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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Whizbang Dustyboots" data-source="post: 7942961" data-attributes="member: 11760">In the meantime, one of my players began running a parallel campaign, actually set in Ptolus proper. There are nine districts to Ptolus, and thus nine main divisions of the City Watch. Our group was the Tenth, a special group created to deal with adventurers (called "Delvers" in Ptolus) who pose problems and Delver-level issues that are beyond the scope of regular City Watch members to deal with.I play Baeril Underhill, a lederhosen-wearing gnome illusionist who pretends to be a wide-eyed naif while actually maintaining secret identities and who is forever running around under illusory disguise, which is often layered atop non-magical disguises underneath that. And given that he views even his colleagues as not needing to know about a lot of his schemes and plans, he's a lot to deal with.But it's not paranoia if they're really out to get you. Because Ptolus has three main crime families:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Longfingers, who are your traditional D&D thieves guild (not as nasty as their inspiration in the Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser stories)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Balcazar crime family, who are a pretty nasty group of fantasy mafiosos</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Killraven Crime League, which is what happens when Monte Cook decided that having an even scarier criminal family run by and consisting of (mostly) humanoid monsters was a good idea</li> </ul>The Tenth, it turns out, were the idea of the Balcazars, who want the Tenth to both be a bludgeon against pesky adventurers who might otherwise interfere with them, but mostly against the (very dangerous) Killraven syndicate.The Tenth has been infiltrated, beaten, members have been killed, but they've also solved multiple crimes and saved lots of lives along the way. (We also had a side mission, played with mercenary one-off characters, involving an attempted prison breakout/extraction. Don't make the mistake we did: Ptolus' prison is nasty and it was a really ugly way of these PCs killing themselves.)I've been playing Baeril since 2007, making him easily the longest-running character I've ever played. The Tenth are on a hiatus right now -- the DM of that game works in a hospital and, you know, he's fairly busy, even without COVID-19 -- but I will always be ready to jump back in and play him again.(If you like this recap, and would like to help me get my Ptolus character -- Baeril Underhill, gnome illusionist-turned-detective -- illustrated in the new 5E and Cypher editions, click <a href="https://gleam.io/b0PST-jJSfMdCUSb" target="_blank">here</a> and complete at least one of the promotional activities.)</blockquote>

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