Peacekeepers Of Tressemer
Posted 1260-02-11 00:00.The Peacekeepers of Tressemer are an independent, non-governmental agency tasked with the protection and management of Port Tressemer. They were established due to the limited resources that can be allocated to an armed force, such as a gendarmerie in {{ loc="Raibon Island" }} due to the Treaty of Turain.
History 🔗
In the years following the end of the Poasan-Apgarian Conflict, the Treaty of Turain limited the amount of armed forces on Raibon Island as a whole. While the Gendarmerie had an exception in its existence as a defense force and a law-enforcement group, its resources were greatly limited to prevent arming them, and using the exception as a loophole to militarize the island.
For this reason, the Governor of Sanery who administers Raibon authorized the use of a bounty system to augment these forces. In this way, they can account for the expense differently. While this system was useful for catching high-value criminals, this system let low-level thugs off the hook, as not being worth the effort due to the relatively low value of such bounties.
While the bounty system did initially relieve the gendarmerie of the burden of additional recruitment and related equipment costs, it was clear that after a few years, it was not a sustainable measure, as the baseline of lawlessness on Tressemer increased.
The Mercenary Guild 🔗
To address the increasing lawlessness, a group that included some prominent mercenaries from the Hunting Lodge petitioned the Town Council of Tressemer, and proposed that bounty hunters must be a member of a guild before being allowed to take bounties.
The proposed Mercenary Guild would then enforce a tiered bounty system, where each specific instance of lawlessness was given a rank and a specific monetary value. In order to take higher bounties, members would be required to maintain a quota of lower-tier bounties first. The Council accepted the proposal and enacted an ordinance formalzing the Mercenary Guild by 1257.
Formation 🔗
In 1260, Anda Antorra was disturbed by the amount of people unjustly caught by other mercenaries, making false charges to quickly fill the low-tier quota. She used her earnings from bounties to hire other mercenaries to catch those who were creating trumped up charges to enrich themselves. As this kind of fraud was considered a higher-tier bounty, she still needed to ensure that they met the minimum quota of lower-tier bounties. So, she convinced these mercenaries to pool their resources, so they might rotate between these lower-tier and higher-tier bounties without much disruption to their priority.
As they increased in popularity, Antorra saw other mercenaries want to join their "tier pool". But at these scales, she believed that she needed to formalize the operation. The called their group The Peacekeepers of Tressemer and created a framework of guidelines that members would have to follow.
Expansion 🔗
Since the foundation of the Peacekeepers, Antorra kept on reinvesting her own earnings into it. She purchased equipment from Kincade Enterprises to ensure that her mercenaries had what they needed to perform their tasks, established informant networks to make it easier for them to gain information on their marks, and other such expansion efforts.
Other mercenaries wanted to take advantage of all those advantages, and wanted to join into the pool, that soon, they pretty much cornered the market on lower-tier jobs that it became a de facto requirement for a mercenary to deal with the Peacekeepers to do mercenary work in Tressemer.
Official Deputization 🔗
By 1265, the Peacekeepers of Tressemer have grown to such a degree that it already had enough infrastructure to act as a law-enforcement agency all on its own. Its own bylaws and guidelines were in line with those of the gendarmerie itself, and in some cases even exceeded its requirements. Through the intercession of then vice mayor Gustavia Krana, Anda Antorra was able to petition the Governor to officially dissolve the Mercenary Guild, and merge its functions into the Peacekeepers' own. A motion was passed in the Sanery Capitol Building that rubberstamped the deputization.
Present-Day Functions 🔗
Today, the Peacekeepers encompass all functions of a law-enforcement agency, including border patrol, dock inspection and penitentiaries. They act as the local policing force as well, removing the need of the gendarmerie to maintain a force in Port Tressemer.
Funding comes through cuts from bounties, and from funding for non-combat related services.