Formed about a thousand years ago, just prior to the invasion, the Brigantes were a thousand-man team of mercenaries hired by a large international bank.

The bank had originally issued a loan to an African country that had gotten its freedom from some people called colonialists. The loan was used to hire personnel and purchase equipment to form up a military coup, but once it had done this the country refused to repay the loan.

The bank's response was to assemble a team of mercenaries, "soldiers of fortune," to go into this nation with nerve gas, wipe out the government and seize control of the nation.

Wearing gas masks and fully armed, these mercenaries were hiding in some old salt mines, just about to make their raid on this country's government, when the Psychlo invasion occurred. Their target was completely wiped out for them.

This group was comprised of soldiers of many different nationalities: Belgians, French, Senegalese, English, American—anyone the bank could hire. They were, however, a fully skilled military unit. After some time passed, lacking another name, they started calling themselves the Brigantes.

Drifting south, the Brigantes picked up women from missions and villages, white and black, and kept going. During this travel they were masked from the Psychlos' recon drones by the thick canopy of the African forests and they managed to elude the Psychlos enough to survive.

After a couple of hundred years they established a working relationship with the Psychlos. Apparently they used to capture people and deliver them to the Psychlos for torture in return for whatever scraps of material the Psychlos cared to leave. They never went close to the Psychlos, as the aliens could not operate in the swamps very well with their heavy bodies and tanks and the trees were too tall to fly into.

The Brigantes keep their numbers down to a thousand men, leave their old ones to die and don't marry. They also have a high mortality rate, especially among children.

Constructing grenades is another skill they have. They know how to make crude black powder using charcoal and saltpeter from dung heaps and sulfur from a mine. They put it into a baked clay receptacle that is studded with stones, and stick a fuse in and light it with a cigar. They use grenades for hunting elephants. They have to get right up close to the elephant, light the fuse and run, and this is presumably part of the reason for the high mortality rate.

As a clue to their mentality, they are very cannibalistic and eat their dead. Their general appearance is also incredibly sloppy and dirty. Over the years their language has decayed and they now speak a strange form of English that sounds "like they have oatmeal in their mouths."

As the long-ago international bank had a firm agreement with the Brigantes that they would be pulled out and relieved at some point, and since they don't have a clue as to what has happened to the rest of the world, they have waited all this time for their relief crew, which has become a legend of sorts.