The Redcloaks

Perhaps the least-understood group of gangsters and thugs in Zobeck are the followers of the Red Mask, commonly called the Redcloaks. They work primarily by night, and everyone knows they include both humans and kobolds in their ranks.
Most members of the City Watch assume the Redcloaks are a kobold gang from the Ghetto. Indeed, the Red Mask’s lowest (and yet, perversely, most loyal) minions are kobolds, to whom the master has promised a much greater role in rulership someday.
Better still, he offers immediate wealth to his servants. Enough gold and silver flows from his hands that his kobolds need no longer toil in the silver mines but can build their own mansions and rule over much more than a small city ghetto.
Much less widely known, for obvious reasons, is the Redcloaks use the profits from smuggling and banditry to fuel their deeper purpose of expanding the cult of Mammon, the arch-devil of wealth and greed. This group of gangsters has a huge bankroll with enough money to hire all the mercenaries, assassins, alchemists, forgers, and other specialists they require.
Some even say shape-shifters, warlocks-for-hire, and priestesses of the Red Goddess serve the Redcloaks, but this may be nothing more than bluster and rumormongering. It is certainly a topic Jayzel the bard, the mistress of information brokering, will not delve into for any amount of money.
The Redcloak guards are crossbow-wielding kobolds, geargrinders, trapspringers, and trainers of the enormous owls beloved by kobold messengers and scouts. These kobolds work to scout out and organize likely ambushes of silver caravans from the mines in the Margreve Forest, to gather up human and centaur bandits to rob those caravans, and to deliver the plunder to the Red Mask’s private storehouses. Other creatures like devils and dark priests sometimes take part in the ambushes. These creatures presumably take their orders from the Red Mask himself.
Secrets
Red Mask’s bankroller is Lord Greymark Volstaff. Once Red Mask himself, the aging Lord Volstaff has retired from direct criminal activity and now merely supports his gang and secret cult from the shadows. Volstaff’s relentless greed has led him to found the cult of Mammon in the city (or rather, to restore the long-dead cult once he gained enough power to ensure political protection).
The new Red Mask is a once-proud man named Minacio Tenebras, a warrior from a small noble family in the Seven Cities. His noble house was destroyed by cultists of Mammon. He lost his family, his wealth, and his beauty—his face was horribly scarred in the fire that destroyed his villa. He swore to destroy the cult of Mammon from the inside out, but as he infiltrated its ranks, he found himself seduced by their luxury and power. He was soon taken under the wing of Greymark Volstaff, one of its senior financiers, and was offered the leadership of the Redcloaks. Now, the disfigured and wretched Teneba has all but completely lost sight of his quest for justice and has embraced his role as the Red Mask—blade of Mammon. Teneba is an Oathbreaker paladin of unknown strength—but it is possible that he could be redeemed.

Leader
The Red Mask
(LE male unknown race/class/levels)
Lieutenant
Jhoram, the Money Changer (LE male tiefling wizard 9)
Members
22 humans, 88 kobolds
Suspected Headquarters
The Wheatsheaf tavern, the Greymark Warehouse
Activities
Diabolic cult, kidnapping for ransom, smuggling, drugs, counterfeiting, silver caravan ambushes
Symbol
Red feather
Alignment
Lawful evil

Type

Illicit, Gang