EchoesofOblivion/TopazSpillsTheBeans

I'm eternally greatful to PeterTaylor for Spell Checking this, normally I do spell check GM notes before sending them out but I seem to have forgotten this time. I'd suggest rather than actually doing it for me, thwack me over the back of head next time I send masses of stuff to the wiki without spell checking it first, it's the only way I'll learn. --Edith

The players managed to kill the leader of a group of exalted pirates, The Brilliant Marauders, who had been harassing them.

Then they went and summoned his ghost.

And bound it.

And then forced him to tell them everything they know.

Remember: ShootFirstAskQuestionsLater.

Here's the info-dump they got:

The Brilliant Marauders

 (you get a lot of the GM's notes on this lot):

A small circle of somewhat less morally inclined Solars who command a much
larger group of mortals. Somewhere between pirates and legitimate merchants
but never quite committing to one or the other, the marauders are dispersed
for most of the time, communicating through magical means and messenger
birds. They tend to keep themselves low profile to avoid the legions, the
guild and the Hunt, they also tattoo every mortal member of their group with
a black caste mark on their foreheads to strike fear into their enemy and
spread the word of a bunch of pirate pretending to be Solars (what better
cover for a real solar than in a bunch of fake ones?)
Following their purge from Kirighast, the Marauders travelled east until
they hit the river, at which point they followed it down to the rich Satrapy
of Andalusite where their operations have been ongoing for the past 2 years.

Prince Topaz:
Originally a successful guild prince known as Torin Zana, Topaz was
driven out of the guild by his own son after he exalted. Unable to bring
himself to swear vengeance upon his own son, Torin fled south where he was
captured by a brigand thief known as Captain Spike. Spike originally
planned to kill Torin or ransom him, however he had figured he was dealing
with a mortal and soon fell to the blades of his own men, persuaded by the
Zenith Caste's golden tongue.
Zana to the name Prince Topaz and began his leadership of this new
disparate group. Zana's knowledge of guild workings, combined with an
ability to read the actions of the guild Prince's he observed allowed him to
lead a series of daring raids on guild caravans and independent merchants
from which he and his group became somewhat rich.
Topaz's merchant savvy also allowed him to sell and trade his stolen
goods for a reasonable price and his bandit hoard soon developed a second,
commercial side to their operations.
Over the past few years the Brilliant Marauders have had a series of
successes across the southeast scavenger lands, joined now by two other solar
exalts the group comprises of hundreds of warriors, merchants, sailors and
spies managed by Topaz. The group is always careful to remain low enough
intensity in any one area to avoid unwanted attention and to hide the true
scale of operations. However it is safe to say that the group has some part
in at least 20% of the trade going through Andalusite these days.
Topaz was ruthless and obsessed with profit. However he hides this well
under the guise of a friendly and negotiable merchant and pirate king. Topaz
believes in trade rather than war, knowing the former to be much more
effective a tool for control than the later. Topaz makes deals to come out
ahead and will do nothing out of the goodness of his heart, he knows the
price of loyalty, of love and of faithful service down to the jade bit and
this is how he ruled.

Madam Cynn (real name unknown):
As far as Topaz knows, Cynn came from a peasant fishing village along
the inner sea. She was some form of wise woman whose knowledge of spirits
and occult proved useful enough to earn her a place on a Peleps Naval ship
as a seer.
Following an exaltation at sea Madam Cynn was quickly forced to escape
to the south to avoid the Wyld Hunt (she never met them but when you exalt
on a Realm Naval ship you don't hang around), she met Prince Topaz and
quickly agreed to join the Brilliant Marauders. It was her idea to paint
the Marauders' heads with gold paint while on raids and later to tattoo
several of the better warriors with caste marks of their own.
Madam Cynn now takes care of the Marauders' shipping ventures, both
pirate and merchant (the difference being about as clear as fog), she also
provides magical support to the Marauders (her magic is mainly sea based but
she knows a few other tricks too). Cynn has no one flagship but travels on a
series of separate ships as best suits her, she is sure to keep the profile
of her fleet and it's tactics (magic raiding, etc) well under wraps, very
few survive her raids, leading to a terrifying reputation on the high seas.

