D&D General Adventuring Company Names and What They Are Up To

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

From this list of 40 adventuring company names on page 1, I present:

THE GHOST KNIGHTS

There are no true knights among the Ghost Knights, but each member considers themselves a knight anointed by the Ghost Knight of Galardoun, the purpose bequeathed to them by that far-traveled haunting to find the many restless spirits in the Heartlands of the Forgotten Realms and see each laid to permanent rest. It would be easy to assume the Ghost Knights are slayers of apparitions, and so there must be clerics and paladins among them, but this is not true. No, the Ghost Knights are a monk, a druid, a sorcerer, a fighter, and a bard, each motivated to learn the stories behind the hauntings they seek in order to discover the means to end them. This quintet of adventurers have not always met with success in their endeavors: the Grinning Ghost of Taverton Hall drove them off before they could make their way by night onto the grounds of the ancestral home of House Paertrover of Cormyr, while the Mirror Ghost (a haunting native to Marsember) proved too nimble, and too costly, a foe to find and capture.[1] The Ghost Knights make decisions by vote and have, after their failure in the City of Spices, chosen to travel to Suzail to find a wealthy patron to sponsor their adventures.

[1] As its name suggests, the Mirror Ghost appears within mirrors of all sorts (and rarely within glass of fine make). The Ghost Knights broke several mirrors while trying to apprehend the Mirror Ghost, and ran out of coins to buy more.

(Tip of the hat to Ed Greenwood's "Eye on the Realms" article "The Ghost Knight of Galardoun" in Dungeon #196.)

 

[David Howery]

one of my 2E groups back in the day called themselves the Regulators. They were inspired by the group in Young Guns led by Billy the Kid. After I introduced flintlock pistols into the game, they sorta acted like them too...

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

From this list of 40 adventuring company names on page 1, I present:

TYBOLD’S TERRIBLE SHIELDS

Zorabrantha Tybold has been many things in her life: a shipper of goods between the coastal cities of Lushpool and Ithmong on the Divided Road in Lapaliiya, a ship’s crewman aboard the Saffron Hammer (named after the legendary blood red warhammer covered in Yuan-ti fangs that could melt the flesh of the snake men with the merest of touches and slew so many of the Coiled Cabal); a Reaching Hand for merchant interests along the Vilhon Reach responsible for solving problems in the manner of a stereotypical hardjaws (the real-world equivalent of a badass)—that is, covered in weapons from head to foot and armored with the grim determination to get the job done no matter the cost; and most recently a leader of adventurers on the Dragon Coast to the south of Cormyr.

Zorabrantha’s (“Zora,” to her companions) adventuring days began not long after she and the band of sellswords she’d assembled in the guise of merchant ship crewman were unmasked in Westgate and forced to slay a trio of Loviathan priests who’d backed the Westgate-based merchant cabal that had opposed the interests of Zora’s masters in the Vilhon. Zora and the other survivors of that battle fled Westgate aboard her ship, the blood of the priests still fresh on their blades, then fought a ship to ship battle with mercenaries commanded by the Entrusted Whip (i.e., the high priest) of Painbless Hall to capture the murderers in Loviatar’s name—the fight ended after Zora rammed her ship into the opposing vessel and sank it.

With a second ship in pursuit, Zora turned her wounded vessel west and rode a strong tailwind towards The Neck and onto the waters of the Dragonmere. Umberlee frowned on Zora and her pursuers, for neither had made offerings to the Bitch Queen before they set sail, then sparked a storm that gathered over the Lake of Dragons that drove both Zora’s and her pursuer’s ships into the high cliffs on Cormyr’s southern coast, the two vessels entangled against the rocks in a deathly embrace of torn masts, snarled ropes and sundered flesh. Battle shouts, barked orders and the cries of wounded sailors echoed against the cliffs that night, the cacophony drowned out by the crack of thunder each time the battle was revealed in a flash of lightning. By morning Zora stood triumphant in the middle of a ring of raised shields, her sellswords having cornered and slain all enemies on the rain and blood-soaked decks of both ships.

