Government & Political Bodies
The formal structures of power that replaced the Rebefaul monarchy after the civil war.
The Grand Parliament
The Grand Parliament was formed in the immediate aftermath of the civil war to prevent the return of concentrated royal power. Each of Emmerick's six major cities holds two seats, filled by elected Prime Ministers, creating a twelve-member governing body designed to bind the largest cities into shared rule.
The Parliament controls national law, military command, trade regulation, and the licensing of arcane practice. In theory it governs by consensus. In practice, the Stahlwolke seats carry disproportionate influence simply by virtue of the city's role as the seat of Parliament itself.
Known Seats
Office of National Resource Stewardship (ONRS)
A parliamentary agency responsible for the oversight and licensing of state-owned extractive operations. The ONRS nominally controls Emmerick's major mines, quarries, and natural resource sites — though day-to-day management is routinely delegated to private companies under contract.
The quarry at Limestein is among its most significant holdings, delegated to Calcitan Mining. Recent excavations there have turned up strange sigils and iconography of an unidentified pentagram deep below the limestone shelves. The ONRS has not issued a public statement on this.
Security & Defense
Companies that profit from the protection of people, property, and secrets.
Armsmaster Inc.
A consulting and services design company specializing in security and defense. Armsmaster manufactures safes, vaults, alarm systems, fortified entryways, and other protective works for those who can afford them. Their client list is extensive and quietly includes several members of Parliament.
The company maintains a public face of legitimate enterprise. Privately, it has a long history of more flexible arrangements — contracts that blur the line between security consulting and active criminal facilitation.
Key Personnel
Shrewd, rude, and wealthy. Ergak has fingers in the pockets of powerful people across Emmerick and has developed a particular talent for avoiding serious legal consequences — typically bargaining down charges to probation or fines before anything reaches a courtroom.
He has a bad history with Aiden Barlowe.
Calcitan Mining
A private mining operation contracted by the ONRS to manage the limestone quarry at Limestein — a terraced chalk-white wound in the earth so steep that zip-line carts are required to reach the bottom.
Workers have recently uncovered sigils and iconography consistent with a strange pentagram design deep in the excavation. Calcitan Mining has continued operations.
Criminal & Shadow Operations
Organizations that operate beneath the surface of legitimate power — or directly through it.
The Golden Hand
The Golden Hand was an elite crew of thieves, lockpickers, and specialists operating as a shadow arm of Armsmaster Inc. Their stated purpose was to keep the public eye off the parent company whenever a robbery required a professional touch — plausible deniability sold at a premium.
In practice, the Hand operated with considerable independence. They took contracts that Armsmaster couldn't officially acknowledge and handled problems that required more than a vault door and an alarm system.
Thalen Blackfoot once worked among their number.
The Thieves Guild
The only Thieves Guild operating in Grollen — there used to be two, until Lorenzo's absorbed the other over three months. They operate out of a commandeered old brewery in the Pitch Underward, where members play cards, drink, and take jobs.
In Session 6, Thalen Blackfoot hired members for intelligence work on the Naughty Dogs. Rate agreed: 50 gold per person per hour. The Bannerless is on the hook for this contract until it's closed.
Key Personnel
Intelligent and composed. Fond of fine wine, good food, and chess. Never forgets a face. Knows exactly what someone else's desperation is worth. A Bahumia crime lord named Lucky owes him 50 gold on a bet he couldn't lose even if he tried.
Gangs & Criminal Groups
Street-level criminal organizations operating within Emmerick’s cities.
The Naughty Dogs
A moderate to large gang with over fifty members spread across the North Ward, Pitch Ward, and Historical Ward of Grollen. Criminal portfolio: smuggling, theft, breaking and entering, felony quantities of controlled substances, intent to distribute, embezzlement, and fraud. Some higher-ranking members have minor arcane abilities — taught directly by Vivian or recruited for their magical aptitude.
They hired Jimmy Dean and the Cactus Bunch to ransack Vellena Chezwick’s warehouse for anything valuable and particularly a crystal shard. The party tracked Vivian to the gang’s civil war-era bunker in Session 6, fought through them in Session 7, and eventually cornered Vivian at the Golden Oriole Hospital. An uneasy truce was brokered: the Naughty Dogs and the Golden Oriole are left alone; in exchange, Vivian handed over the shard and all research on it, and provided a speaking stone rune.
Key Personnel
Wickedly intelligent with a natural aptitude for illusion and abjuration magic. Escaped the bunker fight via a teleportation bead in a fake tooth, but was cornered at the Golden Oriole. Negotiated a deal rather than fight to the last. Provided a speaking stone rune to The Bannerless.
Jimmy Dean & the Cactus Bunch
A small gang known for petty crimes across Grollen, hired by the Naughty Dogs to ransack Vellena Chezwick’s warehouse. The Bannerless dismantled them in Sessions 3–4. Jimmy Dean was interrogated and executed by Hammerhand. The gang has not reformed.
Large goliath cowboy. Six-shooter revolver. Killed by Hammerhand after interrogation.
The Greyfangs
A small gang paid by K.K. Sklar, a columnist for the Weekly Witness, to discourage Aiden from investigating a cigarette girl in the red light district prior to the campaign. Not yet directly encountered by the full party.
