Marius Blackhammer
Marius "Et Capra" Blackhammer | |
|---|---|
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| Born | Marius Rufus Blackhammer 13 March 1968 Wennavua Province, Empire of Exponent |
| Other names | Mari, M-B, Rex in saltu |
| Occupation | Leader of the Blackhammer Cartel |
| Net worth | $2 billion |
| Height | 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m) |
| Criminal status | Fugitive |
| Spouse(s) | Rosaria Bronzemantle |
| Children | 7 |
Reward amount | US$15 million |
| Partner(s) | Julius Augustus Grandwater |
Marius "Et Capra" Blackhammer is a Blackhelm Confederate drug lord and suspected leader of the Blackhammer Cartel, an international crime syndicate. He is considered to be one of the most powerful drug traffickers in Astyria.
Early life
Blackhammer was born in a poor village near Wennavua, Empire of Exponent on 13 March 1968, and finished middle school and high school before joining the Imperial Exponential military to escape poverty. His talents and aggressive behavior earned him a position with an elite military Imperial Guard unit, where he trained extensively in counter-insurgency and worked locating and apprehending members of Hesperidesia's drug trafficking organizations.
His training came into practice in 1991, after communist rebels seized several towns across central Hesperidesia. The rebellion was a symbolic rising against poverty and Imperial rule, and many rebels took arms; the beleagured Imperial government, however, sent in the Imperial Guard to crush the uprising, fearful it could spark into another revolution like those that had recently ravaged eastern Hesperidesia.
Within hours, dozens of rebels were killed and several others were captured by Blackhammer's counter-insurgency group. Their bodies were then disposed near a highway with their ears and noses sliced off.
in 1996, the Empire of Exponent collapsed, and large portions of the Imperial military - including the Imperial Guard - found themselves without jobs. it was during this period that Blackhammer is believed to have gotten involved in the narcotics trade in Central and Northern Hesperidesia, serving as a kind of "narco-mercenary" for drug cartels and recruiting fellow former Guardsmen into the trade.
Early criminal activity
For several years, Blackhammer and a small cadre of former Imperial Guardsmen worked as guns for hire, effectively selling themselves to whichever gang or trafficker in the Confederate Backlands was able to pay the most for their services. Blackhelm Confedrate intelligence services believe that this began to change sometime around 2001, when it is believed that a local trafficking organization around Wennavua known as the Silviocolae refused to pay for Blackhammer's services. In revenge, Blackhammer and his men seized the local drug trade for themselves, and subsequently set out to expand their network - realizing that the steady income from this was more reliable than that which came from working as hired guns.
During this time too, the Blackhelm Confederate government in Paradise City began the reunification of Western Hesperidisia, subsequently annexing the various post-Imperial states that came to dot the continent. This meant that many former military men from these post-Imperial states found themselves without jobs, as the Confederate government often assimilted only a portion of the local armed forces into its ranks while disbanding the rest. The Blackhammer Cartel went to great lengths to reach out to these newly jobless former soldiers, offering them a life of luxury in return for their service in the Hesperidesian Drug War.
Within the first three years of their eliminating the Silviocolae as an entity, Blackhammer's men came to dominate the drug trade around Wennavua, and began pushing into other cities along the Northern Hesperidesian Coast. This brought them into direct conflict with several rival cartels, but thanks to their elite military training and their ability to recruit a large number of former servicemen, the Blackhammer Cartel came to control most of the area.