Obscura

Overview

One of the five crime families of New Capenna, the Obscura are gifted magicians. They are associated with White, Blue and Black mana, but are centered in blue.

Leader

The Obscura are led by Raffine, a sphinx-demon from Old Capenna prone to portentous visions of the future. The Obscura work to keep balance between the five families; if they can't conquer the city by sheer muscle, they can at least command the flow of information in New Capenna by running cons, blackmailing powerful adversaries, rumormongering, grifting, and laundering reputations.

Description

The Obscura are talented wizards and mystics who use their power to deceive and blackmail, using distractions, illusions, and hidden mechanisms. They orchestrate scenarios and manipulate outcomes to their benefit. They deal in prophecy, fortune telling, and esoteric communion with dreams and the realm of the dead. If an event happens in the city, the Obscura will have predicted it, captured it with their signature aperture magic, and filed it away in their archives. They endeavor to maintain a façade of normalcy in their everyday lives which allows them to run their schemes without disruption.

The Obscura are concentrated in the Mezzio, though they are also found among the rarified parlors of Park Heights and scummy sewers of the Caldaia. As diviners—and directors—of prophecy, fate, and fortune, it is the Obscura's job to be everywhere in the city, and to appear as if they are nowhere but the warm confines of their shops and parlors. Their headquarters is the Cloud Spire, a seemingly inaccessible skyscraper in Park Heights, where Raffine and their high officers keep tabs on the city through an extensive network of surveillance magics.

Exactors are family members who collect and parse evidence to find patterns and new information. Echo Readers are able to view spectral afterimages. They work in teams, speaking simultaneously as they experience past events. Ruiners destroy an individual's reputation.

History

Before the city's founding, the Obscura served as mystics, wizards, and advisers to the Angels.

The Obscura were designed to reflect blackmail and information brokering, which would normally trend to institutional corruption, though the lack of honest institutions make this less apparent. The group was meant to be the "heist" group, but without major legitimate targets it would be difficult to depict.

During New Phyrexia's Invasion of the Multiverse, the Obscura, Riveteers, and Brokers defended New Capenna in sparse groups, with the Cabaretti absent in action for as of yet unknown reasons.