Any ideas on how to improve on the "Pearl Mafia"

[deuxhero]

We all know that identify costs 100 gold worth of pearls. I thought of deconstructing the magic item tax a little, but could use some help fine tuning it.

Here is what I have so far.

The Pearl Mafia (who really need a better name first of all) are a group of intelligent aquatic races, such as mermaids, who hold control of the majority of the worlds pearls, as only they can harvest them with ease, even if someone else could reach them, they have a hard time harvesting them when dead. Because the pearl is one of the most, if not the most commonly used expensive material component, control of the pearls is obviously valuable.

The Pearls were said to be at one time a legitimate "harvest and sell" organization. They apparently grew at the start of the Age of Magic* as a group of aquatic races who saw the need for pearls (due to all the new magic items being created, sold and then looted) as their opportunity to get out of their current insignificance in the world.


Eventually an enterprising Loremaster in a dock town started selling his identifcation services (Greater Lore) . The Pearls were threatened, not only was the man doing the IDing without pearls (bad for profits), but he did it faster (Greater Lore is not noted as taking any action, so it is a standard action per the RAW) The loremaster soon triped and fell down his stairs, apparently unable to use feather fall as he had his mouth full with food. This was the first of many accidents that became people who avoided paying for item identification.

People who avoid using pearls when IDing items are enemies of The Pearls. At first the offender is mearly asked to pay for the pearls hir avoided using and will leave if refused. If refused however, the offender will be attacked at a latter date by thugs under The Pearls control (said thugs include hired surface races and amphibious races such as water gensai).

Organizationally, The Pearls are a "franchise" with each branch being independently owned and operated by it's own hiarchy. This started as devission among the groups in the alliances (Merman get this area, Water Naga get that area) then among heirs (The Zyqxuwy family gets this sub section, the Sdrawkcab family gets that sub-section) then among successors (a boss dies and leaves control of half his area each to his two sons) and over time the various "ancestors" on the tree have become meaningless. While terf war exists between branchss exists, The Pearls as a whole prefer to "not to **** where they eat".


* The Age of Magic is an era when casters started to create spells instead of "find" them thanks to an increased understanding of spell casting. Still working on the full bits.

[JeminiZero]

Clerics with access to the certain domains (Magic and Oracle I think) can cast Identify as a divine spell, which does not consume Pearl (as Pearl is explicitly an arcane material component).

Depending on your setting, and which Dieties grant these domains, entire Churches, or even alliance of Churches (especially if they are Good-ish) might concievably decide that something should be done to stop the sytematic abuse of the Pearl Trade. And with their free identifies, they are in a position to do so, simply by offering identify at reasonable prices, causing the black market pearl trade to collapse.

Fighting an entire church (and especially a Good-ish type church with strong local support) would concievably be extremely difficult, for the Pearl Mafia.

Aside from that, the other thing to consider is the farming of pearls. If the black market price of pearls becomes sufficiently high, it might become profitable to artificially farm pearls for use or sale.

The most likely candidate to decide this might be the Mages Guild, since they already require a supply of pearls for magical experiments. They also possess (or can reaserch) the necessary know how and are concievably powerful enough to oppose the Pearl Mafia (imagine an entire guild of paranoid wizards...). Although any other organization with an eye for profit and sufficient chutzpah to go up against Merfolk Mobsters might also try to pull this off.

In fact with so many prospective enemies lining up to undercut the Pearl Mafia, they might form alliances with one another. When you choose to strangle the supply of a fundamental magical reagent, expect some very powerful enemies to try and fight you.

[T.G. Oskar]

In fact with so many prospective enemies lining up to undercut the Pearl Mafia, they might form alliances with one another. When you choose to strangle the supply of a fundamental magical reagent, expect some very powerful enemies to try and fight you.

Just make sure you don't anger the Diamond Mafia. They are known for having Marut soulbreakers. Even the Pearl Mafia fears them.

[Grumman]

The idea of a sea-dweller's Pearl Cartel is fine, but I agree with JeminiZero about the rest. You're talking about extorting money from all the world's most powerful people and attacking them on their home turf, where you are at your weakest, if they refuse. That's not a business plan, that's suicide.

[Johel]

The idea of a sea-dweller's Pearl Cartel is fine, but I agree with JeminiZero about the rest. You're talking about extorting money from all the world's most powerful people and attacking them on their home turf, where you are at your weakest, if they refuse. That's not a business plan, that's suicide.

