The Blackheart Golem Police Department
A Study about History and Structure
by Jamuga Khan
Every Alphatian knows that the Kingdom of Blackheart is more unusual as most others. Its main industries lies in the privacy it grants to every Alphatian noble who wants to keep undisturbed while working on his projects. A control over these projects simply does not exist. The kings and queens of Blackheart were never interested in that.
As a consequence of this attitude Blackheart is known to be a somewhat lawless place. This is of course not true. All Imperial laws are valid, only that some of them are simply overlooked. The most important of all laws, the only truly Blackheartian law, is: "Be quiet and do not disturb anybody!" In the wideness of the Ugly Woods is very simple to keep this, but in the capital Shraek sometimes unwanted events occur.
So even in this dark, but tolerant kingdom there is a need for a police. The rulers of Blackheart had not wasted much effort, though. Mostly they divided the city between some gangs or groups of mercenaries who got a commission to for a quarter of the city.
It worked for some centuries until, only a few decades ago, a aspiring and brutal, but not too intelligent gang leader went a step to far. It was absolutely normal that the "police" groups were corrupt and treacherous. It was normal too, that they pressed money for protection from the commoners. At this time they had even begun to fight against each others to increase their quarter and to steal the other gang's money.
But Lordar, leader of the Black Hand Guard, had started to burn down the houses other gangs were protecting and committed the gang war with extreme brutality. Perhaps sooner or later the other gangs would have banded together to destroy Lordar, but the minister of internal affairs discovered that Lordar planned to eliminate even the palace guard.
It is not known whether Lordar planned to become the man behind the throne or aspired to be king himself but the king has heard enough and send his guard after him. The guard caught Lordar completely unprepared and made a really short process.
The king was not too happy. The arrangement which his family has used for centuries were on the verge of collapse. In this situation another actor entered stage: Enwan G. Oshakotak.
Enwan was an unusual man even in Blackheart. His mother were fascinated by the western customs to have two names and gave her son his two names. His father was a wizard who spent much time in his tower in Blackheart to create constructs. Even he didn't spend very much time with his son, Enwan was fascinated by all this golems, statues and gargoyles. After the death of his father not only he inherited his fathers constructs, but increased the number by own creations. It was this time when he decided to give himself a third name: Golem.
At some point of his life he had a problem most wizards will meet sooner or later: He had no more money. In this situation he leased his constructs and found a little income. One of his customer asked for protection of his property. This day a new idea was born: The Blackheart Golem Guards. Enwan restructured his constructs and formed a hierarchy. The mighty golems became the common soldiers, the statues petty officers and the clever magen officers. The business went well and E.G.O., as his personal sig under the documents says, earned enough money to continue his own work.
When Lordar was removed, Enwan asked for the commission and the king gave him the job. The sight of patrolling golems and statues was a shock for all inhabitants of Shraek. On the other hand there was no brutality and the inhabitants of the B.G.G. quarter felt a great relief. The B.G.G. kept the quarter absolutely peaceful and attacking gangs had to reconsider the wisdom of their strategy. This went so far that the commoners even continued to pay to their guard although Enwan hadn't ask. (He wanted but was too distracted by his current project.)
When inhabitants on the borders started to change their quarter the other gangs had enough. They banded together, collected and stealth all magical weapons they could and attacked. Unfortunately for them the B.G.G. officers were well prepared for this attack. It became a complete disaster. With a minimum of damage to the buildings they annihilated the invaders. After that the minister of internal affairs decided to fire the gangs and he gave the king the advice to lay the responsibility for the city's security into one hand, Enwan's.
Enwan accepted and called back all his constructs employed in other projects to form the new city guard. This experiment, and it was one, went well. Constructs are strong, but not greedy, and they know how to follow orders. Five years later the king gave E.G.O. a 50 year contract with himself the police president of Shraek. At this point Enwan renamed his company, the B.G.G. into Blackheart Golem Police Department, as it is known today.
Nowadays Shraek is again what it ever was supposed to be: The most calm city of Alphatia.
Spread all over Shraek are twelve police stations and one headquarter from which the constructs handle the daily business. Enwan G. Oshakotak is normally in his tower in the Ugly Woods and continues his various projects. On the streets of Shraek are patrols of normally two golems and one statue, which can be reinforced by a good amount reserves in the stations. Under these reserves, the special enforcing commands (SEC), are some groups which consist of statues lead by magen (for the tasks which require more intelligence than strength). Five wings to each three gargoyles patrol the skies of Shraek and the rarely murder or theft is handled by the criminal police which consists almost completely of lower ranking magen officers.
The headquarter is one of the most spectacular sights in Shraek. All around the house are placed statues with gargoyles on the roof. They look like normal ones, but of course they are all constructs which can be send into action quickly. The look of an empty police headquarter would be tremendous, but it never has happened until today.
One of the tasks the BGPD is
fulfilling now is that of a fire fighting troop, but there is still
a "living" unit. Over that the policemen have the standing order to
help every citizen as good as they can. The creation costs are
tremendously high, of course, but maintaining the troop intact is
surprisingly cheap as they need no houses, furniture, food or
sleep.