OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Intent: Expand on Kaida's rebel friends.
Image Credit: Here. Here.
Canon: N/A.
Permissions: Permission for subs made by Laira Darkhold's writer here and here.
Links: Vashyada, To Hell and Back, Eldorai Exodus, Twin Exiles, Eldorai, Xioquo, Blades of Reason, Kar'zun, Qadiri, Kaida.
GENERAL INFORMATION
Organization Name: Chapter of the Black Trade.
Classification: Spy and Smuggling Network.
Affiliation: Court of the Shadows, Shadow Knights, Naesala Faethyra, Asuran Star Combine.
Organization Symbol: Black credit symbol surrounded by a golden circle.
Description: Smugglers...the Shadow Knights don't need their kind of scum. Actually, they kind do. The rag-tag migrant fleet is poor. Resources are scarce, ships are valuable and enemies manifold. The galaxy is a big, scary place where they are outmanned and outgunned. What they cannot produce in their nomad fleet, they must salvage, steal, raid or barter. By their very nature, the Shadows are a regimented society. The nomad fleet is governed by an oligarchic republic in which service guarantees citizenship. Yet there is also a place for fringers and the like, provided they can make themselves useful to the community. The Shadows have a code they follow, but they prioritise the survival of their people over pesky legal niceties.
The Chapter of the Black Trade fills an important niche in Shadow Knight society. To the general public, they appear as free traders, smugglers, mercenaries and other spacer types that can be found throughout the galactic rim. The Chapter is composed of spies, smugglers, informants and the like. Smuggling is necessary for the Shadows to acquire many of their resources, and having spies among Firemane, the 'official' elves and fringe worlds the nomads traverse during their voyages is helpful, too. The Black Traders excel at smuggling contraband and other wares.
Aside from their ability move and procure resources off the books, the members of the Chapter also act as an early warning system. In that capacity, they alert the nomad fleets to dangers, such as Imperialist or pirate fleets. Moreover, jobs the Shadows cannot be officially associated with can be outsourced to them. They can provide the nomad fleet with vital intelligence as well as supplies, locate bolt-holes, secret hyperspace routes and the like. Many actually are quasi-independent freighter crews, who act on behalf of the Shadows. However, the hard core of the group are professional spies, who use their trading activities as a cover. They are not really deep cover spies who ferret out hidden secrets, but the group casts a wide net.
The intelligence network can provide the rebels with information about cargo shipments, personnel movements, enemy patrols, local rumours, new hyperspace routes and so on. While some Black Traders have the training to analyse these tidbits and use it to come across more hidden information, most of it is simply transmitted to the Veil using Ghostwave transmitters or couriers. Then the Veil's analysts collate and analyse the information. Traders may allow themselves to be hired by corporations and other entities as free captains. Here and there, a shipment might 'get lost' because 'pirates' suddenly showed up to claim it.
In a way the Chapter acts as a safety valve, as it provides a means of gainful employment for Shadows who are skilled but have trouble fitting in with the more regimented way of life of the fleet or who have a past that makes keeping them around difficult. It also provides work for freelancers. A good number of its members are Qadiri, as their inherent navigational talents make them good pilots and trailblazers. Xioquo are also drawn to the group due to their skill in stealth and subterfuge. Needless to say they tend to be a rough-and-tumble lot. The individual morality of the Black Traders varies greatly. The same applies to their investment in the rebel cause.
However, there are certain rules they must abide by. One is not working with slavers, sentient traffickers and the like. The core of the Shadows is composed as Eldorai, who have suffered greatly under foreign slavers. They have a lot less scruples about smuggling spice, provided none of it ends up in the nomad fleet, guns or stolen merchandise. Members need to be good at piloting, astrogation, discreet and able to blend in. The Black Traders operate with little support from outside, so good survival skills are vital. The same applies for being quick on the draw and having a good aim with a blaster or disruptor.
While the Shadows invest lot of power is invested in the central authority and their laws are very strict, they also give individual members a lot of autonomy on the lower levels. Thus they have established specific spheres or Courts dedicated to certain businesses or professions. These have a broad mandate to oversee day-to-day operations. The people administered by a Court form a body of voters which elect a group of electors. These in turn elect the head of the Court, who bears the title of Magister.
The political ideology espoused by the Shadows can be likened to corporatism. This is a belief that advocates the organisation of society by corporate groups, such as agricultural, labour, military, scientific, or guild associations, on the basis of their common interests. There is also an element of guild socialism. Corporatism involves the incorporation of distinct spheres of all public life, including economic activity, into bodies which join the disparate interests with those of the state. This is supposed to transcend centrifugal tendencies like class warfare. Overcoming the danger posed by racial or religious strife is also pertinent.
