The Quest for Blood, Part 2

“Change is painful.” My dover associate is something of a philosopher when he is at work, and he likes to talk to his subjects so they can appreciate what he is offering them. “How painful is entirely up to you.”

The ceptu body is an interesting study in design. It can float in water or air, is very light, and can sustain an unfortunate amount of trauma. The dover twisted his subject’s tentacles tightly in one of his fists and jerked them over the top of a candle flame. The thing with the ceptu is that they are difficult to ignore when they are screaming – their thoughts just batter their way into your head.

The dover dropped the tentacles and leaned in close to the ceptu, his nose twitching and his ears flat back over his head. “We like our payments in gold, we will send someone around to collect.”

The dover’s name is Kylan; he never has told me his pack name. He was one of the first to take me up on my offer after I set up shop in this canton, and he is the only one of the gang I trust. “That was nice work in there, Kylan.” I would appreciate it if he wouldn’t take such long strides, because I get out of breath chasing after him when we go places.

He snorted to let me know that he heard me, but he didn’t seem to care about my praise. The results are the reward he wants. And the money of course, which is why I trust him. He believes in the quality of work and I pay him accordingly. It’s a good thing, too, because there is far more of this work than I ever thought there would be. Who knew that running a canton involved so much torture?

In the beginning, the drugs were enough to get me the start of a crew and some property to call my own. Taking the canton wasn’t even that hard after that – in most areas without a bloodlord, the people are fearful and willing to submit when someone who appears powerful rolls in. There are always a few holdouts, of course, which is what Kylan and I are taking care of.

Taxes are in important part of running a canton. Without money, you can’t pay your guards and you can’t keep up your defenses. Without gold, you’re just biding your time until someone with some cash in their pocket and swords behind them rolls into to take over your home. So you have to collect the taxes.

The downside, of course, is that people don’t like paying taxes. This means that some of them, like the ceptu, need to be convinced to do their civic duty. Kylan checked his notes and grunted. “That was the last one.” He sounds almost disappointed, his ears droop a bit and his shoulders sag as he turns us down the narrow street that leads to the pawnshop.

Extortion Network [GENERAL]

Prerequisite: Leadership

Benefits: This feat enables the character to maintain an extortion network as a source of income, using his followers as collection agents or enforcers. Note that simply taking this feat does not guarantee a steady source of income – the character must maintain his network to keep it profitable. It is also important to remember that this feat is only good in a specific area in which the character lives or spends at least half his time not adventuring and in which his followers stay.

Once this feat is taken, the character can begin building up his network. For every follower the character has, he is allowed to make one Diplomacy or Intimidate skill check (DC 15) during the upcoming week. He may go about other business, but must spend at least 3 hours of every day talking with local shop keepers in order to qualify to make these checks.

Each check that succeeds adds another client to the extortion network. Each client brings in a number of gold pieces, per week, equal to the average level of the character’s followers.

Each week thereafter, the character may make a number of Intimidate or Diplomacy skill checks (DC 15) equal to one-half the total number of followers he has as a result of the Leadership feat. The character need only spend a total of five hours during the week to make these rolls and is free to carry on with other activities during the rest of the week, as his followers are keeping an eye on business. At no time can the extortion network contain more clients than the number of the character’s followers.

During the second and subsequent weeks, any skill check that fails by five or more results in a lost client – reduce the total number of clients in the extortion network by one and reduce the cash generated by the network appropriately. If, at any time, the total number of clients in the network is less than the character’s Charisma modifier, the network has collapsed and a new one will need to be started in a new area.

If, in the second or subsequent weeks, a client leaves the network as a result of a failed skill check, the character can attempt to win the client back during the following week. This requires a personal visit, either by the character or his cohort, during which time another Intimidate or Diplomacy skill check must be made (DC 20). If this skill check succeeds, the client is back in the network, otherwise, the client will never return to the network. Word gets out about this and all Intimidate or Diplomacy checks made to gain clients in the following week suffer a -2 penalty.

Characters may improve their Diplomacy or Intimidate checks for use in conjunction with this feat by performing any of the following actions:

Expanded Extortion Network [GENERAL]

Prerequisite: Extortion Network

Benefits: You are treated as if you had a number of followers equal to five times that normally allowed by the Leadership feat for purposes of determining the number of clients in an Extortion Network, only. If you have official sanction in the area, increase this to 20 times, instead of 5 times. If you take this feat, you must spend at least five hours per day in the area in which you operate the Extortion Network.

 

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