Hidden Hand

The Hidden Hand are a mafia who dominate the rural areas, and sometimes the towns, of the southern parts of the Empire. They thrive by making themselves useful to authorities: repressing unrest, silencing troublesome preachers, and robbing from merchants who compete with their patrons. Many of them go back and forth between a respectable life in the towns and a criminal life in countryside. A member of the Hand might spend two or three months a year in the hills as a brigand, then return to town to work as an enforcer and a ”trader” in stolen goods, knowing full well that no one will ask him too many questions.