Comprachicos (Wermspittle)

The Comprachicos worked on man as the Chinese work on trees. A sort of fantastic stunted thing left their hands; it was ridiculous and wonderful. They could touch up a little being with such skill that its father could not have recognized it. Sometimes they left the spine straight and remade the face. Children destined for tumblers had their joints dislocated in a masterly manner; thus gymnasts were made.

Not only did the Comprachicos take away his face from the child; they also took away his memory. At least, they took away all they could of it; the child had no consciousness of the mutilation to which he had been subjected. Of burnings by sulphur and incisions by the iron he remembered nothing. The Comprachicos deadened the little patient by means of a stupefying powder which was thought to be magical and which suppressed all pain...

The Man Who Laughs, by Victor Hugo

---

Beware Strangers with Hard Candy...
Once upon a time they were vagabonds and wanderers. These days, ever since the wars, it's more of  a family business. Most of the practitioners, those with any real skill worth noting, tend to have been brought-up within the trade, a member of one of the so-called 'families,' that resemble crude gangs far more than what is commonly accepted to be a legitimate family.

Nearly all of the Comprachicos were born to it. Trained from childhood to a double-life of secret identities, passwords and subterfuge. Masks. Gloves. Hoods and capes. Spells of distraction and disrecognition. The Comprachicos are subtle in their dealings with would-be clients or suppliers. They used to deal with royalty and nobles, serving as a surrogate for exile or execution, delivering marvels, prodigies and wonders on order and at imperial decree or royal whim. Nothing, not the sea nor the weather, is quite so fickle, duplicitous and unforgiving as a Queen, King or similar potentate. Those who left themselves open to retaliation found themselves imprisoned, killed or walled-up in dismal places once their usefulness was deemed at an end, or they were thought to be more of a threat or hindrance than a source of amusement or pleasure.

The Comprachicos learned their lessons well. No one ever sees their face. They use false names. Assumed identities that collect their reputations and notoriety on their behalf. They hide behind shadows and loop-holes, a veil of bribery, blackmail and broken promises. Quiet and discrete, they know many lurid secrets. They are used to catering to the tastes and desires of the decadent and the depraved. Who are they to judge? Who indeed.

There are only a handful of such families that have been at it for generations, each one with their own unique approach and specialized techniques. Discrete dissemblers, clever and conniving opportunists who prey upon the weak, the vulnerable, who especially single-out children as their stock-in-trade. They are easily mistaken for common pimps or flesh-peddlers, even recruiters or press-gangers during the Spring Revels. But make no mistake; they are cruel slavers who abduct their victims, use mutilation and disfigurement, sorcery and surgery to transform those they capture, changing them with injections of White Powder distillates, Dim Ichor transfusions, and worse. Joints are warped, limbs are twisted, the extent of the involuntary modifications wrought upon the victims of the Comprachico families are as astonishingly diverse as they are disturbing, oftentimes horrific. And final. They bind their victims into a dark world they'll never escape. Even death may not be enough to escape the more nightmarish transformations wrought.

The Comprachico families hide their slaves in plain sight. It is as if they would dare anyone to identify one of their victims. No one ever has. Perhaps no one ever will. Some they lease to the Circus, others they trade to the brothels and bordellos. Those less suited to such work get tossed into the Arenas or sold off to mercenary companies. The truly ruined and worthless specimens they try to pass off on the Zoological Institute, the Museum of Unnatural Histories, or some other such member of the Academy. Failing that, they will off-load the remainder to the Butchers, even if they have to keep them penned-up until Winter, so as to get a decent price.

Unlike the users and addicts manufactured by the Corruption Trade, the Comprachicos get by on the silent complicity of grudging acceptance. People give up in the face of difficulty or obstacles, especially when you might get targeted personally, or your family might suffer for your sticking your nose in where it isn't appreciated. The Comprachicos have a well-earned reputation for wickedness and vindictiveness. When someone is suspected of having been taken by the Comprachicos, the local authorities stop looking. It often just isn't worth the hassle and heartache that is guaranteed to follow should they continue pursuing some line of inquiry the families don't want examined. Besides, everyone knows it would be useless, even futile to keep looking. not to mention dangerous. Maybe not in terms of a knife or a bomb. The families tend to be more cagey, more cunning than that. Bad luck. Accidents. Rumors and innuendo. Planted evidence and trumped-up charges. Litigation and other nuisances of a more civilized sort can be just as effective as any midnight assassin. Those who persist beyond the increasingly severe signals of the families' displeasure have a tendency to disappear. The Comprachicos place a premium on maintaining the status quo. They like to keep things quiet. Out of sight, out of mind.

The families have invested a lot of time and money infiltrating and insinuating themselves into all levels and strata of society. Everyone knows it would be impossible to root them out. Everyone knows that they have eyes, hands and friends everywhere. It is amazing how much 'everyone' knows about such a secretive group.