Lev Surrel
Guavian Crime Boss
Guavian Death Gang
Company Name: Guavian Death GangHeadquarters: Atzerri
- The Guavian Death Gang's operations are headquartered on Atzerri, a world of notoriously lenient laws and massive government corruption. The laxity of local regulations on munitions and combat adrenals allows the gang to operate factories here semi-legally, but all the same it doesn't openly advertise its presence. Production centers are hidden away behind unmarked storefronts or, for those working with particularly toxic chemicals, out in the planet's swamplands. The gang's more public face can be seen through the cyber-modification clinics and shadow markets it operates within the pleasure districts of the major cities, most notably the Pemblehov District in the city of Talos.
- The Death Gang's operations on Denon are among its most fast-paced and widespread. With the population of a city-planet second in population only to Coruscant to feed demand and a position at the intersection of the Hydian Way and the Corellian Run to promote further distribution, this world provides a significant portion of the organization's income. While Denon lies outside the jurisdiction of any major galactic power, and thus lacks the sweeping legal measures that outlaw many of the Death Gang's products for civilian use, local laws are less than friendly to distribution of combat-grade adrenals and cybernetics, so the gang operates quietly. Local production and sale occurs out of abandoned buildings and false storefronts.
- Nubia is the Guavian Death Gang's toehold in the Core Worlds, a series of rich markets where they once operated and hope to someday return. Despite the strict laws that often regulate the gang's type of products in the region, Nubia has a reputation as a "work-hard play-hard" planet, and is more tolerant of such shadow market goods than most local systems. Local pleasure districts tolerate (and sometimes even encourage) cybernetic modification clinics, and the grav-ball and ronto racing circuits have produced a demand for stimulants that has resulted in a number of serious sports scandals. Weapons trading has also taken off due to fears brought on by the potential of a One Sith invasion to solidify control of the Core.
- Teyr is a tourist world at the nexus of the Shipwrights' Trace and two other major hyperlanes, making it an ideal distribution point for a number of reasons. Core Worlders looking to take their minds off of the imminent threat of Sith occupation with cheap thrills provide one part of a bustling market; pirates, soldiers, and freedom fighters local to the region, which is being shaped into the uncertain frontier between the One Sith and the Galactic Alliance, provide another. Large regions of the planet's surface are under environmental protection acts that keep them from being legally developed, but these areas are rarely patrolled, allowing the Guavian Death Gang to establish a number of hidden production facilities to feed the immense demand.
- The Guavian Death Gang trades in illegal military-grade combat gear, from particularly nasty weapons to potent adrenals with horrible side effects to black market cybernetics and grafts. Its customers vary widely: rich thrill seekers, hardened mercenaries, bloodthirsty pirates, unscrupulous executives, and even local politicians. While it produces these goods at its own factories, most of them carefully hidden from the prying eyes of the law, it relies heavily on smugglers to transport them. As such, it deals harshly with spacers who fail or double-cross the group.
Tier: Two
Description: Established in the early days of the Galactic Empire as a vigilante outgrowth of COMPNOR, the Guavian Death Gang was originally a paramilitary group that terrorized aliens across the Core Worlds. While technically illegal under Imperial law, the organization was tolerated and even quietly praised by many Imperial governors for its role in spreading New Order propaganda and driving out "undesirables." Some even quietly funneled weapons and cash to the group or pointed them at specific targets, which they murdered and burned with gusto. The group remained strong throughout the Galactic Civil War, even when the Empire began to fall in the wake of the Battle of Endor, and many participated in the defense of Coruscant against the New Republic.
When the Remnant was finally driven out to the fringes of the galaxy, the Death Gang went truly underground. Using connections with formerly pro-Imperial companies such as Tostovin Munitions, along with networks they had established at COMPNOR rallies, they aggressively pushed into the restricted weapons trade, soon branching out into combat-grade stimulants and illegal cybernetics. At their height in around 20 ABY, they controlled most of the paramilitary shadow markets in the Core. But pride came before a fall, and a combination of tightened New Republic security and the growing strength of underworld rivals brought it all tumbling down. The Guavian Death Gang suffered a serious blow, and was forced out toward the Colonies and the Inner Rim.
With the change of location came a reorganization of the group. Gone was the xenophobia and focus on Imperial propaganda; it was about survival now, and profit wherever possible. The Guavian Death Gang operated in the region on a more covert scale, surviving hundreds of years by stealing scraps from larger crime syndicates and worming its way into provincial governments. The arrival of the devastating Gulag Plague changed things; intersystem commerce rapidly dried up as fears of the disease's spread led to planetary quarantines. But the gang's smugglers continued to operate, ironically bringing shipments of food and medical relief (for which they charged exorbitant prices) to planets where other cells had taken root. By hunkering down and going small-scale, they survived.
As the plague subsided and the Sith returned, business changed again. Galactic order was shattered, perhaps irreparably, with no single faction able to unify the major systems. That was good news for unscrupulous free traders; sales of illegal combat tech skyrocketed. But the Guavians were only able to take limited advantage of that trend due to the relative isolation of their systems of operation. Eventually, two things began to change that. The first was the opening of the Galactic Alliance - One Sith frontier right at their doorstep, stirring up profitable paranoia. The second was the rise of Lev Surrel as the gang's kingpin. Surrel brought about aggressive expansion in the organization's operations, successfully pushing back toward the rich markets of the Core Worlds.
Whether this reemergence as an underworld power will lead to profit or disaster for the Guavian Death Gang remains to be seen...
Parent Corporation: N/A
Primary Source: N/A
I Need You Foolish - For a fourth location at creation (Nubia)
This is a canon organization.
