Eberron campaign - Looking to flesh out Aurum plot

[TallerSpine]

I really like the idea of the Aurum, but many of the plots that involve them seem to have too much direct involvement. To me, an Aurum plot should be very visible, but their hands should be nearly undetectable. For a really good Aurum plot, the players may never figure out who is behind it.

So, I looked to the real world for inspiration. What are some of the most lucrative and evil enterprises in existence. Naturally, insurance companies come to mind. If anyone has an idea for how to turn insurance companies into an Aurum plot, by all means chime in. Next, I thought about less ubiquitous evils. There I thought of the gems of telemarketing and multilevel marketing. Naturally, telemarketing for a Radiant Cult in Sharn seemed to make a lot of sense for the Aurum. If anyone investigates too closely, they pin it all on the cultists. But, religion could be a source of a LOT of money! I just need to come up with the how.

Next, multilevel marketing. This can be attracting newcomers to a Radiant Cult or, perhaps even more evil, using the manifest zones to send throngs of Radiant Recruiters into Syrania, their sole purpose to convince even a single celestial a month to voluntarily fall to Sharn. Now, the possibilities here are endless! There's Celestial trafficking where they bring Radiant Idols all across Khorvaire (starting up franchise cults). There's trapping Celestials in baubles to sell to rich people. Buy your very own angel! Perhaps Celestials can be tricked into revealing enough about themselves to allow Planar Binding to work, and they negotiate Celestial favors.

So, how can the Aurum become "telemarketers"? And what other devious plots could use Celestials they have convinced to fall?

[Gildedragon]

Tip:
The Aurum is clearly based of the Illuminati/Free Mason shadow-government conspiracy theories.

work off any of those.

Twist: The Aurum isn't as far reaching as it claims to be. Rather The Aurum is actually several societies each calling themselves the Aurum.

So the PCs might end up hired by two different The Aurums; each representing a different geographic or ideological mercantile group.

Idea: Some want something from Cyre recovered. They want to build an alchemical eldritch device to create/transmute precious metals into/from base metals; corner the mithril or cyrite or purple mournlode market
... perhaps with the intent of moving one of the nations from a gold based coinage to a fiat currency.

[TallerSpine]

Tip:
The Aurum is clearly based of the Illuminati/Free Mason shadow-government conspiracy theories.

work off any of those.

Twist: The Aurum isn't as far reaching as it claims to be. Rather The Aurum is actually several societies each calling themselves the Aurum.

So the PCs might end up hired by two different The Aurums; each representing a different geographic or ideological mercantile group.

Idea: Some want something from Cyre recovered. They want to build an alchemical eldritch device to create/transmute precious metals into/from base metals; corner the mithril or cyrite or purple mournlode market
... perhaps with the intent of moving one of the nations from a gold based coinage to a fiat currency.

Where do you think I got my idea? I read articles about how the Insurance industry, telemarketing, and multi-level marketing are all being used by the Illuminati to control and/or undermine the government. Marketing is the way to affect massive numbers of people. They convince us what to buy. They weave their way into every business. And controlling religion? Religion is in constant conflict with government. Being able to essentially control people's religion gives you a ton of power.

The more I read about the Aurum, the more it seems that while they may be inspired by the Illuminati/Free Masonry, money and greed dominate their list of goals as much as (if not more than) political power. I like your ideas, as well. But, I think my ideas could make for a very interesting campaign -- provided I can flesh them out a little more.

[Gildedragon]

The more I read about the Aurum, the more it seems that while they may be inspired by the Illuminati/Free Masonry, money and greed dominate their list of goals as much as (if not more than) political power.

Thing is those two feed into each other.
One needs money to secure power to secure money...
Thus members of the aurum would be among those who have political power and the means/will to turn it into money (by blocking antimonopoly rules... or breaking monopolies)

Plot:
Aurum resents the dragon-marked houses' monopolies on certain goods; notably Sivis's hold on notarization and communication, and Orien's hold on the lightning rail and land routes.

lets focus on the anti-Sivis plot
Fast communication is key to good trading.
To get fast communication one must pay House Sivis
Reliable documentation is key to effective sales
To get documents verified one must pay House Sivis.
The Sivis' have a lot of fingers in the Aurum pie, and the Aurum has no checks on them.
To solve the problem the are looking into mundane counterfeit-proofing (v. high craft check paper, watermarks, ink that glows under certain conditions) while trying to create a crisis of trust re. Sivis marks.
They aren't so stupid as to try and counterfeit the stuff... but they've been buying and stockpiling blank Sivis-marked papers... possibly from an Aurum member that is a Sivis (and stands to gain from knocking the head of house Sivis down: either being able to set their own prices, engage in sort of insider trading, or become the new Sivis head).

Mundane things such as semaphore towers might be in the works.
Or something like the telegraph.

But how will the Aurum get to establish a test for these Sivis-Monopoly-busting tech?
What must happen to make the nations of khorvaire say that a dragonmarked house isn't allmighty in this regard.