Within this context, the Chapter is part of the portfolio of the Court of the Veil. This body is responsible for all the spy, stealth and espionage activities. The Court of the Exchange is also involved. It supervises the traders and business types. This involves managing the Asuran Star Combine. The Exchange makes a show of being composed of legitimate merchants foreigners can do business with. Naturally the line between them and plain smugglers can be rather thin. They can point people to the Veil if they need 'special deliveries', which are then carried out by the Chapter. Agents of the Veil act as handles for the Black Traders. The Veil doles out assignments and is responsible for weeding out unsuitable elements, such as traitorous or corrupt individuals.
GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
Headquarters: A modified bulk freighter called the Legal Tender. Its code name is Slipstream 1. It serves as a mobile headquarters.
Domain: The Chapter does not control any domains, unless their ships count. On the ship, the captain is queen. That aside, they do not govern any planetary domains, though they operate on various worlds across the fringes of space. The Black Traders are smugglers, spies and the like, so they seek blend into whichever environment they operate in. By necessity, they are among the most cosmopolitan Shadows because they operate far from home and have to mingle with humans and aliens on a regular basis. At the same time, they are very secretive. Basically, it is like in any underground group, as they have good reason to avoid exposure and stay out of the limelight.
Notable Assets: The Black Traders operate a network of warehouses and safe houses. They have a presence on a number of shadowports. Moreover, they own various cargo ships, freighters, blockade runners and the like. The Asuran Star Combine helps with acquiring ships. Examples of ships in use are Outrider Freighters, YT-300 Light Freighters, XS Light Stock Freighters and modified C90 Corvettes.
SOCIAL INFORMATION
Hierarchy: The Black Traders maintain a cell organisation. They work in small groups, with the lower tier smugglers and agents reporting anonymously via text or distorted voice calls. Above that they have different cells for each species of elf, each region of the galaxy, and specific ones for special tasks. Agents of the Veil act as handlers and provide general direction, doling out assignments as needed.
Membership: Must be a member of the Shadow Knights and support them. The group is not overly large, but dispersed. Selections are carried out by the Court of the Veil, which vets the Black Traders. Members of a cell should provide their own ship. The Chapter expects its members to have skill in piloting, astrogation, evading patrols, intelligence gathering and spycraft. Most of the Black Traders are elves, but here and there one can find Kar'zun members. The stone people are not sneaky, but tech-savvy and very good engineers.
Climate: Profitable, but very dangerous. Not only are they regarded as pirates by some, smugglers at best, they are unpopular with many the general Shadow Knights...even though they all kinda rely on them. It is like being an undercover police - necessary but not well respected. There is always the suspicion that some of them might go dirty. The Black Traders do not feature prominently in Shadow Knight propaganda, unlike say the agri-farmers, soldiers and pilots of the nomad fleet. And when they get mentioned, it is in very vague terms. However, there is a sensible reason for this, as exposing individual members could put them at risk.
That said, the cells formed by the Black Traders can often be fairly tight-knit and loyal to each other. This is a necessity for survival given their line of work. As spies and smugglers, the Black Traders are governed by codes of secrecy. The most important rule is not to reveal the nomad fleet to hostile entities or otherwise endanger it and one's comrades. By necessity the Veil is an extremely secretive institution. To protect fellow Chapter members as well as the nomad fleet as a whole, information is compartmentalised and the group operates in cells. Thus if one cell is unmasked and its members are captured, there is very little they will be able to reveal to their captors. All information is on a need-to-know basis. In the cloak and dagger atmosphere of the underground, suspicion is a virtue. Deception and violence are par for the course. Black Traders may explicitly infiltrate criminal networks, or simply keep their eyes open and their ears peeled at the local spaceport, watching out for opportunities as well dangers.
Some of the Black Traders are quite patriotic, whereas others are more interested in the paycheque and perhaps the adventure. Many fall somewhere in the middle. The life they lead can be quite lucrative; they can associate with outsiders and in some ways have more freedom than someone in the nomad fleet. However, it is also very risky. The Veil keeps a watchful eye on them, but also protects them. Aside from moving cargo and providing information, the Black Traders also perform an important function for the fleet by providing clandestine transport for elves in need of assistance.
