Venture Company



The Venture Trading Company, also known as the Venture Company and Venture Co., is the most notorious goblin organization, deforesting and plundering the world for its natural resources. Mogul Razdunk owns and runs the Venture Company. It is an independent faction (although most of its members are hostile to everyone in-game for quest purposes. Mainly tauren and night elves are hostile to them in published lore) that operates in Undermine, Ratchet, Mulgore, The Barrens, Azuremyst Isle, and the Stonetalon Mountains regions of Kalimdor — as well as Stranglethorn Vale in the Eastern Kingdoms and Sholazar Basin and Grizzly Hills in Northrend. Largely run and managed by goblins, it employs a few gnomes in high engineering positions. It provides employment (and possibly shanghaiing) to all of the sentient races of Azeroth as laborers, even (perhaps especially) the less intelligent ones such as ogres and gnolls.

Background
The Trade Coalition is huge, far-reaching and massively complicated. In addition, numerous other, smaller goblin companies, created and run by entrepreneurs called moguls (the hands of the trade princes, ) operate throughout Azeroth. Perhaps the most famous of these smaller businesses is the Venture Company, founded and ruled by Mogul Razdunk. The corporate group is a collection of greedy entrepreneurs who keep both eyes on the bottom line at all times.

The headquarters of the Venture Company is located in Undermine. Ratchet also serves as a base of operations for many members of the company. Though the city is governed from Undermine by the trade princes, Ratchet is (or was) run by members of the Venture Company. The Venture Company is in competition with Gazlowe of the Steamwheedle Cartel who is the ruler and Overseer of the city. While the city operates under the watchful eyes of the trade princes, Gazlowe has considerable free rein. The Venture Company employs a complex device known as a Truth detector in the City of Ratchet when they were making an important deal with a new supplier and wanted to ascertain whether or not the supplier is trustworthy.

The Venture Company is known for spearheading the efforts to reestablish trade routes across eastern Azeroth, to connect isolated goblin trading posts. A growing number of shops in Azeroth have signs declaring that they are owned and operated by the “Venture Company,” which the proprietors claim is headquartered in a faraway city ruled by goblins. The Venture Company sometimes hires heroes to build new trading posts in the wilderness — a job that could take them anywhere in the world. The Venture Company is infamous for its massive numbers of goblin shredders.

The trade princes have recently caused problems for the Venture Company, and it is looking increasingly likely that the goblins will turn on each other soon. Ziz Fizziks, a goblin who works with the trade princes, works to retrieve plans that a disloyal goblin stole and sold to the Venture Company.

Projects in Central Kalimdor
The goblins of the Venture Company threaten to reduce the entire Central Kalimdor section into an uninhabitable wasteland.

Mulgore is rich with iron and tin, which has attracted the attention of the Venture Company. With the centaur gone, the Venture Company has taken advantage of the tauren’s peaceful nature and have set up mining operations throughout the region. The Venture Company’s presence here is for profit, plain and simple. Driven by profit, the Venture Company mines for the iron and tin in eastern Mulgore, depleting the land’s natural resources, and hoarding the region’s water supplies. They are disturbing the balance of nature in the region, and drawing the anger of the tauren. Although the tauren have tried to share their land, the continuous encroachment and lack of respect shown by the Venture Company has resulted in escalating conflict in the region. The Venture Company buys poached hides from Palemane gnolls near Palemane Rock. The goblins intended to capitalize on the peaceful nature of the tauren and steal the resources of their home, and that plan has begun to fall apart only recently. It is believed if the goblins are pressed hard enough, they will eventually get the picture and withdraw. Quests relating to the struggle between the two factions are found in and around Bloodhoof Village. Baine Bloodhoof, the son of Cairne, leads an investigation into Venture Company operations to the east of the village.

Agents of the goblin-run Venture Company have also been sighted in the Stonetalon Peak area, searching for potential tracts to deforest and streams of precious ore to plunder with their mining machines. They have a significant presence in the Stonetalon Mountains, chopping down trees and burning huge stretches of forest in the Windshear Crag basin. The goblins of Stonetalon are among the finest engineers of their race, and their inventions have allowed them to remove massive chunks of the forest in a few short months. The Venture Company is gradually destroying the remaining trees and taking the remaining resources from the earth There has been a near-complete annihilation of sections of the Stonetalon Mountains (the Charred Vale in particular) with lumber-cutting machine by the Venture Company. The Venture Company’s expeditions and mining operations changed much of the landscape to dusty, barren canyons and desolate cliffs. If this process continues, Stonetalon could soon become as much a wasteland as Desolace in the south or the Barrens in the east. This endeavor draws ire from the night elves and tauren alike, who find the deforestation barbaric and dangerous. Many of the tauren still hold the unrealistic hope that the Venture Company can be reasoned with, and this belief prevents progress. While the majority of the night elves and tauren take defensive roles, the Grimtotem tribe strikes back against the goblins.

The Venture Company has an operation in the Sludge Fen, in the Barrens’ northern hills. They also can be seen in Boulder Lode Mine, close to the shores of the Southfury River (and the oft-overlooked western entrance to Orgrimmar).

Other projects
The Venture Company activities can also be discovered in Stranglethorn Vale, where it is involved in various mining operations.

Also, The Venture Trading Company is known to trade with various shady groups. The Defias Brotherhood is especially known for trading for a powerful poison Venture Co. "acquired" from Zanzil the Outcast, such as in the quest chain of.

Elements of the Venture Company have also entered into the service of, via his agent , the emissary of the gnomish High Tinker who accompanied. Kael, via Overgrind, hired the Venture Company to recover the crashed Exodar, a portion of the Tempest Keep Draenei were able to escape with when the aforementioned was hijacked by Blood Elves under Kael'Thas' command.

Wrath of the Lich King
The Venture Co. is present in the Grizzly Hills of Northrend as they try to deforest the land. They also appear at a small site in the Sholazar Basin, mining the crystals at the base of the Suntouched Pillar.

Cataclysm
With the evacuation of Kezan by the Bilgewater Cartel goblins, it is unknown what role the Venture Co has after the events of the Cataclysm. It is known that they have lost most of Windshear Crag in the Stonetalons, to Alliance and Horde forces.

The Barrens
These members of the Venture Co. are found in the northeast part of the Barrens, the Sludge Fen.

Relationship to Steamwheedle Cartel
Members of the Venture Trading Company are said to "run Ratchet", and that one of their major operations is in the city. It is also said that the trade princes govern the city, and allow Gazlowe free reign to rule under their watchful eye. Thus Gazlowe is affiliated with the Steamwheedle Cartel, and the trade princes. It is also said that the trade princes have recently caused problems for the Venture Company, and that it looked increasingly likely that the goblins would turn on other. Thus it appears that the Venture Company is a powerful competitor in the city, but how they "run" the city is unclear, perhaps they have some control over the city as a mafia, manipulating the elected officials and Lawkeepers.

In addition as noted above the Venture Company is run by a mogul, the hand of a trade prince. This would imply that Razdunk and the venture company has either betrayed it's trade prince or one of the princes has betrayed the others.