The Black Unicorn Society
Written by: Tahoma
Ah, the Black Unicorn. In an age of AR fashion and polychromatic thread, these made-men prove that you still can't beat wearing a good old-fashioned pinstripe suit and hat to a premeditated murder. Headed by one Ridley Gibbons and based out of the recently-relocated Second Empire luxury-restaurant/tavern in the Downtown Elevated Plaza, this particular syndicate currently takes the lion's share in white-collar crime, playing complicated games of high-level fraud and political corruption to earn a nice and tidy profit without having to so much shatter a single kneecap, all operating under the paper-thin pretenses of being a simple gentleman's club for the almost rich and famous. Of course, don't take that as meaning the Black Unicorn's an easy mark for the more violence-oriented runners out there: Most of the fully fledged members might be businessmen, and polite ones at that, but even they understand the need for security and applied violence when taking on any less-then-legal enterprise, and whether they source it to mercenaries and shadowrunners that meet their criteria for professionalism or they call on their in-house 'Liquidation Commitee' to deal with a problem, you can bet that they'll do everything they can to prevent any repeat-incidents. If you're getting hired by one of the syndicate's representatives, it's worth putting some cash into a fitted suit just for them. Negotiations are always done in-person at their establishment - no Mr. Johnsons when dealing with these guys - and you can expect a free meal just for showing up. The Black Unicorns are perfectionists through and through, and expect you as an employer to be as squeaky-clean and professional as they are, but you can expect to get paid appropriately: The actual cash-reward is pretty modest, but the syndicate also like to pay well-done jobs in favors, lending especially liked or succesful subcontractors the use of their afformented Liquidation Delegates to clean up any unfortunate mess and leave things squeaky clean. And don't make fun of the name, chummer, trust me on that!Structure
The Black Unicorn's structure is similar to old-school Mafioso clans, with a mostly centralised hierarchy of subordinates reporting to bosses until it reaches the leader and his Consigliere. The group deter from this structure on a superfial level, however, by using corporate nomenclature: Soldiers are employees, capos are managerss, the underbosses form a board of directors and specialise into different branches like "Marketing" or "Public Relations," and the don simply calls himself 'the boss'.
The group's use of corporate nomenclature serves a pretty practical purpose, too: Any conversation between members can easily be passed off as idle conversation about legitimate business enterprises, potentially letting them openly talk about their criminal ventures without fear of compromising recordings.
Identifiers
If any gang's adapted well to Raleigh's fixation on the old-school, it's these guys: Pinstripe suits, silk scarves and trenchcoats are all standard to the 'made men' of the Unicorns, all courtesy of the boys and gals at Mortimer of London. The higher-ups are a little more divided in who they get their threads on, but as long as it's appropriate attire for eating at the Second Empire it won't raise a stink. Their rides are, appropriately, high-end luxury affairs like Bentleys and Rolls-Royces that are built as tough as they are stylish.Word is that a couple of years back, Gibbons shook a few hands with a local dealership to give Unicorn made-men better deals on rentals too, on account of the second-hand embarassment of sharply-dressed goons showing up in Nissan Jackrabbits.
Public Agenda
The Syndicate's obvious motivation is in power and money, consolidating both legitimate and criminal authority into their sphere of influence through whatever means is necesarry, regardless of the ethics or legality. Ridley Gibbons himself also has a professed fondness for so-called 'Legitimate Crime', having a strong preference towards illicit elements that show at least a superficial degree of professionalism and courtesy, and desires any organised crime in Raleigh to follow such standards.
Assets
Like their suits, the Black Unicorn's properties and resources have a strong propensity towards being expensive but discreet and classically styled, from the genuine wood and leather furnishings in their classy establishments to the fleets of luxury saloon cars pulled up outside. The syndicate have little in the way of magical support and overt cyberware, which gives the syndicate an unearned reputation for being anemic in direct confrontation, but the slim protective vests underneath their tailored suits and the custom-made handguns in concealed-carry holsters are more than enough for their well-trained security experts to hold their own with the less covert soldiers of other groups.
History
So the Black Unicorn has been in Raleigh for a good few decades, but not always as a faction of rich not-mafiosos. Back in the late 20s, it was an old-school gentleman's club called the Black Unicorn Society, the kind of place where rich folk could get together, share some brews and a few smokes, but with the added bonus of feeling like you're better than poor people and that you should be in charge of the world. Thing is, this club wasn't exactly the aristocratic secret-society it wanted to be. Sure, the membership was for rich people only, but all of them were just millionaires, a small pond full of big fish blissfully in denial of the megacorporate orcas growing up in the big bad ocean.
The years went on, and the ever-hungry maw of megacorporate consolidation and monopolisation began picking away at the numbers of the Black Unicorn Society: Anybody who didn't throw their lot in with the growing megacorporations were lucky if they could salvage a pension from their collapsing businesses. The ones that managed to hold their ground started to get a tad caustic about the whole situation, their status and influence on local politics as millionaires and moguls basically meaningless to the clout being wielded by local A-class corps, let-alone the unspeakable power of the Corporate Court's chosen.