These could be escaped slaves, members of a clandestine Shadow Knight cell that has been unmasked and needs immediate evacuation or similar. Likewise, they may provide transport and intelligence for Shadow Knight infiltrators and special forces and help out Young Squires who get in trouble during their Journey. They will not hesitate to eliminate threats to the Chapter or the Shadows. When such a situation arises, members are exhorted to do the deed cleanly so that it cannot be traced back to them. Of all the Shadows, the Black Traders are the ones with the most extensive contact with non-elves. Eldarai is an extremely obscure language and this applies even more to the Tygaran languages. This means that fluency in Basic and, ideally, other common languages is a necessity. Several members can understand or speak Huttese. This means that they are among the least xenophobic Shadows. Naturally, more conservative or plain racist Shadows are quick to identify a link between 'xenophilia' and criminality.
A number of Black Traders are Force-Sensitive, though their abilities and level of skill varies. Persuasive or stealthy Force abilities as well as those that grant extrasensory abilities or augment one's piloting and navigational talents are particularly valued. The group also has Force Dead members. These tend to be members of the Emissaries of Illyria, an Illyrian cult, or survivors of the Kaeshana Conundrum who were turned Force Dead due to being exposed to the Netherworld. Regardless of their Force-Sensitivity or lack of it, a Black Trader is always armed.
Reputation: They are seen as a necessary evil by the Shadow Knights, but not liked. As mentioned above, it is like being an undercover cop. Everyone needs those as well as spies, but they are not popular. The Court of the Justicars, which handles law enforcement, is particularly distrustful. Not without justification, the Justicars suspect the Black Traders use their activities as a license to enrich themselves and that several are linked to plain criminal elements. Their relationship is better with some of the Courts, but there can still be friction.
Stylena, an influential Rationalist politician in the Shadow Knight movement, has built up ties to some of them. She has a background as a seminarian, revolutionary agitator, backroom schemer and bank robber who recruited criminals into the revolutionary groups she led and cooperated with outright criminal gangs. She would probably prefer if it the Black Traders were part of her department, the Court of Providence. But that would mean giving the lethal bureaucrat too much power. Outside of the Shadow Knight power structure, they may be seen as smugglers, pirates, spies or even occasionally freedom fighters, depending on who you ask. The line is a thin one in the underground.
Curios: None really. Having an obvious curio that allows others to identify them would be a bad idea. Black Traders identify themselves via coded phrases, which change on a regular basis. Outwardly the average Black Trader looks like your typical spacer. Typical spacer clothes are often paired with a light combat suit being worn underneath. Shadowsuits are popular among infiltrators. Most carry a tamper-resistant Ghost-Wave Communicator. Each cell has their own ship, such as a shuttle or freighter.
Rules: Simple, straight-forward rules anyone working in a semi-clandestine organisation would appreciate. Be professional, keep the secrets, be loyal to the group, do not betray or harm fellow members. Members are expected to be loyal to the Shadow Knights and not do anything to compromise the safety of the nomad fleet. They are supposed to help out fellow elves in need. It is also best to fulfill contractual obligations. They must protect the rag-tag fleet and warn it about dangers to it and its inhabitants. Collaborating with forces considered inimical to the Shadows is forbidden. Above all though, the Black Traders are supposed support the nomad fleet, by any means necessary.
Goals: Make a profit, support the Shadow Knights by providing supplies and intelligence, serve their clients.
MEMBERS
Laesava Tyan: The group is led by Laesava Tyan, the Chapter Mistress. Laesava was born to a dirt poor family on Kaeshana during the reign of Tirathana VI. She made a living as a sea smuggler and soon became an unrepentant outlaw. She was arrested and forced to serve in a penal unit used for hard labour, but deserted. Laesava is a roguish type and can be quite charming. She also shoots first.
She first offered her services to the offworld smugglers, providing contacts and stashes, in return for getting a starship and being taught how to fly it. The Eldorai had spaceships, but only a few were capable of hyperspace travel. Space travel was very limited and widely shunned. They were only just coming to realise that the stars are not just full of empty void and ghosts.
Laesava was an occasional collaborator but also rival of Varisanthra Lycaeni, a former political dissident and crime lord turned banker. As she puts it, Vari lost her taste for adventure and turned 'respectable'. Laesava lacks a formal education and came late to literacy. However, she is a formidable autodidact and can speak or understand several foreign languages. Ironically, she is better at reading Basic than Eldarai. She is a professional gambler. She thrives in high-risk, high-reward situations. Like her former colleague, she is quite cosmopolitan and free of the xenophobic biases of more traditionalist Eldorai. Laesava operates out of the Legal Tender and maintains a stash of cover identities and transponder codes.
