Guilds of Alnwich: The Brotherhood of the All-Seeing Star

The Brotherhood of the All-Seeing Star

Hermetic Cabal

Rank: Conspiracy Rank 0-8.

In Charge: Demonologists, scholars, and wizards.

In the Ranks: Agents, cultists, demonologists, necromancers, sages, scholars, and wizards.

On the Payroll: Assassins, brutes, burglars, cutpurses, guards, killers, knights, scouts, skirmishers, swashbucklers, and thieves.

Influencing the AR: Intimidation.

The Brotherhood of the All-Seeing Star is a secretive organization that is newly arrived in Alnwich. Little is known of their purpose or numbers, but they seem to have some magical inclinations, and the Collegium Arcana seems to be perturbed by their presence. They appear to admit both men and women, despite their name, and have a number of convoluted ways of recognizing each other. These include secret handshakes and code phrases, but probably extend far further than anyone realizes.

The Brotherhood’s most distinguishing feature are the hats they wear during ceremonies: a tall, purple conical affair topped with a pentacle inscribed with an eye. The edge of the hat is fringed with eight black strands as hair, and a pair of long sidelocks. These hats are not worn publically, and are only known only because a few individuals have been caught committing crimes with them on their person.

The Counsel of Aldermen is growing concerned with these newcomers, but the Earl hasn’t seen reason to do anything about them. The Town Guard remains vigilant, but the machinations of the Brotherhood are yet to be revealed.

What the Brotherhood of the All-Seeing Star Wants

At their core, the Brotherhood want power. Complete and ultimate power. This underlies all ostensible and even some clandestine motives. It drove their first members into the worship of demonic entities so horrific that most would be maddened at the mere speaking of their names. Some would suggest they, too, were driven from sanity by the path they chose to walk. After all, power corrupts . . . or maybe it just attracts the corruptible.

While their quest for power ultimately motivates everything the Brotherhood does, on a more practical level, they seek to bring Azathoth, the Blind Idiot God, and his court into the world in exchange for unfathomable ascendency. Knowing society will never accept this willingly, they work in utmost secrecy, use hired go-betweens, and worm their way into positions predisposed to influencing the levers of power.

What they want in Alnwich is of much more recent development. A confluence of dream-portents have suggested that a powerful artifact rests somewhere beneath Seidrborg, and the stars will soon align to make it accessible again. They have been preparing an expedition to the dungeon and nearby Thanras for the purposes of claiming the artifact for themselves. They are interesting in anyone who can aid them in their cause, preferably inadvertently.

What the Brotherhood of the All-Seeing Star Can Provide

The Brotherhood of the All-Seeing Star can provide training in Astronomy (IQ/H), Dreaming (IQ/A), Fortune-Telling (Astrology and Oneiromancy) (IQ/A), Hazardous Materials (Magical) (IQ/A), Hidden Lore (Elder Things, Magic Items, or Magic Writings) (IQ/A), History (Elder Things) (IQ/H), Occultism (IQ/A), Philosophy (All-Seeing Star) (IQ/H), Psychology (Demons (IQ/H), Ritual Magic (IQ/VH), and Theology (All-Seeing Star) (IQ/H) with a successful AR and also give professional discounts on tomes of quaint and curious forgotten lore.

They also provide:

• Artifacts. These are usually cursed, evil, demonic, or all three.
• Augury. The Brotherhood specializes in astrology and oneiromancy. +2 to ARs.
• Hideout. The Brotherhood has a number of safe houses, basements, and tunnels for getting in and out of town unnoticed. +3 to ARs.
• Immunity. The Brotherhood has already infiltrated the Town Guard and the earl’s court.
• Lore. The Brotherhood can provide information via Hidden Lore (Elder Things, Magic Items, or Magic Writings), History (Elder Things), Philosophy (All-Seeing Star), and Theology (All-Seeing Star). +4 to ARs.
• Translation. The Brotherhood can translate strange writings on a successful Linguistics roll. Treat this as Lore, but failure results in gibberish and critical failure gives an incorrect translation. +4 to ARs.
• Map. The Brotherhood has collected many maps of the ancient city on the southern shore they call Thanras, and claim to have maps of parts of the dungeons beneath Hogwarts, too.
• Special Orders. The Brotherhood can

Other ARs are at -3 or worse, and backup is at -10.

