The Kortos Consortium is a guild of merchants that controls a significant part of the trade between the cities of Diobel and Absalom. Its managers are also the chief political rivals of the teriarch, Lord Avid of House Arnsen. While on the surface the Kortos Consortium is an open merchant's collective, accepting anyone willing to pay dues, it is in fact a semi-covert crime syndicate specializing in running contraband in and out of Absalom.
Many of the organization's members hold elected office or have high social positions in the port town of Diobel, which enables them to reach even higher levels of success in their shady business endeavors. Their positions of authority enable them to actively persecute those not affiliated with the Consortium, and "righteously" turn smugglers over to the authorities in Absalom, both eliminating their competition and strengthening their ruse of legitimacy.
It once held a stranglehold on all the lumber interests that made the town of Otari wealthy, but several other companies, including the Whistledown Cutters lumber company owned by the Inkleholtz family, broke off from the Kortos Consortium to challenge the larger company’s influence over the region.