So way early on, in my RPG campaign and this thread, one of the major story aspects was that a shapeshifting crime lord named Etch was strangling the city of King's Lake, the capital city of the nation of Fumaya.
For a recap, the shapeshifter Etch actually impersonated
two crime lords and pretended the two crime lords were at war. This was an obfuscation measure to get law enforcement to leave him alone "until the criminal turf war is settled".
The PCs, Aranil, Svetlana, and Neshik exposed and crushed Etch's little criminal empire. They captured Etch (who was executed by the king). The PCs killed Etch's main enforcer. The PCs seized about two thirds of Etch's ill gotten wealth. Etch's wizard advisor escaped with the remaining third of Etch's wealth.
Now the game is focusing more on the gradually heating up cold war between Fumaya and Swynfaredia. So the PCs are all Fumayans or allied to Fumayans.
Just a recap, Swynfaredia is a larger nation picking on the smaller nation of Fumaya. It's a little more complicated. Swynfaredia has a lot of feuding noble families. The Queen of Swynfaredia is hoping that by directing the nation at an external enemy, this will ease up internal tension. Also, there was an assassination attempt on the queen herself so of course she is personally motivated to try to distract the byzantine vipers she is surrounded with.
Also, Swynfaredia is very close to it's 900th anniversary of it's initial royal charter. Both 100 and 9 and are auspicious numbers so the queen wants to solidify her place in the history books by having a military victory on or near the nation's 900th birthday.
So Swynfaredian has a about ten dragon blood houses I detailed and a couple noble houses that I have detailed yet. There are also about 20 lineages which are essentially lesser noble families that are below dragon bloods but above everyone else commonly serving in the ranks of knights and low level government functionaries. In theory if one of the lineages distinguishes them well, they can become a new dragon blood house. Most lineages desperately want this.
Essentially, there social class symbol is that sorcerers are superior to all non-sorcerers. Sorcerers with "proven" draconic" heritage are superior to sorcerers of random heritage. Sorcerers of draconic heritage with blood ties to the dragons who founded Swynfaredia are considered superior to other draconic sorcerers.
But it gets fuzzier because more powerful sorcerers have more status than weaker sorcerers but it can confusing when a sorcerer of "inferior" blood happens to be far better at magic than a proper dragon blood.
For simply I'm lumping all the myriad groups into three major factions: Pro-War Numaness faction, Pro-War Goirsonad faction, and the anti-war faction.
The two biggest noble houses are House Numaness and House Goirsonad. For most of Swynfaredia's history, the crown has bounced back and forth between Numaness and Goirsonad. Both the Numaness and Goirsonad want to conquer Fumaya but they both want to maximize spoils of war for themselves and minimize spoils of war for their political rivals. At the same time, both factions are quietly rooting for the other faction to take disproportionately high losses during the future Fumayan war.
The third faction is various Swynfaredian dragon bloods that think war with Fumaya is bad idea. Some of them are cowards who just don't like risk. Some of them are peaceniks who don't like violence. Some of them want to sort out Swynfaredian's internal issues before expanding.
Some of them think Fumaya is a waste of time and Swynfaredia should expand south. South of Swynfaredia is the ocean. They want to "expand" by turning Swynfaredia into a mercantile trading empire. Not too surprisingly the head of the anti-war faction is the noble house that owns most of the nations ships and controls most of Swynfaredia's ship building resources.
I'm thinking a Swynfaredian criminal cartel would try to move into Fumaya to fill the criminal power vacuum left by Etch.
Beyond this, I handwaved it as a minor thing when the PC Kormatin wanted to buy some
rainbow vellum from the Swynfaredian black market, I just said okay "Your friend Ragani can find it at a 30% markup."
But now that game is getting more political, I'm wondering if I should put more detail into Swynfaredian's organized crime. Some of these organized criminals can be an asset to Swynfaredia's war ambitions, but they can also be a weapon that can be turned against Swynfaredia.
Most criminals, organized or otherwise, don't care a lot of about politics. Most criminals don't care which noble house has the Swynfaredian crown or whether Fumaya is annexed or not. They want to make money.
Given that Swynfaredian is a byzantine nest of vipers, it's likely that the dragon blood nobles both love and hate their local criminals.
I'm not sure whether I want to give Swynfaredia one large very powerful crime syndicate (with a couple minor crime syndicates fighting over scraps), two or three large competing powerful crime syndicates, or dozens of small local syndicates.
Also a crime syndicate could be loosely allied to one of the major noble factions (which might suggest the
other noble faction is backing a competing crime family) or it be generally anti-authoritarian against all the nobles. Or the organized criminals can be completely apolitical and perfectly mercenary.
Whatever the Code disallows is their business model.
- Is murder illegal? If Yes, then assassination for hire will exist.
- Is some drug or potent drink forbidden? Then they’ll be producing or smuggling it.
- Is suddenly garnering a whole bunch of money a very taxable event. If yes, then money laundering.
- Is gambling illegal? If yes, then illicit casino’s. If no, then legal casinos which launder money.
- Is treasure finding legal? If 80% of treasure found is owed as tax, then there will be fencing/money laundering.
- Are there illegal spells? If yes then there will be black market trading in such.
- Is trading in dragon parts legal? If no, then smuggling of them is a thing.
- How about Ivory?
- Is stealing your neighbor's stuff legal? Not...well then hire the Thieves Guild to snatch it for you.
