As a city founded by those who refused to live under the reign of tyrants, Magnimar has relatively few laws. From its barracks within the Arvensoar, the towering fortress of Magnimar’s small military, the city watch patrols the length and breadth of the city—although Lord-Mayor Grobaras’s decrees see that the richest quarters of the Summit receive the most attention. When the law falls into dispute or cannot be meted out by patrolmen, quarrels are taken before the esteemed Justice Court. Thirteen justices—led by Lord Justice Bayl Argentine—form the highest court in the city, settling arguments and deciding the guilt or innocence of those who come before them. The worst of the confirmed guilty are sentenced to time in the Hells, several levels of sweltering dungeons beneath the Pediment Building.

For all the efforts of the city’s law enforcers, numerous criminal elements operate throughout Magnimar. The oldest of these groups, the Night Scales, see themselves as the rightful masters of the city’s criminal underworld. With operations focused along the Shore, especially in Beacon Point and Rag’s End, the thieves’ guild—under the command of its even-tempered, one-armed leader, Therhyn Raccas—contents itself with smuggling, extortion, petty theft, and the occasional break-in.

Above the pickpockets and rackets of the Shore, the 80-year-old Lady Vammiera Symirkova directs the Gargoyles, a coterie of peerless cat burglars. Her rarely seen “daughter,” Mizmina Symirkova—an icy young woman seemingly no more than 18 years old—personally leads the group on their most daring heists.

The Varisian criminals known as the Sczarni also operate in great numbers in Magnimar. While the con-artists and thieves typically work together, the number of Varisians in the city has birthed numerous gangs, each taking names like the Creepers, the Tower Girls, or the Washside Wringers, adopting criminal specialties and operating in locally known turfs. Jaster Frallino, an aging, merciless tough with thick scars around his neck, leads the largest and most influential group, the Gallowed, from a caravan of wagons almost directly below Lord-Mayor Grobaras’s palatial home, Defiant’s Garden.

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