12-chapter-4-building-eberron-adventures-sharn

Chapter 4: Building Eberron Adventures - Sharn

Source: Eberron: Rising from the Last War, p. 239

Adventures in Sharn

Chapter 3 describes the city of Sharn in detail; the following sections focus on the adventures that can happen there. These adventures can unfold among the tallest towers of Skyway, in the deepest depths of the Cogs, or anywhere in between. At the end of this chapter is an introductory adventure, “Forgotten Relics,” set in Sharn.

Sharn can be a grim place that makes good people bad and bad people worse. In its mean streets, gritty detectives contend with corrupt law officers while trying to foil the efforts of merciless gangs and monstrous thugs. In the highest towers, wealthy barons from the dragonmarked houses make shady deals with crime bosses, each of them making profits by exploiting both the ordinary folk and the well-heeled upper crust alike. Corruption can be found among the ranks of government, the watch, the temples, and large businesses. This atmosphere makes Sharn a perfect location for adventures inspired by the noir genre.

Sharn can also be a place of unrelenting action, ranging from soarsleds speeding between the tower tops to confrontations in the dungeon depths far beneath the city’s lowest tier. Fallen angels, sinister shapeshifters, and monstrous mercenaries do battle with heroes from all walks of life, while unscrupulous collectors and smugglers carry on a brisk trade in artifacts brought back from the cyclopean ruins of Xen’drik. All these factors make Sharn an equally ideal location for adventures inspired by pulp action.

You can use the Life in the City table to generate ideas for adventures set in Sharn.

Home, Sweet Home

If you’re creating a campaign based in Sharn, it’s a good idea to establish a location that serves as a home base for the adventurers. You can use the Home Base table as a source of inspiration, or you can develop a unique location.

Work with the players to develop the connections that each character has to the site. If the location is a tavern, for instance, a bard character might perform there two nights a week. A fighter could be a regular who has a drink named after them. A ranger could be the undefeated champion of the local darts league. If the players enjoy this creative exercise, you could also allow each player to add a physical detail to the place or to describe one of the location’s NPCs—the stuffed gorgon head over the hearth, another regular among the customers, and so on. This is a way to make this location truly feel like home, and to give each player a personal investment in it. This location becomes an automatic starting point for adventures, the place where the adventurers will meet with patrons and conduct business.

The Home Base table can also be useful to determine the venue if a patron wants to set up a meeting at a neutral location.

The Streets of Sharn

The Street Events tables starting with ""Lower Sharn Street Events"" are filled with random events the characters can witness while they wander around Sharn. You can expand on an entry to make it the start of an encounter or adventure, though not every event needs to draw the characters into a longer story. Each table is meant to be used on a different level of Sharn: the lower wards, middle wards, upper wards, and Skyway. You can choose results from the tables, or randomly determine what happens, and you can modify results as you please, tailoring the details of an event to be a better fit for a particular district. The events on the tables are phrased so they can be read aloud or summarized to players.

What Happens Next?

After the adventurers witness an event on the streets of Sharn, what happens next depends largely on what they do. Maybe they avert their eyes and keep walking, as many residents of Sharn have trained themselves to do. Maybe they rush to get involved, or poke around delicately to learn more. An event like one of these doesn’t have to be the start of an adventure, but it can be—particularly if it really catches your players’ imagination.

When the players decide to learn more, it’s up to you to figure out what they can discover. Ask yourself these questions:

• How did the people involved in this event get to this place? What were they doing earlier today? Where were they going when this event happened?
• Why isn’t anyone else getting involved? What is complicating this situation?
• What do the people involved hope is going to happen next? What are they afraid might happen next? How are the circumstances changed because the characters have witnessed the event?

Sharn Heights

Sharn heights are intersections of bridges and platforms in Sharn that make the perfect place for a meeting, theft, or assassination. The crisscrossing paths of Sharn heights allow criminals to come and go in different directions, looking like normal passersby as they trade information, cut purses, or throw people to their dooms.

Sharn Heights Features

Map 4.11 shows a typical Sharn location that contains intersections of bridges and platforms. Each bridge is 20 feet higher (on average) than the one immediately below it.