The gnomes of Smuggler’s Stone were first to spot Zora’s bedraggled crew, and did what wise gnomes living on Cormyr’s shipwreck-strewn coast have long done: they drove a hard bargain for the best of the goods salvaged from the two wrecked ships, and equipped the survivors with coins, fresh clothes, mounts, food to travel on and the names of friendly innkeepers and merchants further up the coast. Snowed inn at Moonever and unable to make the crossing to Marsember, Zora caroused with the guests of the Dirty Dragon Inn and made friends with the owner, the Cormyrean nobleman Irlake Keskrel, who proved a ready listener to Zora’s tales or merchant business and battles fought on the waters of Cormyr, the Vilhon Reach, the Lake of Steam and the Shining Sea.[1]

Today, Tybold’s Terrible Shields are a chartered band of adventurers that explore the Skeleton Shore in the vicinity of the Cliffs of Karthaut, with Lord Keskrel as their patron. Zora has found the remains of the first band of adventurers sent by Irlake to explore the Cliffs and to find the entrance to the hidden hold rumored to fill the interior of that wall of stone. Every last adventurer had been hacked to pieces, their bodies left for the coastal carrion eaters to pick over. Her Shields are currently searching for signs of the second group of adventurers employed by Lord Keskrel (the Terrible Shields being the third).

Unbeknownst to Zora, Loviatar’s thirst for revenge was not satiated by the slow, painful deaths of her onetime masters on the Vilhon, this act overseen by the Entrusted Whip of Westgate. Mistress of Pain Andratha Dorntalon, of Elversult, has received a vision from the Maiden of Pain revealing the faces of Tybold’s Terrible shields and their leader, as well as a command to destroy these most hated foes of the church.


[1] ] It is not within Zora’s nature to hide her past from others, though she will never reveal secrets entrusted to her by former employers or comrades in arms. She is proud of her life and enjoys recounting stories of her successes and her failures.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

SOME BACKGROUND ON TYBOLD’S TERRIBLE SHIELDS

Longtime readers are no doubt familiar with the occasional extended adventuring party writeups I post to this thread. These are exceptions to the short writeups I normally share, 4-5 sentences being limit I place on myself for each writeup so I have just enough room to inspire players looking for ideas for new characters, and to leave room for DMs need a simple description for NPC adventurers that they can adapt to fir their campaign.

My goal for the extended writeups is a little bigger. It's not just to provide a (hopefully) entertaining read, but to give Dungeon Masters and aspiring Dungeon Masters a framework from which to build an adventure--or, in the case of Tybold’s Terrible Shields, a sequence of adventures. I try to use the Realms resources at my disposal as much as possible when I create an extended writeup. Not to stick to canon (canon, shmanon), but to pick and choose the best bits of the Forgetten Realms that are inspiring and that sound fun.

For the Tybold’s writeup, I thought it would be fun for DMs to start a campaign away from Cormyr. The Forgotten Realms Wiki has a pretty good writeup for Ormpur, and since DMs might like a change from battling orcs and goblins and kobolds, starting 1st level play in Ormpur makes it easier to introduce low CR Yuan-ti as foes; they're great as schemers and as foes to battle in combat.

Ed Greenwood's Forging the Realms article "So Many Reaching Hands" gave me the idea for an adventurer that used to be a true Reaching Hand, though I reversed the concept. Ed describes the Reaching Hands of the Sword Coast as nondescript people, usually human or halfling females, that are good at not being seen and at getting things done behind the scenes. Zorabrantha, on the other hand, fits the stereotype everyday people of the Realms assume to be true: that Reaching Hands are badasses of the first order.

Zora's name is, like just about every Realms name I come up with, a variant of a name I found in my long, long spreadsheet list of Forgotten Realms NPCs. In this case Zobrant Alnrith of Ormpur, first introduced in Dragon #417, who was slain by the Sword of Spells. I gave Zora the last name Tybold, to fit the name for the adventuring band I'd created back in December of 2015. Everything else in the first paragraph (the Divided Road and the Saffron Hammer (ship and magic item)) I made up based on what I gleaned from the wiki about Ormpur. To me it's important that DMs not merely use what they can find in a Realms resource--those things exist to inspire DM creativity, not just to inform DMs of what is where in the Realms.

