What about the Silver Bazaar for a place?
If I remember correctly, the story behind it is that it is made up of a group of citizens who are simply fighting to be able to keep their homes and rebuild the place to restore some of its early fame.
Now, imagine a small group of "investors", who actually are polite to a fault and very courteous to the locals, steps in. These newcomers put some gil into restoring the bazaar, and the land-grabbers that plagued the town suddenly don't seem keen to come around anymore. The local populace would be indebted to their saviors, and would perhaps not look too closely where the money was coming from, since they would be seeing stars in their eyes at the promise of the place regaining its prosperity. After all, adventurers can't come around all the time.
The place is out of the way, has some buildings for RP purposes, and offers a rather historical and benevolent cover story for any group of mountebanks and more sophisticated villains. After all, a really good organized crime syndicate, if it is run intelligently, will benefit more from being supportive and nice to the locals so that the authorities become the -real- villains in the eyes of the townies.
If I remember correctly, the story behind it is that it is made up of a group of citizens who are simply fighting to be able to keep their homes and rebuild the place to restore some of its early fame.
Now, imagine a small group of "investors", who actually are polite to a fault and very courteous to the locals, steps in. These newcomers put some gil into restoring the bazaar, and the land-grabbers that plagued the town suddenly don't seem keen to come around anymore. The local populace would be indebted to their saviors, and would perhaps not look too closely where the money was coming from, since they would be seeing stars in their eyes at the promise of the place regaining its prosperity. After all, adventurers can't come around all the time.
The place is out of the way, has some buildings for RP purposes, and offers a rather historical and benevolent cover story for any group of mountebanks and more sophisticated villains. After all, a really good organized crime syndicate, if it is run intelligently, will benefit more from being supportive and nice to the locals so that the authorities become the -real- villains in the eyes of the townies.
"But in the laugh there was another voice. A clearer laugh, an ironic laugh. A laugh which laughs because it chooses not to weep."