The Updates

The Three Families

A huge proportion of the black market in Horizon is controlled by three families to whom crime is a family business: the Columna, the Daynnan, and the Kellor. Each of them has built up power and influence while creating a respectable facade. In each case they have depended on their extended family and friends to build up their little empires, and their trust has been vindicated. The emphasis on family has lead these mobs to adopt codes of honour, rules of engagement between themselves: no children, no women, no narcotics, and so on. Observers often note that the families treat the rules more as guidelines, but they're still there, and they're still acknowledged. In the past, each of the families struggled to control the underworld of Horizon, while encouraging the rest of the underworld to adopt their rules; after all, a crime scene dominated by anarchy is in no-one's interest, and the city authorities would soon descend and destroy them all. Individually, the families stood for tradition, structure and order in the underworld. In recent years, though, powerful mobs have arisen to challenge the dominance of the big families, and have done exceedingly well at it. Such mobs often fail to appreciate the necessity of maintaining hounour among thieves. So the Three Families have entered into a truce, an agreement to cease competing against each other and concentrate on battling their rivals, to return the underworld to how it ought to be. Honour among thieves, and three firm hands on the tiller.

The Three Families technically constitute the most powerful of the mobs of Horizon. However, for that power to be brought to bear in its entirety they would have to work together as one. No-one in Horizon can see that happening in the immediate future.

The Families have influence and property throughout the city, but the only district they truly dominate is the slums. Here is the little property that the Columna still own. Here are are the rotting tenements into which the Kellors were pushed on arriving in the city forty years ago. Here are the alleys where the Daynann fought the Imperial police in nights gone by. The Families have similar business interests; all three operate protection rackets, provide security on a private basis, and run various types of entertainment such as gambling and prostitution. Although they have interests in most other areas of crime as well, these are the areas in which all three specialise.

The Columna: many honest citizens of Horizon would be surprised that a noble family with a seat in the Goodly Chamber (as the Columna are) should command a vast crime empire. Others would say that this makes them little different from any other noble family, just less hypocritical.

The Daynann: a long standing item on the Horizon crime scene, the Daynann have been spoken of in the past as the alternative royal family of the city's lower classes. In the last days of the Empire they were renowned for resistance to the incresingly despotic government. Their prestige has lowered somewhat since those days, but they are still a force to be reckoned with.

The Kellor: at the end of the last war this family were just another bunch of refugees from the conquered territories. Since those days they have risen fast, although their power base is still in the immigrant community. Until recently they were dominated by a matriarch who was reputed to be terrifying.

System Considerations

Rank 0: You're not a member of the Three Families, just one of the numerous desperate inhabitants of the Slums. You pay one of the Families protection money and likely have more connection with them than with the nominal government of Horizon.

Rank 1: You are a pawn of one of the families. There is every possibility that your whole family has a history of service to them; or at this level, you might just be street scum looking for a way to better your lot.

Rank 2: You have risen to a position of some importance in the Families' power structure: you oversee a bunch of goons, or run a semi-legitimate cover organisation for them. At this level you are expected to be in the organisation for life; you are something between an employee and a sworn servant.

Rank 3: You are in charge of seriously large operations, or are a skilled professional whose services are highly valued by one of the Families. Either you come from a family with a long history of service to the appropriate Family; or you actually have the right surname (note that under the Three Families' truce, they never hire each other's immediate relatives); or you have proven to be outstandingly competent and loyal.

Rank 4: You are either the immediate subordinate and close confidant (and probably sibling/child) of whoever runs the family, or you are one of a small clique that does the running (if there is no single leader). You cannot reach this level without having the correct surname. For the Kellor and Daynann, this comes free with this rank; being a Columna has other effects, and the "Columna" quirk must be bought seperately.

Rumours

The Columna are descended from one of the Emperor's numerous bastard offspring.

When the Three Families gain enough power in the underworld, they plan to make a bid for power in the overworld, too. No-one's quite sure who'll get to be King of Horizon... yet.

The Kellor rose so quickly in the underworld because they have a deal with someone. Or something.

Like the Kellor, the Daynann were originally refugees. They lived in the Empire beyond the Wall, before the Treacherous Lands broke free of the Emperor.

Grandma Kellor ain't dead. She's just keeping a low profile for a while.

The Daynann have lived on the same site for generations.

Five years ago, the Three Families truce almost collapsed into a gigantic gang war.