The Wonders of Arlia

Velvet Truffle Company

Quick facts

Abbreviation: VTC · Slogan: “From Bean to Dream” · Headquarters: Choco Island · Owner: Gideon Velgrave, the Grand Confectioner · Answers to: The Mistress · Status: Controls the Saline Coast (as of C2 Session 83)

The Velvet Truffle Company is a chocolate, confectionery, shipping and trade company, and one of the most powerful corporations in Arlia. It is the main corporate enemy of Campaign 2: it partners with the dragon Khalor the Dreamreaper, hunts The FAM as fugitives, and has taken over the Saline Coast.

Overview

The VTC operates across ports, islands, trade routes and political systems. It uses its wealth to shape local governments, shipping lanes, public opinion and enforcement. It has its own ships, guards, officials and private enforcers, and enough influence to take over a city when its government fails. It runs puppet governments, moves prisoners on its own prison ships, keeps island havens where cargo slips past customs, and bought much of its cutting-edge technology from the Machine of Coghaven.

Most of what the party knows about the company’s inner workings comes from Masha, a former Free Pour resistance fighter; from Mia Vex, who sketched the leadership for Nelda on a napkin; from Escher’s eavesdropping on Cadbury Vex; and from Coghaven’s trade records.

Chain of command

Masha calls the structure needlessly complicated, like any other bureaucracy. From the top:

  1. Grand Confectioner: Gideon Velgrave.
  2. Board of Sweet Lords: Three rulers, each over one Dominion. Seraphina Rusk (Islands), Herschel Nougat (East) and Cadbury Vex (West).
  3. Sugar Cartel, also called the Sweetfangs: asset acquisition and special forces.
  4. Cocoa Consuls: Regional overseers and trade enforcers, such as Kenton Rusk and Thaddeus Toffington.
  5. Licorice Barons: Local bosses over docks, factories, warehouses and storefronts, such as Gravy Bones.
  6. Candied Cloaks: Smugglers and port fixers.
  7. Truffle Guard: Private military and corporate security.
  8. Sugarhands: Laborers, including dockworkers, factory hands, miners and bakers.

Above them all is The Mistress, whose standing directive forbids any Dominion operation from engaging, provoking or entangling The Cacklers, their households, their academy or their affiliates.

Members and affiliates

History with the FAM

Early contact (Sessions 30–39)

In Session 30, the party found the diamond they needed to save Wilbur in a VTC ship’s cargo, and Catman took it. After Khalor stole the Sapphire Tide’s chest in Session 33, the party followed him to an island dotted with VTC ships, where a dockworker denied seeing a dragon. Escher overheard that the company had the chest and was sending it to a “mistress,” and watched it leave strapped to an orca bound for Chonkerton (Session 34).

At Hamhock Harbor, Escher assassinated Cocoa Consul Kenton Rusk for the Pale Fang (Session 39).

Fugitives (Sessions 40–48)

Five VTC ships blockaded the party’s ship in Session 40, acting on a tip from the Split Sausage Pub. The official who boarded asked about Tobias Blackwood and about “Escher,” and let them go with a warning. In Buttermere, Gravy Bones boarded their ship, and on the cliffs the party saw a VTC member report to Khalor on seven dragon eggs, six showing signs of life (Session 43). When Escher shot a VTC guard there, the party became fugitives from the company and renamed their ship.

Back on the Saline Coast, Escher found a tracking device disguised as a bar of chocolate and planted it on another ship (Session 44). The VTC had seized Violetta’s Potion Haven for fraud, and a VTC necromancer raised the dead Tobias Blackwood in the crypt below the morgue (Session 45–46). Thalorian Valedriss warned Nelda that the company was watching her friends (Session 48).

Ghost petals and the election (Sessions 53–62)

Sawyer Elmheart’s ghost petals were going to Judge Marius Vellum, who supplied the VTC. The party killed the judge in Session 56. On the Saline Coast, the VTC backed Thalorian for mayor through its archmage Lazra Vant. Both died at the Valedriss estate in Session 58, and the company arrested Catman for it. After the city failed to hold an election on two dates in a row, the VTC took control in what it called a temporary operation to stabilize the city (Session 62). It released and pardoned Orin Coppercoin and Lyla Brightspark.

North City (Sessions 69–72)

Ellery feared the company had captured Cabba. Cadbury Vex had his daughter Mia plant Asset Songbird on Nelda, and Escher overheard his plans: catch the whole Fellowship at once, win exclusive rights to Bulma Briefs’s brumestone-free airships, and work around the Mistress’s directive. The FAM ditched the tracker and sent their ship ahead as a decoy, and the VTC took the bait.

Coghaven (Sessions 73–80)

In Coghaven, the party learned the VTC was the Machine’s biggest client and had supplied it with “power sources,” living beings for Dr. Wheelo to drain. Masha said she had been “legally delivered” there by a trade partner. The party also found an expedited VTC shipment of volatile crystals, which The Gnoloo collected. Coghaven also made the Detention Orbs the VTC uses on prisoners.

The gallows (Sessions 81–83)

The VTC staged public executions in the Saline Coast’s festival square, with Khalor disguised as Catman, to lure the FAM. The party rescued the real Catman and killed Daask Bruiser, but Khalor flew off with Arghen. VTC forces then surrounded the Mercenary’s Rest and ordered the Fellowship out, and Bran’s Old Adventuring Party held them off while the FAM escaped.

Known locations

Appears in

Session 30, Session 33–Session 35, Session 39–Session 48, Session 53–Session 58, Session 62, Session 67, Session 69–Session 73, Session 78–Session 83

A Company propaganda poster: “From Bean to Dream.”

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