Vexlin Continental Line

“The line don’t follow the land. The land bends to the line.”

Logo

A stylized black rail track running north to south, intersected by a broken silver compass rose—the northern point missing or replaced with a bent copper key. In field use, agents carry only a plain steel badge, unmarked and mirror-polished.

Type

Private Rail Syndicate / Resource-Extraction Conglomerate / Veil-Aware Logistics Empire

Public Identity

Legitimate and powerful. Respected by merchants, feared by competitors. Operates above board—but with enough clout, lawyers, and silence to erase any irregularities.

Leadership / Notable Figures

• Leander Jules Vexlin – Founder & Executive Director
  Known as "The Black Tie Baron." A former state senator turned industrial kingmaker. Charismatic, commanding, and unnervingly well-informed about forbidden land and dead languages. Commands VCL like a man reading the next chapter before it’s written. Never seen to arrive—only to already be present.
• Clarion “Caldera” Voight – Station Agent of Hollow Mercy
  VCL’s most respected (and feared) on-site authority. Known for complete control over the Hollow, and a safety record that defies its history. Believed by many to be the reason the mine hasn’t suffered a collapse since 1883. Keeps her own private ledgers. No one reads them but her.
• Jonard Prye – Logistics Chief, Manifest Division
  Former Union official turned full VCL loyalist. Manages all routing schedules, including those marked as “silent freight” or “non-manifested bulk.” Keeps three ledgers: one for the public, one for the rails, and one for himself—written in a cipher that’s changed weekly.
• Belladonna “Belle” Marrow – Ritual Consultant & Veil Broker
  Unlisted in public company filings, but known by every senior executive. Belle handles spiritual clearance, debt collection, and Veil entanglements that can’t be bought or burned. Her riverboat casino, The Gilded Saint, is believed to be both a sanctum and a siphon for occult flow. Vexlin treats her as an equal—never by title, always by name.
• Dr. Elias G. Virelow – Chief Mechanist Emeritus
  Vexlin’s preferred problem-solver when physics and protocol fail. A banished guild engineer with a fortress-laboratory that walks. Rebuilds matter, ruins maps, and corrects irregularities with weaponized theory. Rarely seen without his personal bodyguard, Isaac “Breaker” Gormund—a silent enforcer built from man, machine, and misery. Gormund doesn’t speak for himself. He doesn’t need to. The Doctor does his talkin’. Isaac just does the rest.
• Mara Keel – Black Ledger Bookkeeper
  Untraceable by birth record or census, Mara Keel maintains VCL’s sealed accounts and Black Ledger entries. She doesn’t speak much—only enough to complete the clause. Her presence in any depot signals a financial rebalancing… or a correction. Rumor claims her ink is mixed with something older than blood.
• Thatcher Vorn – Enforcement Director, Internal Security
  “The Contract Iron.” Former bounty killer turned company specter. Keeps a ring of metal chits—each one a resolved breach. Appears when words fail or when towns ask too many questions. Makes people forget without ever raising his voice. Wherever Vorn walks, the truth goes missing.
• Fitch Avery – Manifest Supervisor, Western Lines
  Ink-stained, sweat-slick, and memory-sharp, Fitch handles freight routing for materials not listed on any known manifest. Mumbles hymnals while marking tonnage. Never misses a detail, even if he looks like he might faint at his own shadow. Treats every sealed crate like it’s cursed—because sometimes, they are.

Territory / Headquarters

Based in New Orleans, Louisiana, with operational territory stretching west across the Iron Frontier to Salt Lake City and beyond. Operates outposts, depots, and mobile hubs in contested or “dead” zones no other company holds.

Branches / Facilities

• Hollow Mercy / Ashridge Depot – Primary mine and Veil-prone site. Operational since 1883.
• The Sable Providence – Vexlin’s private executive railcar. Considered a mobile command center; never opened to the public.
• Silverpoint Hubs #2, #6, #9 – Freight and loading yards with restricted access, often tied to Lanternite transport.
• The Quiet Yard (Rumored) – Deep storage facility located somewhere in the Utah desert. Believed to house Veil artifacts and failed “materials.”

Founded

1877 – Chartered in New Orleans under the Western Freight Alliance. Began expansion westward within one year.

Size / Reach

Mid-sized by national standards, but extraordinary reach per mile. Controls over 800 miles of track through contested, unstable, or Veil-adjacent territory. Employs several hundred direct workers, plus thousands of contracted agents, guards, surveyors, and extraction laborers.

Structure & Divisions

• Executive Office (Leander Vexlin)
• Site Command (Voight, Station Agents)
• Logistics & Manifest Division
• Extraction Oversight
• Security Arm (unmarked, privately trained)
• Black Ledger Operations – Sealed internal branch dealing with supernatural anomalies and Lanternite control.

Core Activities / Areas of Operation

• Silver and ore extraction (especially from cursed or unstable veins)
• Discreet transportation of forbidden or volatile materials
• Lanternite acquisition and shipment
• Veil anomaly monitoring and field containment
• Rail construction through Veil-heavy terrain
• Underground artifact movement and private client shipments

Clientele / Affiliations / Partners

• Western Freight Alliance
• Multiple unnamed private investors with political and occult ties
• Shadow-brokers in New Orleans, Denver, Chicago
• Suspected backdoor relations with Crucible procurement handlers

Public Reputation

• Praised for revitalizing dead towns and mines
• Known for ruthless efficiency and clean ledgers
• Feared by competitors—accidents tend to follow failed buyouts
• Rumored to have “bought silence” from both federal and frontier authorities

Known Technologies / Powers / Products

• LVX-Mat – Coded name for Lanternite, extracted, sealed, and transported under strict protocols
• Black-Seal Ledgers – Separated accounting systems for Veil-prone assets
• Sigil-Locked Freight – Rare boxcars sealed with arcane or unknown industrial symbols
• Red-Soul Tags – Field tools worn by guards during unexplained recoveries (purpose unknown)

Cultural Identity / Values

• Efficiency Above Transparency
• Containment Over Investigation
• Profit Through Control, Not Expansion
• Employees taught never to ask what came before—only what can be moved forward.

History Summary

• 1877 – VCL chartered. Begins building lines through abandoned routes others feared.
• 1879–82 – Quiet acquisitions of mines with “incident histories.”
• 1883 – Acquires Ashridge depot (The Hollow). Appoints Voight. Collapses cease. Lanternite transport begins.
• 1884–85 – Expands into artifact handling. Begins sealed shipments to unnamed buyers. Public face remains corporate—but more eyes start to watch the ridgelines.

Hidden Function / Covert Layer

• VCL does not just ship material—it acquires, stabilizes, and discreetly redistributes supernatural cargo.
• The company exploits Veil hotspots, using structure and silence to keep disasters at bay.
• Some believe Vexlin made a bargain—not with a man, but a mountain.

Rivalries

• Barrow Iron Works – Competing smelter syndicate in the North; lost three sites to VCL buyouts.
• Union Industrial Commission – Blacklisted VCL in 1881. All records since mysteriously missing.
• Eastern Survey Guilds – Denounce VCL’s mapping practices. Claim it “reorders the land.”

Flagged Irregularities / Rumors

• No accidents at Hollow Mercy since Voight took over. Not one.
• The Sable Providence has no confirmed passengers—yet it arrives full, and leaves heavier.
• Miners at Site #9 refuse to speak on record about the night the ore glowed blue.
• Two bounty hunters who investigated VCL black ledgers never returned—only their horses.