A&D Venturella Incorporated

Description

Middenland has suffered many wars in the past, and as a result most of the cities are built upon the ruins of its previous iterations. These lower levels are often home to some unwanted residents that were never quite convinced to leave. The countryside on the other hand is home to some old sites that have never been fully explored. Even with the expansion of civilization pushing monstrous creatures to the fringes, there's still a myriad threats out there.
Monsters sitting upon hoards of loot often attract mercenaries or self-proclaimed heroes. With fickle loyalties and a penchant for destruction, these often cause more damage than the creatures they exterminate so it is no surprise that they have traditionally been given the side-eye. But with no one to rely on, many of these threats survived undisturbed.
Brothers Adi and Dante Venturella saw a golden opportunity here. They realized that people needed two things to relieve them of these worries and their money: trust and incentive. They raised a company that hires professional heroes to clear up these threats.
To earn the trust of the people they set up tight contracts for each quest that detail the full completion conditions and acceptable property damages. It is not like professional heroes are trusted all of a sudden, in fact it is known that they will often try to bend the rules to gain more of the hoard or try to pass of a quest as completed without fully exterminating everything. But they are untrustworthy to a degree that is limited by the contract, which is far better than complete unreliability.
And to give incentive they allow up to 60% of the hoard to be claimed by the individual or organization to put in the request. This has made it attractive for people to stake a claim on a hoard as an investment. There's a baseline payment to guarantee a minimum for the heroes undertaking the quest of course, but if the hoard is large then there's serious profit to be made. The claimant can even sell part of their hoard share in advance if they do not want to gamble on the hoard's size themselves.

Current Times

Industrialism has pushed monsters to the fringes, but the ruins below cities are still home to many of them. And the myriad wars have left behind quite a few relics. Still, the expansion of civilization (and the looting of heroes of course) has led to a decrease in monstrous enemies, and a decrease in hoard size. Foreseeing these troubles, A&D Venturella Incorporated has expanded from the densely populated region of Middenland to relatively more unexplored areas such as the lands of the Eastern Steppes, the Commonwealth of Furan and the desert continent of Sabara. These new locations have ensured the growth of the company for at least a few years to come.
Beyond that, the company has gained immense value through the most terrifying force of all: free market economics. A rich speculation market has risen up around loot funds which combines shares in various hoards to spread risk. Bankers are constantly looking for the most promising hoards to beat the market and make a profit.

Contract contents (generally):

• Hoard split. Typically this is a 30/30/20/20 split between the claimant, the city where the claim was issued, the hero party and A&D Venturella Incorporated.
• The baseline fee to be paid by the claimant to A&D Venturella Incorporated, and transferred to the hero party upon successful completion of the quest as outline in the contract.
• Completion conditions for the quest. Typically the full extermination of the threat.
• Acceptable property damages.
• Reimbursed medical costs for hero party.
• Statement that the claimant agrees that they are legally allowed to put in this claim. Either because they own the territory upon which the threat is located, or because it falls under the jurisdiction of the entity where they are putting in the request (e.g. a city) and they were the first to identify and report the threat.

Ranks and Gear

After each successfully completed quest, the hero party has to fill in forms indicating the quarry that they killed and deliver some proof. Each threat has a certain point value assigned and these points are tallied up. Breaching a certain score threshold allows a professional hero to advance in rank, taking up more dangerous (and more rewarding) quests.
All gear has to be registered with A&D Venturella Incorporated. Typically this is done after it is bought by showing a receipt, or automatically if it is received upon division of the hoard after a quest. Being in possession of adventuring gear that is not registered is grounds for suspension. This is to prevent heroes from taking gear from a hoard before the loot division, which would diminish the hoard's value and be a breach of contract. If unregistered bought gear is found during an inspection, a hero has up to three days to produce the receipt before it is taken from them.