The Big Picture
The Dominion and Tortoise Cove
- Whatever Tortoise Cove’s official governance structure is, it is now functionally under the control of the Salt Backed Ledger who exert significant influence over the economy of the Cove generally, and over individual crews and captains though loans and debts.
- The Salt Backed Ledger is a front for a Dominion chartered financial entity called the Crownward Commercial Office.
IN SHORT
The Dominion, or at least an entity operating with the Dominion’s blessing, is able to indirectly control the activities of Tortoise Cove pirates, while hiding behind enough layers of legal and financial obfuscation to hide this fact from the captains of the Cove.
The Crescent Island Connection
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A mission given to the crew by the Salt Backed Ledger, under the guise of being a means of repaying the party’s alleged debts to them, lead to the party being captured in an ambush, and handed over to Dominion operatives at the Crescent Island crash site. The Dominion presence on the island has increased to a full scale archaeological dig and excavation site.
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The ships present at the island during the crew’s captivity flew flags that bore the colors and symbols of the Dominion, but which were not the jack of the regular Dominion navy. A representative of this Dominion subfaction interrogated the party as to the location of the crystal the party took from the crash site.
TAKEAWAY
The Dominion has shown the desire and ability to locate and abduct the party in search of the crystal once. There is no reason to believe they will not try again.
Local Threads
Melkarthe’s Involvement
- The Melkarthean government is, on paper, buying Cove debt backed financial instruments from the Crownward Commercial Office, essentially buying into the Dominion’s scheme to control the Cove. This is not illegal or damning on it’s own.
- In exchange, Crownward/the Ledger appears to manipulate pirate maritime activity in such a way that ships registered to Melkarthean ports are victims of significantly fewer instances of piracy than ships registered elsewhere in Kymbos. The degree to which the Dominion/Crownward can directly exert it’s will through the Cove, and what exact guarantees are made to Melkarthe is unclear. But it is undeniable that the Melkarthean government is knowingly buying protection from the Dominion.
IN SHORT
Melkarthe has bought into what they view as a sort of Dominion based maritime protection scheme, which allows their merchants to operate with significantly less risk than merchants from other Kymbos states. Melkarthe is consciously paying a Dominion related entity to disincentivize attacks on their ships.
Threads in Naukros
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The Crownward Commercial Office sells what it frames as intelligence on Cove based pirate activity to The House of Returning Sails, a Melkarthe-based bank and insurer with at least one branch in operating in Naukros. The Returning Sails Branch on Naukros handles accounts through which Crownward moves the money used to facilitate the Cove scheme.
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Another Melkarthe based entity, known as the Brazen Scales, has been buying up significant amounts of property near Naukros’s main harbor, including the entire block surrounding The Three Lamps, the inn and bathhouse run by Thessa Korin. You have no reason at this time to suspect that the Brazen Scales has any direct knowledge of or involvement in Melkarthe’s part in the Dominion Cove conspiracy outlined above, but their involvement, or at least proximity to, the robbery of The Three Lamps suggests a relationship with The House of Returning Sails.
The Recovered Packet
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The packet of papers recovered from the robbery of The Three Lamps contains documents supplied by a whistleblower inside the House of Returning Sails. The documents include:
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Financial statements and agreements proving the conspiracy outlined above.
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Internal correspondances between representatives of The House of Returning Sails and the Melkarthean government regarding transactions in and out of Crownward accounts at the Naukros branch of the Returning Sails that cannot be accounted for by Cove scheme related activities alone.
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FUNCTIONALLY, YOU HAVE:
Hard, physical evidence of the Cove conspiracy outlined above.
Private Melkarthean communications suggesting a larger Dominion effort beyond the Cove scheme.
Current Obstacles, Threats and Open Questions
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The party did not leave Tortoise Cove on good terms. You are not certain that sailing openly into the Cove, under your own colors, is safe.
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The party has few solid contacts/relationships within Naukros. Your relationships within Naukros begin and end with whatever personal relations you may have individually, and the members of the whisper network. The latter set of relationships are still developing, fragile, and at this point based on little more than money and momentum. Who the party trusts to know what information, and to what ends, is a topic of discussion.
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Naukros is “legitimate” society. The assets and resources legally available to the party within Naukros are regulated by local authorities.
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Ship components and armaments, beyond those typical of normal merchant activity, may require a legally defensible justification, permission from the relevant authorities, or camouflage, and may need to be sourced illicitly.
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The ship will need to be crewed. Finding crew suitable for merchant activity is simple. Finding crew both capable of crewing a fighting ship, and willing to do so under your leadership, is more complicated and does not come without legal risk if Naukrosi officials are not consulted.
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Unauthorized acts of violence and tresspass, generally, do not come without the risk of legal consequences within Naukrosi jurisdiction.
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With your current resources, the party cannot meaningfully continue Simonides’s research on the crystal without outside assistance. At the same time, you are aware that the Dominion subfaction currently controlling the Crescent Island has committed considerable resources to understanding the ship you left behind.