Dakota Confederation

Abbreviated "DC." An organized society fielding power-armored escorts. First encountered as a band in a highway standoff with the Khans (Session 3), then as a delegation pushing to establish a permanent presence in Keystone (Session 4).

• Session 3 standoff: a small DC band squares off with three Khans on a road toward Rapid City. Their escort wears power armor with a live falconry rig and an eagle-skull-and-feathers chest emblem — matching an emblem the party had found hidden in the Keystone mayor's office, confirming the mayor's DC entanglement was real. Their leader, mounted on a bison, probes the party for signs Keystone is still in chaos, clearly hoping it is. Submits to the same Khan contraband search as everyone else, though visibly unhappy about it, and pays a steep supply/ammo toll to avoid a fight.
• Session 4 delegation: a leader (unnamed in play, described as smooth and practiced, "like a man who's sold a used car or two") pitches a permanent Confederation presence in Keystone — better farmland management, better protection — transparently self-interested. Escorted by a tall, broad-shouldered ginger bodyguard in power armor with a mohawk (probably, though not explicitly confirmed, the same or a similar figure to the Session 3 falconer). The leader mocks Doctor Marin publicly in a language Silas partly recognizes from his own Montana upbringing.
• Per Doctor Marin's account, the DC absorbed her people's horse/bison breeding operations after they joined in good faith, leaving them destitute — the root of her open hostility toward the delegation.
• Live tension with The Khans over territory/resources, confirmed adversarial in the Session 3 standoff but not yet escalated to open war on-screen.