Businessmen
Businessmen are the transactional spine of the Solstice Syndicate—debt-brokers, enforcers, extortionists, and legal representatives of a criminal aristocracy. They move through the shadows of Camp Hope not as mere thugs, but as investors in human potential—profiting from weakness, gambling with power, and structuring their empire around owed favors and unpayable debts.
To outsiders, Businessmen are ruthless criminals who corrupt systems and exploit the desperate.
To the Syndicate, they are loyal functionaries, each aspiring to climb the rungs of control, leverage, and luxury.
We don’t need chains. We have contracts.
He wears a suit tailored from repurposed smart-fabric, the kind that once read biosigns and now simply fits like a second skin. His eyes are cool, unreadable—calculators behind false warmth. A Syndicate pin gleams at his lapel, polished daily like a badge or a threat. He speaks in percentages and polite threats, his voice calm even when ordering a knee broken or a witness erased. Every movement is economical, every silence leveraged. He’s not a thug, not exactly. He’s a predator who uses debt instead of teeth, contracts instead of claws. People don’t look him in the eye—they glance, nod, pay, and pray they aren’t remembered.
Alternative Names
Ladder-Men, Debt-Binders, Paper Saints, Chits (slang), Gold-Black Coats, Sharkpriests, Chancellors of Sin
Type
Illicit
Demand
Extremely high—particularly during instability, regime shifts, or economic hardship.
Legality
The business they conduct is often legal in form, illegal in spirit:
- Extortion disguised as “debt collection”
- Bribery framed as “consulting”
- Assassination masked as “asset liquidation”
- Contract law weaponized against the poor
- Camp Hope’s legal system turns a blind eye, especially when officials owe the Syndicate.
Other Associated professions
Related Locations
The knives you see coming are never the ones that cut deepest—it's the handshake, the smile, the ink on the page. That's the Businessman’s gift: he makes you thank him while you bleed.
Payment & Reimbursement
- Standard compensation increases with rank, but the real profit is in debt interest, illicit skims, and gambling percentages
- Loans are formalized and come with 10% interest; failure to repay results in “restructuring”—a euphemism for injury, servitude, or worse
- Favors are currency; secrets are savings accounts
The blade makes you bleed once. A Businessman makes you bleed forever—and thanks you for the privilege.
Other Benefits
- Prestige: Among the Syndicate, a high-ranking Businessman is royalty
- Protection: Syndicate enforcers protect their own—unless betrayed
- Authority: In Camp Hope, fear equals influence. You don’t ask. You demand.
- Legacy: A high-ranking Businessman can sponsor others—passing on power, debt, or vengeance
Some men seek justice. Others seek vengeance. We seek the bottom line.
Demographics
With a population of 5,000 in Camp Hope:- Approx. 100 Borrowers
- 30–40 Syndics
- 15–20 Knights
- 6–10 Ministrants
- 2–3 Pontiffs
- 1–2 Oligarchs
There’s a hundred Borrowers for every Oligarch—but only the Oligarchs eat without looking over their shoulder. Everyone else is just climbing, clawing, or falling.
A Businessman doesn’t need to raise his voice or his fist—he just needs you to remember what you owe, and who owns the ink on your name.
Social Status
- Among the Syndicate: Respected, feared, emulated
- Among the general population: Reviled and placated
- Among the Church & Town Watch: Tolerated, corrupted, occasionally assassinated
The Businessmen don’t pull triggers—they pull strings. And by the time you feel the noose tighten, you’ll be thanking them for the loan that bought the rope.
History
The Businessmen were the first true power brokers after the Fall. While others scrounged, they structured. While others wept, they calculated. They took in orphans, beggars, politicians—and turned them all into tools of the ledger.
It is said the first Oligarch signed a contract with death itself: not for immortality, but for interest.
Operations
Tools
- Ledger implants (cranial or wrist-embedded debt trackers)
- Contract vials (nano-inked legal bindings sealed in glass)
- Solstice Insignia (insignia encoding Syndicate authority)
- Voice modulators (lapel or throat implants for tonal manipulation)
- Debt tokens (coins, bone chips, or cards representing owed favors)
- Memory clips (small drives containing leverage, blackmail, or erased identities)
A knife makes a point. Our tools make permanence. You can heal from a wound—good luck escaping a contract signed in blood and sealed in a contract vial.