The Howling Fury:
A barbarian tribesman from the East known as Howling Bear, fury
originally thought himself a Lunar when he exalted in the middle of battle
a few years ago. However an angry reception by his Lunar Chief combined with
a chase from the tribal lands soon set him straight. Fury did the typical
barbarian forced into the city Conan style thing for a while before finding
a nice little group of bandits to hide out with and raid on his own.
It was about that time that The Furies came into contact with the
Marauders, fortunately much bloodshed was avoided by the negotiation skills
of Prince Topaz. Fury and his band joined the Marauders, Fury becoming the
chief warrior amongst the raiders. Fury's tactics are sometimes a burden to
the marauders as a whole, Topaz is quite used to have to explain to Fury the
price of honour and glory in raids rather than simply stealing the goods.
This annoys Fury but on the other hand he does enjoy the riches Topaz's
plans brings.
Fury is at heart a barbarian warrior, he considers himself a chief of
his bandits, he employs a bare minimum of formations and other civilised
tactics, his raids being barbarian in nature. He does know where his
loyalties lie however and he accepts Topaz as his superior, if not in battle
than in wits. He has had a long running dislike for Cynn for some time, her
means are much too civilised for his tastes and Fury's distrust of sorcery
or a powerful female figure in the group has led to a long animosity between
the two.

The Deal

Following their expulsion from Kirighast the marauders wandered for a
while, until an old friend of Torin Zana contacted them, Prince Jade. Jade's
offer to Zana was as follows:
15 years ago, Prince Jade was forced to "retire" from active service
running the Andalusite - Nexus run and put into the position of managing
Guild activities in Andalusite. This was mainly due to the actions of Jade's
protégé, a young man now known as The Admiral. Jade still wants the position
of running the Admiral's caravan back but doesn't have enough wealth or
support to mount a takeover. Meanwhile, Cynis's demands have been pushing up
the taxes in the area and seriously cutting into profits, Jade has had a
long running political war with Queen Asha over taxes, however the demands
of house Cynis have pushed this to a new level. Jade needs the money he is
losing to taxes to mount a takeover bid and needs to show he can succeed even
in the hardest times.
So Jade turned to smuggling, or rather he asked the Brilliant Marauders
to smuggle for him, Asha and the Eye have spies throughout his organisation
so he needed someone independent to do his dirty work. The Guild have
remained trustworthy and clean throughout the whole affair, the only
suspicious part being the vast amounts of money flowing through their
coffers despite taxes, something infuriating to Asha as she had nothing
concrete to pin on Jade. Meanwhile the Marauders ran smuggling and pirate
networks through Ima, Eras and Kras. Trading with intermediaries under a
Guild cover, the operation managed to make a profit for both sides. In the
meantime, the Marauders were free to build up crime networks throughout the
kingdom and Jade guaranteed them cover within the Guild once he had attained
his old position.
Prince Jade provided the Marauders with maps of Guild trade routes and
arranged that the Marauders would raid certain caravans of little
importance, providing the impression that the Guild were being struck just
as much as anyone else but with little actual loss on Jade's part.

