Felarya Criminal (under)World

Anyways, I would think that Negav's official definition of "Crime" would be really anything that could potentially be against the Magiocrat's bests interests.

"Some poor guy got robbed on the street? Oh boo hoo, cry me a river!"

"A well respected ally of the magiocrats got robbed on the street? Send the police force out now and nail the bastards who did this!"

I disagree with that.  Even if it was a joke, I didn't find it funny at all.  I think typical crimes like larceny, arson, homicide, and so on would be considered a crime on whoever was the victim, not just the top brass.

I am simply working with the material I am given, I can't exactly remember the last time an "definitely authoritarian" Government actually 'cared' for it's people in the general sincerest form of the word.

I also can not remember any time in Felarya fiction where Negav's government was held in a positive light. I am merely going by the charactersation that all Felarya material (including the wiki) points to.

Da Wiki wrote:

Magiocrats know their rules on Negav cannot be too tough and must remain bearable, unless they want to have their heads on a pike. Negavians have revolted many times in the past...

I'm pretty sure that if the justice system was ludicrously skewed, their pretty little heads would all be on pikes for everyone to see.

"Cannot be too tough" is a bit vague though isn't it? that could just mean that the police will have some restraint and won't resort to police bruteality and forced searches, it doesn't necessarily mean they will look into every crime that happens.

Well I don't think he means *that* skewed. I still get the impression that Negav is still very corrupt, and the Magiocrats get away with a lot due to certain reasons.

Still, the "what" question is very important. What the central exploits for crimes are. I imagine rogue mages might be hired or just go to a criminal organization for more protection from the investigators. For that matter, the investigators seem to have this intense anti-magic gear that makes mages utterly helpless against them. I'd like to know how those can be combated, because nothing has a weakness, and the impression I get from them is rather strong...

Also for Crime guys to flourish in Negav like the impression I get from the wiki, they need to be able to survive so security and armed forces don't come down hard on them - so that they can remain hidden, and be enough of a pain in the arse for it to not be entirely worth the while to hunt down fully.

...Unless of course we get a Magiocrat intent on cleaning up the streets, rallying support, and with every person killed for said purpose, it creates zealots, and spirals, but that's me getting silly.

Actually, no. Let me bring this up:

Da Wiki wrote:

Once forbidden by the rulers of Negav, the Jaslow Arena's activity remained clandestine for years, under the command of the now defunct Amundis Jaslow, former head of one of the big criminal group in Negav. The Arena started from a a hidden room with a pit under a tavern and thrived, growing bigger and bigger. It became popular to the point where the authorities thought closing it would cause too much of a backlash and decided to legalize its existence. [...] Interestingly enough, the entrance to the arena is free. Magiocrats seem to believe the intense and sometimes gruesome spectacle provided is a good way to canalize the anger, agressivity and frustration of the Negavians people, and that the access to it should be encouraged, not hindered.

From your perspective, if the Magiocrats cared wholly and entirely about themselves, they would have closed the arena when it was still just an underground fighting pit anyway, regardless of complaints. That shows that they do indeed stuff for the citizens. The only real moment in the wiki that portrayed their rule in a negative light was that line about how bad mouthing them is unhealthy... which I brought up as an inconsistency in another thread with the part I quoted in my previous post.

Furthermore, where do you pull your sources that the rule of the Magiocrat is Cyberpunk levels of unbearable? If it's from writers, you must remember that writers are sadly an unreliable source. The wiki doesn't outright state that the council members are evil. As far as we know, only two come close to it, Thelandros and Lesona. Even then, just cause two of them have more than two problems, doesn't mean the other council members are like stereotypical grubby, shifty-eyed CEO's. Of the other two council members we know of, Gramon's description is that of an all-around nice guy whom, I quote: "does not like backstabbing people, even foes". Seluvine has dark and troubled past, to say the least, and one think that we learned is that she enjoys teaching far more than she thought at first. She displays odd behavior at times, but it's really her being eccentric.

Also, keep in mind that there are really two layers of the Magiocracy: The council members, which I guess you could say are the president and a bunch of vice-presidents, and then there are magiocrats, which are essentially the staff members who answer to the president and the vice-presidents. If you're wondering yourself why that isn't clear, that's because the wiki itself is unclear on a LOT of things.

Archmage_Bael wrote:

Still, the "what" question is very important. What the central exploits for crimes are. I imagine rogue mages might be hired or just go to a criminal organization for more protection from the investigators. For that matter, the investigators seem to have this intense anti-magic gear that makes mages utterly helpless against them. I'd like to know how those can be combated, because nothing has a weakness, and the impression I get from them is rather strong...

