The Couriers

With the right contacts, this criminal organization will perform whatever dirty job you need doing: blackmail, assassination, smuggling, racketeering - anything for the right price.

In order to cover their illicit activities, the Couriers also operate an actual courier service. This operation is commercially viable, but far less profitable than their side activities. Using bribes and blackmail, they silence the right people to keep their true business a secret.

Despite being thieves and robbers, the Couriers operate by a set of rules. For example, stealing from a fellow courier will get you expelled, as will not giving the Couriers their share of your earnings from a job.

In return, members can count on them to provide a steady stream of jobs, opportunities to fence contraband, and to grease the palms of cantankerous officials if they get caught.

Insignia

When the Couriers operate their legal business, they use an emblem of a pair of black wings on a white field. This emblem hangs outside most establishments where packages can be sent. Couriers also wear signature leather satchels with a magical lock.

Organization and Leadership

The Couriers are almost fully decentralized, in order to keep their secrecy. Most Couriers operate under aliases, and only use nicknames internally. Some nicknames are as simple as 'Red' for someone with red hair, others might be more or less far-fetched references to their skills, origin, or how they entered the organization.

The Couriers tolerate smaller organizations doing the same jobs they do, perhaps only because it means that the authorities have an easier target to hunt. It is also common for local gangs or thieves' guilds to take on larger contracts from the Couriers as a group. Up-and-coming criminals are wise to do as the Couriers say, or risk being ostrasized from an already cut-throat society.

The Couriers know that information is the most valuable good, and also the lightest. The most valuable thing in a noble's house are usually their letters. This is not to say that they do not desire the gold, gems, or magical trinkets.

Some Couriers carry enchanted wax tablets that duplicate text written between them, which enables communication across vast distances. They also employ multiple types of codes and cyphers in order to hide their communications.

Courier's Cant

The members of the Couriers use coded phrases to talk in the open about jobs and targets. To any outsider, it sounds like discussions about where and to whom deliveries are to be made.

Phrase	Meaning
'postmaster'	Courier leader
'sender'	job giver
'recipient'	target
'delivery'	job or mission
'company delivery'	job for the Couriers themselves
'express delivery'	urgent job
'overnight delivery'	very urgent job
'postage'	payment for a job
'lost delivery'	unfinished job
'shipment'	stolen goods
'package'	smuggled goods
'letter'	information
'receipt'	report
'birthday present'	assassination
'postbox'	dead drop

Examples:

• 'I need you to deliver a package to Greystone.' (Offer of a smuggling job in Greystone.)
• 'I have a letter from a sender in Maeral. He was going to send a whole shipment, but couldn't afford the postage.' (Information about a high-value job in Maeral.)
• 'There is a lost company package that needs your attention.' (Unfinished smuggling job for the Couriers)
• 'Go to Heimdall's Anvil and deliver a birthday present. I forgot about their birthday, so this needs to be an express delivery.' (Urgent assassination job in Heimdall's Anvil)
• 'The Postmaster needs a receipt for the letter from Solstice' (Report information from Solstice to a Courier leader)

Wayrunes

The Couriers also employ a system of hidden symbols that help their members find allies and avoid dangers. The symbols are usually carved or drawn on doorframes and signposts.

Symbol	Meaning
triangle with dot	safehouse
two downward triangles	high value target
circled x	danger ahead
quincunx	protected
three vertical lines	fence
square with diagonal line	dead drop