were aimed against Sigismund’s men so it’s logical he had plenty of enemies. But even Dry Devil called the place a “shithole” in regard to the living standards (supported by Henry’s comment how the camp looked like a mess), even though Kubyenka twice defended the place as their home.
And there we have the gang’s last job, the one that turned into disaster. We don’t have an idea how many members of the Pack were before the capture of Hynek. From the mentioned named characters, we have:
Devil,
Kubyenka,
Janosh,
Adder,
Bohuta,
Slavek,
Matthew,
Ranyek and
old Loudyil
The last one died before the story takes place and Slavek died during the attack. Which leaves us with 7 confirmed survivors. Kubyenka specifically noted that “only a few fellahs out of the whole glorious pack survived the sithstorm”, so if 7 people is considered to be only a few, then we may assume Devil’s Pack had quite a lot of men in times of its glory (Zizka alone thought Devil’s Pack would have at least ten men).
Kubyenka described their last job as a “shitstorm”. If player chose to seek first the missing members from Devil’s Pack instead of Liechtenstein, Devil will say:
Dry Devil: Great! But be careful! I didn't recruit them for their pretty eyes. They're probably not going to be very friendly after what happened, so be nice to them.
which may imply that Hynek did not really expect an easy reunion. Did he mean his old companions may not be friendly to Henry for seeking them out, or by mentioning Hynek at all?
Because on one hand we have Matthew who said he had nothing against the Devil, but there is actually plenty of anger at his former leader.
Matthew: How did you get involved with the Devil, anyway? Didn’t it occur to you that you could be more than his human shield? No brat has ever said “when I grow up, I want to be a mean old bastard’s dogsbody”! But somehow, a whole bunch of us ended up being just that. One lost cause after another.
or
Henry: The Devil and Zizka have a higher purpose. We fight for our rightful king.
Matthew: How? By capturing nobles and then demanding money for their release? We gutted their people and they gutted us, but only the Devil got the money and the glory. What the fuck is noble about that?
Matthew’s hard refusal and following hesitation once Henry said he will pass Matthew’s answer to Dry Devil suggests he is to some degree afraid of the man. The player may threaten Matthew with lying to Devil that Matthew was the man that sold him to the enemy (leading to Hynek’s capture) made the man back off from demanding money. As he said, he did not want Devil after him.
And the man’s feelings toward his old companions aren’t that fond either.
Henry: Don’t you miss the Devil’s Pack? Kubyenka is still talking about the old days.
Matthew: I like to think of them sometimes, too. But I don’t miss them. None of them really know why they’re with the Devil anyway. Most of them just don’t have anything else to do. If the Devil were hanged, they would just drink themselves to death or kill each other.
Then we have Bohuta who - if player choose to describe Hynek as good man - will say:
Bohuta: Heh. A good man… I wonder what you’ll say when you see what he’s really capable of. To him, a human life is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it.
Which, frankly, is something Henry will learn first-handy during the Maleshov arc. Because the Dry Devil does not care for people’s life - he can kill a man and joke about that right after. He has no objection to causing havoc if this will give him advantage in the fight. But what the same arc showed, Hynek won’t put his men’s life at unnecessary risk, if he can help to avoid it. Which is exactly why he was willing to burn down a village full of innocent people.
Matthew’s words, though, paint a different idea of Dry Devil. A selfish, mean, old bastard that will use his men as human shields and one that got rich while the rest didn’t get much, if anything at all.
As we could see through cutscenes, Hynek took part in a fight and put himself at risk no less than others. In some cases, even more - it was him that assassinated the guard(?) before attack on village or stayed behind to blow up the entry into secret tunnel and he led the suicide mission during siege of Suchdol where in contrast to rest of team, it was compensation for his previous inappropriate behavior (getting drunk and ignoring his night watch duties). So we don’t really see anything suggesting that the Devil on purpose hid behind others. As Kubyenka said, during the capture of Dry Devil, Kubyenka and Adder on their own tried to save him, so there were people willing to put themselves at risk for his sake. Not because he was noble or their leader but because they treated him as comrade, as I assume.
But the lack of money seems like an important issue. For example, if Hynek/anyone from the gang hid money in their old camp, Kubyenka could use it to recruit people to save Dry Devil. Instead he spent a month drinking at Devil’s Den and even gambled to earn needed money (and did not even visit the camp, as he collected his belongings once he came there with Henry?). Similarly, Kubyenka suggested that Adder and Janosh “are gorging themselves somewhere, if they have any coin” but as we saw with Janosh, he got into trouble because he was hungry and apparently had no money, so he decided to steal food. And in the process heavily injured one of the villagers. Later in the game, Dry Devil will admit he has no money to hire mercenaries. Which raises a question how the Devil’s Pack was doing prior to the group’s break up? Matthew accused Hynek of getting all the money and fame but as we learned at some point the gang ran low on food and drink, Hynek got a price on his head and he was not welcome between other nobles as Jobst and Pisek refused to grant him asylum
- and by extension, most likely Devil’s Pack as whole (Janosh and Kubyenka definitely weren’t happy hearing Zizka’s plan to leave Devil’s Den and move back to Suchdol).
Which suggests to me that Devil’s Pack wasn’t doing that good, at least in the last months.
At the same time, in contrast to Matthew and Bohuta who refused to come back to their old gang, Adder was quite happy to hear Hynek survived and came back without any further complaint. In additional contrast to Matthew, Adder doesn’t seem bothered much by Hynek’s anger. We know he, Janosh and Kubyenka were pretty close to each other and Kubyenka is close to Devil, so Matthew’s bitter opinion about Hynek and fear of him may imply they did not have that close relationship.
And the final thought is that Hynek is not an easy man to deal with. He has experience with leading people, but as the game went on, it was Zizka who was in fact the commander of the group. Now, I don’t believe Hynek was a bad leader, but there are implications he may fail in some areas (i.e. Adder and Janosh’s plan to rob merchant to provide food and drink for the group) and if fact, once drunk, he did ignore his duties (night watch during siege of Suchdol), so yeah, I do wonder how the last month prior to Hynek’s capture went to have such wide spectrum of reaction to Dry Devil between his own people (Kubyenka, Adder & Janosh vs Matthew's bitterness)
as a czech (moravian) village teenager i have opinions on skalitz gang modern AU hijinks but im too busy with school to actually write down hcs or make designs for it