The second paragraph in the writeup moves Zora north to the Vilhon. The end of the first paragraph left her crewing on a ship, and a merchant ship sailing the Shining Sea can deliver to any port on the Lake of Steam, which shares its northern land border with the Vilhon Reach. After she made the crossing north, she established herself among the merchants of the Reach as a rough and ready Reaching Hand able to take on all foes, so the next step was to move her further north to Cormyr. I figured the best place to find a big batch of bad guys to cause Zora trouble would be the city of Westgate: its mercantile reach is long, its presence at the mouth of the Dragonmere makes it a perennial headache for Cormyr, the Vilhon, and even Sembia, and the worst of the city's occupants--the Fire Knives, the Night Masks, the vampires, the ruling Croamarkh (a member of the Bleth noble family exiled from Cormyr), the Nine Golden Swords, etc., are all bad news. I decided to use Painbless Hall after I read about it in Erik Scott de Bie's excellent "Backdrop: Westgate" article in Dragon 428. I love using the different names for priests of the Realms, so I turned to "Ed Greenwood Presents: Elminster's Forgotten Realms," for his writeup of the Loviathan church, pages 151-152. This led me to Ed's description of Andratha Dorntalon--who really is charged with slaying the worst foes of Loviatar's church--which provided a way to end the writeup on a cliffhanger of sorts in the sixth paragraph.

For the third paragraph, the idea of a running ship battle sounded fun, so I tried to describe two of them, the first ship to ship, the second a pitched battle aboard two entangled ships. I took some inspiration from Volo's Guide to Cormyr about The Coast (page 76 features an illustration of a ship running dangerously close to the base of a massive sea cliff). I figure DMs could use the content in "Ghosts of Saltmarsh" here.

The fourth paragraph delves a little more into Cormyr as I've come to envision it in my own DMs Guild writing. Volo's Guide to Cormyr gives information about Smuggler's Stone (page 80). To this I combined an encounter with gnomes who'd come to settle there in 1479 DR (Year of the Ageless One), using an old Current Clack entry I'd written up for the month of Kythorn (June) of that year:

A train of carts loaded down with fish packed in salt has departed Smuggler's Stone for markets in southeastern Cormyr—a sure sign of that small village's revival. The renewal of the Stone is being attributed to the arrival of gnome families displaced by conflict in Sembia. Fine fish bone carvings, and delicate metal necklaces that change color when exposed to extremes of temperature, are being sold in the village.

To round out the fourth paragraph I drew a little inspiration from Xanathar's Guide to Everything--specifically the downtime activity of Carousing for Contacts (page 126-128)--and on my own as yet unpublished writings about Moonever, which will be included in Part III of Nobles of Cormyr: The Knight of Owl Well, the first two parts having already been published in issue #3 and #4 of "Eye on Cormyr" on the DMs Guild. The Keskrels of Marsember were featured in the article "The Thing in the Crypt" by Ed Greenwood, in Dragon #412. I've since created a family tree for House Keskrel, which will also be included in Part III of Nobles of Cormyr.

The Keskrels have a reputation for doggedly pursuing whatever interests them, and I didn't want to describe Zora as operating on the Skeleton Shore without saying why, so I figured Lord Keskrel was determined to find something he believes to be hidden on that part of the Dragon Coast, and that he viewed Zora as the right person to both find it and to find out who or what put an end to the first two groups of adventurers he sent there, all of this forming the content of the fifth paragraph. You can find a copy of the Mike Schley map of Cormyr that I used as a reference for this writeup on page 3 of "Backdrop: Cormyr" by Brian R. James (the article made available for free thanks to the generosity of Wizards of the Coast), that shows the names for different parts of the southern shores of the Dragonmere (aka the Dragon Coast), the narrow channel Zora sailed through ("The Neck"), the location of Westgate, and Smuggler Stone (due north of the "X" marking the Cliffs of Karthaut, on the north shore of the Dragonmere).

To wrap this all up: I believe the Realms are best used as a means of inspiration, and not just as a source of information. What I've tried to do here is what a Dungeon Master would do over time as they create NPCs and encounters and campaign plots to fill a series of adventures in the Realms. I hope elements of the Tybold's writeup inspires you to do the same.

Good gaming to you and yours.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

From this list of 40 adventuring company names on page 1, I present:

CATHCATCH’S DOOMED FRIENDS

Known in the village of Dhedluk for breeding boobries of exceptional height and taste, the man called Cathcatch has suffered several interruptions of his business. The first involved his abduction by night at the hands of cultists wearing stag antler masks and wielding daggers capable of floating point down if released in midair. The second involved his imprisonment by a band of rogues—every last one of them a woman—who dwell not far from Dhedluk and allow no one to trespass in their territory. The third was not one interruption, but an ongoing sequence of several visits from uninvited guests, all of them demanding and few disposed towards polite behavior.