The bridges are connected to businesses and residences. The residences are usually locked, while most shops lock up at night. The taverns and gambling dens are open for business all day and well into the night. One of the bridges connects to a skycoach parking station, which houses several of those vehicles. Other bridges lead to an elevator, garden overlooks, and staircases that take pedestrians farther up and down into the city.

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Sharn Heights Adventures

Adventures in Sharn heights are perfect for pulp action scenes. Narrow bridges, moving platforms, and great heights come together in a public place that’s a perfect location for swashbuckling battles, tense hostage negotiations, and over-the-top heists. The Sharn Heights Adventures table offers reasons why your characters might need to visit such a location. In addition, the characters could meet with a Boromar Clan or House Tarkanan patron in Sharn heights.

Crime in Sharn

Crime is part of everyday life in Sharn, and just as in any other city, sometimes such acts are carried out by people who have no ties to organized crime. An upstanding citizen could be driven to murder by passion. A refugee could become a cutpurse out of desperation. The rowdy Brelish veterans who call themselves the Brokenbridge Brawlers don’t think of themselves as criminals, and they have no connection to any larger organization.

Any professional criminal in Sharn, however, is likely to be affiliated with one of four organizations. The Boromar Clan is the most entrenched and widespread of the four, and has dominated the business of crime in Sharn for centuries. The group called Daask is on the rise, directly challenging the Boromars. The Tyrants and House Tarkanan are smaller organizations with more specialized areas of operation. These groups are summarized in the Criminal Organizations of Sharn table and described in the later sections that follow.

Each of these organizations has a core of operatives and enterprises under the direct control of its leaders. But each also has a network of secondary relationships.

For example, the Little Fingers are a group of pickpockets and cutpurses that work in the Bazaar of Middle Dura. They aren’t directly tied to the Boromar family. But the master of the gang pays a tithe to the Boromars, and if the Boromars send word to them that certain targets are to be avoided, the Little Fingers do so. In return, the Boromars ensure that the Sharn Watch in Middle Dura largely leaves the Fingers alone. So although the Boromar Clan itself has a few hundred members, it has interaction with thousands of criminals throughout the city.

“Chapter 3” provides an overview of the four major criminal organizations and a body of information about them that’s more or less common knowledge in Sharn. This section explores the roles that each one could play in a Sharn-based campaign.

Although the powerful organizations in Sharn have a hand in most criminal activity, sometimes you might want an adventure to involve a smaller gang. The Street Gangs table presents a number of lesser criminal groups adventurers could tangle with.

Narcotics in Sharn

From the owners of incense-clouded dens to fast-talking street dealers, many entrepreneurs—legitimate and otherwise—make a profitable business selling narcotics in Sharn. The following drugs are just two of the most notorious substances available in the City of Towers and beyond.

Dragon’s Blood. Introduced into Sharn by Daask, dragon’s blood is a potent and highly addictive stimulant. In addition to inducing euphoria, it can enhance spellcasting ability or even temporarily imbue a user with the ability to cast sorcerer spells. The drug’s effects are potentially dangerous and always unpredictable. This isn’t something a player character should want to use; adventurers are more likely to interfere with Daask smugglers or deal with an addict who accidentally casts a fireball in a crowded street. The specific effects of dragon’s blood are up to you, but you can take inspiration from the Wild Magic Surge table in the “Player’s Handbook”.

Dreamlily. A psychoactive liquid that smells and tastes like your favorite beverage, essence of dreamlily is a Sarlonan opiate. First imported to help manage pain during the Last War, it’s now the most commonly abused substance in Sharn. Though dreamlily isn’t illegal if used for medicinal purposes, it’s heavily taxed, and thus most dreamlily is smuggled in and sold on the black market. Dreamlily dens can be found across the lower wards. Consuming dreamlily causes disorienting euphoria and brings about remarkable resistance to pain. A creature under the effects of dreamlily is poisoned for 1 hour. While poisoned in this way, the creature is immune to fear, and the first time it drops to 0 hit points without being killed outright, it drops to 1 hit point instead. A dose of dreamlily costs around 1 gp, or up to ten times that if purchased through legal channels. There are many varieties of the drug, however, and the duration or the price might vary accordingly.

