The Court of Dust

Overview

The Court of Dust is the publicly-acknowledged authority primarily operating out of Bassuras, composed of the leaders of gangs and crime syndicates. They control the flow of information in and out of the city and have their ears in other outposts throughout Marquet. No information is traded without their ears hearing it.

Origin: Post-Luxon merchants and thieves’ syndicates in the ruins of Marquet.

Symbol: A coin split in two — half buried, half visible.

Court rule weakens the further you get from Bassuras and does not extend to other major Marquesian cities. The Court is purely a product of the Hellcatch. Nearby settlements are independent but less developed.

Goals & Methods

All the very best supplies are underground, in ancient buried temples, but the Court regulates entrances and exits. The general populace knows through whispers that it exists, but no one has ever seen it. Unauthorized excavations are prohibited and considered theft.

The Court responds to direct theft from Court properties and human trafficking with death — however the complicated and long legal process to prove a human trafficking claim means most accusations go unpunished, especially when the Court itself is the most common culprit. Wrenches are threatened with violence if they report unsafe or inhospitable conditions. The rules that apply to the people do not apply to the Court of Dust. Nevertheless, the citizens of Bassuras believe that if the Court were to vanish, the city would erupt into chaos.

The Court has spies and agents that are unmarked who live and work within the populace. Anyone in the city might be an agent of the Court, and that makes the threat of punishment everpresent.

Key Members

Kethren Duvash — trusted advisor on arcane history, artifact identification, and ruins politics. Considered indispensable; this is not the same as being trusted.

The Survey Foreman — Court official overseeing underground survey operations (title only, not a proper name). Bureaucratic, methodical, increasingly alarmed by what his teams encounter below; will escalate to force as a default response because it’s the only tool he has. Recurs across all four Exposition hooks wherever Court underground operations intersect with the surface world.