Catchcatch’s first rescue came swiftly thanks to lifelong friends who’d grown up in Dhedluk hearing stories of the cult called the High Hunt, and who’d spent their youthful days exploring the hidden holds with a day’s walk of the village and listening hard whenever two or more strangers of regal bearing met in those same holds to converse in what they assumed was total privacy. In one such hold, the breeder of boobries was surprised to learn the blood of two extinct Cormyrean noble families ran through his veins, as well as a grandmother from House Irlingstar. This much Cathcatch learned before the masked nobleman who’d proclaimed his lineage out loud was interrupted by a handspan of steel protruding from his ample belly. Six Cormyrean nobles felt the hot stab of cold steel that night, each blade wielded by one of Cathcatch’s friends. Half as many nobles fled for their lives into the trees.

A season later the Women of the Woods took Cathcatch prisoner after he blundered into one of their campsites while tracking a wild boobrie. The beast would have made for excellent breeding stock, but it fell swiftly under a storm of crossbow bolts let loose by the Women. Catchatch’s rescue involved no violence, but careful negotiation on the part of his friends. They convinced the Women to accept boobries as a ransom—a mated pair up front, a male the next year and a female the year after that, the last two to be delivered within a tenday of the anniversary of Cathcatch’s “invasion” of their lands.

The boobrie breeder nearly missed his first anniversary payment one year later, thanks to a rumor in the village that spread first to Waymoot, then Knightswood, then Eveningstar to the north. The Sembian merchant who'd fanned the rumorfire claimed to one and all that she observed Cathcatch in the presence of not one ghost, but two, the first an apparition that decades ago found its way free of the sprawling wayhouse in Dhedluk that it once haunted, the building known throughout Cormyr as the Blushing Maiden. The merchant swore the first ghost was that of Aradaera Tinshar, a spell-brawler of a sorcerer memorialized in bard song as having roasted beholders with fireballs and earning the friendship of the legendary Witch Queen of Aglarond. The second apparition appeared in Dhedluk not long after the first was seen to wander by night among the cottages nestled between the massive oaks that grow everywhere in the village. This ghost the merchant identified as that of Thiombur Dhedluk, made king’s lord of the village in the wake of Thiombur’s valiant opposition to the extinct noble House of Dheolur who once ruled the village with an iron fist (and whose surname the village was known by at that time) over one hundred and fifty years ago, and whose heart belonged to Aradaera until her death in battle.

Listeners assumed the seemingly unkillable breeder of boobries was the descendant of Aradaera and Thiombur, and that their ghosts must be imparting secrets to him of all the ways to activate a massive tapestry hanging within the Blushing Maiden that is rumored (correctly) to hold several magical gates within its one hundred paces-long length. Others concluded Catchcatch must have access to a cache of magic that once belonged to his mother. A cache that must contain potent magical objects gifted to her by the Witch Queen, surely, for if the whispered rumors of Cathcatch’s encounters with the High Hunt and the Women of the Woods were true, then how else could he have escaped but by wielding powerful magic? A month later visitors began to arrive at Catchcatch’s cottage, sometimes forming a line at his front door. Some offered coin, others offered promises of power, and yet others defaulted to armed threats when the hapless breeder claimed to know nothing of what was being asked of him.

For their part, Cathcatch’s friends have quietly steered away the worst of the threats, disposed of those who were prepared to offer violence, and taken care not to claim any credit for their deeds. They refer to themselves as “the Doomed” in secret, but always with a sense of mirth and a smile. They wear stag masks stolen from the nobles who’d sought to sacrifice their dear friend, and they operate by night.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

It's time for a new list of adventuring company names.

1. Company of the Severed Hand

2. Company of the Silver Pike

3. The Gate Crashers

4. The Moon Knights of Semberholme

5. Shaddan’s Sand Striders

6. The Laughing Gnomes

7. The Sunset Seven

8. The Howling Northmen

9. The Tempest Maidens of the Thunder Peaks

10. The Beached Brawlers

 

[Coroc]

Ok since this seems to be only partially serious:

- The Neverwinter Noobs

- The Tethyr TPK

- Kender Army

- Ten little Tinkergnomes

- The Swarm (The all Thrikreen party)

- Out of the Abyss (The all Tiefling party)

- Greenpeace ( A group of pacifistic Duids, rangers and Green Knights)

- Wizards of the Coast ...... oh wait, this ones seems to be taken already

 

[JustinCase]

- Wizards of the Coast ...... oh wait, this ones seems to be taken already

Wizards off the Coast - a group of mages on a ship with a fondness of surfing and playing cooperative games, never making port

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

OK, let’s give the newest list of ten adventuring company names the 3-5 sentence treatment, starting with the first three entries.

