Sylventis Diamond Company
The Sylventis Diamond Company is a morally gray corporate industry based on the sword coast that is the major supplier, miner and trader of diamonds. They are the major diamond company of the sword coast, bullying out any competition. Dwarves don’t tend to share their stock so they do not pose any sort of business opposition. The company owns several diamond mines through various means and controls a majority of the distribution of diamonds among the Sword Coast and exports from the region . They carefully regulate the rate of distribution to maintain the value of diamonds (hence a diamond worth at least 500gp). The company originally was founded by Nikol Sylventis, a High elf from Evereska who left the cloistered nation and saw a great need in society for this incredible resource. The company started out as a humble, honest one under Nikol Sylventis, sharing the wondrous properties of diamonds and pushing it to become a more readily available resource through a reputation of reliability and honesty. However he grew old and weary from his constant travels and work ethic and passed on the company into the hands of his son-in-law, Jacques Sylventis, after convincing the retiring elf to allow him to inherit the company . Jacques is a High elf who married Nikol’s only daughter, Willow Sylventis, but opted to inherit the Sylventis family name instead.
Now the company under the direction of Jacques Sylventis has become multiplicatively more profitable, but is now operating in a morally gray area. Although nothing outright evil in itself, it is clear that the company operates on a profit-over-integrity policy, willing to use underhanded business practices to get ahead. Things such as exploiting the hardship of refugees to turn them into essentially wage slaves, buying out their competitors, and various other methods.
Approximate timeline
Founded 1150 Year of Scourge. The plague at the time is the great need Nikol saw in the world.
1396 just after the spell plague, the company was inherited by Jacques Sylventis.
The mining operations
Where do they get their mines
The common practice of the Sylventis Diamond company was to first acquire mines to operate in. As of currently they have several mines acquired from dwarven clans, where the deal is they operate and mine the resources but only keep the diamonds and deliver the rest to the dwarves. This allows the Dwarves to focus on their craft of creating things rather than spending most of their time seeking the resources they require to build and create. Not all dwarves would agree with the sentiment, claiming that mining is just as much part of the process, but regardless, through whatever means that transpired, it is elected that they allow the company to operate in their mines.
However not all mines are claimed through dwarves, sometimes they are simply found or claimed by some faction who haphazardly stumbled upon it. All that would be needed is discover the price they required or through intimidation.
Life in the mining towns
The operations themselves are generally the setup of a mining town with an exploited population that lives there. The town itself and all of its shops would be owned by the company and it would be intentionally set up that the cost of living was high enough that their earned wages were spent on affording it.
Although the conditions of living there are fairly adequate, they can be a bit more akin to slums. But, the area is very well defended because of the valuable resource of diamonds that are being collected there, affording them a well-placed feeling of safety. However, should any of these people attempt to flee from their responsibilities and bills that they must pay, guards called Diamond Runners would be called with the express purpose of collecting these runaways.
The guards of these mining towns would have no expense spared, having rather tough and even magically inclined guards. Spellcaster guards would be well paid and have their own space to conduct their own research while being called upon to fend off threats when the need arises. They would be on staff and in the town by contract. Typical payments to coerce spellcasters is free access to materials and gems to practice/develop spells. All in all they will still be seen as just another resource that can be replaced on a whim by the higher ups in the company.
The Diamond Runners are a special task force used to pursue anyone trying to flee from their debts in these mining towns. Each town might have their own team of Diamond Runners, or multiple towns might share the same team. They would be composed of roughly 5 members akin to an adventuring party with the express purpose of tracking down and safely retrieving these runaways. Examples include, a roguish type that uses drow poison to knock runaways unconscious, a hardy strong champion type that uses strength to overpower them. Perhaps a magic user that uses Hypnotic Pattern to capture their quarry. The commonality is always that they are meant to return them relatively unharmed as to make sure they will still be able to work.