The Orvain Consortium
Gold tempers all fire
The Orvain Consortium
Merchant-Princes of the Iron Rails
Based in Orvain, the Consortium keeps the frontier stitched together through coin, caravans, and contracts. They are merchant-princes, rail barons, and magnates who see the frontier not as home but as investment to be harvested. Where others see chaos, they see opportunity. Where others see danger, they see profit margins.
Symbol & Colors
Symbol: A golden scale, its balance uneven—one pan heavier, weighed
down with coin. Behind it, the faint outline of a railway wheel.
Colors: Deep brass and coal-black
Motto: "Gold tempers all fire"
Philosophy & Methods
Core Belief: Profit is survival. The frontier is chaos, but with enough gold, even chaos can be bought, bent, or burned out. They don't conquer through force—they conquer through dependency. Make a town rely on Consortium rails for food, Consortium scrip for wages, Consortium protection for safety. Once dependent, they're owned.
Primary Methods
- Control the Rails: The Silver Line and its spurs carry food, goods, ammunition—life itself
- Issue Scrip Currency: "Consortium Marks" backed by gold, tying settlements to their economy
- Maintain Private Armies: The Ironbrand Militias protect their interests with brutal efficiency
- Employ Specialists: Bounty hunters, trackers, even psionics when necessary—all paid in gold
- Information Networks: Spymasters like Kirelle Dorn know everything worth knowing
- Legal Manipulation: Own the courts, write the contracts, control the law itself
Organizational Structure
The Chain of Command
Board of Magnates
Seven merchant-princes who hold ultimate authority. They meet in Orvain's glass towers, making decisions that ripple across the frontier. Each controls a specific domain: rails, mining, agriculture, trade, security, finance, and intelligence. They vote on major policies but scheme against each other constantly.
Regional Directors
Manage specific territories. Vorren Haldane oversees the western rail lines. Each Director has near-absolute authority in their region, answering only to the Board. They're judge, banker, and warlord rolled into one polished suit.
Local Agents
The face of the Consortium in frontier towns. Rail-thin men in brass-button coats, always carrying ledgers. They collect payments, enforce contracts, hire muscle when needed. Locals hate them but need them.
Contracted Security
Ironbrand Militias provide enforcement. Officially independent contractors, but everyone knows who really pays their wages. When diplomacy fails, the Ironbrands arrive with rifles and contracts written in blood.
Day-to-Day Operations
Rail Management
- Maintain and expand the Silver Line and all spur tracks
- Set freight rates and passenger fares (always rising)
- Control schedules—towns that displease them wait longer for supplies
- Employ Covenant of Ash expertise for ley-engine maintenance (quietly)
Trade Control
- Monopolize key goods: grain, ammunition, medical supplies
- Set prices high enough to profit, low enough to prevent rebellion
- Use caravans where rails don't reach—always guarded
- Undercut local producers through subsidized competition
Financial Services
- Issue loans with ruinous interest rates
- Foreclose on defaulters, seizing land and equipment
- Pay wages in scrip only redeemable at Consortium stores
- Control town treasuries through "investment partnerships"
Security & Enforcement
- Deploy Ironbrands to protect assets and collect debts
- Issue bounties on outlaws who interfere with operations
- Bribe local sheriffs for favorable law enforcement
- Sometimes hire psionics for problems conventional force can't solve
Consortium Holdings
Physical Infrastructure
- The Silver Line: Main rail artery from Orvain to Iron Mesa
- Multiple spur lines connecting key settlements
- Warehouses in every rail town
- Mining operations in Iron Mesa and Stormrise
- Agricultural holdings throughout grain-producing regions
- Company stores in 40+ settlements
Financial Assets
- Gold reserves backing Consortium scrip
- Outstanding loans totaling millions
- Land deeds from foreclosures
- Investment partnerships with most major settlements
Human Resources
- Thousands of direct employees (clerks, engineers, conductors)
- Contracted Ironbrand companies (10,000+ soldiers)
- Network of informants and spies
- Bounty hunters on retainer
- Occasional psionic specialists (under the table)
Notable Figures
Lord Marshal Vorren Haldane
Chief Rail Magnate • Western Director
Appearance: Mid-fifties, silver-haired, always impeccably dressed. Smiles like a knife being unsheathed. Wears a pocket watch worth more than most settlements, checks it constantly as if time itself owes him money.
Personality: Charming to those he needs, ruthless to those he doesn't. Views the frontier as a ledger—every life has a price, every death an accounting entry. Never misses a dividend payment, even when his trains carry corpses instead of cargo.
Notable Actions: Orchestrated the Kessick Mine Strike suppression—fifty miners dead, operations resumed within the week. Personally negotiated with Dust Vultures for "mutually beneficial non-aggression" (i.e., pays them to raid competitors). Has standing offer to Duncan Maddox: "Name your price." Duncan has never named one.
Mistress Kirelle Dorn
Spymaster • Intelligence Director
Appearance: Age indeterminate (somewhere between thirty and fifty). Dresses in dark, practical clothing that helps her disappear in crowds. Eyes that catalog everything, forget nothing.