1. The Company of the Severed Hand
Known for the mummified Ogre hands worn by each member of their group, the Company of the Severed Hand explore the Far Hills, the southern half of the Sunset Mountains and ruins along the western edge of the Farsea Swamp. The lonely merchant trail that winds east from the village of Hluthvar before turning north to the fortress of Aris (the later overlooking the northern expanse of the Farsea Swamp) marks a border the Severed Hands do not cross willingly. By the Year of Three Ships Sailing (1492 DR), the Severed Hands number five adventurers.

2. The Company of the Silver Pike
Based out of Elversult, the Company of the Silver Pike has spent the last two years exploring the foothills of the Giant’s Run Mountains to the south. Accomplished at luring hill and stone giants down from their lairs in order to slay the hungry creatures with pikes forged of seemingly unbreakable silver, the members of the Silver Pike have earned a reputation as fearless defenders of the handful of human and halfling farmers who’ve dared to make homes on the verdant, rolling fields of the Giant’s Plain. The leader of the Silver Pike has refused offers from merchant lords to furl his banner (a Realms phrase that means to retire, or to give up a profession) in order to form a proper mercenary company paid by the merchants to police the Giant’s Plain. Eleven in number, the Silver Pike operates in two banners consisting of five polearm-wielding adventurers each, the banners under the command of a fighter believed to be part human and part halfling.

3. The Gate Crashers
An exclusive group of young Cormyrean noblemen born of established noble families that lack the necessary wealth and power to influence trade and Royal policy in the Forest Kingdom. Their roster changes from one year to the next as members are called away to take up postings in the Royal Court in Suzail or positions of responsibility within their respective families. Although the Gate Crashers fancy themselves a society, they do little to distinguish themselves from the local toughs one can find in any village or town in Cormyr. They meet once a year, the eldest member of the Crashers playing host to a days-long feast where boasting, grand proclamations and rabble-rousing among the nearby settlements and farms is the norm. When the Gate Crashers finally decide on a ruin or place to explore, they proceed with all haste to their destination, but rarely venture past the last sign of human habitation.

(If you’re interested in creating a character with a Cormyr-specific noble background, Eye on Cormyr #2: Nobles of Cormyr has everything you need.)

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Continuing with the newest list of ten adventuring company names, we have:

4. The Moon Knights of Semberholme

Vengeance rides the minds of the Moon Knights, for the schemes of the dragon Thraxata have left too many corpses to rot on Semberholme’s borders. The dead did not ask for champions, but their friends and loved ones have banded together to plot the Flamefiend’s demise. On the night of their formation, the Moon Knights mixed their tears in a vial and poured its contents over a pristine arrow while chanting prayers to Shevarash the Black Archer for guidance. As clouds obscured the moon overhead the arrow broke into eight pieces--one for each Knight.

(Dear Reader: more about Thraxata may be had by downloading a free copy of Dragon Dreams of the Forest Kingdom: Death In The Last Drop from the DMs Guild.)


5. Shaddan’s Sand Striders

The Sand Striders travel in the guise of Bedin nomads, ever on the hunt for signs of hobgoblin incursions along the northern flanks of two great plateaus that form the border between the sands of Anauroch and the Sunset Mountains. The people of Lundeth have known of the Sand Striders for decades and believe them to be immortal. The Zhentarim of Darkhold know of the Sand Striders too, and watch them covertly by means of scrying and other spells. If the portents of a hobgoblin invasion communicated by priests of Bane within Darkhold are true then the Sand Striders are likely first to know and first to fight.

(A great map of Cormyr can be had from the Forgotten Realms Wiki. It’s my chief map reference for writing these entries.)


6. The Laughing Gnomes

Unlike gnome clans Faerûn over, the members of the Laughing Gnomes have not retreated from the increasingly human dominated parts of Faerûn. On the contrary, this far-traveled group of clanless adventurer gnomes make coaches, carts, wagons and ships their home. The gnomes do not own their conveyances, but they do rent space on them--the space used for the production of a wide variety of finework goods that human merchants are all too eager to sell at high rates of return. The Laughing Gnomes do not advertise to the wider world their efforts to keep distant Hin clans in contact with one another, nor the existence of the many messages, gifts and parcels they deliver, nor the means by which they forestall human efforts at expansion by careful use of trickery and traps, and the luring of wild beasts with a taste for human flesh onto lands where gnome barrows are hidden. But their efforts are widely known to most gnomes and some halflings.