Wherever goods are forbidden, plucky and opportunistic individuals will engage in the business of making them available anyway. Such merchandise is often prohibited for ethical or religious reasons.
Not all smuggling targets are as obvious as a pile of corpses, however. Many seemingly innocent goods are banned due to economic restrictions on imports, which are often the result of wartime sanctions. Tariffs and taxes on especially valuable items can be high enough to encourage people to acquire them in ways that avoid official channels. Finally, goods such as powerful artifacts and weapons often must be moved from one place to another with as few people as possible knowing about them.
Most smuggling companies engage primarily in maritime transport. The shipping lanes offer ample opportunity to move goods unnoticed. You belong to a group that specializes in transporting cargo by nonstandard means, and you are adept at avoiding taxes, blockades, and armed forces in order to get contraband to whoever will pay for it.
Downtime: Route Planning
The more carefully planned a venture is, the greater its chance of success. Before setting out on a smuggling run, you can spend time communicating with your contacts in the areas you will pass through, learning about checkpoints, making sure bribable authorities will be in place, and the like. The cost of this activity depends on the amount and rarity of available resources, requiring 1d6 gp for each day spent in this activity.
After three days, you gain one Smuggling die, a d6. Once before delivering the smuggled cargo, you can roll the die and add the number rolled to one ability check, attack roll, or saving throw you make. You can wait until after you roll the d20 before deciding to use the Smuggling die but must decide before the GM says whether the roll succeeds or fails. Once the Smuggling die is rolled, it is lost. You can have only one Smuggling die at a time, and you can’t use a Smuggling die if you can add a die to the check from another source.
Company Accomplishments
Your company’s prestige increases whenever you establish your economic prowess and ability to move goods through acts such as the following:
- Safely transporting a rare artifact to a satisfied customer
- Successfully making a profit of at least 1,000 gp from acquired goods
- Evading several sets of authorities while transporting goods through areas controlled by multiple polities
- Smuggling cargo worth 10,000 gp or more
- Preventing smuggled cargo from being discovered during an inspection
Prerequisites
Any character can belong to a Smugglers adventuring company, but at least one member must be proficient with vehicles (land) or vehicles (water).
Tier 1 :Contrabandists
At this tier, your company is a small group of enterprising individuals moving small amounts of goods. You usually transport low-value items to specific buyers but occasionally take on more substantial cargoes. You often hide your shipments among those of pirates and legitimate traders who move goods in bulk—assuming you can pay their fee, of course.
Benefits
Fence. Your company has a friendly contact who is willing to fence stolen and smuggled goods. The fence will purchase almost anything you have to offer, but might, at the GM’s discretion, choose to pass on items that would bring unwanted attention.
Business Opportunities. You start with a modest network of underworld contacts who can inform you about opportunities to move illicit goods. These jobs are usually worth no more than 100 gp. You learn of new opportunities from your network once every 1d10 days.
Tier 2 : Blockade Runners
At this tier, your company has developed a bit of a reputation in the local economy. You are well known in your home port and have some degree of name recognition in other places you deal with regularly. People in your network will often alert you about opportunities and will sometimes give you stolen goods that need to be disposed of safely.
Benefits
Easy Money. Your company has established a number of ongoing deals that require little active work on the part of members. The company receives 1d10 × 10 gp per month from these operations.
Improved Fence. Your company’s network of connections generally allows you to find a buyer for any goods, no matter their legal status. If you attempt to sell an item that is stolen or otherwise suspicious, any skill checks made to trace the item back to your company have disadvantage.
Additionally, when you sell arms, armor, or equipment to your fence, you get 60 percent of its value, rather than 50 percent.
Market Value. Your company has established a network of contacts who can help you acquire goods of any sort. You receive a 10 percent discount on adventuring gear.
Tier 3 : Black Marketeers
At this tier, your company’s reputation as skilled smugglers extends far and wide from your home port or base of operations. Black markets in multiple locations know your company as reliable transporters of illicit goods and have extended their network of hiding places and safe houses to your company’s members.
Benefits
Safe House Network. Your company’s dealings in the criminal underground have given you a network of contacts you can call upon in times of trouble. If you are in a town or city your company has engaged in trade with and are being pursued by agents of the law or members of another criminal organization, you can find a safe house with a successful DC 14 Intelligence (Investigation) check. The safe house will be hidden and protected from those pursuing you to the best of the abilities of the individuals running it. Depending on the circumstances, such a place could range from a well fortified bunker with armed guards to a shack in the woods with a week’s supply of food.
Bulk Discount. Your company’s reputation allows members to find the best prices from multiple sellers. Each member of your company receives a 20 percent discount when buying items in bulk quantities (ammunition, food supplies for a long journey involving multiple people, building materials, and so on).
Tier 4 : Sea Moguls
At this tier, your company’s wide-ranging network of contacts and connections controls a significant percentage of the underground economy. It is too large be ignored by the authorities in the many areas where it operates, so either it has reached a fragile truce through bribery and backroom deals or it is so powerful that it’s nearly untouchable.
Benefits
Get out of Jail Free. Once every 10 days, a member of the company who is caught for any crime that doesn’t involve someone’s death can avoid legal repercussions, solely because of that person’s membership in the company. Note that this doesn’t prevent repercussions from any party that chooses to act outside of the law.
Increased Market Value. Your company has become the arbiter of prices in a major segment of the underground economy. Your discount on purchasing adventuring gear increases to 20%.