Guilds of Alnwich: The Town Guard

Town Guard/Military Company

Rank: Military Rank 0 to 4.

In Charge: Captain Lindqvist (Knight).

In the Ranks: Archers, barbarians, brutes, guards, holy warriors, killers, knights, scouts, skirmishers, and squires.

On the Payroll: Innkeepers, laborers, native guides, servants, and non-adventurers.

Influencing the AR: Leadership, Savoir-Faire (Military).

The Alnwich garrison initially consisted exclusively of soldiers from Usk, but over time, some locals have also seen the benefit of working for the Crown’s army – the pay and the privilege are notable. Unfortunately for them, the scorn heaped upon them by other locals for betraying their own is far from insignificant. In fact, most locals consider soldiers of the garrison as outsiders at best and as occupying invaders at worst.

The garrison itself is led by Captain Lindqvist, a knight landed in Usk but serving far from his estate on the shores of the southern Arafon.  He considers the post a punishment for offending Lord Lofgren, and rarely misses a chance to take it out on the locals. His philosophy is that a cowed populous is a peaceful populous. He lusts for power, but has a small mind and myopic view of the world.

Of course, the men of the garrison are not their captain. The typical guardsman is more interested in drinking, whoring, and not working too hard than actually policing the town. This leaves plenty of room for the Fellowship to operate, even if Captain Lindqvist sees stamping out those outlaws as his ticket home. Of course, no soldier wants to fall victim to the lash, so guardsmen need some coercing to turn a blind eye to broken laws.

In addition to enforcing the law, guardsmen are expected to protect Alnwich from threats without. This largely pertains to spirit and monster incursions from the Wilderlands, but the garrison does not patrol beyond the town’s borders. For this reason, the guard often offer bounties on various monsters and miscreants living in the baleful forests beyond the last farms. Rarely do they venture past that point, and when they do, it is only en masse. Ideally, local would-be heroes are sent on such suicide missions, however.

Rank in the town guard varies from Recruits at Rank 0 up to Captain at rank 4. Most are Soldiers with Rank 1, with veteran Sergeants achieving Rank 2. There are currently three companies stationed at Alnwich, each commanded by a Lieutenant of Rank 3 who answers directly to Captain Lindqvist.

What the Alnwich Garrison Wants

Ostensibly, the garrison at Alnwich want to impose and maintain order on the town. Their captain has few restrictions on how they accomplish this, which has led to a rather unfavorable view of the soldiery by the locals. Captain Lindqvist largely resents the locals and could not care less about their favor, so long as he does whatever he must to get back to his home.

Truly, however, almost every soldier just wants to go home. And they want to do it with as little threat to their own wellbeing as possible. That usually means ignoring anything that looks like it would be dangerous to intervene in, but also using brutal force when intervening. And hiring others to perform their most dangerous tasks for them.

Those few locals who have joined the garrison are already home, and consequently want one of two things – power or to truly protect Alnwich. Sadly, the former is far more prevalent than the latter. This only increases the brutal treatment doled out by guardsmen and their general resentment by the locals.

What the Alnwich Garrison Can Provide

The Garrison can provide training for any traits or skills found on the knight and scout templates. The professional items they can supply at discount are weapons, excluding disguised weapons and those with only reach C, any armor, and shields.