On the other hand, nothing prevent the Pearl Mafia to simply own most of the pearl harvesting business because :

• Most of the oister-friendly waters are the territory of some legitimate Mermaid Kingdom. Most ground-based nations won't mess with underwater nations on their own turf (lot's of spells can't be cast underwater).
• Anybody who set a oister-business is offered a join venture. If they accept, they get the know-how but the Pearl Mafia get a share of the profits. If they refuse, oisters tend to die off before giving a single pearl.
• Any powerful organisation which set an oister-business is victim of accidents (that's it, you don't have to attack the owner. Just ruin the harvest).

A Mafia, because it's not one big monolitic organisation, is difficult to eradicate. Because their activities generate profits quickly, they can restart from scratches, even if under a different leadership. They'll use a Neutral Evil-style mentality (Law's useful as a shield so we try to respect it but we don't need to always play by the rules...Just don't get caught).

For these reasons, most Lawful organisations won't move against it. And most high-level casters will just ignore what's basically "mere thugs".

The "Knowledge Churches" might be a problem but if somebody isn't ready to pay the 100 gp to identify a magical item, he's definitely low-level so you can simply kill the customer rather than the clerics. After a while, people will rather pay 100 gp for pearls than risking their lifes. There could even be a unofficial ban of some sort like "You enter their temple, you're dead this week. The Pearls will look after it". Eventually, these churches will just go underground, run low in funds and followers. Easy target.

[lord_khaine]

The "Knowledge Churches" might be a problem but if somebody isn't ready to pay the 100 gp to identify a magical item, he's definitely low-level so you can simply kill the customer rather than the clerics. After a while, people will rather pay 100 gp for pearls than risking their lifes. There could even be a unofficial ban of some sort like "You enter their temple, you're dead this week. The Pearls will look after it". Eventually, these churches will just go underground, run low in funds and followers. Easy target.

The problem is here that you both risk offending some seriously powerfull adventures, because they for 1 reason or another chose the cheap option, and at the same time more or less declare war on a entire Religion.
I would give them 1-2 weeks at most before some individualts with far far to much power and time to spare starts waging a war against the pearl, either because they are bored, insultet or hired by their church.


And this is without mentioning that Psions can identify items without pearls as well.

[JeminiZero]

A Mafia, because it's not one big monolitic organisation, is difficult to eradicate. Because their activities generate profits quickly, they can restart from scratches, even if under a different leadership. They'll use a Neutral Evil-style mentality (Law's useful as a shield so we try to respect it but we don't need to always play by the rules...Just don't get caught).

For these reasons, most Lawful organisations won't move against it. And most high-level casters will just ignore what's basically "mere thugs".

The problem with this is that they are less a Mafia and more of a Cartel. Their activities (Pearl supply control) are only profitable if they can control a large amount of the supply to start with. Otherwise, whatever supply they don't control (notably other Merfolk Kingdoms which refuse to enter the scam) will simply undercut them.

Also, in D&D, lawful means obeying a set of rules, but there is no one universal set of rules that everyone obeys. Each kingdom has its own rules, and even then, sufficiently large trans-kingdom organizations (like Churches and Paranoid Mages Guild) might not adhere to them.

E.g. While the local kingdom law might require at least 2 eyewitnesses or somesuch before verifying guilt, the Church enforcers only need the nod of their High Priest of Knowledge (who knows everything about the Pearl Mafia via divination), before sending in Shadowbane Inquisitor Deathsquads to wipe out the entire clan overnight.

[Jack_Simth]

And this is without mentioning that Psions can identify items without pearls as well.

Cloistered Clerics also get Identify (as a 1st level spell, no less), and don't need the pearl as it's an Arcane Material Component.

For that matter, a Wand of Identify from a Cleric with the Magic Domain (2nd level spell, caster level 3) markets at 4,500 gp. The pearls to cast the spell fifty times market at 5,000 gp (and this is not including paying the spellcaster). As spell-trigger items, anyone with Identify on their class list can use the wand of Identify without issue. Now, a Wand of Identify from a Cloistered Cleric is really cheap - 750 gp - but we're not going there.

But yes - unless they get the churches in on it, or are sufficiently powerful to bowl them over, this is unlikely to work.

