VI. Organizations
In the case of Forgotten Realms campset organizations are most inspiring and easy to steal and place in other setting part of the books. The same I can say about this chapter.
There are ten major noble houses in Ptolus; I mean aristocraticy, you can meet countless minor knights and barons beside them. They (high aristocracy) sometime gather in the something a la Arthurian’s Round Table (ghost of king included).
House Anbar is mercantile family, you can even buy a noble title from them. They are looking everytime for bounty hunters (mean the PCs) to bring them a heads of anyone who steals from their businesses.
House Dallimothan. People say they are good (silver and gold) dragons. They look like dragons polymorphed into human form or at least like a half-dragons. They have full page of statblock in this book. They must be dragons!
House Khatru commands a school for warriors, gladiatorial arena, and mercenary guild.
Houses Sadar and Vladaam are bad kind in the family. Shadow (powerful) magic, contacts with criminal guilds and various chaos cults, and even demons, „Sauron” among ancestors… But don’t try to kick they doors and shout „You are arrested in the name of everything good and cute!” until you are 20th level and the commisar (ruler of Ptolus) is on your side.
… a few word about Ptolus’ statblocks. There is a lot of them in this book, but someone can say not enough. Monte created stats for these NPC who are most possible to encounter in the combat or other maths-demanding situations. So, when you see a stats, you are looking at enemy or possible cohort or ally of the PCs. Of course, these statblosk are not in DMG2 format (I mean actual WotC format with perception, defense, attack and the fourth sections.) – but they are not in old 3e statblock „fgsdudfgdfghjAC12sghisddfuihp12fjkdjuidfgidfgdfkelf!” format. This is something in between: a verse for every single data; highlighted most „important for your eye” words such as AC, hp, Fort and so on; spells listed by level starting from the most powerful. A little new idea is difference between crucial and other feats and skills… a little idea hard to understand, making using of statblock a little more complicated… no future. Imho 90%+ of NPCs are interested, with logical backgrounds, races, classes, feat and spells selection. These „10%-” are such a flowers as meteor swarm spell listed in succubus-in-disguise prepared spells list.
Criminals! Balacazar crime family is classical Mario Puzo’s Corleone family (but full of D&D stats and ideas such as vampires in the wardrobe), Killraven Crime League (young guns! – agressive, full of monsters, with good… no… very good connections) , and Longfingers Guild (old-fashioned band of honor among the tvieves believers and other Robin Hoods).
Brotherhood of Redemption are guys who oppose killing of evel beings, because they (bros) have special ritual (full of magic, drugs and… pain!) of alignment changing. Full Planescape feel! The Bros are one of my favorite Ptolus’ organizations because they are not simply bad or evil (the same as Shuul), they will be such as DM will develop them. Their premise is good, but they are acting against free will of the captured.
Devlers Guild is metagaming organization borrowed from on-line computer games. They offer hotels in the dungeon explored by the PCs and retrieval insurance (if you pay, you will be ressurected). It can be useful for the players and their PCs alike, but imho you should use the Delvers very carefully to don’t strain the suspension of disbelief.
The Guilds – do you think glassbowers guild is boring? Not, when you will read Monte’s adventure hooks for it. I like Ptolus’ guilds more then these from DMG2 Saltmarsh.
Dreaming Apothecary is imho the best idea in this book for now! Simple buying /upgrading of your magical items will be from this day fascinating adventure itself! I say no more because of „spoilers”, but the frequently used in the „Ptolus” margins Monte’s sentence „From my campaign to yours” means in this case exactly, I will use this idea in my thext game session! Thanks Monte!
Sisterhood of Silence – perhaps the single best known Ptolus organization of female monks with a vow of silence, with speaker eunuchs. They are second police in the city. I will use this idea in my BIRTHRIGHT absolutely, it’s a one of a few reasons to use a monk class in semi-medieval setting. The only bad side of Sister is a picture of one of them! Jesus and Satan! Who created a Shaolin monk in the uniform of catholic noun with a crossbow in her hand?! It’s not a wuxia, it’s not a comic, not a manga, nota classical fantasy or (more!) historical setting. It’s a ... i see... I can't use such a word on EnWorld!
Viridian Lords – the rangers who bond their flesh with plannt to gain natural armor bonus and spell like abilities! The idea is excelent imho, the feats are interesting, I will even develop this idea in the template for my private use! Again, thanks Monte.
My text is too long already, but there is a lot of organizations yet. Quickly. Brides of magic (sisterhood of teenager lesbiand sorcerers), The Fallen (demons traped in prime material), The Forsaken (cliche of Nerull cults >> by the way, when I say cliche, I don’t mean it’s bad material or unnecessary material, because we DMs need a fields to develop old good ideas too<<), Inverted Pyramid (generic mages’ guild… but man! why they heave a guildhall on the spaceship?!), Knights/Knihgthoods of the X, Y, Z (there are a lot of good paladin’s or angel’s sects in Ptolus, some of them with the feel of „DaVinci Code”, some simply boring).
The best of these organizations are shaked by feuds, full of possible traitors, informers ad other adventure hooks. Most of these organizations can be on the dark (or light) side of power and some day durning the campaign (when the PCs discover that…) change side. Sorry, I can’t tell more because of „spoilers”. It is really good designer’s job.
Resume. This was inspiring (and very loooooong, due to 50 pages of very small font) chapter.
There will be minimum one day break in my review, because we have some Catholic holiday today in Poland, and I will start a full day game session next hour.