Originally known as the Realmgold’s Agents, briefly as the Realmgolds’ Agents after Unification; the more neutral Realm Agents was adopted to emphasize their political neutrality in the service of the realm.
Under Glorious, functioned as secret police directed against the political opponents of the realmgold, and were usually referred to as the Black Agents because of their dress (when not undercover).
They carry silver badges marked with an eye and the motto (in Elvish) “Always Vigilant”.
Victory purged them, got rid of the psychos, torturers and stormtroopers and made them an anti-corruption, anti-tax-evasion and anti-organised-crime force.
They also have equivalents of the Denninger Intelligencers, who gather intelligence on neighbouring realms.
Corruption
Victory offered amnesty early in her reign for corrupt judges, Golds and other public officials. If you ceased taking bribes immediately and registered on the amnesty list, you wouldn’t be prosecuted for earlier actions or forced to hand over your takings. Widely ignored, until the prosecutions started, then there was a rush of registrations. Of course, this gave the agents a list of self-confessed bribe-takers to keep an eye on…
When corruption implicates a Gold, they have the option of donating an assessed sum for the furtherance of education, or losing their title, whereupon the family must elect a new head. Some have had to give up their mansions as school premises. Others who attempted to do so have been blocked by their families and forced to resign. Those who saved up the money or spent it on something that could be resold are able to get away with it and keep their homes and titles, but they are carefully watched.
This has created three things:
1. Lots of well-endowed schools.
2. A number of new Golds who owe their position to Victory.
3. Some resentful, formerly corrupt Golds who have joined the Tried and True party.
A corrupt localgold will be required to fund a local school, but corrupt central government officials fund the Clerks’ College and the law schools, providing scholarships for the impoverished.
Victory’s aim is that every Koskant citizen can receive a good education, fair and just treatment in the courts, and good government regardless of ability to pay.
The agents are intensively conditioned (using mindmagic) to be resistant to bribery, and attempting to bribe them attracts a fine five times the amount offered. The agent who resists a bribe and gets the would-be briber convicted is decorated and rewarded with a bonus.
Organised Crime
The agents target organised crime through unaccountable earnings as well as street informants.
Proceeds of crime (and tax evasion) are confiscated and used to help fund the Agents and the Clerks’ College.
Dissidents
There are still some radical dissidents left in the artists’ quarter of Gulfport. The wind has been taken out of their sails to a large degree because Victory has given the people the reforms that they actually care about, so most of the remaining dissidents are campaigning for the implementation of obscure, complex, unworkable political or economic theories that only they understand. But the Agents keep a very quiet eye on them in case they do anything violent.
Most of the more violent dissidents have either been caught or switched over to organised crime.
After the Unification War, most of the focus on dissidents shifted to the Denninger loyalists, both in and out of the Reversionist Party.
Intelligence
The main intelligence-gathering foci are the Human Purity movement and the pirates of the Corsair Coast. Both have been infiltrated.
A few intelligencers do monitor neighbouring nations as part of the diplomatic missions to those nations, but they don’t do much more than keep a finger on the pulse. Koslin is not at war with any of its neighbours or planning to be in the near future.
Members
Senior Agent Conquest: tall, about 35, touch of harshness in the jawline, moves like military.
Agent Apt
Active Hedger
Fidelity Sutter, senior agent in charge of protecting the infrastructure of Lakeside Koslin.
Valley Carter, senior agent. He has three small children with his oathmate. Notably lacking in prejudice.
Innocent Carter (no relation), an analyst.
Wood, Wisdom, Devotion: field agents who work with Piston and Active. Wood is promoted to investigator.