[Johel]

@lord_khaine
Not familiar with Psion rules. But the Psions themselves, much like Sorcerers, aren't your everyday townsfolk. They are rare and if they "abuse" their power, they can become easy targets precisely because they are mainly isolated individuals. As long as the Psions keep the ID private and small-scale, nobody'll complain. But if one makes a business out of it, soon or later, the Pearl Mafia will ask for a share or simply shut the business by slitting throats. Better spend 10.000 gp to kill a guy than lose more because this guy's doing tens of ID a week.

@JeminiZero :
Yep, that's definitely more of a cartel, thanks. So the local branches will have connection between each others for supply.

For the lawful-thing, don't forget we are talking about invading a legitimate kingdom, with people who aren't all thugs. While I agree some organisations won't hesitate, that's bad publicity to attack another nation because you wanted some criminal to be extraded. US won't invade Columbia because of drug cartels, nor will they openly police Columbian territory. They send special-ops teams, finance paramilitaries and the likes, all of this with official or unofficial agreement from the columbian governement.

But here, the mermaid nations just won't agree, period. Murder of the Pearls, if your men are caught, can basically means diplomatic incident. Also, oister and pearls being a legitimate business, unlike drugs, you can't just ruin crops and invoke moral highground : you'll just harm the economy of a fellow nation which, while home of criminals, isn't criminal itself. Corrupt, yes. But not criminal, as they are trading perfectly legal items, using perfectly legal trade roads (the Pearls won't care about taxes, as long as it's profitable).

Trans-kingdom organizations can be a problem but they would have to hit underwater because, as long as they control the supply, the Pearls won't care about how many "surfacedweller" mercenaries they'll lose. Said mercenaries are basically franchise so they can be replace easily.

[Foryn Gilnith]

Providing the church is neutral, why do they care? The only obligations the church has is to its god and to the god's followers. The god's followers are being killed. One of the two sole important things to your organization is being undermined. Retaliate, and hit them where it hurts. If the merfolk start a war because we killed a few mass-murderers... We can organize a crusade against those racist land-haters later. They'll get what they deserve from the war they started. Ruining crops is for chums without magic - any church with access to Identify from domains can divine for strategic strikes.

But this doesn't invalidate the Pearl Mafia by any means. They're powerful enough to start wars. What more do you want?

[Omegonthesane]

But here, the mermaid nations just won't agree, period. Murder of the Pearls, if your men are caught, can basically means diplomatic incident. Also, oister and pearls being a legitimate business, unlike drugs, you can't just ruin crops and invoke moral highground : you'll just harm the economy of a fellow nation which, while home of criminals, isn't criminal itself. Corrupt, yes. But not criminal, as they are trading perfectly legal items, using perfectly legal trade roads (the Pearls won't care about taxes, as long as it's profitable).

Why not? The Pearls are themselves bad publicity for the mermaid nations, because they're a criminal organisation.

Trans-kingdom organizations can be a problem but they would have to hit underwater because, as long as they control the supply, the Pearls won't care about how many "surfacedweller" mercenaries they'll lose. Said mercenaries are basically franchise so they can be replace easily.

But they might not get many mercs if they piss off the wrong people and their mercs suddenly start dying.

I see the following fate as inevitable for the Pearls if they go on long enough:
"We have noticed you are chain-binding efreeti to wish for pearls, then giving them away at the market. We don't thi-
"Finger of Death. Create Undead. Greater Familicide!"
"...You... you just killed the whole Mermaid race!"
"That and nothing less is the price of screwing with me."

[deuxhero]

Why not? The Pearls are themselves bad publicity for the mermaid nations, because they're a criminal organisation.

Note that the pearls are pretty much the only reason the surface dwellers have even heard of most of the undersea nations.

[Johel]

I see the following fate as inevitable for the Pearls if they go on long enough:
"We have noticed you are chain-binding efreeti to wish for pearls, then giving them away at the market. We don't thi-
"Finger of Death. Create Undead. Greater Familicide!"
"...You... you just killed the whole Mermaid race!"
"That and nothing less is the price of screwing with me."

When people start using epic magic, your world's very existance shatters.
Also, epic people don't waste wishes to get pearls. They uses them to directly create whatever magical items they want so they can actually do epic stuff, rather than dealing with local thugs.
And if they deal with local thugs, they don't use epic spells. Or if they do, they don't stay alive long because their enemies would just send "Bob the annoying Salesman" before launching a full scale assault.

