Question for those of you who have featured the Inked Palm in your game. I'm trying to wrap my brain around their place in the criminal ecosystem. GToA presents them as the leading criminal organization in the world today, sort of an omnipresent mafia. So as the PCs prepare to roll into Strasbourg, I expect one of them will be looking to tap into underworld contacts so I really want to figure out how big a presence I want the inked palm to be in my campaign. So is the inked palm THE thieves guild? One of many, aggressive, ruthless and ascending in power and influence? Or a secret society with tentacles that run throughout an otherwise clueless underworld? In other words, the head of the local gang only thinks he's in charge, while his lieutenant (a member of the palm) secretly pulls the strings.

I suspect Cities of Mystery will shed some light on this, but in the meantime how have you other GM's worked them into your campaigns?

Tom

Rereading over the entry in GToA, I'm leaning more towards going with my latter idea; that the Inked Palm is a society that overlaps and interfaces with the traditional criminal underworld model. It's less "thieves guild" and more "world crime league". Thus, Fagin's Boys in London (ala Dickens) are not necessarily part of the Inked Palm, but the Artful Dodger might be. The Inked Palm aren't interested in penny-ante crime, they are leveraging the criminal underworld for power. So just as some witch hunter orders are a secret society that serve the church, so to do the Palm serve crime. Most members are well-placed pawns that serve unseen masterminds, pulling strings and forcing conflict.

This makes a bit more sense given the global reach of the organization, and better establishes them as a dark mirror of the Orders of Solomon.

Thoughts?

Tom