You can ask cauldron on that since he made them, how ever they're not going to be called "The investigators" any longer.

Archmage_Bael wrote:

Also for Crime guys to flourish in Negav like the impression I get from the wiki, they need to be able to survive so security and armed forces don't come down hard on them - so that they can remain hidden, and be enough of a pain in the arse for it to not be entirely worth the while to hunt down fully.

From what it sounds like to me, Negav crime world is still going to be playing the games of "The cops and the robbers." To me however, it seems there can be no single clear definition to how these guys live away from security. Since just like Darkone said It's in a fantasy setting ( More so a Science Fantasy setting then anything because the biggest security for the city are run by a bunch of technology advocates.) To really answer the question, this calls for an answer of it being and depending on the person presenting the imagination towards it. Yes i can imagine corrupt nobles keeping some of the higher people in check, Meanwhile I can imagine the the other definition of "Noble" people going after them like your silly comment. Also who saids the magiocrats are the only ones that can rally major support? Negav as a lot of charismatic political entities good and bad then just them that can make quite an effect. this back to the question of "this is how criminals" can survive." Connections and allies and high places which is what most organized ones do. Real world example which can apply here is something like this. Maybe a Noble who runs a district that doesn't like seeing weapons much supplying said criminals. You can even imagine those said criminals being associated with the adventures guild or the NMRB to obtain that kind of resource. Really though, what could be nice is if we got a wiki page saying how criminal life suffices in "Felarya" and maybe make uo a few factions of syndicates and/or a consortium guild for it.

(EDIT: Posted the hastily and blindly with the mouse cursor. Shady's post above is also a good example of what I talked about though. So read above, then both, and compare for imaginative possibilities ^_^")

I dunno, it just doesn't feel right to me, for some reason, if the magiocracy were all do gooders. Especially since I do remember reading somewhere that they rule with a sort of iron fist. I guess they're just all nice people now with quirks?

I still cant get my head around that. I really can't, I'm trying, but its just not...compatible with how I've seen the city for years and years. To me Negav has always seemed like a gritty place, comfortable enough, but a really hard place to live, and the leadership doesn't really help in that light either (in comparison to how I've imagined it). Like maybe they were good but got corrupted by the power - but are still very efficient in their rule. Also, why are there no nekos on the council? I know there's massive prejudice against them, but I've always thought there'd be a few incredibly rich ones that hold onto their power, and probably would have leadership positions, at least one in the magiocrats due to their extensive involvement in Negav's history. Without the nekos setting up that fishing village, and prospering, there would be no Negav in the first place, especially given King Kerume, who ruled for 700 years or something ridiculous like that.

Spoiler:

That being said, the point of this thread is to flesh out the criminal side of the city, not talk about how good or bad the leadership is.

Well the thing is that I don't really see the Magiocrats as evil (except in cases some of the members clearly are) I just see them as indifferent from anyone who isn't living inside the middle Tier.

I mean, they are an authoritarian government, which is defined as...

"a governmental or political system, principle, or practice in which individual freedom is held as completely subordinate to the power or authority of the state, centered either in one person or a small group that is not constitutionally accountable to the people."

If they actually cared about the people than themselves, then shoulden't they be an Democratic or an Republican government?

And I am pretty sure that 'Magriocrat' is play on 'Aristocrat', who are a class of people historically well known to be eliteist and ignorant of the problems of the avarage man.

Authoritarian is not synonymous with an evil overlord. For example, did you know that "Dictator" didn't use to have the negative meaning it has today. Also, Bael, where have I said that the magiocrats are goody two shoes? There is actually little information on the council members' rule and how iron-fisted it is, and as I have brought for the third time now, the old entry for them, which got shoved into the Faction sub-article, paint them as evil, but in Negav's new entry, it states that they can't have an oppressive regime, or else it's gonna be the Great Destruction all over again, and the citizens don't really care for them personally, all they really want is the Isolon Eye to keep them safe from the man-eating giants outside.

I think it would be wise if we dropped the magiocrats for the remainder of this discussion. There is not enough info about them and what info there is is vague and inconsistent.

Yes yes please I already said a couple times now I'd rather focus on the criminal world in Negav and flesh that out as much as possible.

I want to say a few things but wont for the sake of stopping the argument. (It just doesn't sit right, maybe because of that old entry you mentioned...)

Shady Knight wrote:

I think it would be wise if we dropped the magiocrats for the remainder of this discussion.  There is not enough info about them and what info there is is vague and inconsistent.