@Foryn Gilnith :
Well, the mass-murderers themselves are mercenaries so they can be killed. That's the profession's main risk, after all. The Pearl Cartel won't really care as long as the goal is reach and its assets aren't hit.
That's basically "Screw you, we got money, mercs want it and they have reserves".

The "diplomatic problems, wars, ect..." are if a nation/church/guild send a agent underwater to harm the Cartel and is caught by the Mermaid Kingdom.
A nation would have to apology, maybe pay something, offer a few gifts, ect... but you're right : a church or guild won't hesitate to say "screw you, merfolk" and send more agents to harm the Cartel.

[Hijax]

While i approve of this idea, The Pearls face a problem in the incredible brokendness of the 3.5 magic system. All it takes for them to fall is one good-aligned Godzilla, a divination spell, and a few rounds.

[deuxhero]

Hmm, various churches (may work odd with my idea for one of larger religions* is a bit of an issue) with the magic domain being enemies is a good idea.

As for the issue with powerful characters wiping them out is not that big. As per their franchise nature they have wiping out a single group isn't really going to phase the rest.


*Polytheist, only priest(ess)es worship single deitys.

[Grumman]

As for the issue with powerful characters wiping them out is not that big. As per their franchise nature they have wiping out a single group isn't really going to phase the rest.

I don't think you understand. Not getting wiped out isn't good enough for what you want. They can't go to ground without losing access to their revenue stream, and they have to be able to defend their crop, because wiping out their crop would only be a minor setback for the spellcasters, while it would cripple the Pearl Mafia.

What you're proposing is like trying to blackmail Bruce Banner. You can't do it without exposing yourself to risk, and if you try you're just going to get yourself beaten to death with your own leg.

If you want my suggestion, drop the idea of terrorizing the powerful landdwellers. Keep the Pearl Cartel idea, and also let them take advantage of this to give their own spellcasters a competitive advantage in the Identify market. For instance, let the merfolk mages buy their pearls at cost (say 30 gp), while everyone else has to buy them at 100 gp. Then the merfolk can sell Identifys at a discount, while still raking money in hand over fist.

[Haven]

If the merfolk start a war because we killed a few mass-murderers... We can organize a crusade against those racist land-haters later.

I'd just like to say a holy war against sea-dwellers sounds like it would make an awesome basis for a campaign.

[Johel]

I don't think you understand. Not getting wiped out isn't good enough for what you want. They can't go to ground without losing access to their revenue stream, and they have to be able to defend their crop, because wiping out their crop would only be a minor setback for the spellcasters, while it would cripple the Pearl Mafia.

What you're proposing is like trying to blackmail Bruce Banner. You can't do it without exposing yourself to risk, and if you try you're just going to get yourself beaten to death with your own leg.

If you want my suggestion, drop the idea of terrorizing the powerful landdwellers. Keep the Pearl Cartel idea, and also let them take advantage of this to give their own spellcasters a competitive advantage in the Identify market. For instance, let the merfolk mages buy their pearls at cost (say 30 gp), while everyone else has to buy them at 100 gp. Then the merfolk can sell Identifys at a discount, while still raking money in hand over fist.

Wait... What ? You didn't read the part about hiring mercenaries for land-based operations ? They don't even need skilled ones.
For their crops, it's underwater so lot's of direct damage spells won't work and conventionnal invasion fail. That's already a good protection against most spellcasters.
The high-level ones, of course, are unstoppable but they aren't the ones who matter 'cause there aren't many and if they are disturbed, they'll just kill the landdweller mercenaries and won't be bothered anymore.

[Hijax]

Wait... What ? You didn't read the part about hiring mercenaries for land-based operations ? They don't even need skilled ones.
For their crops, it's underwater so lot's of direct damage spells won't work and conventionnal invasion fail. That's already a good protection against most spellcasters.
The high-level ones, of course, are unstoppable but they aren't the ones who matter 'cause there aren't many and if they are disturbed, they'll just kill the landdweller mercenaries and won't be bothered anymore.

Uh.... good aligned people typically just dont sit around twiddling when somebody turn up and start abusing worldwide economy.
Edit: and one day, a certain good-aligned kobold says: enough!

[Bob the Urgh]

There might not be cloistered clerics or those domains in the world. Pelor is considered the dominant god of worship for humans, clerics of pelor don't get access to those spells.

