Aspis Consortium

The Aspis Consortium is an unscrupulous multinational trade organization based in Ostenso, Cheliax, but with interests in many parts of Avistan and Garund.

Structure

Leadership

The overall goals of the Aspis Consortium are directed by a shadowy group calling themselves the Patrons. They intentionally create mystery around their identities, leading some to believe that the organization is run by dark cultists, masked villains, or even aliens. The Patrons are actually simply the eight majority corporate shareholders and the two remaining scions of the families who founded the Consortium centuries ago. They meet once every new moon in a different Chelish city and take great pains to hide their identities from outsiders and even each other.
The Patrons rely on the knowledge and skills of several experts. These include the Consortium's spy mistress Cirildimina Alasbhallas, their fleet master Lord Pairo Gavhaul, the chief of headquarters security Mr. Khayn, and the obsessive chief of the mysterious Conference Z operation, Professor Tantis Mais.

Members

The Consortium is structured to guarantee the survival of the organization as a whole, even when individuals, or entire operations die or disappear. Members can be broken down into two groups: freelance hires and tiered agents.

Freelance hires

Freelance hires are brought in for a specific task or purpose, and are generally completely unaware of the larger goals of the Consortium, or that they are even Aspis employees. They include mercenaries brought in for protection or other military matters or experts in a given field vital to the operation. As freelance hires, this group generally has little loyalty to the Consortium, and only know that they are paid handsome sums upon a job's completion, and given much leeway in how a particular task is to be performed.

Tiered ranks

Above the hired freelancers are the actual agents of the Aspis Consortium, who are often distinguished by metal badges, amulets, or rings that they carry concealed on their bodies. These markers are made of three metals (bronze, silver, and gold) that denote the increasing rank, importance, and power of a given agent. Bronze tier agents are strictly regional players, and are made up of former soldiers, experienced merchants, minor nobles, or seasoned mercenaries. They are chosen for their expertise in a given field or region, and are generally unaware of their employer's larger machinations. All are highly ambitious, a trait that is easily exploited by the higher-ranking agents who direct their activities.
Silver agents guide the work of the bronze agents and freelancers, coordinating regional operations and gathering intelligence for their superiors. They are given relative autonomy in how they manage their business as long as the outcomes profit the people to whom they report. Silver agents rarely expand the interests of the Consortium beyond the tasks or area to which they are assigned, and are often the public faces of the organization.
Gold agents rank just below the Patrons. They organize Consortium business within a large geographical region that often does not follow the borders of a given nation, or else focus on a limited geographical area that is of high importance. They have tremendous power, wealth, and access to the personnel needed to advance the goals of the Aspis.

Favored familiars

Magic-using agents in the Consortium often employ familiars with skills or abilities useful for theft and infiltration, including monkeys and mephits.

History

The Aspis Consortium was founded approximately 200 years ago. In its first business venture, a ship bearing the emblem of three intertwined asps docked at the Osirian capital of Sothis. There its agents bought up all the cheap, locally made knick-knacks it could find at the local markets. During the voyage back to Cheliax, these inexpensive crafts were mysteriously transformed into priceless, pharaonic artifacts, and then sold to the eager (and gullible) aristocracy of Westcrown at exorbitant prices. The enormous profit made off this venture enabled the three backers of the voyage to create the Aspis Consortium.
The organization has weathered the social and political upheavals of the last few centuries remarkably in-tact. During the twilight years of the Age of Enthronement, the Consortium used its connections in the government of Imperial Cheliax to secure preferable trade deals with all of its colonies and dependencies. Even after the majority of these territories gained independence after the chaos that followed the death of Aroden, the ex-colonists continued to long for the goods and fineries of their former motherland, and the Aspis have been only too willing to supply them at exorbitant prices.

Type

Consortium, Financial