Materials
- Wake-Serum (for when the truth must be known)
- Alcohol (to help gain someone's trust)
- Lumen Leeches (to ensure that they keep their cool under pressure)
Every deal has its cost, and so do our materials—Wake-Serum for peeling back the lies, alcohol to make the lies go down easier, and Lumen Leeches to keep the sweat off the brow while the pressure mounts. We don't force the truth—we prepare the stage for it to walk in on its own.
To be a Businessman is not to make threats, but to broker destiny. We do not rule through violence—we calculate, negotiate, and bind, until others walk willingly into the cages they call contracts.
Rank and Renown
Rank 1 Borrower
- Prerequisite: Renown 1 or higher in the Solstice Syndicate
At the beginning of your association with the syndicate, you are regarded as a borrower. Whether you are the wealthy hier of an oligarch family or a penniless citizen deep in debt to the faction, your status is functionally equivalent: you owe everything you have, even your life, to the Solstice. Your only hope of improving your status is through your service to the faction. As you acquire renown, you can rise above this debased position in the faction hierarchy.
- You are given a Solstice insignia.
Rank 2: Syndic
- Prerequisite: Renown 3 or higher in the Solstice Syndicate
- At this level of the hierarchy, you can expect deference from borrowers, who will perform small favors that require no significant risk, effort, or cost. Use the Common Person for the Borrower.
- Additionally, you can take out a loan of up to 500 credits to cover unexpected expenses. This comes with a 10% interest rate that you are required to pay back within a year. Your loan payments are due on the first of every month.
- You gain access to the Casino and all the gambling within it.
- Gain a contact from the contact table under the background section. You can choose if this contact is an ally or rival.
Rank 3: Knight
- Prerequisite: Rank 2 and renown 10 or higher in the Solstice Syndicate
- You also have access to sufficient funds to maintain a Poor lifestyle during Down Time (10$ per day)
- At this rank, you gain a Syndicate Charm.
- You have the authority to demand service from borrowers. But that’s an authority you must use sparingly, since their service counts as credit to their debt, and it’s in the faction’s interest to keep borrowers in debt. Use a Common Person for the Borrower.
- You can take out a loan of up to 1,000 credits to cover unexpected expenses. This comes with a 10% interest rate that you are required to pay back within a year. Your loan payments are due on the first of every month.
- Gain a contact from the contact table under the background section. You can choose if this contact is an ally or rival.
Rank 4: Ministrant
- Prerequisite: Rank 3 and renown 25 or higher in the Solstice Syndicate
- Between adventures, you can now maintain a Modest lifestyle (26$ a day).
- You are given a Expeditious Messenger that is yours to command. If it is killed, your pontiff gives you a new one at their discretion, possibly up to 1d4 weeks later.
- You also have a staff of 1d4 knights under your command. You can order them only to carry out tasks that contribute to the work your pontiff assigns to you. The duty of protecting you from physical harm is always appropriate service for your knights, however. Use Warrior for the knights.
- You can take out a loan of up to 2,500 credits to cover unexpected expenses. This comes with a 10% interest rate that you are required to pay back within a year. Your loan payments are due on the first of every month.
- Gain a contact from the contact table under the background section. You can choose if this contact is an ally or rival.
Rank 5: Pontiff
- Prerequisite: Rank 4 and renown 40 or higher in the Solstice Syndicate.
- You have a staff of 1d4 ministrants, with their attendant knights as described for rank 4. Use Guy With a Gun for the ministrants.
- You have access to 1d4 Expeditious Messenger at any given time, to carry messages and perform menial tasks for you.
- You also gain the occasional privilege of speaking with members of the oligarchy.
- Between adventures, you can maintain an Rish lifestyle (66$).
- You can take out a loan of up to 5,000 credits to cover unexpected expenses. This comes with a 10% interest rate that you are required to pay back within a year. Your loan payments are due on the first of every month.
- Gain a contact from the contact table under the background section. You can choose if this contact is an ally or rival.
Rank 6: Oligarch
- Prerequisite: Rank 5, renown 50 or higher in the Solstice Syndicate.
- You can call upon 1d4 Pontiffs, with their servants as described in rank 5. Use Bell-Tower Sniper for the Pontiff.
- You have access to 2d4 Expeditious Messenger at any given time, to carry messages and perform menial tasks for you.
- Between adventures, you can maintain a Very Rich lifestyle (100$ a day).
- Additionally, you can take out a loan of up to 10,000 credits to cover unexpected expenses. This comes with a 10% interest rate that you are required to pay back within a year. Your loan payments are due on the first of every month.
- Gain a contact from the contact table under the background section. You can choose if this contact is an ally or rival.
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