D&D General Eladrin Organized Crime

[akr71]

My players are currently wandering the Feywild, looking for a way back to the Sword Coast. They have made contact with an Archfey who said she has the power to send them back, provided they perform "a few minor tasks for her."

They stumbled on a group of Eladrin who are involved in the fey-beast trade. Their Archfey benefactor wants them to eliminate the group and report back. The whole encounter with the the fey beast traffickers was intended as a throw-away encounter, but has now turned into a side-quest I have a vague notion of the Archfey's motivations, but I'm really struggling with what a fey organized crime syndicate looks like.

Any suggestions? The group is 6 level 6 & 7 characters.

 

[Jd Smith1]

My players are currently wandering the Feywild, looking for a way back to the Sword Coast. They have made contact with an Archfey who said she has the power to send them back, provided they perform "a few minor tasks for her."

They stumbled on a group of Eladrin who are involved in the fey-beast trade. Their Archfey benefactor wants them to eliminate the group and report back. The whole encounter with the the fey beast traffickers was intended as a throw-away encounter, but has now turned into a side-quest I have a vague notion of the Archfey's motivations, but I'm really struggling with what a fey organized crime syndicate looks like.

Any suggestions? The group is 6 level 6 & 7 characters.

I don't know if this will help, but a standard OC trafficking structure in RL would often consist of the following (a bit simplistic, but it should work):

Procurement group
Housing, evaluation, and prep group
Transport and sale group

All controlled by a command group (the bosses and accountants), which is very small, is rarely or never in contact with the product, and which is known to only one person in each of the subordinate groups (for security).

Additionally, there should be a small but effective 'security group' answering solely to the command group tasked with keeping 'employees' in line, discouraging independents from interfering with the movement and sale of product, and the like. The security group would also be used to move money from and to the command group.

 

[Marandahir]

In my setting, Eladrin and Elven traditions draw upon different east-asian cultures for cultural inspiration of their various nations, playing off the Katana-like swords and Legolas stunts from the film versions of Lord of the Rings. To that end, when I've wanted to do Eladrin crime syndicates, I've looked to Triads, Tongs, Yakuza, etc for inspiration.

That's not to say any of this is 1-1 and I would never try to mimic another real-world culture's affect or create a caricature in this, just that when I'm thinking Elves, I'm also thinking Wuxia and Jidai Geki fiction tropes. Maybe it's the Crouching-Tiger like stunts that Legolas does, most of all, which gave me this connection.

Oh, and my Elves aren't as a rule Pale = Good, Dark = Bad, just wanted to caveat this point of reference with that. I realise drawing on any real world culture for reference is fraught ground, so I think the best rule to play by is a 40/60 rule. For every 2 things you do similarly to popular understanding of that culture, do 3 things of similar weight differently. D&D cultures should feel familiar and not alien, but they shouldn't be direct analogs, and the players shouldn't feel like they can just consider "oh, Eladrin are Chinese, High Elves are Yamato, Wood Elves are Ainu, and Dark Elves are Mongolians". That's a REALLY bad way of doing things. But if they all feel vaguely like you can place it, but never feel just like a kitchen soup of Orientalist tropes thrown into a blender, then you're probably doing well.

Really, for your answer, take a few hours and watch some really good organized crime films from the cultures you might be taking inspiration from. Don't just mimic the films you watch. Think carefully about what you want to include and what you want to dis-include. You'll find your Eladrin crime syndicate tropes soon enough.

 

[NotAYakk]

In many traditions, the feywild's nourisment, what keeps it going, is emotions, memories and stuff like that.

Oh, and most promises made are made with the force of gaes, even casual comments, so long as they are sealed with consideration (which can include food, drink, a token, etc).

Nothing in the feywild is ever given for free. Someone who wants to give something for free arranges a bet that they then lose. Now, faking that kind of a bet then winning it is fair game.

Everyone in the feywild is plotting. The more convoluted the plot, the better. Winning by doing a simple plot is no victory at all.

Karma is a real thing in the feywild; harm someone and the harm does reflect 100 fold. This is one of the reasons behind said convoluted plots; you literally are trying to fake out karma itself.

If you kill someone, you are karma's bitch. If you get someone to agree to be killed by you 'freely', you are far lighter off. If you get someone to agree to make a bet with a 3rd party then stay in a city for a year and a day, who then pays off a debt, which frees another fey from an obligation, who made a promise to then carry a bucket of water to the center of a desert, which fullfills a bet between two other fey, which results in one of them having promised to burn down a city... that is going to insulate you from the consequences for at least a few centuries.

Arranging that kind of convoluted scheme requires grease, and favors are the grease that runs that kind of thing. Your archfey finds arrangements for other fey who want to do favors by tracking down down-on-their-luck fey and making them offers they might not refuse. The fey who want to do favors aren't ones to actually do this for a favor (they are too wealthy to want to owe the archfey anything), so those customers arrange for memorable events for the archfey to capture.

The players actions are (a) built around making memories (with they archfey is harvesting), (b) trying to sow some chaos, to make some down-on-their-luck fey for the archfey to sell "favor access" to, (c) disrupting a rival supply of emotions, which the fey beasts where going to be used to harvest.

The seeliee court mainly deals in love, joy, humour, warmth. The unseliee court in pain, hate, angst and cold. You'd think that would make one good but not the other; but remember, they take away those emotions and use them as nourishment. Which would you rather sell? The best day or your life, or your worst?

Which is another possible job for an underworld fey -- brokering emotions and memories between the courts. When a seeliee court member gets pain, or an unseeliee gets pleasure, someone has to arrange a swap before they each get sick.