Zhentarim

While once unified under a strict hierarchy headed by powerful wizards and enforcers, the Black Network is now more of a brand than a single organization. The faction's defining philosophy remains:
"The strong must rule. The weak must serve. Influence is coin, and coin is power."

Members are expected to pursue personal power and use the network to climb—politically, magically, financially. Loyalty is to the organization first, personal ties second. Contracts, both metaphorical and magical, are binding.

There are three main branches:

• The Mercantile Arm – Operating legal caravans, mercenary groups, and trade ventures across Velkarn.
  
• The Criminal Syndicates – Thieves’ guilds, smuggling rings, and extortion outfits, especially in major cities like Waterdeep, the City of Splendors and Baldur’s Gate.
  
• The Arcane Hand – An elite circle of mages and diviners who seek control over magical knowledge, ancient relics, and forbidden tomes.

Following the events of The War of Dragons, the Zhentarim underwent a seismic shift. Their former enforcer Enna Baenre, the Amethyst Wyrmspeaker, claimed leadership after forcing the Zhentarim into aiding the Metallic Wyrmspeakers during the final days of the war. Under her rule, the Black Network began to quietly legitimize—though never truly abandoning its criminal roots.

Five years later, during The Grand Game, the long-exiled Manshoon returned with a splinter cell of loyalists. With ambitions to reclaim his place atop the Black Network, he now battles Enna in the shadows of Waterdeep for control. Where Enna seeks power through modernization and political alliance, Manshoon favors domination, subversion, and old-world tyranny.

The Zhentarim has a complicated reputation. To the people, they are both menace and necessity. Few trust them, but many employ them. Adventurers, especially in the Contemporary Era, often find themselves in entanglements with the Zhents—sometimes as enemies, other times as unlikely allies in darker dealings.

Their agents are everywhere: noble court advisors, mercenary captains, tavern owners, and fence operators. Their reach is long, and their silence longer.

• Manshoon the Returned – Legendary archwizard, clone-survivor, founder of the Black Network, and current leader of the Zhentarim Loyalists. His goals remain unclear but are certainly vast in scope and ambition.
  
• Enna Baenre, the Amethyst Wyrmspeaker – A drow soulknife rogue turned syndicate queen. After rising to power during the Tyranny of Dragons, she now leads the "legitimate" wing of the Zhentarim and has turned the criminal empire into something resembling a business conglomerate.
  
• The Shadow Council – A mysterious body rumored to advise both Manshoon and Enna, consisting of undead, devils, and criminal masterminds who benefit from the Network's survival.

The Zhentarim are not a shadow—shadows vanish in light. No, the Black Network is far cleverer. It is the glint in a noble’s ring, the ink on a ledger’s final line, the whisper before the knife slides in. Manshoon and Enna may claim to lead it, but the Zhentarim has never been led—only steered, and only for a time.