Felarya Criminal (under)World

Shady Knight wrote:

No, no specifics.  There is no specific for anything else concerning Negav, why should this one be given special treatment?  Having to constantly update it to add new highly specific crime is highly inefficient.

Nyaha wrote:

Really, Shady? I've seen you complain numerous times that articles in the wiki are too general, and now that you have a chance to have one that's specific, you're turning it down?

I'm also going to call you out on this, Shady. Your post is essentially just there to say "it sucks", before moving on to something else. I find it ironic that a post calling for more specifics, isn't specific about anything itself...

So if I'm going to take you seriously, I'd love it if you could critique me properly, and suggest things to add/change.

I'm sorry, I acted way too rashly. When I saw the skeleton in spoilers, I was expecting the checklist and didn't even bother to check it, so when I actually looked at it, it wasn't what I imagined. So yeah, I'm a dumbfuck, you can all ready the rotten tomatoes.

That said, I would condense the thing a little. A lot of little factoids you brought up were unnecessary or just plain common sense, like the mafias bring in illegal goods.  Everyone knows that's what they do, so no need to bring it back up. Also, bringing up how assassin guilds work is a little too specific. I think writers who want to bring up assassin guilds should be given freedom of how they work since they're clandestine guilds and wouldn't really have standardize method of operation. Unless, of course, there was only one guild.

"Negav attracts shady people from many worlds, wishing to con others, and exploit the seemingly lackluster security that exists within it.  Many are simple pickpockets or thieves who take advantage of the city's crowded streets to steal and then swiftly vanish within the sea of pedestrians, others come to sell illegal and/or fake goods, or get involved with the Black Market (making it a hyper link to Negav's Lower Market would be a good idea), and some are hired guns willing to take any dirty job, such as kidnapping and even assassination, as long as they are getting paid handsomely for their services.  Gangs exist within Negav to many degrees, but by far the most influential and profitable ones are the various Mafia-like groups that control the district where the police has the least influence, such as the Cremona Maze and The Pit.  People who live within an area controlled by such groups are forced to pay protection fees or the boss won't be able to "guarantee their safety".  The trafficking of individuals and tinies are also big clandestine industries in Negav.  Some people capture human sized predators and smuggle them inside the city via rumored secret entrances or other arcane tricks so they can be sold into slavery to corrupted nobles and crime lords."

Great job with the skeleton, it's going to be very helpful  
And we don't have to enumerate every single crimes I think, just mention the general ones to give a good idea of what criminality in Negav look like in general ( and on what it differs from other cities in others worlds )

Are there any crimes that could only happen in a place like Negav? If there are, should we mention them in the article or let writers think of them on their own?

Well... there is what I would call interdimensional smuggling. It's like smuggling something in or out of a country, only it's in or out of a world, and since Negav would be such a popular pit stop for interdimensional travelers, you get the idea. The item itself doesn't even need to be illegal in Negav, which would be one way of sneaking technically illegal goodies in the city, just that the smugglers are taking advantage of the conveniently placed dimensional gate.

Then how exactly would the group get the goods into another world if it's still illegal? I mean that idea sounds pretty cool, and I'd like to think it'd work, but I'm just not sure...

Bael, that's the whole point of smuggling, "the illegal transportation of objects or people, such as out of a building, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations." How they would get the item there is not important. If you're wondering how they do it via Negav's gate, there are two things to consider. 1. Negav is more preoccupied with stuff that enters the city, so whatever is leaving the city isn't their problem. 2. There are many ways someone can transport illegal goods from Negav to another world and vice versa. Taking the Negav gate directly is only one of them.

Archmage_Bael wrote:

Then how exactly would the group get the goods into another world if it's still illegal? I mean that idea sounds pretty cool, and I'd like to think it'd work, but I'm just not sure...

By the gate at Ur-Sagol, noone is gaurding that right? It would be dangerous to get there of course, but at least it gives something like 'The Felaryan express' a decent reason to actually go there (given that we have lately dicussed that the Felayan express is pointless since people don't need a airship to travel gate to gate when they could just use one gate to get to another) But since Smugglers can't use the offical negav gate out of fear of being caught, they actually have a good reason to fly to Ur-Sagol.

Would turn the Felaryan express into a more 'Smuggler trade ship' but it makes the idea of a ship going back and forth to an ruined city more plausible in my opinon.

What says they can't use other ways? Sure, the gate itself is heavily defended in case something unwanted passes through it, but the wording itself is pretty vague. Given the usual meaning of "something unwanted" in Felarya, it usually comes down to a big and dangerous monster. As far as defenses go, all we know is that it can quickly shut down so that it can't be accessed, which gives more weight to the argument that it's more preoccupied with nasty beasties coming OUT of the gate. In any event, that alone won't stop smugglers. A good smuggler is able to get around security and get their product through using a little something called "creativity". With the vague wording of what security is around there, it wouldn't be far fetched that some smugglers can spot a flaw in security and figuratively get their crap past the radar.

Furthermore, the two gates still aren't the only way. One can also use magic to go to another world. Yes, opening a portal to another world is high-tier magic, but it's not impossible, and what says there aren't crooked magic users in Negav willing to offer their services for that kind of thing in exchange for cash? Heck, let's tie it in with the mafia, perhaps the reason they are so successful and difficult to bring down is because they have powerful mages among their ranks. Or perhaps the boss of one of those gangs is himself a powerful mage. Negav's and Ur-Sagol's gate aren't the only way to jump from world to world, and they shouldn't be the only way.

But to touch on the Felarya Express again, you miss the point entirely about why the idea shouldn't work. This thing, far more often than not, gets attacked and both its crew and passengers then die a horrible death. Given the ludicrously low odds of survival, nobody in their right minds, be they law-abiding citizens or criminals, would ever use it. The company's stock would plummet into nothingness because of it, and the poor reputation would forever sully the name the people (in-universe of course) who came up with that asinine idea. The Felarya Express is a cheap vore idea that got way too much recognition, i.e. any recognition at all, and should not even exist. It is a stupid and asinine idea, both in-universe and out-of-universe, period.

Okay well I think that's being a little intense with calling it a bad idea (I agree though, I never thought that thing was a great idea. It paints more of a target and makes oneself more vulnerable than being on the ground for the price of getting there faster maybe).

I'm asking how they would get the goods from one world to another, because why would they go to Negav. I'm sure another world would monitor ingoing and outgoing goods and people, so using a gate at all from any world to another is going to make you get instantly caught, that's the problem. Say you do get it to Felarya, then you have to take another gate to get it out again, into the world you're trying to monitor, which will definitely have security to detect you, putting you in harms way at least twice. It just doesn't make much sense to me, I cannot get my head around how it'll work :/

Bael, what you described sounds an awful lot like what we call "Airport Security" here on Earth, and just like Airport Security, or other forms of securities for that matter, it's never absolutely foolproof. Yes, security at airport or I guess even regular ports, do catch criminals who try to smuggle things one way or other. However, such security is never and will never be absolutely foolproof. There will always be the few rare cases where someone somehow successfully managed to get their goods through. How do they do it? Well, we don't, that's the whole point. If we knew how they did, they wouldn't have managed to make it through in the first place, now would they?