Ideas:
Assassination of certain key S. figures (their replacements won't see the unforgeable paper or semaphores or telegraph as competition because Reasons)
Establishing a route between the labs in the mournlands or demon wastes (where a rare plant is being grown: maybe Faerun's Weirwood which glows in the presence of magical light)

The change of currency from gold to fiat also makes sense for them: gold currency grows less because of the chokepoint of gold mining. they want to embark on some huge trade missions... but the capital is tied up in metals.

[TallerSpine]

Lots of awesome ideas

You have great ideas, but none of them remotely relate to my ideas. Is that your way of saying that you think my ideas would not work well in a campaign?

[Gildedragon]

You have great ideas, but none of them remotely relate to my ideas. Is that your way of saying that you think my ideas would not work well in a campaign?

not quite.
the insurance one works as an arm of an Aurum plot. but Insurance Rackets are... more of a mob thing than a shadowy business council.
Insurance fraud'd be smallish potatoes for the collective group. Individuals might go for that sorta thing, but the group as a whole... well they'd be using insurance for its purpose: to protect their interests against meddling.

I been trying to think of a way to merge the things you talk about:

Aurum notices that some strange insurance policies are being taken out in a certain area of Sharn. Not too many with any one money-lender.
Couple agents of the aurum (copper ring sorts) that went to investigate have vanished.
No obvious link between the people that are taking the policies...
Secret link: the folks getting insurance for buildings are members of a radiant cult; radiant idol is trying to "get their wings back" or somesuch.
Members of cult know (or suspect) that their "god"s ascension will cause a cataclysm (maybe the last time the idol tried it it was the Glass Tower's collapse); and are trying to get rich off the imminent disaster.
Perhaps the landlords of these towers are members of the Aurum... and want to get rich off their fellow Aurumites.
PCs are brought in to investigate the strange disappearances, and what is causing people to insure their homes in that sector... especially since it looks so sturdy.


as to MLM: you need good production far beyond that of eberron... and crafting so many whatevers will put them in cannith's eye.
ponzi schemes: they are small for a multinational conspiracy... it is more of a straight up con than a conspiracy. bit... underwhelming for PCs to investigate.

if you want them engaged in some shady dealing: trying to sell drugs to the riedrans?

also telemarketing puts them in conflict with Sivis... and doesn't work that well when most folk don't have a telephone-equivalent, but need to go to a central station to send and receive their messages.
more useful than SELLING stuff to people is getting to listen in on their conversations (see: them controlling a "more secure" means of communication)

[TallerSpine]

not quite.
the insurance one works as an arm of an Aurum plot. but Insurance Rackets are... more of a mob thing than a shadowy business council.
Insurance fraud'd be smallish potatoes for the collective group. Individuals might go for that sorta thing, but the group as a whole... well they'd be using insurance for its purpose: to protect their interests against meddling.

I been trying to think of a way to merge the things you talk about:

Aurum notices that some strange insurance policies are being taken out in a certain area of Sharn. Not too many with any one money-lender.
Couple agents of the aurum (copper ring sorts) that went to investigate have vanished.
No obvious link between the people that are taking the policies...
Secret link: the folks getting insurance for buildings are members of a radiant cult; radiant idol is trying to "get their wings back" or somesuch.
Members of cult know (or suspect) that their "god"s ascension will cause a cataclysm (maybe the last time the idol tried it it was the Glass Tower's collapse); and are trying to get rich off the imminent disaster.
Perhaps the landlords of these towers are members of the Aurum... and want to get rich off their fellow Aurumites.
PCs are brought in to investigate the strange disappearances, and what is causing people to insure their homes in that sector... especially since it looks so sturdy.


as to MLM: you need good production far beyond that of eberron... and crafting so many whatevers will put them in cannith's eye.
ponzi schemes: they are small for a multinational conspiracy... it is more of a straight up con than a conspiracy. bit... underwhelming for PCs to investigate.

if you want them engaged in some shady dealing: trying to sell drugs to the riedrans?

also telemarketing puts them in conflict with Sivis... and doesn't work that well when most folk don't have a telephone-equivalent, but need to go to a central station to send and receive their messages.
more useful than SELLING stuff to people is getting to listen in on their conversations (see: them controlling a "more secure" means of communication)

I meant televangelism, not telemarketing. But, some form of pay to seed your future type of stuff. Maybe make deals with Radiant Idols where the Idol collects the crowd, then the Aurum collects lots of money from the unsuspecting cultists to "seed their future" with their god. In exchange, the Aurum promises to go door to door finding those who are interested in serving a living god. This could be where the multilevel marketing comes into play. So, the idols convince the cultists to pay tons of money, the Aurum takes the money and uses it to hire lots of people to find more cultists (keeping a sizable portion of the wealth for themselves). Of course, this eventually bleeds the existing cultists dry, so there is a great deal of turnover (which keeps the Aurum forever in business). Even as the Aurum succeeds in its promise to bring more cultists, other cultists are being expelled from the cult due to failing to provide sufficient funds to the cause. While serving a single Radiant Idol would generate relatively small gains, serving all of them in this way would add up to tons and tons of money.

I think this may be a workable idea, but still needs... something.