Criminals

As with much of the Imperium, criminals are a sector wide threat. Many criminal organisations within the Prosperitas Sector are small and localised on the planetary level. Hive Worlds, most of all, suffer from a violent ‘gang culture’, with criminal groups carving out territories. As a result, most criminals represent local travelling hazards, violent assault and theft, and the risk of getting caught up in a gang war are the biggest threats to most Servants of the Imperium- you can find out more about crime in the Prosperitas Sector here.

However there are a few specific hazards and wider groups that a character may be aware of.

For the most part, Piracy remains a constant hazard in the Prosperitas Sector. Many vessels that once belonged to the pre-Imperial Regency Navy, were never defeated in battle, or, when they were, their hulks were repurposed by criminal elements. Pirates tend to operate from a single vessel, or a single ‘mothership’ operating several small vessels, and generally they target less protecting civilian shipping. Occasionally, however, bands of pirates will form to mount a significant raid upon the convoys of one of the great Trader or Chartist Houses, or even the supply convoys of the Munitorum. Humans tend to make up many pirate crews, but it is not unknown for them to include Xenos, or for Xenos vessels to raid into Imperial Space. Although Battlefleet Prosperitas does its best to secure the trade routes of the sector, it is filled with aging vessels, and many of its best ships are committed to military operations – which has allowed the problem to worsen.

Notable Criminal Factions of the Prosperitas Sector

Many of what were once the larger interplanetary criminal syndicates now lay buried in the unspoken history of parts of the Sector Nobility, and for the most part such organisations have been legitimised, co-opted and controlled by the Imperium rather than expending effort eradicating them. However, two groups that remain stand out:

The Fist of Steel

The Fist began as the remnants of the Manufactorum Guilds of Korimesta. However, after the takeover of production facilities by the Adeptus Mechanicus following the reunification with the Imperium, the Guilds found themselves marginalised and, eventually, supplanted by the Machine Cult. Initially rebelling against the Mechanicus, the Fist of Steel supported its activities with the operation of unsanctioned manufacture. Though a splinter faction known as the Black Gauntlet continues their original message, today the Fist has evolved into a vast criminal empire of Hereteks and other unsanctioned mechanists who defy the Mechancus’ dominion of technology and supply a great majority of unsanctioned weapons and technology to various groups and criminals. It still retains its hatred of the Mechanicum. and its thugs target members of the Machine Cult and actively commit terrorist attacks on their facilities – though usually as a cover for technology theft.

The Circle of Thorns

The Circle is one of the criminal groups condemned and classified by the Imperium as a threat. Its symbol, matching its name, is a circlet of thorny vines, which are also incorporated into the tattoo designs worn by its members. A vast criminal empire, involved in piracy, smuggling, illegal operations on-world across many planets, it exercises almost total control of the illegal drugs trade in the sector. The Circle is known for its secrecy, operating almost cult-like in individual cells. Its leadership is shadowy, and subject to a myriad of rumours as to who it consists of. The Circle is large enough to have attracted the attention of the Holy Ordos, partially out of fear that it may be heretical, and partly because it has actively killed several Imperial agents.

There are numerous sub-factions of the Circle and many more may exist that are not yet known;

• The Pikes take their name from a water-dwelling ambush-predator found on several planets in the Prosperitas Sector: pirates and bandits by trade, the Pikes are the largest Annwfyn criminal organisation in the Sector. They have built most of their wealth from piracy, and control a fleet of vessels that plague the space around the Mhor Draenog. The Pikes have a strong Annwfyn independent streak, openly wearing Annwfyn clothing, and woad-markings. They are famed for their violent nature, and will rarely allow the crew of captured vessel to live, sparing only those who are Annwfyn too.

• The Winter Roses of Vulaj are a relic of the colonial decisions of the early Prosperitas Sector, when the ice-world of Lubyanka was originally settled with citizens from the distant Ice World of Beroghast and who brought with them their own culture. Since the transformation of Lubyanka into a prison colony, the Winter Roses have recruited many newcomers to the planet into their vast prison gang, smuggling resources on and off the planet and across the sector. They can be identified by their use of furs, and their symbol of white and blue roses tattooed onto them.

• The Giannini Collegium grew in power on the smog-wreathed world of Kuatis. Born from the guilds of that world, the Gianni family who runs the Collegium is a vast hereditary criminal empire controlling numerous interests across the sector. Rich enough to rub shoulders with the Highborn, they blend in amongst high society, dressing and acting much like the Nobility of the Imperium.

• The Dead Eels End Firm is an unusual criminal organisation, emerging from the skyport of Dead Eels Mouth on Merewald. The Merewaldian starfarers grew to prominence by building up a presence on Letifer Secundus’ Star Ports, eventually controlling one to such a point it has been locally renamed ‘Dead Eels End’. With a vast smuggling and drugs empire, these Merewaldian-Letiferan gangsters are not known for their refinement, but they couldn’t care less, and rather prize their lowborn ‘roots’.

• The Hasagird draw their origins from the cramped life eked out on the dustball that is the fortress world of Vallum. The Hasagird became criminals because the only economically viable natural resource that can easily be grown on Vallum’s dusty wastes is the White Promise plant - which is a naturally occurring addictive hallucinogen. The Hasagird became an essential part of the Circle’s dominance of the drugs trade, and, as a result, became outlaws to the Imperium. Eliminating the Hasagirid is a near-impossible task - the Ruwwad family structures of the population of Vallum makes them uncooperative to local enforcers, and the White Promise crops can take root even in the hardest of conditions, allowing it to be farmed in remote regions away from authority.

• The Hotzone Set is an affiliated clique of criminals - a small, elite sect of art-murderers, who use their skills to acquire valuables and produce gruesome works of art; they live by the ethos of “get rich, steal art, and leave behind a good-looking corpse (which isn’t yours)”. They are occasionally unleashed on those who have especially displeased the Circle.