The Boromar Clan

The most powerful criminal organization in Sharn started as a family of halfling immigrants from the Talenta Plains. Operating out of its headquarters and key holdings in the Little Plains district of Middle Menthis, the Boromar Clan controls gambling, smuggling, and theft in Sharn. Most of the city’s burglars, pickpockets, and fences either work for or pay tithes to the organization. The Boromar Clan’s network of extortion, bribery, and blackmail extends from Lower Dura to Skyway.

The Boromars’ influence extends beyond criminal enterprises into many legitimate circles of power. Ilyra Boromar sits on the city council, and a number of other councilors are close allies of the clan. The family has ties by marriage to House Jorasco. A Boromar attends every Skyway party. The family owns tenements throughout Sharn and invests in shipping, storing both legal goods and contraband in many of the warehouses in Precarious and Cogsgate. In many districts, local officials and Sharn Watch officers have been taking bribes from the Boromars for generations.

The criminal nature of the Boromar Clan is an open secret, and in some districts the Boromars are seen as hometown heroes. They are immigrants who’ve made good, common people who’ve risen to rival the barons and kings. They give the people what they want, whether it’s untaxed gambling, cheap spirits, or dreamlily. The clan operates with a degree of impunity because its operatives adhere to an unspoken rule: whenever possible, criminal acts against individuals should target tourists and travelers. Boromar pickpockets don’t prey on the people they see every day. Instead, they seek out the many strangers who move around the city all the time. The Watch officer who turns a blind eye to a pickpocket thus feels justified, since it’s not the citizens of Sharn that are victimized.

Boromar’s longstanding status at the head of Sharn’s criminal enterprises has recently come under challenge. After nearly a decade of slow growth, the Droaamish mob known as Daask has recently started targeting Boromar holdings. The halfling clan hasn’t faced such a serious threat before, and it’s scrambling to figure out how to deal with Daask’s guerrilla tactics.

Boromar Operations

The Boromar Clan has a hand in all types of crime in Sharn. Most Boromar leaders despise unnecessary violence, but the clan has a host of enforcers and a handful of capable assassins. The clan’s web of extortion is so thoroughly woven into society that many residents simply consider it another form of tax. Boromar specializes in three fields of activity: gambling, smuggling, and thievery.

Gambling isn’t illegal in Sharn, but all legal games are taxed by the Brelish crown and are required to follow regulations that spoil the experience for many. Boromar’s operations are cheaper to participate in and offer the lure of greater profits.

Smuggling has become an increasingly important business since the Last War disrupted many traditional lines of trade. The clan’s primary import is the narcotic called dreamlily. But the Boromars traffic in a wide range of goods, from arcane and alchemical weapons to foreign luxury items that have been made scarce by embargoes and sanctions. Under Boranel’s law, it’s forbidden to sell Aundairian wine in Breland, so if you want the good stuff, you’ll need to work with the Boromars.

Boromar-sanctioned acts of thievery include the activities of the ubiquitous pickpockets that can be found across the city as well as the well-planned jobs of professional burglars. As mentioned earlier, Boromar thieves focus their attention on visitors to Sharn, thus avoiding friction with local law enforcement. When appropriate, stolen goods are transported out of the city by the fences and porters that drive the clan’s smuggling operations.

Boromar Clan NPCs

The Boromar Clan employs people of all races, but most of the organization and nearly all of its inner circle are made up of halflings. Some of the organization’s most important people are these:

• Saidan Boromar is the current patriarch of the family. He grew up in Lower Dura and worked as a thief and assassin there before taking over the organization.
• Mala Boromar d’Jorasco is an heir of House Jorasco and the Boromar family matriarch. Her position in the family ensures that important members of the Boromar Clan receive Jorasco healing services at no cost to them; Saidan reimburses Jorasco from the clan’s treasury.
• Councilor Ilyra Boromar is the eldest daughter of Mala and Saidan and a member of the city council. The Boromars’ enemies on the council have grown bolder in the face of increased Daask attacks against the clan, and some of Ilyra’s influence has eroded as a result.
• Halak Boromar is the family’s chief enforcer. A recent immigrant from the Talenta Plains, Halak leads the Clawfoots, the Boromars’ personal guard, and is an accomplished warrior.
• Ilsa Boromar is the family’s leader in Callestan. She is ruthless in protecting her family’s interests.
• Castar, a gnome, is the lone non-halfling in the Boromars’ inner circle. He serves as Saidan’s chief advisor and the organization’s intelligence expert. The family looks to Castar to come up with a plan to defeat Daask, but so far none of his ideas have worked.

