Editing Supernatural Law: Main Page (section)

===Criminal mages===

Mages commit crimes just like the ungifted do. They just have a larger variety of potential crimes to commit. Very often, the motivation for crimes committed by mages are the same as for everyone else. Crimes of passion, underhanded ways to make some money, and so on. They just might use their magical powers to commit the crimes. But the mages also have temptations that the ungifted do not. Their motivation can also be to increase their magic powers.

Most mages covet artifacts and grimoires. Items like these are either resource-intensive to create or originate from the Other Side, which makes them difficult to replace, and therefore valuable. Even the more commonplace tools of magic created by Enchanters can be expensive, and where a mundane might steal a smartphone, a mage might try to steal an amulet.

Trespassing is annoyingly common. Some places have high ambient energy or auspicious flows of power that can be useful for certain kinds of magic, especially rituals. Many of these places are within private property, or within an area where performing rituals is not permitted, such as public buildings and graveyards. Younger makes are especially prone to sneaking in to perform secret rituals.

Various materials can be used to boost magic, enchant items or brew potions. Some are relatively commonplace. Others are rare, expensive, highly taxed, heavily regulated, or all of that. Yet others are downright illegal, and so are items and potions made from them. Crimes involving these materials include smuggling, unlawful alchemy and peddling of fake materials.

Proscribed Contact with Other Side is a classic crime where mages summon something dangerous or open a portal to a realm of terror. Other side abounds with powerful and dangerous beings such as Demons, and realms filled with malevolent energies. These crimes are in truth rather uncommon, because most mages are sensible enough to understand that the risks always outweigh the gains. But when these crimes do happen they tend to be bad ones. Bad enough that even planning such is a crime.

Ritual torture and murder are amongst the worst kind of magic-related crimes that the police may have to deal with. Blood and death are powerful ingredients in some kinds of magic. Especially if the blood is mystical in nature, such as the blood of a mage, especially a full blooded mage. Thankfully, this is rare, for most mages are not depraved enough to perform human sacrifice. But the sacrifice of animals used to be legal in the past, and some mages feel that it still should be.

When mages commit crimes, usually only one mage is involved, or a handful of partners in crime. There are no organized crime families in Boston. Mages may be in the employ of organized crime, or a mage may work his way to the leadership of a criminal organization, but an entire extended family or fraternity of mages dedicated to criminal pursuits is something Boston does not have. Not currently. But two such families did terrorize the city in the past. Spielmans and Laskowskis.

During the prohibition era, the families of Spielman and Laskowski were notorious gangsters among the magical community. They did not involve themselves in bootlegging, preferring to avoid clashes with ungifted gangsters, and focused on crimes involving or targeting mages and magic. Smuggling of Other Side materials, unlawful alchemy, extorting mage entrepreneurs. Spielmans and Laskowskis occasionally clashed with both each other and the police force. They kept out of jail through force and corruption, resorting to violence when bribes would not work.

Their infamy ended with prohibition. As corruption diminished, they no longer got advance warnings of raids, and their laboratories and smuggling operations got raided. Bribing judges and juries no longer kept family members out of jail and they ended up behind bars and had their properties confiscated. Gradually, their income and operations dried out and their days as crime lords ended, not with a bang but with a wheeze. Spielmans and Laskowskis still remain in Boston and have a bit of a bad reputation even today, but in truth they are largely legitimate these days.

This is not to say that crime families of mages no longer exist. Some do, in other cities. It is a constant worry for the police department that some might try to establish themselves in Boston, bringing the days of trouble back.