Question for the Planescape fans!

[Oryan77]

I asked a similiar question earlier in regards to this, but I figured I should try to make it specifically Planescape related.

I'm feeling like I need to introduce a specific organization in my campaign that the PC's will interact with on neutral grounds. They won't really trust them, but they won't intentionally try to tear down the organization (right away at least). I'm also wanting it to be a hook for the party rogue to involve himself more into the campaign.

He's not much of a roleplayer but he does like the interaction. He's always interested in making underground contacts and just being roguish. So I thought he might enjoy working with a questionable group.

My question is, should I just continue to play off of the factions and accomplish this with a specific faction, or are there any Planescape organizations that I can read up on and use? My first thought is the Trade Consortium...but I'm wanting something a little darker. So then I thought maybe the loth or leth families could provide me with an organization. But I'm more of a Baatezu guy myself, so I don't know much about the loths/leths. But the Baatezu & Tanar'ri are too obviously bad guys. What books should I look to (if any) for planar organizations?

Thanks!

 

[mhacdebhandia]

The Fated:

This faction says the universe belongs to those who can hold it. Each sod makes his own fate, and there's no one else to blame for it. Those who whine about their luck are just weaklings; if they were meant to succeed, they could have. Here's the way the multiverse works, according to the Takers: Everybody's got the potential to be great, but that don't mean it's going to happen. Those that work hard get what they deserve.

There's no point feeling sorry for the berks who didn't make good - it was their own fault for being weak. Some soft-hearted folks call this a cruel philosophy. Well, that's just an excuse for weakness. Sure, there's compassion, but a body's still got to earn it.

Most folks think there's nothing to the Fated but taking, but the Takers'll tell a berk there's a lot more than that. There's lots of things a being has to earn - respect, for instance. That's something the Fated believe can't be taken by force.​

Perhaps the Doomguard:

Ever hear of entropy, berk? Take a look around: Everything's going down the tubes, falling apart, stopping. People die, rocks erode, stars fade, planes melt away. That's entropy, the fate of the multiverse. A lot of folks think that's a terrible thing, but not the Doomguard. They're pretty sure that nothing lasts forever. It's the way things are supposed to be, they guess - the goal of everything.

Now, the sods who try to fix things - stop the decay and put everything back together - they've got it all wrong. They're fighting the natural goal of the multiverse, trying to do something unnatural. That ain't right.

Don't get this faction wrong. It's not like somebody builds a house and they tear it down. That building's part of the whole decay: The stonecutter chips the rock, the logger cuts the tree, and later the termites chew the beams until the whole case comes down on its own. There's a long view to this. The sod who can't see the grand scheme'll go barmy trying to tear down everything that gets built.​

Just a few suggestions.

 

[Ripzerai]

The Revolutionary League (the Anarchists) are certainly underground, dark, and roguish. They make great bad guys, but they can be good guys too, if they're primarily fighting evil or corrupt authority. Each cell is different, and each member of a cell can have a different agenda (and even belong to multiple cells simultaneously, infiltrating one another and acting as double and triple agents - of course, the main idea of being an Anarchist is that you ostensibly belong to some other faction or organization as well, being a "mole" seeking to undermine its leadership).

 

[Oryan77]

Oh I know all about the factions, I use them frequently in my game. Each PC belongs to a faction. If I can't come up with a different type of organization to use then I'll probably just play off the faction more.

I was really more interested in other groups besides factions. Like maybe some type of lower planar organization or roguish guilds or something.

 

[Ripzerai]

The Planar Trade Consortium would be a good choice, then. There's a crime family in Sigil detailed in Faction War, and the arcanaloth Shemeshka the Marauder runs a criminal syndicate in the City of Doors, too.

There are a number of planar organizations detailed in the Epic Level Handbook - not all or even most of their members have to be epic.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Ah now, where is Shemeska? That's the poster on these boards you'd want to be asking.

 

[edbonny]

You may also want to check out the Merkant Sect - a Planescape version of uber-greedy capitalists with their money-grubbing hands in many pots across the planes.