Desmond Slate

"You don't want to mess around with Slate. Came out of his Mum mean that one, at least to us. He's something smooth with the babes."

Demsond Slate, the warlord of the gang the Slate Scarrs is a tough, no nonsense leader and savvy politician. He was able to recognize and capitalize on the good fortune of one of his teams of scroungers when they were scouting out newly acquired territory after the War of Tredeh.

Rise to Power

Slate, as is true of most warlords in Eryia, is excellent in hand-to-hand combat. He acquired his leadership role in his late teens shortly after puberty unseating Morton Getral, a despised rival who was nearing his late twenties. Slate was able to outmaneuver the more experienced Getral in a dominance circle, and kill the old man. By itself this is not noteworthy, many old men are overpowered by youth, what made Desmond Slate unique was his ability to seize and hold leadership of his tribe in spite of his youth when other stronger, more experienced men could have walked into the power vacumn he created when he killed Morton Getral. Much of that success was in persuading not just his peers but also the old men and key middle aged leaders that he was the best choice for the position of tribe leader.

Much of that persuasion came from his brash confidence, his undeniable intelligence, and his ruthlessness. He defended his right to lead the tribe through several challenges, and in one particular instance promoted one of his defeated challengers to his inner circle, stating that his usefulness alive was greater than his usefulness dead. This created a buzz amongst tribe members who saw in Slate a leader who was not ruled by emotion, but by his intelligence, and secured his position in the tribe, as well as the loyalty of his defeated opponent.

The War of Tredeh

After taking over the Scarrs, Slate decided that the tribe needed more territory. He had his scroungers scope out the areas nearby and decided to make a stratgic move against the Ironwoods tribe, a tribe with a territory that was adjacent to the Scarrs, whose far side boundary was the Vatn river. The ensuing conflict was called the War of Tredeh and involved a great deal of asymmetric conflict and street fighting as well as economic manipulation and assasination. It took the Scarrs two years to take over the Ironwood territory, but in the end, the Ironwoods simply ran out of manpower and weapons to fight the Scarrs. Slate moved quickly into the area and the rest is history. A team of scroungers brought Renault Jackson the scars senior purser a sheaf of papers from an old office building marked Riltraga. Jackson had sufficient background knowledge to recognize the importance of this find, and spent some time to study the manuscript. Through sheer pigheaded tenacity, he untangled enough of the ancient script to understand the formulas and processes described in the papers. Armed with this knowledge, he went to Desmond Slate and made a proposal. Instead of selling the documents that they found in the abandoned patent office to the above people, they would exploit that knowledge themselves and manufacture and sell this product themselves.

This was not an easy route to take. To be successful, the Scarrs would have to acquire enough wealth to set up the manufacturing they wanted to do, they had to find suitable facilities, workers and supplies, and they had to create a market for the Riltraga. If they were successful, they would need to defend their territory and their marketplace from other gangs that would try to take them over to capitalize on their success. It would be much easier to simply sell the documents, take the money, and go on with life, which was Desmond's first inclination.

But Jackson was persuasive, and he became passionate about the beneficial effects of the substances he could make with the formulas of the ancients. Drugs that could take pain away. Drugs that could refresh the spirit or bring joy and meaning to people. Jackson was an idealist. Desmond was a realist. He understood the challenges ahead of them if they went the independent route, but he could see the payoff too. High risk, high reward. People would buy these drugs if they lived up to a fraction of the promise that Jackson thought they had.

Desmond provided some seed money, and Renault had the first installment of cash to enable him to make small batches of drugs. The first went to Desmond to help stop a migraine headache.

People will do any fucking thing to stop pain. If this stuff works, we've hit the jackpot Renault.

— Desmond Slate

It worked.

Building a pharmaceutical production capability was incredibly difficult. Desmond gave Jackson a budget and his right hand man's second-in-command John Weaver, a capable financial manager and auditor who ran the numbers to figure out the protection cuts local businesses owed the tribe. Weaver was not particularly skilled in combat, but he more than made up for that flaw in his ability to manage people, resources and work. Tying Weaver to Renault was a brilliant move that enabled the team to create a business that almost immediately flourished in spite of poor marketing.

The Scarrs began to make money. Lots of money, and people took notice.

International Politician

Desmond's brilliance extended into understanding the likely implications in the social and political landscape of the actions being taken by players, and staying one step ahead of the action. By the time rival gangs understood the cash cow at their border waiting to be taken over, Desmond had positioned the Scarrs to be more than ready to take on all comers - just not at the same time. He worked with several key tribe members to form alliances with neighboring tribes, first with the Teraborns on the north side of his territory against the river, and then with the Scathey to the southwest. He sent female agents to distract the leader of the Michrea on the Scarrs west flank. Having secured alliances, he took on the most heavily armed and militarily capable tribe south of him, the Lionness. The battles between the two tribes was a bloody lethal door to door combat, and while the Lioness had backing of the overlanders, they did not have recent combat experience. The Scarrs won enough battles to undermine the Lionness leader who was challenged by his second-in-command who won and wrested control of the Lionness's from him. He sued for peace and Desmond Slate offered him personal wealth and continued leadership of his tribe if he would swear allegiance to him.

Having secured a significant region of waterside real estate, Desmond put a female leader Justinna Ether in charge of building a set of docks and a transportation hub for shipping the drugs that Renault and Weaver's drug companies were producing. Desmond's market was no longer local, and it ballooned into a city wide, then multi-regional enterprise. Desmond saw business as a stabilizing influence and encouraged trade across diverous tribes across Eryia. People who were looking to trade goods and services were interested in peace, and a sure path to stability and peace was trade and open markets. He believed that aligning the self interests of individuals with producing goods and services that satisfied the interests of others - their customers - by rewarding them financially was a better expenditure of effort - producing wealth and stability - than constant bickering and inter-tribal warfare.

Slate lived a long life to thirty two, and was not challenged for leadership of the Scarrs even as an old man. He was so honored that his tribe began to call themselves the Slate Scarrs well before his death. His influence as a stabilizing force in the Eryian political scene was huge. He was the first political figure to pose a serious challenge to the dominance of the over-landers in over 600 years, and his alliances and business connections placed the Slate Scarrs in a leadership position in the international scene in Eryia for almost a hundred years.