We're getting ready to send Guide to Darkmoon Vale off to the printer. Here's a brief excerpt about the hated Lumber Consortium to whet your appetites until the book hits the shelves.
Lumber Consortium
A holdover from the days when Andoran existed as a province of Cheliax, the Lumber Consortium has watched its fortunes and influence wane with the rise of democracy. Although a mere shadow of what it was at its height, the Lumber Consortium nonetheless continues to exert incredible influence over certain regions and communities, particularly in the wild corners of Andoran. Nowhere is this continued power more obvious than in Darkmoon Vale, where the consortium's major tree-felling operation occurs.
Management: No one man controls the consortium. A board of directors, all of whom share a controlling interest in the endeavor, oversees the operations of the collective, forming long-term and large-scale strategies and leaving the day-to-day operations to on-site foremen (known as gavels). The powerful and unscrupulous men who sit on the board of directors include lumber barons and timber magnates, all of whom made their fortunes on the backs of lumberjacks and at the expense of the forests. Never a group possessing high moral standards, members of the board have become increasingly sadistic and cruel as their power has eroded. Whispers tie a few of the directors to the mysteriously sinister Aspis Consortium.
Two gavels—down from the heyday of the consortium's power, when more than a dozen of such men existed—maintain absolute control over the last of the consortium's holdings. In Darkmoon Vale, the gavel is Thaldrin Kreed, a hateful and hate-filled man whose sadistic and cruel ways keep the town pinned under his callused thumb. As a gavel, Thaldrin Kreed has absolute control over the consortium's presence in Darkmoon Vale, including its employees and hard assets. As long as he squeezes out a larger profit each year, Thaldrin Kreed can do no wrong in the eyes of the consortium (whose barristers have saved the gavel from the gallows on at least four occasions). With the passage of each year, though, it becomes ever more difficult for Kreed to increase his profits, resulting in ever-more horrific displays of exploitation and greed.