Shady Nightclub

The Boromars control gambling dens and nightclubs throughout Sharn. The finer establishments are places for the Boromar Clan to wine, dine, bribe, and extort the city’s powerful elite. At the other end of the spectrum, the run-down gambling halls and dreamlily dens in the poorer districts are places where those in the employ of the Boromars plan heists, store smuggled goods, hide bodies and wanted criminals, interrogate Daask spies, make good on threats, and unwind.

These places are public and expertly run by the city’s most powerful criminals, so an openly violent approach to problem-solving in such a spot is likely to end in tragedy for the characters. When combat does occur in one of these nightclubs, it’s usually because the instigators have brought enough strength of arms to take on the Boromars.

Shady Nightclub Features

The nightclub shown on map 4.12 could be tied to the Boromar Clan, or it could be any Sharn nightclub you need it to be. Made to accommodate customers from halflings to ogres, the club’s double doorways are 10 feet wide, and its ceilings are 15 feet tall. Hooks, shelves, handrails, and furniture are provided at three different levels and sizes.

The nightclub has three entrances. Two are connected to the outside: a main entrance guarded by a bouncer and a back door that is locked from inside. Another locked entrance is connected to a stair that leads up and down to other levels in the nightclub’s tower.

The club’s main entrance opens into an entry vestibule. The attached cloakroom has a hidden door that leads to a secret room where criminal meetings and illegal activities take place.

The casino floor in the nightclub has tables running games of chance, a bar, and a raised stage. Bathrooms, a kitchen, and private rooms for high-roller games (and more criminal meetings and illegal activities) are accessible from the casino floor.

Boromar’s security and management offices are connected by a hallway to the casino floor, the secret meeting room, and a second secret area used to store illegal contraband or captives. Occupants of both offices can see into these attached areas by way of magic one-way mirrors.

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Shady Nightclub Adventures

The Shady Nightclub Adventures table offers reasons for the characters to enter one of these dangerous places. If the characters have a Boromar patron, that NPC could use a shady nightclub as a base of operations.

Boromar Villains

With few exceptions, Boromar villains shun violence and would prefer to bribe, deceive, or manipulate the characters rather than send a squad of goons to attack them. That said, any of these villains and their minions will respond in kind if they are attacked or threatened.

Examples of Boromar Clan villains appear on the Boromar Clan Villains table.

Boromar Clan Campaign Themes

The true power of the Boromar Clan lies in its institutions: watch officers who have been allied to the clan for generations, judges who are blackmailed into compliance, and officials who receive lucrative bribes in exchange for their cooperation. Adventurers who oppose the Boromars might discover that people they think of as friends and allies are in the pocket of the clan. The Boromars are villains in the noir tradition, and adventurers determined to tangle with them will be drawn down into the mud.

The Boromar Clan could serve as a group patron for a party of adventurers, as described in “chapter 1”. The Boromar Clan Assignments table provides goals for adventurers who are working with the clan, and the ""Crime Syndicate"" section of “chapter 1” includes additional ideas.

Boromar Clan Adventure Hooks

The Boromar Clan Adventure Hooks table presents ideas for additional adventures themed around the Boromar Clan.

Daask

Formed by monstrous immigrants from Droaam, Daask has been building its power in the Khyber’s Gate and Malleon’s Gate districts of Sharn for the last decade. It is most infamous for its monstrous enforcers, but the organization also draws members from the destitute populace of Sharn—largely goblins and shifters, but also humans, dwarves, and any other humanoid who feels that the current system has failed them. Daask makes its money through acts of violence, from mugging to armed robbery to outright pillaging. The group has diversified in recent years, building an extortion racket—threatening violence if tribute isn’t paid—and entering into the drug trade, selling both dreamlily and a mysterious substance called dragon’s blood.

