Vel’Dassir Cartel
Overview
The Vel’Dassir Cartel is the largest and most powerful of the five great Cartel Families of the Dia’crai Syndicate, reigning over the Syndicate’s massive narcotics industry, neurochemical research, and the delicate balance between pharmacological bliss and functional madness. Vel’Dassir is far more than a drug empire—it is a chemical civilization, where sensation is currency and consciousness is sculpted like marble. Known for synthesizing some of the galaxy’s most sought-after compounds—Velvet-9, Glimmerflux, and countless others—the Cartel views drug use not as vice, but as art, medicine, and religion. Their members don’t simply take drugs—they live them, bodies transformed into walking laboratories and temples of synthetic enlightenment.Culture & Doctrine
To be Vel’Dassir is to embrace chemical transcendence. The Cartel teaches that emotions, thoughts, and perception are not sacred—they are mutable, mechanical, and subject to refinement through pharmaceutical science. Their core philosophy is called Neuroalchemical Purism: the belief that the unaltered human mind is a crude, obsolete machine—one that must be chemically evolved. Any and all members of the cartel take this to heart or are forced to, though in very different ways depending on one’s status and station. This ranges from chemical pacification to neurological enlightenment through only the most designer of drugs.Core Beliefs:
• Emotion is a variable—control it, and you control yourself.• Pain, pleasure, clarity, madness—all can be chosen with the right synthesis.
• Drugs are not addictions—they are tools of ascension.
• Death is failure of chemistry.
Body Modification & the Endless Drip
Most full members of the Cartel—especially those of noble bloodlines—have undergone extensive chemical augmentation. They are surgically implanted with internal stimulant reservoirs, known as Aesthetic Drips, which feed tailored compounds into their bloodstream in real time, regulated by mood-sensing nanofilters. Key Implants Include:• Thalamus-Root Drippers: feed microdoses of cognition-boosting stimulants like micro-Cravex or focused Glimmerflux variants.
• Mood-Modulating Shunts: adjust the cocktail depending on brainwave frequency, environmental triggers, or command phrases.
• Subdermal Injector Lattices: woven beneath the skin, these shimmer subtly with glowing tracery, often forming ceremonial patterns.
• Neural Haze Limiters: safety buffers (rarely used) that prevent overdose seizures—although many Cartel elites deactivate these willingly. Vel’Dassir nobles drift through life in a state of controlled detachment, voices smooth, eyes reflective, minds sharp with manufactured brilliance or sensual haze. Their presence is otherworldly—living hallucinations, half-human, half-dream.
The Spire-Refineries
Towering over entire city-districts of Dia’crai worlds are the Vel’Dassir Spire-Refineries—monolithic, spiraling structures of living chemistry, part-factory, part-temple. These spires are where synthetic drugs are conceived, refined, and distributed, overseen by gene-modded chem-priests and cloaked refinery monks. How They Work: 1. Atmospheric Intake & Molecular Harvesting:Each spire draws in atmospheric particles, alien spores, and trace gases. These materials are fed into bio-reactive core-chambers, where DNA-tailored enzyme colonies break them down into usable chemical substrata.
2. Narcotic Synthesis Rings:
Dozens of circular floors rotate independently, containing laboratories for the layered construction of drugs. Each layer specializes in different compound types—mood amplifiers, nootropics, sensory warpers, or memory binders, with some layers entirely devoted to acting as massive centrifuges, spinning at speed that would liquify the human body in order to synthesize chemicals.
3. Dream-Chamber Calibration:
At the core lies the Dream Throne, where test subjects—often volunteers or slaves—are connected to neural imaging beds and subjected to new compounds. Their neural responses are recorded, refined, and translated into dosage instructions. The entire spire adjusts formulas dynamically based on these results, side effects and overdose symptoms are recorded and propagated, and exact sensations and experiences are recorded via neural reading implants for precise product descriptions.
