The Martens
"You aren't approaching this with enough romance. When the establishment called them weasels, they took the name 'Martens' - twisting the symbol of trickery into a traditional symbol of wealth. They really are masters of branding, you can tell just by the name. You should see how well they sell their fake gentry shtick to common folk over here, too, they've got great cross-demographic appeal. So yes, I know they are criminals, but I really think we should seriously consider them as marketing consultants." - Coded letters found by the Asalay guard captain, 2014 ME.
The Martens are the premier criminal syndicate of Eastern Samvara. They are a loose federation of criminal families, pirates, smugglers, and street gangs, united by a loose hierarchy, an aesthetic, and shared mutual respect. Martens see other Martens, even of a rival family, as fellows worthy of respect - you stab them, sure, but you do it right. Everyone else is a filthy peasant or a decadent modern elite who refuses to acknowledge your grace and toughness. Modern nobles, the Martens sing over beers, are paper-pushing pansies who don't respect true tradition.
The Martens wrap themselves in feudal aesthetics (often especially traditionalistic, sometimes archaic), calling each other "knights", "dukes", "princes", "squires", "gentry", and "marquesses". They take "proper concubines" and recognize their bosses in elaborate "coronations"; they hold "court" and they call their songs "chivalric poetry". An outsider might think this was a bit, but this is at least semi-ironic; the Martens really do savor the aristocratic aesthetics, the sense of entitlement and power, the luxury and the right-to-force.
The Martens don't just dress and talk like princes; they sometimes are ones. Marten bosses are encouraged to infiltrate governments, city guards, and merchant guilds, and once inside they do their best to fill any bureaucracy with their people. Being a Marten can often be a path to finding a legitimate career.
Structure
The Martens are basically a series of local crime families bound together into a feudal structure. Each family has a Boss, who is marked by a feudal title: Dukes at the top, counts below them, barons below them. Families extract tribute from their vassal families, but also protect them from other Marten clans or from the law. Clan bosses, especially higher level ones, are expected to get involved in local politics to help root their criminal power in legal authority. Common enforcers are often given courtly or governmental titles, such as Man-at-arms, squire, master of the fowl, marquis, or captain of the guard.
The Marten families have been known to squabble quite a lot, but the Marten Court gets involved if there is any kind of outside threat. The Marten Court is the highest body, with representatives from all the Ducal families, and is supposedly led by the Three Kings. The Court is practically mythical, and it surrounds itself with whispered rumors of untouchable power. Some suspect that the Court isn't even a real thing, but rather a council of ducal representatives who negotiate the big-picture plans together and cloak their crude diplomacy in the guise of a shadowy cabal. Others point at the selkie Khilaia as the culprit, as who else could be everywhere at once without being detected (and who but the wicked foreigners would commit such crimes)? Some say that it is a cabal of evil wizards. Whatever the case, the rank and file take the Court very seriously.
Outside of the actual families, there are also the Marten Knights. These are basically accredited pirates and smugglers, who get special privileges among the Martens for the juiciest contracts as well as guaranteed safe haven. The Marten Knights are often only loosely affiliated with the group, but many pirates would jump at the chance for a "knighthood".
Culture
Among the Martens, loyalty is everything. A vassal's bond is stronger than blood, for it is consecrated with blood. This can be literal, as it is said that a vassal must prove their devotion to their new master by taking a life at their command. Every relationship is either one of comradeship or vassalage in this brotherhood, and commitment to these relationships is the most important part of a thieves' honor.
Honor is also taken seriously here, but it is less about integrity and more about toughness and commitment. You can betray your word to an outsider, but if you steal or lie to your fellows there will be consequences. You allow an insult by some street whelp to go unpunished, and you lose face in front of your fellows. You form a relationship with an outsider and you actually take it seriously? You've made yourself weak and been seduced by a peasant, all the boys are laughing back at court.
Talking about religion in the Martens is taboo, especially when it comes to personal opinions or the spirituality of members. Everyone is on the same team; religious divisions are for everyone else. This creates a kind of tolerance for members, a space to escape the suffocating religious partisanship of Samvara. Someone wears a mark of faith denoting them as Aretan? Don't talk about it - they aren't a heathen, they're a fellow knight! Of course, the Martens absolutely will game any religious system they can, and love to make a killing off of reporting religious minorities to state actors if they don't pay protection.