Good idea, we were kinda getting off topic anyway.

So, back on crime. Well one idea I always did have knocking about was an 'The magical blackmarket' where extremely powerful versions of magical items such as spellbooks, scrolls, potions and enchantmented jewerly that Magiocrats have tried to ban (for whatever reason, depending on the effects of the magic) are sold.

Given that most traders won't get past the gates with these items, they will therefore either resort to smuggling them in somehow, or simply have a go at producing the wares within the city itself. They simply get a place, put a business front onto it to throw off suspicion, gather the matierals they need and once produced they can sell them straight onto the street without having to pass any of the gate checkpoints.

At least until the Negav secuirty forces get wise and start employing undercover agents to pose as buyers and cacth them in the act, and the usual cat and mouse game between lawmen and criminals kicks off.

Of course some traders might opt to operate just outside the city, cacthing travelers as they leave the city. Technically it shoulden't be illegal there as long as they are outside Negav's jurisdiction. But the chances of profit would be slimmer.

A black market is black because it trades illegal goods, or trades the goods using illegal methods. Or both, in many cases. If there is one, and they obtain illegal goods, say, from off world, they'd need to sneak them in somehow indeed.

So lets just assume that there are multiple undocumented entry points into the city. We should probably work on that first, if we can get a post documenting the black market system in negav, and include smuggling, providing assumed information on illegal entry points, like old access ways, sewers, or anything else we might be able to imagine, and keep them few in number. (So Negav is still largely impossible to sneak in without being savvy to the ways already)

DarkOne wrote:

Anyways, I would think that Negav's official definition of "Crime" would be really anything that could potentially be against the Magiocrat's bests interests.

"Some poor guy got robbed on the street? Oh boo hoo, cry me a river!"

"A well respected ally of the magiocrats got robbed on the street? Send the police force out now and nail the bastards who did this!"

Actually I'm going to disagree with this. Much like how not every Negavian Police Officer is corrupt I believe some Magiocrats wouldn't hold a grudge. Especially not with a mere ally. Now if it was a member of the their House? More likely they'd want some kind of revenge but some may just say "eh well a little money is nothing. I got gobs of it." then curse the poor bloke. XD

Pendragon\ wrote:

Oh, SURE, just assume the nekos are behind it. No wonder felines have a hard time finding work in Negav. For all we know, those tinies could be shipping themselves in and selling off their own kind as labor, then they blame the nekos and instigate massive racial wars.

IT'S A CONSPIRACY, I TELL YOU.

o.O I wouldn't put it past them but I have to say it'd be a hard thing to ship tinies into the city unoticed. I mean first you have to convice some tinies living in the wild that they have a better chance in Negav than they do outside in the wild. XD Good luck there. Second you have to somehow get them to all fit in a box or something that wouldn't nescesarily be obvious or too suspicious then you have to deliver it! O_O; A lot of work for even a large organization of tinies. There'd have to at least be a middle man who's a regular sized being I say.

The Assassin Guy wrote:

I guess there should be some secret passages only the higher magiocrates know about. Probably the saidakins have a quick way out of the city that only they can use (you know, stealthy and stuff *-*)

Yes they do! They call them portals! XD No but seriously I imagine they have special clearance from Lesona so they can come and go as they please.

Shady Knight wrote:

I don't think anyone can really tell you how a criminal organization is run cause that would require, you know, being a criminal, and that would be bad.

Are you saying the people who make the Star Wars DK books are really criminals?! How dare you- *See's the price of a new book of nothing but concep[t art for fourty bucks plus tax.* ....you may have a point. O.o

Quote :

o.O I wouldn't put it past them but I have to say it'd be a hard thing to ship tinies into the city unoticed.

As long as you have the right connections it's more than possible. The Mafia RL can pull off alot of illegal activities, sometimes in broad daylight, and the cops can't really do anything because of power held by their respective mafian godfathers. It's also why I believe that the homicide rate in Negav would be quite low, since crime rings actually do their best to avoid killing people, so they don't leave a trail of blood for police to follow, or grudges for people to follow up on. I could see people going missing (in laymans terms: being thrown to the wild to get eaten) but outside of that I couldn't imagine anything gruesome being pulled off.

I think the Lower Market is more or less the city's black market.  It does say it sells varied and often illegal goods. Of course, it would hardly be the only place where people would sell illegal goods.  While on the subject of selling, I do believe swindling would be a common crime in Negav.  We already have Gunther whose entire character pretty much revolves entirely around conning new meats for his own interest, but with an area like the Grand Market District, there would be charlatans everywhere.