4. Sublimation Vaults:
The finished products—whether as gas, liquid, crystal, or dermal patch—are stored in pressure-sealed sensory-reactive vaults, which trigger alarms if exposed to unauthorized bio-signatures or emotional states. The final layer, typically either at the very top or bottom, packages the products for distribution and acts as a shipping and receiving area where the potent chemicals and proliferated out into the public. Many have gas emitters dispersed throughout the layers that will spew stimulants into the surrounding area for great national holidays or religious events, free of charge as a sign of the good will of the Vel’Dassir Cartel. Spire-Refineries also function as cult centers, where lower-tier chem-addicts come to experience guided doses under the supervision of neuropriests in lesser-known subterranean levels. It is said that a single breath from the lower chambers can erase a decade of trauma—or replace it with a better one.
Influence and Control
As the largest Cartel, the Vel’Dassir have influence across nearly every Dia’crai city and vessel. Their drugs are used not only for recreation, but for Combat Focus in pilots and gunners, Negotiation leverage in diplomacy (via empathy or intimidation compounds), Memory curation for nobles and operatives, and Public pacification in Syndicate population centers. The Cartel maintains an elite corps of Neuroguardians (often clad in Exo-Armor Mechs)—chemically enhanced enforcers whose emotions can be toggled by command to suit violence, seduction, or fear projection. They are terrifyingly efficient and disturbingly beautiful.Notable Compounds Originating from Vel’Dassir Labs
• Velvet-9: Induces euphoric sensory detachment, used in therapy and indulgence alike.• Glimmerflux: Heightens emotional perception and causes visual/auditory synesthesia. Used in religious and artistic rituals.
• Lazekrine: A rare injectable that slows perception of time, allowing users to “live” for hours inside minutes. Highly addictive.
• Dross-Dust: A punishment compound that floods the nervous system with despair. Used for interrogation and ritual exile.
Final Notes
The Vel’Dassir Cartel is more than a drug empire—it is a philosophical movement, a lifestyle, and a living cathedral of altered states. Within their shimmering spires, reality itself is rewritten in molecular form, and the body is but a canvas for chemical truth. They are not evil, nor insane. They are simply free from the tyranny of unaltered perception.
“We are the architects of sensation. The mind is not a prison—it is a palette.”
Type
Illicit, Cartel
Parent Organization
Allies
Allies in high-performance enhancement. Many Kravari racers and pilots rely on Vel’Dassir focus-and adrenaline enhancer drugs, with the shear yearly quantities purchased resulting in discounts on mass bulk purchases. The Lineage have been known to defer to Vel’Dassir council agendas, and while some point to idealogical similarities, others speculate about chemical dependencies being leveraged.
Friendly Competitors
Collaborative rivals. Vel’Dassir crafts the internal states, Sol Zareth curates the external spectacle. Clashes sometimes occur over competing entertainment markets, with the Combine coveting the sheer size and political weight of the Vel’Dassir. While most often their interests align, the Combine will take any opportunity to claim Vel’Dassir territory and influence for their own.
Unofficial Alignment
Secret mutual respect. Both manipulate minds, though Vel’Dassir does so chemically, while Nyxalith uses memory. Though the Enclave does not unilaterally ally themselves with any other factions, their council votes (on the occasion that they decide to actually cast any) tend to align with the Vel’Dassir more than any other house.
Rivals
Tense relations. Brann’Khal distrust Vel’Dassir detachment, viewing it as cowardice in the face of pain and their chemical escapism as nothing short of totally self-deprecating. Nearly the only time the two houses interact in a positive way is when the Crucible purchases stimulants from them, and they less than any other major house. The Crucible has gone so far as to build their own stimulant production lines, though the quality comes nowhere near close to the Vel’Dassir, and their inferior product is used exclusively by the Crucible. The two factions can nearly always be relied upon to have contradictory council votes on important geopolitical matters.
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