The Garrison can also respond to these types of ARs:

• Backup. When the garrison sends people to help, they’re trained fighters built on a mix of the full knight/holy warrior/scout templates and their closest Henchmen equivalents.
• Favor. The typical guardsman has little to offer aside from favors. These they may be willing to extend in advance for some return at a later time.
• Immunity. The Town Garrison chooses who they capture and prosecute, so they can always choose to look the other way when one of their own commits some transgression. +3 to ARs.
• Map. The Town Guard keeps good maps of civilized lands (+0 to ARs) and may have crude maps of the local Wilderlands (-2 to ARs).
• Mounts & Vehicles. This means horses and wagons more than anything else. The town guard does not have access to boats because the Fiskers refuse to sell them any.
• New Gear. The garrison is replete with low-quality weapons and armor and can come by reasonable quality fare with some effort. Most non-combat gear is beyond easy reach for them, however.
• Provisions. Soldiers need rations, and those rations can be extended to friends of the constabulary. No one said they’d taste good, however.
• Training. If the Town Guard can do anything, it is providing training in combat skills. These are limited to skills that deal directly with combat – not skills like Stealth or Running. ARs are at +3.

Other ARs are at -3 or worse.

Jayquaysing the Caves of Chaos

That's a lot of little linear maps!

I just finished my first pass of another dungeon entrance - the Caves of Chaos. But I couldn't leave well enough alone. The original Caves are pretty cool in their layout, but it still has some issues.  For one, it's weird having a dozen different sentient species, some of whom are enemies, all living in one valley together. Another is that the caves don't interconnect as much as I prefer.

The first issue is easy for me to address. This is where the beast-men disciples of the Horned One live, so while it seems like there are a dozen different sentient races here, they're really just one big group. That coordinate. That should amp up the difficulty for the PCs.

The second required some redrawing, adding, and tweaking. That required drawing the entire map into InkScape for further manipulation.  Thankfully, once that was done, I moved a little bit around, stuffed in some secret doors in reasonable looking places, added in a corridor or two, and made the minotaur's labyrinth well, more of a labyrinth. I may also need to stat up David Bowie with horns. Finally, I am adding at least one more level below the caves that will lead to the main body of the megadungeon.

So as it stands, the PCs can access the Caves the normal way, and once they are inside, they can get to any other room on the entire map without going outside, if they want. This is as much for the monsters as it is for the PCs. Since the factions coordinate their defenses, this lets the monsters shift forces to reinforce points of attack, pass information, and move supplies in ways the PCs might not expect. It allows for a far more flexible defense of the caves, and that should make this less of a cakewalk.

After all, my job is to provide problems, not solutions.

Another Mapping Tip - Rooftops

I'm a strong believer that the entire megadungeon doesn't need to be subterranean. I am mapping four separate above-ground "levels" for my megadungeon, each of which is a unique entrance to the dungeon proper. This is in addition to other, more generic entrances like caves, wells, tavern basements, sewers, etc. In mapping out these above-ground entrance complexes/levels, I have come on what I think is a worthwhile piece of advice. Of course, like any unsolicited advice, your mileage may vary.

The Advice: Map Your Rooftops!

Why do I say to map your rooftops? Well, it's because your players have seen a lot of movies with crazy rooftop fight scenes. They've also played a lot of crazy video games where fights happen high up on rooftops. The earliest example of this that I can remember is playing the shareware version of Star Wars: Dark Forces (yes, I'm old), and one of the cooler levels in that had you force-leaping from rooftop to rooftop while shooting storm troopers. Of course, plenty more exist!

And let's not kid ourselves. There is something exciting about fighting giant gargoyles on the rooftop of an ancient cathedral or leaping from building to building in pursuit of some Big Bad. So when you're mapping your dungeon (or city or whatever), don't forget to map the rooftops!

A fun corollary is that rooftops don't need to be pleasantly flat and offer good traction. Having spent a fair amount of time on my own rooftop as a child, I can assure you that they are neither flat nor offer good traction. Pitches are must steeper where snow and ice naturally occur, and any sort of shingle roof will have loose gravel on it. Slate or other rooftops may also accumulate ice and snow in the winter. Make note of this! It makes those rooftop battles all the more memorable!

This last bit touches on something I need to write a proper essay on: Your players' PCs are defined by the challenges you give them. Coddle them, and they will be lame. Push them and they will be awesome. And those who perish will be remembered. But all of that is for another blog entry.