Eventually, the Black Unicorn society was picked down to a scant handful of members led by Charles Laroche, owner of the Second Empire restaurant and tavern where the society was founded. All of the rest had either been driven into bankruptcy, met an unfortunate 'accident' or absorbed into the mass of one of the megas, but old Charlie refused to let go of the Black Unicorn society, and urged his fellow members into pooling their assets into the Second Empire as one last stand of defiance in the name of their club. With this huge investment, the Second Empire remained a solitary haven of (relative) independance from the rapid corporatization of Raleigh, and had the financial clout to stay that way for a long while.
This would all go down the drain in 2046 when a dame who went by Mariya Duran, the local bigwig and representative of Saeder-Krupp Heavy Industries took an interest in the stately property of the Second Empire and reportedly made a very generous offer towards Laroche for the place, which was politely declined. Duran then made a decidedly less generous offer along with a subdued threat, and Laroche declined in an appropriately less polite manner along with an threat that was very much not subdued. Duran left the building, dissapointed but not deterred.
The next couple of years were predictably hellish for the Black Unicorn Society, as Duran pulled out every trick in the book to financially hemorrhage the eatery and force them into selling. The society were no stranger to playing dirty, but their experience with predatory business didn't hold a candle to the new generation of corporate warfare, and in 2049 the group made the heavy decision to cut their losses and sell the Second Empire to Duran for her pitiful final offer. Laroche died later that year from a medication overdose, officially ruled as a suicide, but the remaining members of the Black Unicorn Society, furious as they were, weren't in any position to argue.
But one of them did.
See, one of the final members of the Black Unicorn society was an Ork called Ridley, Ridley Gibbons. Unlike the other more old-money business owners, Mr. Gibbons was something of a 'self-made' man: Started with nothing, started a small business in sanitation on dubious loans from very dubious people, and over time scratched and clawed his way to semi-legitimate success. For a long time, the shady source of the loan that started it all was something of a personal shame for the guy, having gone to great lengths to personally seperate himself from the sort of people who give those kind of loans, but as his hard-earned seat at high-society collapsed around him as a result of Duran's fiscal bloodletting of the once-mighty gentleman's club, Ridley had a sudden renewed interest in his old friends from the old neighborhood.
Now Ridley was one of the less obtrusive members of the Black Unicorn Society, rarely spoke up at meetings and spent the bulk of his time at the Second Empire quietly taking in the atmosphere, just happy to be included in the first place. So it came as a shock to the rest of the now-retired members when they were invited back to the Second Empire's the following year and found it empty, save for Ridley reclining on his favourite chair in the back rooms, soaked in blood but calm as a coma, and completely at ease with Mariya Duran's decapitated body sprawled out nearby.
Now we don't know for sure what exact words were exchanged that night, and the folks present aren't exactly loose-lipped about it. What we can agree on what was probably said that night was that if it had been at any other time and any other victim, Ridley Gibbons would have been arrested that very night. But after all the misery they had been through as a group, and with the only other alternative being to pretend none of this happened and go back to being miserable has-beens on a pathetic pension, it didn't come to too much surprise that the gang collectively rolled with their problem being solved by an act of overwhelming violence.
Signatures were forged, bodies were moved, favors were called in and before the week was over the Second Empire belonged to old Mr. Gibbons and friends, with Saeder-Krupp none the wiser to what had really taken place. To the public, the whole thing was little more than the Second Empire being closed for renovations, but in the shadows, a new criminal organisation had been born in the most spectacular and bloody way possible, transforming from a dying club of retired business-owners to a sharp and cold-blooded syndicate who no longer felt restraint by the law in how they accumulated and held onto their power.
So last I checked, Lofwyr ain't exactly the kind of guy to let any kind of loss get by without retribution, let-alone an expensive antique building. How'd they avoid getting done over by SK?
The months spend with the building in Duran and SK's posession are almost unnoticeable on the fiscal scale of a giant like SK. Considering Duran was doing this out of personal interest and not on the behalf of one of the real big-wigs, they probably didn't even notice they had the building in the first place.Since then, the Second Empire has been returned to its rightful place as the restaurant and bar of choice for the almost-upper-crust of Raleigh's society, but the Black Unicorn Society's new life is itself all but an open secret, operating with only the most token of pretentions of being a legitimate club while the reputation of the 'secret' other half of the Black Unicorn Society makes damn sure nobody dares poke holes in this guise of innocence.
"A Penny Earned."
Founding Date
2020
Type
Illicit, Syndicate
Demonym
Made-Men
Leader
Subsidiary Organizations
Location
Controlled Territories
Notable Members
Tentative Peace
The Black Unicorn do very little to hide their dislike for the Children of Eden, despite their uncharacteristic willingness to assist their enterprises and act as disposable muscle for money, but continue to put on a polite show to keep them eager.
Peace
The Black Unicorns have been making particular use of the CMNG as a deniable asset of their own, albeit from a very safe distance. The GMNG, respectively, are content in allowing this to happen as another means of sourcing income.
Parley
Aoyama Fudo isn't exactly chirpy about having to have any major plans in white-collar crime approved by the current top dogs, and the feeling is mutual with the boys in the Black Unicorn barking about having another gang to keep an eye on, but without either of them being sure of the full potential of the other they've both been left with little choice but to tolerate oneanother's existence for the time being.
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