While Ingo promotes Tradetalk 2, and Peter summarizes the most interesting side of the boristi that came out of the last digest discussion about them (more than a year ago), I will just present how they appear to be IMG. I cannot say what they really are, as they feature quite prominently, and all my players read the Digest.
The boristi have their stronghold in Borin, now that the Duke has claimed to be the Secret Registrar. And indeed the fact that they tap chaotic creatures taints some of them with chaos. However the reason they are deeply prosecuted locally, but at the same time no steps are taken against them politically is that they work as sorcerers for hire all around Lake Felster. From the notes of my campaign:
"I wonder if you know how the boristi assassins work? I thought so. They are killers for hire. Before you had to go to Borin, contact the Secret Register, and pay for the deed. But now that they are almost public in Borin, they have opened "offices" abroad. You ask for a dead, you are given a price. If it is convenient, you pay, the office holder transmits the information, and an assassin team, variable in composition, but always with a sorcerer, and usually with some chaotic creatures, both as trained assassins and as energy sources. There is no contact between the office and the team, and once contracted, only the death of the sorcerer will stop the murder. Well, the team who killed Aliesos was found, and its sorcerer burnt (or killed before). But there is another team, and I fear I am their target. I wonder about Malfin, and the man in brown, and the blatant use of krjalki." (Versal Frere, Underworld boss, Old Kustria).
The players have already found a diminutive dead krjalki (a boristi trade mark), and fought a cockatrice (who created and uses all those chaotic sorcery rituals? Well, the boristi do use them. I wonder where they got them) and a hellion (a creature that needs to tap to live, definitely chaotic!).
Their peculiar nature makes them have loyal followers infiltrated almost anywhere, and they show a total disregard for life, specially if recently shriven, as then they will go straight to solace. IMG they fill many of the niches of the unaligned sorcerers in Ralios. Not only murders: curses, hidden magics, spying...
YGMV Jose
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