Personality: Quiet, methodical, patient as stone. Buys secrets like cattle and sells them like diamonds. Knows Duncan's movements better than he'd like, but respects his refusal to be owned. Finds that... intriguing.
Network: Her web of informants stretches from Orvain's parlors to the frontier's bloodiest saloons. Every barkeep, prostitute, stable boy, and town clerk—someone reports to her. She knows about the Circle of Ash's meeting places, the Dust Vultures' next three targets, and what the Redeemers ate for breakfast.
Marcus "Three-Finger" Webb
Consortium Enforcer • Specialist Hunter
Appearance: Missing two fingers on his left hand—Duncan's bullet took them three years ago. Keeps the scars as reminder. Weathered, scarred, eyes empty as winter sky.
Personality: Professional to his bones. Doesn't hate Duncan for the fingers—it was business. Hunts him now with mechanical precision because the Consortium pays well. Would shoot his own mother for the right price, then attend her funeral and cry genuine tears.
Methods: Tracks targets for weeks, learning patterns, weaknesses, routines. Never takes a shot unless it's guaranteed. Has killed fourteen men on Consortium contracts, never failed to collect payment. Duncan is number fifteen—his retirement job.
Contradictions & Dirty Secrets
Public Face vs. Private Reality
- Claim: Neutral arbiters bringing civilization to chaos
Reality: Pit factions against each other to keep trade flowing and prices high - Claim: Opposed to outlaws and criminals
Reality: Pay Dust Vultures to raid competitors, buy information from smugglers - Claim: Don't deal with psionics or supernatural forces
Reality: Hire psionic specialists under the table, contract with Covenant of Ash - Claim: Fair wages and honest dealing
Reality: Company scrip, loan entrapment, wage theft through creative accounting - Claim: Supporting frontier development
Reality: Extracting wealth, leaving towns dependent and depleted
Relationship with Duncan Maddox
The Consortium sees Duncan as both asset and liability. They've tried to hire him, tried to kill him, and sometimes both in the same week. He disrupts their carefully balanced trade routes but also removes threats they can't handle officially.
The Standing Offer
Lord Marshal Haldane has made Duncan three separate offers of employment. First time: 10,000 crowns to protect Consortium shipments for a year. Duncan rode away without answering. Second time: 50,000 crowns and a pardon for all crimes. Duncan shot the messenger's hat off. Third time: blank check—"name your price, any price." Duncan finally responded: "There ain't enough gold in Orvain to buy what you're asking."
The Bounty
Simultaneously, there's a Consortium bounty on Duncan: $3,000 dead or alive. Not high enough to draw serious hunters, not low enough to be insult. Haldane keeps it there deliberately—"Insurance," he calls it. "If he ever becomes more problem than potential asset, the price goes up to $50,000 and every gun on the frontier rides."
In-World Reputation
What Settlers Say
- "They own the steel, they own the grain, they own us. Simple as that."
- "Consortium arrives in a town, offers help. Ten years later, they own every deed, every debt, every soul."
- "I work for scrip, buy from their store with scrip, pay rent with scrip. Ain't seen real silver in three years."
- "Better them than the Redeemers or Dust Vultures. At least with the Consortium, you know the price going in."
What Outlaws Say
- "Consortium? They're the real outlaws. Just got better lawyers."
- "I rob banks. They rob generations. Tell me who's the bigger thief."
- "Hit a Consortium shipment, whole frontier turns against you. Meanwhile they bleed towns dry legal-like."
What Other Factions Say
- Redeemers: "They traffic with sorcery and sin, all while hiding behind respectability."
- Circle of Ash: "They exploit psionics in secret while condemning us in public."
- Dust Vultures: "At least we're honest about being thieves."
- Ironbrands: "We're their dogs. Well-paid dogs, but dogs all the same."
Current Operations
The Lathrop Problem
Consortium wants a spur line to Lathrop but the ley-line instability makes it impossible. They're quietly funding research into ley-line manipulation, hiring Circle of Ash exiles, even consulting with Covenant of Ash. If they solve it, they'll control access to one of the frontier's most supernaturally rich regions.
The Dust Vulture Treaty
Haldane has secret non-aggression pacts with three Dust Vulture lieutenants. Consortium shipments pass unmolested; in exchange, the Vultures get tip-offs about competitor caravans. It's working—until Maeve Callahan finds out her subordinates are taking bribes.
The Brimstead Squeeze
Systematically buying up mining operations around Brimstead through foreclosures and "accidents." Within two years, they'll own every productive mine. The miners know what's happening but can't prove it. Strikes are met with Ironbrand "peacekeepers."
The Ultimate Question
The Consortium keeps the frontier from starving—but they also ensure it never gets full.
They bring order—but it's order that serves profit first, people second.
They claim to build civilization—but they build it on debt and dependency.
Are they the frontier's saviors or its parasites?
The answer, like their scales, depends on which side you're standing on.