The Company of Laughter is a clandestine faction of hired killers in Caldero, recognizable by faces painted half white and half black. Formal church documents call it Risa Partida (“Split Laughter”); common speech calls them “the ones with the half-white face”.
| Type | Faction (hired killers) |
| Era | Present cycle (1824 AE) |
| Base | Alleys of Caldero, Magma Avenue, lower districts |
| Emblem | Split Laughter: a face half white, half black |
| Suspected patron | Lord Valanthru |
| Spanish entry | La Compañía de la Risa |
Description
The Company operates in alleys, mostly at night, where the civil authorities do not easily reach. The name combines “Laughter” (the fixed painted grimace) and “Company” (an organized operation, not a loose gang). In the Decadian archive of Caldero, the split laughter is a doctrinal sign of the dual pole.
It belongs to the intermediate negative pole of the cosmos: organized urban killing with light ritual signature, without major magic. Its members are human agents who identify with the doctrine of split laughter without necessarily understanding it.
Known operations
- Attack on Rulfo. In the alley leading to Magma Avenue, a group of the painted killers was torturing Rulfo, guardian of the orphanage on Lantern Street. This was La Jabalina’s first encounter with them. The group’s mage put most of them to sleep with a spell; Ayrton whispered “home” to the last one standing, who fled in terror. The group carried the wounded Rulfo to the orphanage.
- Hanging of Sergeant J. Knave in the Watch Tower, reported in the press. The scene was disguised as self-inflicted, but thirty coins bearing the Split Laughter emblem pointed to a settling of scores by the local underworld.
The thirty coins work as a ritual signature: a symbolic number (an echo of the price of betrayal in old religious doctrines), the visible emblem, and the traitor’s body displayed in the Watch Tower.
Suspected link with Valanthru
La Jabalina suspects the Company acts under the direction or tolerance of Lord Valanthru, as the armed arm of the noble conspiracy he runs from the Obsidian Tower. The link is not fully confirmed. The pattern suggests it:
- operations where Valanthru has interests (alleys near the Obsidian Tower, lower districts tied to trafficking networks);
- elimination of witnesses or dissidents;
- collection of favors through ritualized violence.