Talk:Albedo/Abilities and Powers/@comment-115.70.177.81-20171120041318/@comment-45.56.46.26-20180805013824

The original English usage refers to a combatant with no claim to honor (a guard wearing black, for ambushing at night etc.). It soon came to apply to all camp followers, as disguising oneself as such to enter the enemy camp so as to poison or sabotage an army (or assassinate particular targets in their beds) was a favored tactic. It eventually came to mean any contemptable or low class person.

But the original meaning would indeed have been a sort of anti-paladin.