Kannet Colonial Mining

Kannet Colonial Mining is an aggressive and very successful mining company based in Marleven, in the eastern part of the Realm. Its Modus Operandi are to determine the source and nature of lucrative deposits of ores, rare materials, industrial gas and other similar resources in areas of questionable ownership, then build a colony at that location to service a mining operation. This practice has made the organization fantastically rich and has also added a number of semi-autonomous colonies to the King's holdings in the Wild Wastelands, Elven North, and Savage South, though it has also put it in conflict with the Empires of Silk and Spice in a few cases where the villages weren't quite as lawless as Kannet had supposed. Humanoid habitations in unprotected areas are a particular favorite of the company, easily converted to their use as base camps once the indigenous inhabitants are relocated or otherwise removed.

Structure

Kannet is organized around the control of 1,000 shares of ownership.

• 301 are owned by Katha Kannet, CEO.
• 110 are owned by her brother Gonseles, CFO.
• 100 are owned by Dawi Haddad, COO, making this organization an unequal triumvirate of sorts. This is reflected in their logo as well.

The remaining 489 shares are divided up amongst hundreds of people, mostly wealthy Marelevenites though some shares are owned in many other cities of the Realm. These  bestow very little say individually, but collectively form the Shareholders council. Katha generally is considerate of the advice of the other shareholders when it aligns to her interests, but even united against the three of them, the votes of the council are not enough to obligate her to act any differently than she would otherwise want to. As CEO she has direct control over all aspects of the business, but in practice she delegates a great deal of that to her co-chairs and the other employees that answer to them. Generally all three of them share the same vision for the company, with the same deep and abiding moral indifference, so serious conflicts are rare among the triumvirate.
Katha's older brother Gonseles Kannet is the Chief Financial Officer, who with 110 shares is the second most powerful person in the organization. He is a ruthless manager of the company's significant financial holdings and leverages it more deftly than a scalpel when it comes to carving up financial details or acquiring potential competitors under the most favorable terms. Much of Kannet's growth is due to Gonseles' success at eating other mining companies, not from direct expansion from their own profitable mines. Katha had this position until her father retired and made her the CEO in his place; she in turn gave her former CFO spot to Gonseles, and he has done nearly as well as she did with it.
Third in line after Katha and Gonseles is their Chief Operations Officer Dawi Haddad, an expatriate from the Empires of Silk and Spice who owns 100 shares. The significant challenges of the logistics of multiple colonies and multiple mines within those colonies falls to Dawi, an engineering genius rumored to have supernatural power and to converse from time to time as equals with desert spirits. While that may be true, the rumors persist mostly because of his success in growing complicated plans to fruition, not from any evidence of demonological favors. Though a staunch loyalist and evident sociopath, Dawi is considered the most reasonable of the three, simply because he's not related to the other two.
Beneath these three and the other shareholders with executive power are layers of supervision, management, development and implementation experts, most of which work out of the large multistory block in lower-central Marleven Tier 2. In turn these people interface with the onsite workers as well as the teamsters and transportation providers that bring their ores and raw materials to market.

Culture

Kannet is an old company with significant traditions incorporated for over a century of operation. Internally, unquestioning loyalty may be pushed to the extreme and disloyalty can be punished by death, or things worse than death perhaps; Ethical indifference is valued more than active immorality or strong convictions. Externally, people tend to either love or loathe Kannet, as it is very successful and ambitious and enriches many people, but at the same time does get into some questionable practices in the pursuit of more veins of silver, salt, gold, mercury, tin, iron and amber, among other things.
The company logo is also simple and fraught with meaning, as is their slogan, and both are very common tattoos. Their company store in their headquarters sells Masquerade Tattoos of the logo for 45gp each or the slogan ("Fortunes Arise") in common or draconic for 35gp each that not only apply the tattoo independently, but allow the casting of disguise self 1/day, lasting for 1 hour when cast.

Public Agenda

Ostensibly the company operates on behalf of the King in general and Countess Marjoleine of Marleven more specifically, as their taxes have helped fund her ambitions for decades, and their claimed lands have fattened the King's coffers and broadened his maps as well. Their public brand is one of adventure, exploration, and the enlightenment or even liberation of people living in untamed parts of the world - and in some cases, undeniably this really is so, where an innocent village oppressed by Orcs or controlled by cruel mercenaries in the Wild Wastelands is set free by Kannet steel and ruthlessness; but the inhabitants become employees without a great deal of choice in the matter and the interests of the company become the de facto interests of these villages, or else.  And inconvenient humanoids too savage or slow to understand what Kannet wants are generally ground up and tossed aside to make way for progress, though the company certainly doesn't highlight those aspects in its public agenda.

Assets

In addition to dozens of mines and mine colony towns around them, Kannet has the wealth of those mines and the wealth produced by the sales of the mined resources: Silver and gold, buildings, troops, equipment, weapons, ships and horses, castles and other fortifications. Unlike the feudal rulers they are subject to, however, they are fairly centralized, with few routes to power and few channels for the exercise of it, and as they are in no position to overthrow the King and rule the Realm as an anarchocapitalist collective, they must in the end abide by his wishes and his laws when it comes to what they do with these assets.

Fortunes Arise

Founding Date

3162

Alternative Names

Colonial

Leader

Katha Kannet

Location

Marleven

Notable Members

• Gonsales "Gonzo" Kannet

Business Partnership

Kannet Colonial Mining

65

The Farryer's guild

90

The Farryer's Guild is a necessary connection for the transport of goods to and more importantly, through Marleven to points further west in the Realms. Since many of Kannet's colony mines are further east in the Wild Wastelands, they must maintain a certain civility with the Farryers or risk delays or even impoundment of their mining resources.