Jarav'Vara: A Xioquo agent employed by the Court of the Veil. Like most Xio, Vara grew up in the Underealm. She fled to the deepest catacombs to escape the ancien régime. She claims that she was a heroic outlaw who robbed from the rich and gave to the poor. Based on this testimony, she stood up against her people's tyrannical government and smuggled out fugitive slaves. Detractors claim she was just a crime lord who was more in it for herself and would only help the oppressed if she gained a tangible benefit from doing so. The tine between 'noble' rebel and criminal can be a fleeting one.
Regardless, Vara has been moulded by underground life and has a conspiratorial mind set. She is very good at disguises. Her prior activities have given her a lot of experience in running agents and maintaining a clandestine network. Dealing in secrets and living a life of illegality is nothing new for her. Vara is a calculating woman with a tendency towards suspicion, as befitting a spy. She acts as one of the handlers for the Black Traders. In that capacity, she doles out assignments, collates intelligence acquired by the field agents and acts as a conduit in dealings with the nomad fleet. Jara has no Force powers and is indeed a bit contemptuous of how Force-centric many elf societies are. However, she is very good at sneaking and stealth.
Tanak Jal Halimas: Tanak is a Qadiri and a field operative/smuggler for the Black Traders. In short, one of their agents on the ground level. He commands his own ship and crew. In many ways, his present job is quite similar to what he did on Tygara. Tanak is a Khaimari, a Qadiri ethnic group. As the saying goes, The difference between a peaceful farmer and a ferocious pirate often comes down to whether the harvest was good or not. Desperate people will do desperate things. Depending on the season, his people alternated between being farmers and explorers and dangerous pirates. They also demanded protection money from merchants.
Tanak is acquainted with Jazan Jai Khalal, another notorious Khaimari corsair. The two have history together and are very distant kin. However, he followed her aunt, who was killed when Firemane began to enforce a Clear Seas policy. Jazan joined the humans and became a starfighter squadron commander, joining the ranks of the corsairs who had upon piracy and become 'legitimate'.
Tanak wanted to see the stars on his own terms. After making the transition to space, he wound up joining the Shadows. He brought many members of his old crew with him. Now he has his own 'sky-ship' and is charged with making special deliveries, running blockades and gathering intelligence. The Shadows have more rules, but he finds the challenges exciting enough to keep him happy. In contrast to the smuggler stereotype, Tanak is stoic rather than cocky and reckless. He is Force-Sensitive, with a knack for Force Persuasion, Sense abilities, illusions and Force-enhanced piloting.
Ylaea Althenae: Ylaea is more known as a Shadow Knight recruiter, but she is associated with the Black Traders. Some suspect her of being a spy for the Archon. Regardless, she is an Eldorai female and a childhood friend of Kaida Taldir. However, they were separated when their home town was destroyed by a flood. Ylaea was abducted by offworld slavers, but eventually managed to run away and ran into a Jedi Master, who became her teacher.
Ylaea joined the Republic's Jedi Order, fighting Sith and other threats. But following the Battle of Metalorn, her master revealed herself as a closeted Sith. Wanting nothing to do with such beings, Ylaea fought and arrested her. Disillusioned with the Jedi, she became a rogue as was the cool and trendy thing to do. She joined the Shadows after Kaeshana's desolation, acting as a free captain.
Ylaea is direct, but gregarious. One of her common jokes is 'three Eldorai is a church, four a schism and five a civil war'. Sadly, there's more than a grain of truth to it. Ylaea tends to deflect with humour when things get to her. She was drawn to the Shadow Knights because they promised to build a system based on merit rather than classism and aristocracy. Ylaea is a good lightsabre duellist and specialises in elemental air abilities and dampening or suppressing the Force abilities of other Force-Users.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
Smuggling has a long history in the galaxy. Indeed, it precedes space travel. Contrary to popular belief, not all smugglers are Corellians. Nor are they all freedom fighters whose tough exterior conceals a heart of gold. After all, they are criminals. All the elf races had smuggling rings. Some more and some less. The Vashyada less so, the Qadiri much more. Xio and Eldorai too, especially in their previous eras of oppressive rule.
Officially, all good Eldorai are united. They all believe in the Great Goddess Ashira - and in the other Eldorai deities, though they're less important. They all believe that the Star Queen is the Goddess' viceroy and that her decrees reflect divine will. However, the Eldorai are far less united than they would like. Indeed, their race has a history of strife. In many ways, they have often been their own worst enemy. As Ylaea Althena is fond of saying, three Eldorai are a church, four a schism and five a civil war.
All those Eldorai considered renegades are labelled as Dashdae Eldorai. This is commonly translated as Dark Eldorai, though it is a misnomer since it has nothing to do with the Light or Dark Side. They want to overthrow the Matriarchy and defy the Goddess. At least that's one way of looking at it. Of course, it is more complex than that, and the Dark Eldorai include a myriad of competing groups.
