The Road

The Road, also known as the Path or the Trail, is a realm-wide criminal syndicate specializing in the kidnapping, trafficking, slaving, and smuggling of illicit goods and personnel. They are an old organization that has existed within the world for almost eons, often picked up over and over by new practitioners after the past ones have fallen, faded, or been slain by the virtuous forces of good.

Structure

• The Chauffeur: The head of the criminal organization, though there can be many heads of different sects across the realm. These individuals command all of the movements and missions given to them by patrons.

Below are the lieutenants designated to specific aspects of trafficking and smuggling:

• The Tollman: This lieutenant is focused on the payment of individuals to make life simple for the organization, paying off guards to act distracted or leave areas open for Road operations to enter, paying off bounty hunters to keep them from hunting them, and so on.
• The Marvel: This lieutenant is focused on the actual passage and transferring of cargo, be that illicit goods, kidnapped people, or specially acquired artifacts or magical items. They often appraise and price out the fee for jobs and the prices of the items they sell.
• The Jockey: This lieutenant is focused on the protection of cargo, the stability of the organization's hierarchy, and hiring new members into the group. They scour cities and towns for new folk and for marks that they can steal or get work from and are often the ones that are sent to meet with employers directly.

Below are the lowest ranking members of the Road, usually new recruits or underlings who are less inclined towards the intellectual and subtle natures of being in a higher-up position.

• Leadfoots: These are brutes and physical fighters of the Road, often used as enforcers, assassins, or protection for cargo.
• Highwaymen: These are the robber and kidnapper grunts of the Road, often formed of new initiates.

Culture

The Road makes it a point not to operate within cities or towns themselves, as having a stationary area of operation within a heavily populated area can lead to easy discovery. As such, they operate mainly out of safe houses, hidden cabins, and properties within the woods and unexplored areas of the world. This makes them hard to find and track, and allows for easy theft, kidnapping, and other criminal activity to take place on the roads.

Public Agenda

The Road exists only to traffick and smuggle, and takes on a variety of work not matter what the need may be for. They have kidnapped noble ladies for sadistic lords to keep in their chambers, freed children from abusive households and delivered them to orphanages or temples, and snuck slaves out from their chains and sought them to their new freedoms. So long as there is gold, they will make sure what you wish to find, lose, or have disappear, will do so.

Assets

• Underground Tunnels: The Road often has puppet properties that are in truth, checkpoints for their intricate underground tunnel system for transferring goods and personnel. These caverns run throughout the realm and are carefully formed by earthmages and geomancers or even by hand to keep from breaking into the Underdark or causing any other substantial subterranean disturbance.

The Road Runs Through

Type

Illicit, Syndicate

Alternative Names

The Path, The Trail, The Winding Way, The Avenue, The Highway

Training Level

Elite

Veterancy Level

Veteran

Demonym

Roadish

Location

Albion