There is definitely a commitment to the feudal aesthetic, and it does mean something to those who join. Everyone in the Martens is high-class; a peasant who joins is now a secret aristocrat, a diamond found in the mud whose inherent superiority is recognized. In Ayshan states, this is both a rejection of mainstream social values and a validation of them: the Martens use old aristocratic aesthetics that clash with Ayshan meritocracy, but they also offer a chance for those who have been marginalized within that meritocracy to access the social mobility they feel they have been promised. This allows Ayshan zealots and anti-Ayshan religious minorities to co-exist in the same space, just interpreting the aesthetics differently. The weird feudal aesthetic plays differently in Halikvar and Aretan states - it is a kind of class appropriation, an assertion of personal value in a system that prioritizes great houses and hereditary lines of power.
Some Marten members take the whole aesthetic semi-ironically; some see it more as a statement of power than anything else; some legitimately buy into it. But the ritual of the group makes it so that everyone can interact with the aesthetic on their own terms. The Martens are all about decentralized accommodation, after all.
The Ren Fest of Mafias
History
The Martens are not ancient, no matter what some of their dukes claim. They began in the 1800s, with the invasion of the Holy State of Ayneva by the legendary cleric Graceful-Worship. The radical "Ayshanization" plan of Graceful-Worship turned Aynevan society on its head - and the Martens were a handful of merchants and nobles that realized that, by working together, they could turn this disaster into a financial windfall. They sold out rebel nobles, manipulated the bureaucracy to acquire lands and business contracts, and gamed the system to accumulate gold and magical blessings. The conspiracy was eventually discovered, but they were able to buy off Graceful Worship: Ayneva needed smugglers and buccaneers to trade with and raid their enemies. And so the Martens were spared, and they burrowed deep into Ayneva's power structures to avoid being purged once their usefulness was up.
From 1830 to 1870, the Martens were the Ayshan mafia, so to speak. They mostly infested Ayshan port cities in Samvara's Northeast, taking advantage of Ayshan military supply lines and para-military groups. But the end of the religious wars in the 1860s made this approach less profitable. The Martens branched out, using their smuggling and privateering connections to spread Southward along the coast. The Halikvar Wars of Religion, which raged with particular intensity from 1870 to 1945, distracted most Halikvar monarchs from petty problems like organized crime. And so, the Martens slipped into many Halikvar ports in Eastern Samvara. Unfortunately, war was not ideal for business. The Southern Martens only really started to profit once the wars ended. However, that is also when the Halikvar started to try and purge the Martens from their lands. The Grand Kingdom of Severesh and the Kingdom of Ashakahd had the most luck in pushing the Martens out of their cities, though neither could entirely remove them. The Kingdom of Kiami's efforts failed dramatically, making them the de-facto capital of the Halikvar Marten territory. In the late 1900s, the Marten's wars with the Kingdom of Siashi ended in a kind of mutual peace: the Siashans would allow them to pirate elsewhere, and pushed them to work with the Victor's Circle of Desmia, and in exchange would look the other way. This deal has undermined efforts to combat the Martens across the Halikvar world. Cocaine from the Victor's Circle has become even more of an international industry, and as the Martens have broadened their involvement in illegal drugs, their opium business in Severesh has boomed.
The Marten's broader connections in the East and South have made them basically impossible to uproot in the Ayshan world as well. They expand further West every year, and their ability to foster white-collar crime in places like the Empire of Shirpatra is uncanny. They have also been making inroads in the Empire of Shenerem, though expanding over land routes has proved more challenging for the often-maritime Martens.
Also, it is worth noting that the Martens have their own romantic origin story they often tell: that once, there were three brothers, the last three scions of the ancient Aynevan imperial family. Each was raised in a different household far apart - one in Shenerem, one in Shirpatra, and one in Severesh. Each had sought out their mother, who had written to them from Ayneva, and they returned to the ancient land of their ancestors. They found their mother killed in a dishonorable way by scoundrels, and they swore revenge; they took their vengeance, but became outlaw knights. They became vassals to no king, knights who fought for the personal honor that the world no longer cared about. And they founded the Marten Court, before each ventured to a different realm to start a different ducal family. That is how the Martens claim their group began - a romantic tale, and certainly a solid advertisement.
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