Sunday special: The Magical Factions (Part 1 - the Teraich Family)
extract from the Council’s guide for field agents (agents assisting ThauCon teams)
INTRODUCTION:
The Agency for Thaumological control, in its operational doctrine, is focused on rogue mages, and tends to treat all organized magical factions in the same way, as if the difference between them were minor.
While the simplicity of this approach might be appropriate to the limited cognitive and tactical resources available to typical ThauCon agents, Council field agents should know better.
For a well trained mage, dealing with most rogues is trivial, and a good field agent should limit themselves in assisting their Mundane colleague. We actually suggest that a field agent should limit their intervention to what is strictly necessary, even when they could easily overpower the rogue.
This serves two purposes: first, it allows Mundane agents to feel like they achieved their mission by themselves, thus improving morale. Second, it minimizes the usage of the field agent’s power. As previously discussed, this must always be a priority concern,for multiple important reasons.
However, all but the most incompetent ThauCon teams will occasionally cross the path of the Magical Faction - a label that includes every magical organization of significant numerical and magical strength. When that happens, Mundane agents can’t be expected to hold their own, unless the encounter is part of the very rare ThauCon operation which actually succeeds in locating and attacking one of the Factions.
Field Agents must be ready for such a confrontation, and must be prepared to engage an enemy as powerful as they are, or more, and equally skilled in the use of magic.
It is therefore imperative than every field agent familiarizes themselves with the most important magical faction, so that they can rapidly understand who they are fighting against, and what kind of behavior can be expected.
It should always be kept in mind that numerous minor magical organization exist, such as local criminal cartels, or loose and ever-shifting association of rogue mages. Thus, a Field Agent should document themselves about the organized magical activity in their specific region.
However, the greatest danger is constituted by the emissaries of the few large, powerful magical organizations.
The first supergroup of magical factions we shall discussed is the most numerous, and the one most often coming in direct contact with the Agency:
THE SYNDICATES
It should be kept in mind that “the Syndicates” aren’t in any way a monolithic group, and they don’t consider themselves as being in any way part of a single organization. It’s a label assigned from the outside to all the criminal groups which make use of magic to further their goals, and are motivated by simple accumulation of wealth and power, instead of more nefarious purposes.
The Syndicates typically compete with each other, and fight one other bitterly. However, they’re all enemies of the Council and the Alliance, and have been known to forge temporary alliances against us. This is especially relevant since the formation of the Cartel, a formal alliance of the three most powerful Syndicates active in the continent of Karesia. This is an unprecedented fact, which might fundamentally change the dynamic of our long-standing fight with the Syndicates.
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Overall, the Syndicates have access to a great number of low level mages, often with imperfect control and poor understanding of their path. However, Syndicate mages often specialize deeply in simple, but effective spells. Together with their typical lack of regard for morals and collateral damage, they can prove dangerous opponents in the field. While they usually try to avoid provoking the Council directly, they’ve been known to strike viciously and lethally at field agents, often attempting to surprise them when unprepared and wearing Limiter Bracers in their time off. A mage working on an active Syndicate investigation should be extraordinarily careful, not only during their work hours, but whenever outside the realty safety of a ThauCon base.
In this section, we shall briefly present the most powerful Syndicates, starting from the three which formed the Karesian Syndicate Cartel, presently the most powerful criminal organization on Refuge, and probably the largest group of organized magic users outside the Council’s purview.
Clan Teraich:
A comparatively old Syndicate, and one of the three main members of the Cartel.
Clan Teraich started from a single family active in the Riverlands, which started aggressively recruiting rogue mages, offering protection in return for service.
The titular Teraich family lost their excl control of the organization, which is now ruled by a cadre of local bosses, known as The Commission. Remarkably, despite its heavy recruiting of rogue mages, most of the members in the Commission are mundane, making it the only major Syndicate run by mundanes.
Behavior: the Teraich Family acts as a typical criminal cartel, profiting from protection rackets, smuggling of people and goods, identity trafficking, and various form of magical manipulation of legitimate economical activities. Even for an organized criminal group, they’re known for extreme and disproportionate use of violence - where their organization takes root, their enemies are tortured and gruesomly killed, often together with their families an associates. While they take pains to stay hidden where their power base is weak, in their core territories, they’re often more powerful than the official local government, and their will is enforced by fear and constant threat of violence.
Regions of Activity: The Family is present, to some extent, in most of Karesia, with some branches in Northern Zelenia.
Its stronghold used to be in the Eastern Riverland, especially in the Green River Delta. While they’re still present there, as the Riverland Police became more effective in contrasting them, they gradually shifter their activities to Andvor, especially in the northern half of the country. Andvorian authorities proved less effective in dealing with them, and the Family took root both in the many small town dotting the Andvorian Heights, where they reached a concerning degree of control of the economical and political life. From there, they spilled to Southern Vorok and Kalester. It appears they’ve been unable, so far, to establish a foothold in the Five Peaks.
Powers: Teraich mages specialize in combat magic, and developed their own, undeniably effective tradition for magical combat, with ample usage of wide-area Ruin spell which no responsible magic would employ.
A Field Agent expecting to fight the Teraich Family should be ready to protect themselves and their team from powerful Ruin and Motion attacks, with little or no notice. They must also be ready to fight in a populous area, or near delicate infrastructure, because Teraich Agents are known to force confrontation in places where ThauCon and Council agents are reluctant to make full use of their weapons.
Recommendations: The Family has access to a worryingly high number of rogue mages, and they’re effective in training effective Novices and Initiates. Even Field Agents of Adept level or above should be wary of entering a battle against multiple Teraich initiates, given their mastery of highly destructive spells.
However, Teraich mages are often unstable, so the organization has few mages of level 3 and above, and not as effectively trained. Mundane ThauCon agents are quite proficient at dealing with low-level mages, so the Field Agent should focus on recon and protection, and let their Mundane colleagues confront Teraich Mages.
Once confronted by powerful forces, Teraich Clan either counterattacks aggressively, or temporarily retreats, hoping to return once the Agency’s attention wanes. Given the Agency’s limited ability to consistently police territory, this tactics is dishearteningly effective.
In dealing with Teraich Families, therefore, a Field Agent should both be extremely wary of surprise attack, including during off hours, and suggest to actively pressure the group, arresting as many of their members as possible before they have the chance to flee and disperse.
Overall threat: The Teraich Family is responsible for a disproportionate number of civilian deaths in magical confrontations, exceeding all other factions combined since the Faceless Army stopped its terror campaign. They’re also the third most common cause of combat death for FIeld Agents, behind the Faceless Army and Sacred Song Society.
However, it should be remembered that the absolute number of Field Agents dying in battle against the faction is very low, especially compared to those caused by loss of control, or Incursion-related. The faction, while violent and ruthless, is a nuisance, and their low ceiling for magical ability prevents them from becoming anything more. The Council’s strategical commission holds that it could fully defeated in less than a decade, if a large-scale task force involving both ThauCon and the Bureau A Police were put together, with proper funding and organization.
So far, every attempt from the OWA parliament to set up such a force has failed.
[TO BE CONTINUED]