Crime Is Our Business

Where there is law there will most certainly be crime despite the best efforts of the authorities. Crime also has a habit of thriving where the law is weak, particularly frontier areas like Alyeska for example. Pickpockets and house burglars tend to be expected in civilised areas, but these are often low key and could sometimes be a lone operators. Criminal groups tend to be responsible for a wider range and higher level of crime, one such organisation is infamous amongst Darmonica's criminal underworld.

The Blackforge Consortium

The organisation known as the Blackforge Consortium started with honest intentions by a group of merchants seeking to increase their fortunes, though these days it lacking in the morals department. The Consortium has its hands in alot of pies, often taking a fair cut from various criminal activities such as extortion rackets, pit fights and smuggling rings. It is only indirectly involved with such activities, preferring to use its resources to make life..'uncomfortable' for those unwilling to cough up when asked by the Consortium.

Occasionally it will be directly involved in high profile activities, usually those where alot of money is involved like smuggling priceless artefacts. For the most the Consortium usually sends its enforcers round to its various 'interests' to ensure that its cut is paid on time. Its enforcers will also send time guarding Consortium shipments and warehouses, they can usually be identified by a symbol of a black anvil. This symbol is bad news for anyone who ends up with items marked with it as the Consortium does not take kindly to those who handle its goods without its permission.

The black anvil also shows up on Consortium owned airships and aircraft which are used to move important and highly valuable shipments. Typically these aircraft operate out of sight of the authorities, though at the same time the black anvil is meant to act as a warning to sky pirates to leave these aircraft alone. On a number of occasions the Consortium has gone after sky pirates who'd attacked one of its shipments, even went far as attacking Broken Spires with a large air fleet. It has been known to hire sky pirates as proxies to steal cargoes, normally to keep its hands 'clean' to a degree.