The Other Deal

Cynis Wisel Nagata is a decadent, corrupt old bureaucrat put out to
govern the city of Eras until he dies. He does so by playing crime-lords off
against each other, taking bribes from everyone and ensuring that his own
position remains untouchable. The city of Eras soon became a haven for
pirates and smugglers, right on the boarder to the Mnemnon held satrapy of
Carparum (who are more than happy to turn a blind eye to their neighbour
losing revenue to smugglers) and with no real law enforcement given the
right bribes. Again, another real thorn in Asha's side, she cannot send in
troops to overrule Nagata as he is protected by house Cynis, she is forced
to hit smugglers as they leave the boarders of Eras, which is much more
difficult and time consuming than catching them in Eras.
The Marauders became quite successful in Eras, they paid the right
bribes and bullied the right people to own a large section of the crime
networks there, they were guests of Cynis Nagata personally one more than
one occasion. This led to the second deal: Nagata had started to become
concerned that Asha may be collecting information on him, although he owned
all his most trusted staff in more than one way he could never be sure he
was truly safe from Asha's networks. So he offered the Marauders a deal,
their networks of semi-legitimate traders would provide intermediaries
between Nagata and the rest of the crime lords. The fear of the Marauders
would keep the intermediaries secure and Nagata could have plausible
deniability (They looked like ordinary traders, how was I to know they were
dealing with criminals on the side) to keep Cynis on his side.

The Screw-up

For a while this worked well. However Asha's response was to build up
the kingdom's military and train them to hunt pirates, this held the double
advantage for her of cutting down on the Marauders trade (they were not the
only pirates in the area and escaped lighter than others but they lost
several ships) and building up a response to a possible Mnemnon incursion by
the 2nd Legion. This left the Marauders at a disadvantage and income
started to slip. Also, Fury had become restless, he was less and less
content to make a profit in the shadows and wanted to hit back at the
authorities who were killing his men. Privately Topaz suspected another
influence but he could never be quite sure with Fury.
So a plan was hatched. The Marauders would kidnap Ellen from the royal
palace and lead the pursuers a merry chase to a pre-prepared pirate lair. A
small battle would ensue which would see a large chunk of the Andalusite
navy sunk but the rest ultimately victorious against the "pirate hoard",
Ellen would be rescued and the kingdom would be convinced they had dealt
with the pirate/smuggler problem for a while. Fury would also get his
revenge on the Kingdom's navy. Cynis Nagata provided the plans of the Palace
allowing Topaz to get in and out sufficiently.
Meanwhile the Marauders would appear as if they were attempting a
set-up as crime-lords in Rutile to make their operations look amateurish
enough for the "destruction of their hidden pirate base" to be convincing.
There were two problems to this plan:
a) You bastards.
b) Fury is a moron and flares his anima banner at every opportunity. This is
a bad thing.

The Other Screw-up

The raiding of the death cult was all about revenge. Sure there might
have been a plan to pull off the kidnapping again but mainly it was because
Fury was too pissed off to let a sleeping death cult lie.

Guild Operations

Topaz does not know much of The Guild operations in Andalusite beyond
Caravan routes (which Cynn handled) and the politics going on:

Prince Jade: Has ruled trade in the area with a jade fist for fifteen years,
old but capable, still bitter at the Admiral for taking the Nexus route from
under him. Wants to get back into running caravans before he gets too old.
Typical Guild Prince, knows the price of everything down to the last jade
bit.

Prince Karl: Long established, runs the Northern Caravan with a well trained
crew. Jade's chosen successor and for a long time the only other real guild
prince in the kingdom. Has a strong dislike for monarchy or many other forms
of government. Plutocrat.

Prince Nina: Responsible for opening up the southern caravan in recent
years. Has suddenly become very successful and is catching up in wealth on
Karl. Fewer qualms about what she trades in or who she trades with. Has to
keep having ambitious new underlings assassinated or play them off against
each other. Ambitious. Currently the only trader to trade with Yirna on a
regular basis.

Prince Zed: Responsible Nutcase. Leads the Guild expeditions into the
plateau, daring, adventurous and capable of making exploration a profitable
venture. Keeps his ventures fairly small and trusted at the moment with the
option of expanding once trade routes are well established. Used to work
under Nina but was promoted to prevent a power struggle. Large beard.
Guffaws a lot. Currently investigating Skira.

Topaz goes on at some length about the trade operations in the kingdom what
goods go where from whom via what. Nothing important.