Usually The black market sells in in middleclass to lowmiddle class. (to the covert and discrete poor as well) to obtain valuable goods. Why you may ask? What better people to sell it too then people that are well off, and in turn they Sell their goods for a reasonable price. It happens a lot with 1st-2nd world countries. (which is kind of negav is in societal view. More so of the latter). So i expect the middle tier to be very shady but offer better goods while the low tiers and the underground are more loose with their selling but are more suspected to be found if you looked for what ever Item you want to obtain. Not saying the High tiers are excluded but it's going to be hard to find fraud in their because they have High amounts of power,resources,and manipulation to back their deals and put it in a lot of corners and shadows. As for the market Areas. Do we know which ones are in the map of negav and what aren't but are considered canon?

We know there's the Grand Market District in the Middle Tier which is pretty much the place to go if you want to find anything that isn't a necessity for a decent livelihood. We already know there's going to be conmen mixed with honest merchants there. The Lower Tier is a little muddy since it's essentially one giant market that cater specifically to adventurers, like inns, taverns, weapon shops and all that stuff. Since it's on the surface, I imagine most shops are subject to Negav's law, since good deal of the Negavians who do live there make a life off of the adventurers. That said, there's also the Cremona Maze, which I think is where you're very likely to meet guys with lots of goodies in their trenchcoat.

I've also noticed in the Wiki that the 'The Lit Ciggy Bar' also serves as a Brothel, but there is absolutely no menction whenever or not if it being a Brothel is actually legal or not. Given that it's surposed to be "The most popular bar (And Brothel) in Negav," it doesn't really sound like it's something they are trying to hide and therefore the law would know about it.

So I am assuming Brothels are legal and 'The Lit Ciggy Bar' has a license for it?"

The Lit Ciggy Bar was an idea made by Silenteric back when he was relevant around here. It was made as a plainly obvious joke whenever Eric wrote rumors in the rumor thread, but Karbo decided to add it in as an actual establishment, for reasons that will forever escape me, the made-up characters Eric made, even though they were never meant to be a serious thing. In fact, there's some more juicy inconsistency with that bar. It's located in the Middle Tier, the tier that's mostly resided with permanent residents citizens, yet it's made of "adventurers, drunkards, thugs and wannabe heroes". With how Negav is divided nowadays, those people should be frequenting bars in the Lower Tier. I know you can freely go from tier to tier, but you would think bars in the Lower Tier would be the kind of places that would appeal specifically to them? It's important that I note this because the Lit Ciggy Bar was conceived long before the idea of Negav being divided into tier, thus is more proof of new ideas being haphazardly patched over the old ones without making them fit.

Then you got the Galexia Bizarre From the mercenaries thread I made awhile back. Which you might as well call market for soldiers or anyone that willing to buy wide variants of firearms and close combat/melee type weaponry.

Shady Knight wrote:

With how Negav is divided nowadays, those people should be frequenting bars in the Lower Tier. I know you can freely go from tier to tier, but you would think bars in the Lower Tier would be the kind of places that would appeal specifically to them? It's important that I note this because the Lit Ciggy Bar was conceived long before the idea of Negav being divided into tier, thus is more proof of new ideas being haphazardly patched over the old ones without making them fit.

There's always the grandfather effect (not paradox) It will obviously take time to integrate this into the newer concepts we've been making up along the way. But again that's what the wiki suggestion and other stuff is for. Just keep catching them and saying it needs a change with the new canon coming in. We're getting older and noticing that things that are silly are wrecking the lore with out good reason of implementation. Karbo knows this well now, It's a matter of "fixing our past sins" sort of deal at this point .

I think I was a little blunt with that post. I'm sorry for that.

Would I also be correct in the assumption that this also applies to the Felaryan tourism guild? Whom's guide booklets are specifically writen to trick people into coming over to a dangerous world and the guild has actually had visitors complain about it.

Which is another thing that gave me the impression that the Negav government didn't care about the law on the streets and simply allowed their entire tourism industry to be ruled by charlatans. Either that or Malki Greenbeard is so good at twisting words, that not even the Negav Government and their all their top lawyers can argue against him.

It would seem like, at least to me, that Negav does have many laws in place, but they're designed with intentional loopholes for exploitation. Without me bringing in the whole taxable goods and services, as well as tracking all that, and their economy, which is boosted by crime anyway, and they're likely to be aware of that. I'm sure prostitution is legal as well, for that matter.