Some want a mageocracy, some a military dictatorship, some want equal male rights, others a Republic (though generally one with a limited franchise). Some seek accommodation with outsiders, others think all non-Eldorai are foreign devils and that only fervent belief in Ashira can lead the Eldorai to salvation. Others again worship Illyria, considered an evil goddess in Eldorai orthodoxy for rebelling against Ashira. In the eyes of these rebels, she's the patron deity of the downtrodden. Yet they are all lumped together as Dark Eldorai, a name which automatically prejudices opinion.
When the Eldorai abandoned Kaeshana in a Great Exodus to escape the doomed planet that was fated to be devastated by a huge asteroid, some had to be left behind. These Forsaken struggled to survive in a blasted wasteland. Resources were scarce, and strife was endemic. One of the 'Dark Eldorai' groups that tried to wrest order from the chaos and protected the scattered communities was a rebel faction called the Shadow Knights, a group of militant survivalists. To provide for their people, they had to turn to unorthodox means. What they could not make themselves, they had to raid, steal or acquire on the black market. The struggle for survival left little room for tender moral or legal questions.
Some of the Shadows had connections to Eldorai exiles who had been banished from Kaeshana in the old days and gotten into smuggling. The roots of the Chapter of the Black Traders lie in this time period. Some were career rebels or criminals; others were young Forsaken who wanted to get off the hellhole their homeworld had become, or even Eldorai exodites who felt guilty about leaving the Forsaken behind.
The group was founded by an Eldorai called Laesava Tyan. She grew up as a dirt poor commoner who became former sea smuggler and inveterate outlaw. A roguish type with little respect for the powers that be, she thrived on the fringes and in the underworld. At odds with the Matriarchy and its stultifying aristocrats, Laesava offerec her services to offworld smugglers with contacts and stashes. She worked with but was also a rival to Varisanthra Lycaeni.
Like her, Varisanthra was a renegade opposed to the Matriarchy. As a crime lord, she smuggled contraband to Kaeshana to undermine the ancien régime. However, Varisanthra eventually legitimised her criminal empire and became a banker among the space people. By contrast, Laesava remained in the game. She preferred the smuggler's life and coopted some of Varisanthra's employees who did not want to give it up.
Laesava had some history with Naesala Faethyra, an Eldorai officer who had to flee Kaeshana after she ran afoul of intrigue at court because her more proactive way of fighting offworld corsairs threatened to break down the willow palisade of isolation. Naesala found her less orderly, but also more patriotic than Varisanthra. Regardless, Laesava made money ferrying refugees from Kaeshana and later providing Forsaken with smuggled goods. Sometimes she provided intelligence to Naesala, who had become the elected leader of the Shadow Knights. She also participated in a few raids.
The Black Traders' role became more formalised after the Shadows were forced to leave Kaeshana, which was subjugated by the First Order following the Battle of Kaeshana. The Shadows had sided with Firemane and the Eldorai Matriarchy to fight the foreign invader, but few wanted to join the people they believed had abandoned them. With nowhere else to go, they created a nomad fleet. However, she faced many obstacles. Their resources were scarce and their ability to manufacture the things they needed was limited. This particularly applied to ships and fuel.
Moreover, the galaxy was a big, scary place full of threats. Not everyone liked the regimented way of life the Shadow Knight leadership enforced in the fleet. Laesava offered her services to the fledgling nomad fleet. Aside from smuggling, the free traders could act as an intelligence service and early warning system. They would not be able to ferret out the dark secrets of governments and corporations, but they could keep the Shadows abreast of opportunities and threats by casting a wide net.
Unofficially, it was a place to send people who had useful skills but did not quite fit into the more regimented way of life in the fleet. There was quite a bit of bickering about which Court should have supervision over the Chapter. Being an orderly, rather militarised people, many Shadows did not like them much. At the same time it could be a quite lucrative job. The ambitious Stylena seemed an obvious choice due to her many links with the underworld, which was also a good reason not to pick her. Strategos Yseult Faerin did not want her Court to be associated with them, as she suspecte it would lead to corruption. In the end, they were placed under the Court of the Veil, which was responsible for all spy and espionage types. It would allow the Shadows a degree of plausible deniability.
The Black Traders have served the Shadows in this capacity since then. They are not a particularly respected part of the nomad fleet, but a necessary one. As free captains with their own vessels and a host of contacts, they are highy mobile and important for the rebel group's survival. For this reason, they are given a degree of latitude many inhabitants of the nomad fleet do not possess. However, the Veil is always watching.
Last edited:
