The Machiavelli Gambit claims Contagion management as our sole purview, and we run this project like a crime empire. We use the Contagion as threat and punishment to make examples of those who defy us. Our Princes nudge others into exposing themselves, or we infect them directly if we can figure out how. We watch and study these victims to see what makes the sickness tick, then release them back out into the wild under conditions primed to keep those beings under the Gambit’s control, directly or indirectly. In the rare times when we’re forced into a corner, we can even capture one of the Contagious, let it loose on our enemies, and then dispose of all the evidence.
Like the Cryptocracy from which it spawned, the Gambit prefers to play puppet-master from the shadows; but its puppets are other night-dwellers, not mortals. We manipulate them into doing our bidding through subtle and complex plots involving infected Infrastructure, the Sworn, and even the other False. We peddle fake cures and treatments for the Contagion, deal occult drugs, and make other creatures dependent on our products in exchange for goods and services so we can control them. We meddle in local Sworn societies — the Sworn groups themselves, but also organizations like changeling freeholds and hunter compacts — to keep them isolated from each other, quietly breaking down alliances and shifting territories from behind the scenes so their powers and influences won’t interact. The Gambit recruits proactively, tracking down the unaf- filiated before anyone else can; if we can’t recruit someone, we plant the seeds to turn that individual into a tool for our own devices instead.
Mortals might be irrelevant to the spread of Contagion, but they still have their uses. We replace human agents with our own people in a variety of institutions, from police forces and criminal gangs to corporations and research labs, to usurp human resources for our plans.
The Svengali maintain a research arm that traces the Contagion’s symptoms and vectors back to an outbreak’s origin, to glean its cause and nudge contributing variables in our favor. We study each other, too, to develop ways to control and suppress mystical abilities, or change how they function. The Gambit makes deals with devils of all kinds, including the Contagion’s agents, for secrets, resources, and access to forbidden places. The Princes are keen to develop an immunization, or find those who are naturally immune and recruit or blackmail them; we seek to control asymptomatic carriers of the epidemic, directing them to spread the sickness only as we want it spread.
How we organize: The Svengali organize like crime syndicates, cartels, and gangs, with local rings or crews maintaining only a loose alliance with others elsewhere. On top of all the intrigue and territorial maneuvering outside the Gambit, our members also must keep an eye on our own fellows plotting to usurp or remove us. To ensure the whole endeavor doesn’t unravel, we’ve accepted certain etiquettes and enforced rules of engagement for such in- ternal conflicts.
Each ring has hierarchical positions and a strict code of secrecy. Policy states it’s always better to put the blame on someone else and avoid anyone getting to the Gambit. Captured Princes are supposed to take drastic steps to make sure nothing compromises the group; in practice, it’s 50/50 whether a given Prince actually does that, or saves her own skin instead. The Gambit sets up fronts and shadow organizations to take the fall for our crimes, should anyone successfully trace our activities back to us. We recruits individuals and even whole groups, under various covers, specifically to throw them under the bus when we need scapegoats.
When new members join up to reap the benefits of our organization, Svengali recruits take oaths of loyalty to our ringleaders and must prove themselves by performing increasingly merciless tasks — betraying previous allegiances and friends among their own kind is an old favorite. We expect our recruits to stick around for good; defectors to the Sworn are particularly offensive, and we put high bounties on their heads for any of our members who can dispose of them.
Against the Sworn: The Sworn are the Gambit’s primary targets. We leech off of their work, steal research and relics, kidnap important hostages, threaten to forcibly infect their loved ones to exert leverage over their members, and coerce or persuade Sworn individuals to defect or leak informa- tion. Our agents infiltrate Sworn groups, then influence events based on what they learn. We might, for instance, push mortals into performing a string of terrorist attacks to overwhelm the Cryptocracy with fires to put out, so other agents can break into a Majestic stronghold while its attention is spread thin. Even when we’re not interfering with the Cryptocracy directly, we often come into conflict with them when our shadow wars and intrigues happen to collide with theirs.