Subtle and Skillful Sentries of the Generous Purse

The Subtle and Skillful Sentries are a clandestine organ of the Thousand Scales, and one of the Scarlet Empire’s intelligence organizations. However, while some within the Sentries might liken themselves to the All-Seeing Eye, their purpose was far more mundane than sniffing out treachery.

The Sentries were talented masters of gambling and games of chance… cards, dice, betting odds, and all other entertainments enjoyed by the common folk with too much wealth in their purses. Their job was to establish themselves, either in casino structures or as beggars and fellow workers, in areas where employees of the Realm’s government worked. This included not only the bureaucrats of the Thousand Scales but peasants and citizens contracted for public works, Legionnaires and Guardians garrisoned in the Realm, and the like. Such folk often turn to gambling as a leisure activity, and the task of the Sentries was to engage in, and win, such games, recovering the salaries of their targets so the money could be returned to the coffers of the Realm.

Often, Sentries were gathered from the petty criminals of the Realm, those arrested by Guardians and Magistrates for illegal gambling, cheating, or confidence scams… the alternatives to service in the Thousand Scales being far worse than swearing themselves to the Empress and turning their winnings over to her.

Operating in secret, the Sentries have persisted with the disappearance of the Empress, though without Her direct involvement they have escaped the control of the Realm, the structures set up for them as part of the Scales now making them organized and effective street gangs with operating budgets and latest takings combining to make significant war chests, independent of Scales, Dynasty, and the pre-existing underworld organizations: whether they will ever be re-suborned to the Throne in future, or emerge as new criminal powers, remains to be seen.