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Fantasy Criminals: The Seedy Underbelly of the World
Sunfire
CONTENTS
Overview of Fantasy Criminals
Not everyone endeavors to be good, upstanding citizens in imaginary worlds. Some take another route, believing it offers a quicker road to prosperity and power than doing the right thing. What they don’t realize is that taking said road will cost them more than what they bargained for. The road they take will lead them to be known as fantasy criminals.
Criminals, like their real-world counterparts, are full of people who have little to no qualms about choosing the wrong thing every time, whether it be stealing from a sweet old lady or a wealthy, powerful man. Some get so far deep that they lose sight of who they once were and become a wholly different person.
Fantasy criminals come in many shapes and forms. You have common ones like pickpockets and thieves but there’s sophisticated ones who run ‘legitimate’ businesses but are really laundering their ill-gotten gains. Many worlds have a drug kingpin who rules the roost or several major ones jockeying for supremacy.
People who choose a life of crime usually don’t go for it by themselves. They join one of several syndicates who traffic in all kinds of illegitimate activities like smuggling drugs. These syndicates are the most powerful in the criminal underbelly and can easily destroy someone with minimal effort if they wish to.
How do fantasy criminals affect the world? Besides being responsible for the crimes that occur in towns and other places, they can be major players in the world, bringing in goods that can’t be accessed normally. They also can corrupt politicians and local law enforcement, essentially running entire towns with impunity.
This is article number seven in the series looking at the various social classes. If you want to see our other articles, you can find more on our blog page!
The Various Types of Fantasy Criminals
The criminal underworld doesn’t have just one type. Rather, it has far more and each one of them brings something to the table that the others don’t. You could even say that they contribute to it in their own fashion. Thus, featuring a variety helps adds a splash of realism in the world, making it feel more vibrant.
One surefire type of fantasy criminals you’ll definitely expect to see in an imaginary world is that of the pickpocket. Whether they’re wearing masks or something else to conceal their identities or not, these guys lie in wait for an unsuspecting person to cross their path and then they gently swipe their money without being noticed and get away before the victim realizes what happens. They target only those who they think will be easy, not those who’ll pose a challenge.
Another kind of common criminal is that of the swindler. Found in places like the marketplace, this charlatan can sell basically anything like clothes or watches that look real at a lower price than you would see in the store but are essentially worthless. He can also have a set of cards or another game where it is rigged in his favor. Once he gets his money from the victim, he slips out so that he can do it to someone else in another location.
Out of the types of fantasy criminals, the enforcer is not to be trifled with. This man has his orders to punish those who don’t pay their debts to his boss. While some simply resort to physical intimidation in order to convey his boss’ displeasure, others resort to more drastic measures. Thus, it is best to avoid them entirety for they can bring an unimaginable amount of pain for people who fall out of their boss’ favor.
Last and not the least is the kingpin. This man sits atop his empire and rules with an iron fist. He is smart and devious and works to eliminate everything that can be traced back to him or his organization. He has an army of loyalists at his beck and call and he dispatches his enforcer to dole out punishments and send messages to customers who owe him money as well as his rivals.
Fantasy Criminals and The Syndicates
In some worlds, one or multiple organizations rise to prominence in either the city or the country they’re located in. While most of them are legitimate businesses, others are more nefarious. The latter is where many criminal syndicates are often found, masquerading as perfectly legitimate businesses.
Syndicates don’t typically have one revenue stream; they have multiple. They make tons of money from illegal activities like smuggling drugs, gambling, and so on. Whenever one of them is threatened, the fantasy criminals who work within them are dispatched to neutralize the threat no matter what.
A syndicate is ruled by either one person, a family, or another organization. In the first, only the person at the top makes all the decisions. In the second, they’re headed by a powerful family with one member at the helm with the power to make decisions. As for the last one, it’s a group of people — think of them like a board of directors but for the syndicate — who owe other businesses but are involved in the syndicate in one capacity or another that are empowered to make the decisions.
There are some syndicates that are so powerful that they control politicians and the local law enforcement in the district they’re in. This enables them to run roughshod over the local folk and not worry about suffering any reprisals. Anyone who dares to stand up against them is swiftly dealt with.
All syndicates rely on fear and intimidation to keep people in line. They dispatch the fantasy criminals who work for them to ‘encourage’ people to pay the money they owe, send a message to those who refuse to do their bidding. They have their henchmen patrol the areas they control to keep the riffraff out and to ensure that their operation is running smoothly.
How Fantasy Criminals Impact the World
Where do criminals fit in a fictional world? They cause mayhem and wreak havoc upon cities and towns, striking fear in the populace. Besides being the source for the crimes that occur throughout it, they serve several key roles as well.
One way fantasy criminals impact the world is being in positions of power where the decisions they make can have profound ramifications. Crime lords and kingpins wield powers that rival that of a country’s leaders and they use them to get what they want at other people’s expense. In some cases, they control a key piece of the world’s economy like drugs or ‘legitimate’ businesses like shipping where they ferry illegal goods from one place to another.
While many criminals go to great lengths to conceal their identity or cover their tracks, some don’t even bother trying. They know they’ll be protected which makes them very deadly since they can continue committing more crimes and not have to suffer any legal consequences. Either their superiors or the crime lord will take care of them or they use the info they’ve accumulated in their career to blackmail the powers that be to let them off scot-free.
Many people in the criminal world often traffic in goods that cannot be accessed through normal means. They could be drugs, exotic goods found only in certain locales, and so on. Knowing that people will pay a pretty penny for them, they make lots of money getting them and delivering the goods to their customers.
There are times where fantasy criminals essentially function as the de facto government of a town or city. They’ve bought off all the local politicians and law enforcement or they outright took control of the place and now run it with an iron fist. They eliminate dissidents and force the trapped residents to pay ‘protection’ taxes in exchange for not getting beaten and so on.
Tying it all Together
Fantasy criminals add a splash of realistic drama to a world. By being on the wrong side of the law, they are able to do things that most people find morally repugnant. The vast majority of criminals choose this career path for a myriad of reasons like money or power.
The criminal underworld is vast and full of many different elements. You have the most powerful like the crime lord or kingpin and the low-level ones like pickpockets. Each one of them, even those who use ‘legitimate’ businesses as a front to conceal their illegal operations, plays a role in the underworld.
Sitting at the top of the underworld is the syndicate. Led by an individual, a family, or a group of people, it is an organization full of fantasy criminals who have an invested interest in keeping it going. The syndicate has its hands in many things like drugs, illegal goods, and so on and it relies on force and intimidation to keep bringing in money.
Criminals impact the world in a meaningful way. They wreak havoc in towns and cities and inspire fear in many people. When it comes to influence, the most powerful criminal enterprises use theirs to buy out or persuade the local politicians and law enforcement agencies to do their bidding so they can do whatever they want with no legal fallout.
While they appear in all worlds, the stories fantasy criminals appear in can lead to new plot-line possibilities, giving you, the creator, more opportunities to craft one that your audience can’t get enough of!
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Thanks for reading this and until the next time,
Sunfire
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