3
$\begingroup$

This is a prolongation of a previous question about the culture and traditions of "invisible" people.

This world is close to ours, except supernatural creatures exist and have formed their own well-organized and extremely discreet mafias. Most creatures described in legends from around the world can be included in the story.

As long as it's possible for them to remain more or less hidden they exist, so no giant fire-breathing dragons. They can be little more than humans with powers (ex: warlocks, oracles, mediums), human-like creatures (ex: djinns, wendigos, vampires), non-humans (ex: kistune, talking snakes, swamp monsters) or ever shapeless creatures (ex: poltergeists, forest spirits)

Some of them can make objects with a spell attached to that prevent normal people from paying attention to or remembering them. For example, a necromancer could leave a collection of ancient grimoires in the middle of a kindergarten, no one will ever question their presence and no toddler will use them as coloring books.

The objects in question can be almost anything : books, clothes, trunks, blankets, flasks... The only condition is that the object must be made of or entirely covered by leather and/or bone.

In this setting, members of these mafias use leather bags to move stuff across the world. For example, they can export human blood and organs and sell them to vampires and other various cannibalistic creatures.

No matter what's inside the bag, the border control won't pay any attention to it, no matter the sounds or smells coming from inside of it. However, the number of magical bags is limited to a few dozens.

My question :

In the real world, the most smuggled goods are people, drugs, weapons, exotic animals, minerals and money. And like real world mafia, the supernatural families thirst for money, power and social status (inside of their circle).

What is the most efficient way for them to make use of these bags?

Improve this question
$\endgroup$
4
  • $\begingroup$ Do the "ignore this" effects affect the carrier/maker? If you drop your bag of money might you find it hard to remember it ever existed? $\endgroup$
    – Murphy
    Commented Aug 27, 2015 at 9:12
  • $\begingroup$ @Murphy The spell affects only regular humans, not supernatural creatures. Carrying the bag or not doesn't change the effects of its power. $\endgroup$
    – Babika Babaka
    Commented Aug 27, 2015 at 9:14
  • $\begingroup$ Does something have to be 100% enclosed to be hidden? If you wear a hooded cloak of this leather are you invisible from the back but visible from the front? $\endgroup$
    – Murphy
    Commented Aug 27, 2015 at 11:50
  • $\begingroup$ @Murphy It has to be completely covered to be truly hidden. But being partially covered gives you some protection, for example someone wearing a leather jacket will have less chances to be stopped by the cops, and his appearance won't be remembered precisely by people. But his behavior can still draw attention, he can't vandalize/kill/assault in front of witnesses and go unnoticed. Amulets are more powerful but way more difficult to make and extremely rare. $\endgroup$
    – Babika Babaka
    Commented Aug 27, 2015 at 11:59

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
2
$\begingroup$

Money is always a good thing to smuggle.

Obviously, general "human" traffic can still be a thing. Some races may not have the leisure to travel across the world as they want. For example, an orc may have some problems to cross a border. In addition to that, prostitution is always a good revenue, for organized crime. Standard prostitutes, but also "exotic" performers, for people who always wondered how tree spirits had sex, and so on... The supply can come in multiple shape, age and gender.

Drugs and forbidden consumables can still be a thing. Whether it could be magical (Dream's powder, Pain...) or not (all the drugs produced in our world). It could also be exotic beverages (it's said that elvish wines taste like the finest human wines, but are twice as powerful).

Other goods could be magical weapons, forbidden spells or books (spellbooks belonging to famous wizards, or black/death magic), parts from protected/rare species (genuine or not) to be used as ingredients. Religious relics from "suspicious" origins, dedicated to forbidden cults or stolen from an official church (objects charged with Faith are powerful).

Since their customers may not be able to interact with the human society openly, the mafia can probably provide "regular" services, for a specified price. In that case, some human allies would have to help the invisible people with formalities. Because even invisible people may want to have an apartment, own a car, and so on. So they need an human interface to do legal deals. Basically, anything a real mafia does, this "invisible" mafia would consider to do too, because their customers have no real choice, being unable to be in the public society (because of their power or their appearance).

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
1
$\begingroup$

So I take it this isn't specifically about the Invisible's but rather how others could use the amulets/leather from dead invisibles?

Nuclear weapons.

One of the mafia families, desiring to become a nuclear power in their own right, enrolls a number of their younger mostly-human members into the appropriate career tracks to try to get themselves working at the US Pantex Plant. Eventually one of them succeeds and is indeed a model employee. There's a major incident a few years later when one of the more powerful weapons goes missing without a trace but the young gentleman is completely in the clear, after all it can plainly be seen on the security camera footage that he was driving an empty forklift truck to the other side of the facility at the time and the bomb is far too large to hide.

Similar patterns would probably work quite well for chemical and biological weapons.

It would also allow you to place them wherever you wished pretty easily while ensuring they're not disturbed.

Panic bags

"The cops are raiding the place! Into the bags!" ziiiiip

"Sir, it looks like the place is totally empty, they must have been tipped off."

Drugs

Drugs are a simple candidate. Extremely high value, high margin, low weight, low volume.

Driving your enemies insane

This would only take a very small quantity of material and may not work if hidden things are 100% impossible to perceive but if the magic merely makes you ignore/forget something then there's another option.

You want to drive one of your enemies insane so you wrap a high-end Annoy-a-tron in leather, set it to play the sounds of hideous screaming and pleading at high volume all the time. Hide it in your enemies office or bedroom. He finds himself beset by nightmares of screaming and the terrible feeling that something bad is going on all the time but can find no source.

This may also work if you just want to drive property values down somewhere.

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
1
  • $\begingroup$ I love the panic bags! I was imagining the mafia families building secret rooms and basements in their homes and covering the doors with skulls and bones but this is way funnier! $\endgroup$
    – Babika Babaka
    Commented Aug 27, 2015 at 11:43

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .