The Rust Rangers

The salvage crew that found the Clarion crate, hid it in a calcified wreck, and sold the coordinates instead of the cargo — and who were infiltrated by the Cold Iron Consortium the whole time.

[!summary] The party first heard the name in S08 from Tessa Rook, dealt with them at the Tar Pit door in S09, robbed their auction, and were still dodging their patrols in S10. They are the reason the crate was at The Bleached Lady at all.

Canon Facts

• Nobody knew who they were (S08). Tessa named them as the crew auctioning the “Siren’s Gift.” Explicitly established at the table: the party had not heard of them, and nobody in the room knew who they were. Longstride had a subtle, unexplained reaction to the name — a thread deliberately left open.
• They sold the location, not the item (S08). Their whole play was to auction the coordinates to the crate rather than touch the contents. They recognised the Clarion signature and chose not to handle it.
• They found it themselves. On a Nat 20 / 22+ decipher of the Siren’s Gift scroll in S10, Briony recognised the cipher key as a Rust Ranger internal operational code — not Undercurrent-standard, not a re-sold third-party document. The Rangers wrote that scroll themselves. Nobody commissioned them: they chose the site, moved the crate, and marked it. The crate was simply there on a salvage dive.
• They marked the site. A crude salt-crystal saltmark carved into the coral near the sealed porthole of the forward hold (Perception DC 13 to spot). One specific, still-unnamed Rust Ranger physically dove the wreck, tagged it, and wrote the cipher scroll. That person is still alive.
• They chose The Bleached Lady deliberately — inaccessible from the surface, off every local chart, and in a bay the fishermen already avoid as cursed. A perfect dead drop.
• They ran security at the Tar Pit (S09). One guarded pedestrian entrance: a heavy reinforced iron hatch into the hidden sub-level beneath the barge, with Rangers checking credentials. Morrigan got the party through on the Alastor signet ring plus a note of backing from Moray — and barely, on a tense Persuasion check, with her Prestidigitation disguise only just holding up.
• “Rusty” Jax is their auctioneer — a goblin who works standing on the table. He held the Siren’s Gift scroll personally and had it stolen off it.
• They were infiltrated (S09). Silas Vance and his Consortium agents were inside the Tar Pit dressed as Rust Ranger mechanics and guards, and gassed the room when the scroll appeared. Longstride spotted them on a Nat 20 Perception: too still, too deliberately casual, boots laced wrong for dock work, no rope calluses. A recovered body carried real Ranger insignia, weapons, and armour — correctly worn, correctly weathered, correctly broken in, with a human-sized fog mask tucked in the collar. This was planned weeks in advance, not the night of.
• Tessa found that alarming (S10). Of everything the party debriefed her on, the Consortium’s embedding inside the Rangers was the revelation that landed with weight — “like discovering that the merchant who ran the market had been someone else’s employee the whole time.”
• They locked down the district (S10). After the theft, Rust Ranger patrols tightened across Wreck Row and the Tar Pit district was sealed — nobody in or out. Rust Ranger whistles carried across the fog. The party also spotted a man in Chandler’s Gray chatting comfortably with a Ranger at the tar pit checkpoint.
• They are better resourced than Hollows fences and operate through ciphers, dead drops and encoded handover points; the true location of a lot stays hidden until the sale clears.

Overview

A salvage crew turned Undercurrent institution, operating out of Wreck Row at The Drift. They dive, they recover, and increasingly they broker — with a house style built entirely on not being the one holding the dangerous thing. Their gear is heavy wrenches, studded leather and working-dock clothing; their security is credential checks and paranoid environmental traps rather than muscle.

They are not ideologues. They are not the Consortium, not the Children, not Atlas. They are a crew with a reputation to protect, which is precisely why the Consortium found them so easy to wear.

Structure & Operations

• Auctioneer — “Rusty” Jax, the public face and hammer.
• Rangers / Guards — the rank and file: door credentials, district patrols, Wreck Row whistle signals.
• Divers — at least one unnamed Ranger who personally dove The Bleached Lady, marked the hold, and wrote the cipher.
• Internal cipher — a Ranger-only operational code, distinct from Undercurrent standard. Briony can read it.
• Venue security doctrine — one guarded entrance, credential lists, and pre-emptive environmental clearance: before revealing a lot, Jax runs a “cleaning cycle” that vents scalding sulfur gas through the ceiling pipes, or releases a Bilge Terrier into the rafters to flush eavesdroppers.

[!note] They do not own the Tar Pit The Tar Pit is a fighting-ring barge at The Drift run by the fixer Davio Brask (see The_Drift). The Rangers ran security for their own auction in its hidden sub-level. Brask’s relationship to the Rangers has never been established.

Mechanics

Do not invent new blocks — these already exist in 00-Sessions/Session_09/09_Tar_Pit_Stat_Blocks.md:

• Rust Ranger Guard — Medium Humanoid, CR 1/2, AC 14 (studded leather), 22 HP, Speed 30 ft.; Perception +2, Athletics +4; Multiattack (two melee or two ranged); Heavy Wrench (Club) +4 to hit, 5 (1d6+2) bludgeoning.
• Bilge Terrier — Small Beast, CR 1/4, Pack Tactics; their rat-catcher, used to clear rafters.
• “Rusty” Jax — named as an encounter threat with 4+ guards (“The Ranger Retaliation”), but no block was ever written for him. See Rusty_Jax.
• Consortium agents in Ranger kit — use Vance’s Consortium Shadows, not Ranger Guards; the disguise is cosmetic.
• Salvage loot — dark iron scraps and clockwork components (consistent with Tessa’s S08 gift). A Rust Ranger’s Key opens a dead-drop locker in the Shallows (50g + Potion of Greater Healing) — unclaimed prep.

Plot Hooks