[Johel]

Uh.... good aligned people typically just dont sit around twiddling when somebody turn up and start abusing worldwide economy.
Edit: and one day, a certain good-aligned kobold says: enough!

We are not speaking of corn, here. No wide-spread starvation because of the pearl business. It's a really rare, specialized item that is concidered a luxury by most. Hence the "profitable" part about it.
Also, yes, good aligned people don't stand hiddle against evil. But they usually scale up to evil of their level. Because anything below is a waste of time and anything above is suicide.

And that's the "smart" part, here : most of the local activities of the Pearls aren't great scheme to take over the world. It's illegal business practice through monopoly, intimidation and murder. Nothing a high-level CG character will concern himself with, 'cause he has more important things to do. Like saving the world. Low-level adventurers will confront the mercenaries of the Pearls and foil them. But that's a one-time victory which won't change much to the global picture, much like when police catch drug smugglers at the border : others will quickly take their place.

[Grumman]

We are not speaking of corn, here.

We are speaking of murder, however.

And you don't even need to rely on the good guys. Every high level character in the setting was once a low level character, and they have little reason not to go back and squish the crooks that gave them grief in the past.

[The Glyphstone]

Wait... What ? You didn't read the part about hiring mercenaries for land-based operations ? They don't even need skilled ones.
For their crops, it's underwater so lot's of direct damage spells won't work and conventionnal invasion fail. That's already a good protection against most spellcasters.

The only spells that don't function properly underwater are [Fire] spells - any other element, force spells, and untyped damage all work just fine - not to mention the SoD/SoS spells that are a caster's trademark. Assuming you can cast enough Water Breathing spells, even low-level spellcasters can be a serious threat if they decide to get ugly, particularly in groups and with hired muscle of their own for protection.

[Frosty]

Fireball works just fine. It becomes a stream of super-heated steam that expands, and still does the same damage apparently.

I wonder how Chain Lightningt would do underwater?

[The Glyphstone]

Electrocute catgirls?

[Draz74]

Electrocute catgirls?

A safe bet.

And it would depend strongly on the exact electrolyte level of the water -- pure water? fresh water? salt water?

[Thatguyoverther]

I think the Pearls would protect most of their production with some anti-magic. It might be expensive but if it means protecting the source of income I expect a cartel would fork the gold over.

It doesn't have to do much just stop whatever spells are allowing land dwellers to breath.

[Dervag]

The idea of a sea-dweller's Pearl Cartel is fine, but I agree with JeminiZero about the rest. You're talking about extorting money from all the world's most powerful people and attacking them on their home turf, where you are at your weakest, if they refuse. That's not a business plan, that's suicide.

As long as they keep the prices reasonable, that might be OK. Likewise if they're realistic about who is too powerful to cross.

It would be like a sort of super-OPEC in a way: OPEC works fine as long as they don't make the oil-consuming world so desperate that they're willing to fight a war to obtain the oil they need.

And that's the "smart" part, here : most of the local activities of the Pearls aren't great scheme to take over the world. It's illegal business practice through monopoly, intimidation and murder. Nothing a high-level CG character will concern himself with, 'cause he has more important things to do. Like saving the world. Low-level adventurers will confront the mercenaries of the Pearls and foil them. But that's a one-time victory which won't change much to the global picture, much like when police catch drug smugglers at the border : others will quickly take their place.

It only takes a few high-level types (good or evil) to get annoyed at this kind of thing, though. Maybe one of them was a friend of the guy who got killed because he started identifying magic items.

So the Pearl Mafia still only works as long as they stay low-profile enough that they don't draw hostility from people they can't fight head to head.

[deuxhero]

I still can't think of anyway even an epic caster is going to take down the number of seperate hierarchy without an endless amount of time or "organizationcide" epic spells.

You scry the leadership, teleport, drop a save/die or two. Best base that the one sub group falls. You going to do that to every single local branch?

[Haven]

I still can't think of anyway even an epic caster is going to take down the number of seperate hierarchy without an endless amount of time or "organizationcide" epic spells.

You scry the leadership, teleport, drop a save/die or two. Best base that the one sub group falls. You going to do that to every single local branch?

If you can cast epic spells, you can probably do a little lateral thinking. They'd just have to whip up a spell that transplants all the pearls in the world to the surface, or maybe changes the material component of Identify, or etc.