The Golden Oriole Hospital
An underground medical facility in the West Underward, accessible via the mine tunnel network through a building connected to The White Rabbit. The Golden Oriole serves criminals, the destitute, and those who cannot afford conventional care. The facility was using the crystal shard in minute dilutions in experimental attempts to enhance memory and cognition, aware of but working around its dangerous properties.
After being cornered by The Bannerless in Session 7, Vivian negotiated: the Golden Oriole is left alone; the shard and all research go to the party.
Key Personnel
Lead researcher at the Golden Oriole. Was present when The Bannerless stormed the storage closet. Carver and the medical team will provide all shard research to the party as part of the deal.
Guilds & Hunter Organizations
Professional bodies that operate across city lines — some chartered by Parliament, others more informally established.
The Fourth Fleet
The largest monster hunter guild in Emmerick not affiliated with the Witchers. The Fourth Fleet operates out of Eisenruhn and takes contracts across the nation.
The organization has a complicated relationship with the Witcher comparison. Many members deeply resent it — viewing the Witchers as an unfairly elevated mirror of their own profession, one that gets credit the Fourth Fleet has earned through harder and less glamorous work.
The Witchers — School of the Bear
A hunter order of mutant individuals trained from childhood for monster combat. The Witchers operate independently of Parliament and are tolerated due to their effectiveness. The only sect with a home base in Emmerick is the School of the Bear at Haern Caduch. Founded by Eldrin Pritchard, who believed Witchers should focus only on the job and favor autonomy above personal bonds — making Bear School Witchers notable loners.
They favor heavy armor and defense over agility. Both the Bear School and Cat School are the only known schools to use crossbows. The Haern Caduch Witchers maintain an unequivocal truce with the dwarven communities of the Danya Mountains — a handful of dwarves have survived the Test of the Mountain and joined.
The Test of the Mountain
Initiates must scale the Danya Mountains, traverse to Gunsmoke Cave where the white dragon Rymbys resides, and return with a chunk of emerald crystal. Many candidates freeze to death before finding the cave.
Insense
A professional organization based out of San Amsel that coordinates the setup, scheduling, and teardown of holy festival spaces across Emmerick. As San Amsel functions as a pseudo-religious center — home to over twenty temples and fifty shrines — the logistics of coordinating sacred celebrations across competing faiths has become a trade in itself.
Insense holds no religious affiliation of its own. It operates as a neutral facilitator and charges accordingly.
Knowledge, Media & Information
Organizations that deal in the production, control, or suppression of information.
Scryger
A major magitech company owned by entrepreneur Iger Masterson, an old-money CEO. Scryger mass-produces speaking stones and magitech for information transfer — including emergency broadcasting illusions and radiotech. Most businesses in Emmerick procured their speaking stones through Scryger. Its dominance gives Masterson indirect influence over how information moves across the nation.
The Cobalt Claw
A clandestine organization running the nation’s largest collection of banned books — manuscripts, tomes, novels, and scrolls detailing information both lost and forbidden. They steal and preserve literature across the nation. Neutral in politics; consistently illegal in method.
No single leader. Each location is overseen by a Librarian of the Cobalt Claw, operating independently. Locations are hidden underground, in secluded spaces, or obscured by magic.
Founded by Te’Lavell Amoura, a high elf revolutionary who joined the Concord in the Civil War’s final years, intercepting and cataloguing regime correspondence. What began as wartime intelligence became permanent preservation.
Joined the Concord during the Civil War’s final years. Founded the Cobalt Claw from wartime intelligence work. Current status unknown.
Religious Orders & Institutions
Formalized bodies tied to the divine — some devoted to a single god, others spanning entire pantheons.
The Axel Ward — San Amsel
The Axel, or Axel Ward, is a district within San Amsel containing more than twenty temples and over fifty booths, shrines, and privacy tents dedicated to gods across multiple pantheons. It functions as the most concentrated site of public religious practice in Emmerick.
The most prominent temples in the Axel are dedicated to:
- Melora — The Wildmother, Goddess of Life and Nature
- Annam — The Allfather, God of Giants and Creation
- The Raven Queen — Goddess of Death and Protector of Life
- The Traveler — God of Balance and Chaos
- Erathis — Goddess of Civilization
- Selûne — Goddess of the Moon
- Mystra — Goddess of Magic and Creator of the Weave
- Ioun — Goddess of Knowledge and Fate
- Asgorath — God of All Dragons
- Tymora — Goddess of Good Luck and Fortune
Halruua
Halruua holds significant influence in Rauchstadt and along Emmerick's east coast. Its presence gives Rauchstadt a distinctly international character — a city shaped not only by Emmerick's domestic politics but by an external arcane tradition with its own interests and agenda.
Other Powers
Organizations known to exist whose full details have not yet been recorded.
Unrecorded Trade Bodies
Emmerick's status as an industrial and port nation implies the existence of trade guilds, merchant consortiums, and port authorities beyond what has been recorded here. Neu-Bergbau in particular, as a major trade port, likely has significant commercial organizations not yet documented.
Unrecorded Labor Organizations
The legacy of the Silent Winter Riots and the civil war suggests that organized labor has a presence in Emmerick — particularly in Grollen and Hauptort — but no formal labor guilds or worker organizations have yet been recorded.
Grimlit Mountain Pact
Grollen holds an exclusive mining pact with the dwarf colonies of the Grimlit Mountains, granting Grollen sole rights to mine within a fixed radius of the city. The dwarf colonies themselves — their governance, population, and relationship to Parliament — are not yet recorded.