- Are Goblyn slaves legal? If not then goblin trafficking/smuggling.
So murder is illegal. There certainly is assassination for hire. Perhaps even of dragon bloods.
Theft is illegal, so there would be commissioned theft and fences.
I don't see why Swynfaredia would make gambling illegal, but they probably tax it, so there are probably duty free illegal gambling dens.
I don't see why Swynfaredian dragon bloods would care if prostitution is practiced among the common folk BUT they would want to restrict among the dragon blood because they want to be careful about how many unaccounted for bastard sorcerers they create. Though a few sorcerers WANT to create lots of sorcerer bastards.
A big part of Swyfaredian organizied crime would be about defrauding the
Arcane Registry.
Technially, every sorcerer regardless of whether they are dragon blood or not needs to register with the Arcane Registry with a piece of
rainbow vellum every five years, so the Arcane Registry knows who can cast what magic. A lot of Swyfnaredian sorcerers want to overstate their spell casting power for social clout. Others want to understate their spell casting power so to trick their enemies. Either way this requires forging documents. Others want to poach the Arcane Registry's files.
The Arcane Registry also keeps track of family trees has influence on how arranged marriages are set up. Again, this is rife for espionage and fraud. Most sorcerers would love to puff up their bloodline's draconic credentials and smear their rivals.
The Arcane Registry monopolizes banking needs. Again this is rife for espionage and fraud.
The Arcane Registry regulates the
reagent trade. Some criminals may want to bypass the Arcane Registry so they can deal in illegal reagents from questionably sources such as those distilled from murdered humans or dragon body parts. Others just want to buy normal reagents without paying the surtax.
Reagents are turned into magical items, and the Arcane Registry tries to register all magical item trade. Black market potions and magical items is a very high end criminal enterprise.
Wizards and warlocks are considered inferior mages to sorcerers. They are allowed in Swynfaredia but they have to register with the Arcane Registry and pay an expensive yearly fee to legally practice magic. Again, some might work with criminals to bypass these taxes via hiding their magic altogether or by impersonating sorcerers. Training new wizards and warlocks is even more restricted than already existing mages emigrating in. There's another place for criminals to get involved.
Human slavery is outlawed in Swynfaredia and goblin slavery is very restricted (basically one of the noble houses condones in and many others are trying to undercut them).
Beyond slaves, the Swynfaredians don't agree on what the legal status of non-human sorcerers. They are not enslaved (because they are still sorcerers) but their immigration and rights are second class, so there is room for criminals to get involved there.
Cannibalism is illegal (duh), but remember that human cannibals become ogres and ogres are very potent soldiers, so they ogres are likely to either be major members of criminal syndicates or at least make frequent dealings with them. An ogre that has sorcery or wizardry is a
skin changer witch, that is extremely illegal but skin changers are powerful enough they might be able to bribe or threaten people into looking the other way.
As for restricted magic. The higher a mage's social status, the fewer restrictions on magic use they face. Necromancy is the most restricted. Only criminals and animals can be legally reanimated and spells that affect ghosts need permission from a high ranking noble.
Charms or mental domination are illegal in most cases unless a noble is using it on his/her own subjects in which case it's considered a
faux passe but not illegal.
Illusion spells are illegal within noble households unless they are cast for entertainment or with the permission of the local lord.
There are also restrictions on using divination magic to steal secrets, at least from the nobility. No one really cares if divination magic is used to violate the privacy of commoners.
I'm sure a 897 year old nation of sorcerers has all sorts of laws and regulations for where and how magic can be cast and I'm sure criminal operations try to circumvent them.
I'm not sure if Swynfaredia is going to have a narcotics issue. In fact I'm not sure if I want narcotics to be a major thing in Scarterra stories at all. Hypothetically, I create a fantasy drug that temporarily increases spell casting power at the expense of long term health. If such a thing exists, it would certainly be illegal in most places. Also, I suppose Swynfaredian nobles would be against narcotics in general because mental discipline is an important trait for sorcerers so they would be against things that addle the mind.
Even if a man or woman is born of nobility, they he or she can inherit titles or land if they are non-sorcerers, ie squibs. Squibs often become low level government bureaucrats or soldiers. Some might gravitate towards organized crime. A lot of criminals might be Maylar worshipers since Maylar worship is restricted in Swynfaredia. Outside of Maylar, worship of the Nine is not illegal, but a lot of the priests and priestesses are informally marginalized so many might make up for this with criminal contacts.
Some might be wizards or warlocks or sorcerers from humble lineage may opt to become criminals. Of course a lot of criminals are simple commoners with no special powers.
Because I like variety, I think I prefer the idea of two or three competing criminal enterprises as opposed to one huge criminal empire. And two or three enterprises is easier to keep track of than 12+. But nothing is off the table yet, but I'm open to suggestions.
Regardless of what form Swynfaredia's organized crime takes, I like the idea of the new syndicate forming in Fumaya to have ogre enforcers a skin changer witch at the helm.
I'm not 100% sure what the new Swynfaredian criminals immigrating to Fumaya will do exactly but I'm sure they'll try some general purpose war profiteering. Given the number of spies floating around, they will probably try to set themselves up as information brokers. I figure their opening salvo will be to move in and offer a lot of goods to fences at unusually good prices for the local fences. That's how they plan to get their foot in the door.
). Here's what I ended up writing for the 31 prompts, I underlined the articles I am most proud of or had the most fun writing.