The Broken Crown Faction

## Overview

The Broken Crown is an extensive network of underworld and black market contacts. They are drawn primarily from the stealth and street backgrounds and professions, although you get all types. The Broken Crown calls itself internally 'the Family'. You don't out Family, you don't cross Family, you don't cheat Family. When outsiders come sniffing, close ranks. The Broken Crown takes a long, slow, and strategic pace toward expansions of territory and influence. It's been a while, but they've become top dog of the underworld eventually in such a solid way, no one can even begin to challenge them.

The Broken Crown's general attitudes toward politics is to stay out of them except to observe, report, and collect knowledge in case it's someday necessary. Many young hotheads have issues with this and try to go rogue on the Family, to seize some opportunity of the moment instead of the longer game. No one ever finds their bodies. Not even with a wish scroll.

## Symbol

The coin known as the Crown for the mint of the same on its face, cut in half or almost cut in half, or already cut in half, implying the counterfeiting trade. (Ironically, the Broken Crown does not run a counterfeiting operation, making its profits based on the fees it can charge the public due to the stability of its network built up and maintained over time.)

## Goals

The Broken Crown seeks above all else stability. Widespread organizational stability, in a way that speaks of either visionary planning at work, or alignment with some other goal so far in the future that it is impossible to even begin to guess at. Safe houses are truly safe, or the danger is epic. The Broken Crown does not play politics except as an observer, and that is why the law only sometimes pursues them. In many places, the law is bought outright, provided certain lines are not crossed. The magistrates there rely on the Broken Crown to police the underworld, and more than once the guards have somehow mystically been able to nab gangs of scoundrels operating against Broken Crown wishes right when they were meeting, or most vulnerable.

The overall thinking remains to keep to the shadows, only make strategic gains when you know you can hold them, and do what the Family tells you to do, until someday you're one of the Family Elders calling the shots yourself.

## Beliefs

The Broken Crown is made up of a curious mixture. About 39% chaotic neutral, 30% chaotic good, 20% neutral, 10% lawful neutral, 1% other alignments. The Lawful Neutrals tend to gravitate to Operations and running the Family. The goods provide some small measure of moral compass organizationally, but on the whole, so long as you do what Family wants you to do when they want something, you're on your own for the rest of the time. Make profit, establish secure investments and advantages, pay the Family their cut, and be ready for an assignment every now and then.

## Member Traits

Free-spirited, ethically relaxed opportunists who have realized the benefit of banding together and watching each others' backs.

## Rank Names

1. Whisper
2. Shadow
3. Agent
4. Boss
5. Flamekeeper

## Special Faction Training Available (Rank 2+)

The Broken Crown gives all Shadows and above the opportunity to gain proficiency training with any of the following tools: Thieves' Tools, Disguise Kits, and Forgery Kits. Training takes 125 downtime days and costs an additional 125gp.

## Special Faction Item Purchases Available (Rank 3+)

Agents of the Broken Crown and higher faction ranks also have the opportunity at any time to purchase either a set of Gloves of Thievery for 500gp, or a Cloak of Displacement for 5,000gp.

## Other Factions

**Flagship Trading Company:** Love these guys. Just keep sniffing out whatever merchandise they're moving or storing, then raise the bounty on it and let the non-BC thieves do your dirty work for you. They'll end up fencing it either directly through the Broken Crown or else using folks we can get to and grab the merch from. We cut our training teeth harrying Flagship warehouses and trading posts.

**The Gardeners:** They exist. Their members may or may not be customers now and then, just like any red-blooded Westerner. How much is it worth you to know, and which name are you asking about in specific?

**Vanguard Brotherhood:** Nice mercs, a reliable solution in situations where hired muscle you can trust is needed. As much as you should be trusting anyone. We cut them a slight discount on fees to move merch and intel through our network of messengers and spies and black market contacts. It's a decent win-win friendly relationship. But business is business on both sides. Never forget that the law can hire the Vanguard Brethren to chase you, too. (When that happens, quickly hire a different Captain of the Vanguard Brotherhood to protect you and then sit back and watch as the two Captains on either side happily kill their own faction members. Kinda weird, but it works in our favor so don't suggest they stop.)

**Kingsguard:** Something fishy going on with them. Nothing wrong with the King having his own personal agents to act independent of the throne. Rather genius move, actually, we were impressed when they founded. But while they do handle intelligence gathering and diplomatic missions, they're up to something more. They bounce around like a frog in the cookpot. Don't interfere, but keep your eyes and ears wide open around them. Any information may help us figure it out, and whether we can profit from whatever it is that keeps them trying to be everyplace at once, apparently doing nothing. Very suspicious indeed. And that's generally OUR job.

**Court of Flowers:** The Court is being led by someone, and it's not their former 'Royalty for a Social Season' panel, although our agents seem to indicate that they're meddling with politics directly now, those past rulers. Not sure how or why. No, there's a single intelligence guiding the Court. Every single member of their upper ranks comes out with some kind of stunning work in their specialty fields, a masterpiece or a flawless talent or virtuosity is discovered in them. Something unnatural is going on there, but we can't tell what, mostly because artists be crazy to begin with, sister.

**Wyrd Hunters:** The Mystic Library of Cazor is a wonderful place, and we regularly challenge our wizards and braniacs to steal a specific tome or volume. The Librarians hate us and have banned the Broken Crown from its halls under any circumstances, so always fly false colors when seeking advice from a Librarian, and if you must enter, use magic to shield your mind from detection or just don't even bother trying. The Library has become so difficult to steal from any more that there are Epic standing quests for any Broken Crown member to steal a volume from Cazor which count as secret missions even though they're openly advertised, and which grant a lot of renown. Only seven have succeeded since Cazor caught on to their earlier heists. Master thieves and burglars all.  The Wyrd Hunters themselves are like ants... only really useful to drop a few crumbs and then follow them back to their nest, because the Mystical Library of Cazor seems to be interplanar, and its entrances come and go. If nothing else, they're always interested in paying top gold for books and scrolls, the older the better, so take any cursed or evil artifacts you can't move for profit and dump them there. Librarians take them willingly.