From the outside, Daask appears to be interested solely in fomenting violence and chaos. The monstrous nature of its members reinforces this impression; most people consider the members of Daask to be savage beasts. The truth is more complicated. The Droaamites who make up the core of Daask aren’t merely criminals; they are elite soldiers of Droaam working for Sora Katra, and part of an operation that is taking root in larger cities across Khorvaire. The seemingly random attacks by Daask are part of a larger plan that, if it succeeds, will eventually give Sora Katra a foothold in the heart of Khorvaire.

Over the last two years, the Daask cell in Sharn has been waging a slowly escalating war against the holdings of the Boromar Clan. The Boromars were surprised by the violence of these attacks and have suffered significant losses. Daask prefers guerrilla tactics, using only as many combatants as necessary to get a job done, never staying in one place too long, and quickly retreating back to their turf. Though the Boromars still control much of criminal activity in the middle and upper parts of Sharn, Daask is gaining ground in the lower level of the city and controls crime in the Cogs.

Daask Operations

Violence and intimidation are Daask’s most used tools. Rather than using bribery, Daask manipulates the Sharn Watch through displays of force and brutal reprisals against officers who dare to stand in the way. Coupled with the fact that Daask primarily targets businesses with ties to the Boromars, this means that many of the Watch officers of the lower wards will step aside and allow a Daask raid to run its course.

As Daask has seized territory from the Boromar Clan, it has also begun taking over a few of the clan’s traditional businesses. In addition to dreamlily, Daask sells a highly addictive drug called dragon’s blood.

Daask has another, perhaps surprising area of operation: religion. The organization has brought priests of the Dark Six to Sharn and has restored a ruined temple to the Dark Six in Khyber’s Gate. Followers of the Dark Six have few other opportunities to practice their faith, and providing this new facility for them has made many allies for Daask across the city.

Daask NPCs

Daask’s lower ranks are made up of goblinoids, humans, shifters, and other humanoids recruited from the population of Sharn. The Droaamish soldiers that make up the core of the organization include changelings, gnolls, harpies, ogres, minotaurs, medusas, trolls, and other monstrous beings. Basilisks, cockatrices, death dogs, displacer beasts, and similar monsters are kept by Daask, though these creatures are usually used only within the Cogs.

Some of Daask’s most important members are these individuals:

• Sora Katra is the ultimate leader of Daask, but as one of the Daughters of Sora Kell, she remains in Droaam. The hag stays in contact with all of her main subordinates by magic and keeps a detailed ledger of the group’s activities.
• Cavallah is a disciplined female oni and the current leader of the Daask cell in Sharn. She is the mastermind of the organization’s machinations against the Boromar Clan, a scholar obsessed with studying Sharn’s manifest zone, and a devoted servant of Sora Katra. The oni wears a hag eye (see “Hags” in the “Monster Manual”) that enables Sora Katra to both see and hear what occurs in her presence.
• Harash, a male medusa, is Cavallah’s right hand. He is a specialist in diplomacy and intimidation whom Cavallah trusts to monitor the members of Daask and maintain morale.
• Ash is a female human priest of the Shadow. As the most powerful and beloved of Daask’s priests, she runs the Temple of the Six. Some worry that Ash plans to challenge Cavallah for leadership, which could cause a rift in the organization’s membership.
• The gnoll Keshta commands a small unit of elite gnoll commandos. Disciplined and ruthless, these soldiers are often called upon to carry out retaliatory strikes against those who defy Daask.
• Zaeran, an elf werewolf, is a recent arrival to Sharn. He’s one of the sons of the Droaamish warlord Zaeurl. Zaeran has come to the city with a small group of wererats and werewolves, and has an agenda known only to himself and Sora Katra.

Cog Hub

Daask members congregate in safe houses that are hard to find and easy to defend or escape from. The most popular gathering location is a Cog hub. The dark, twisting halls of these underworld hot spots are familiar to Daask members and confusing to their enemies. A Cog hub’s tight passages have plenty of choke points, forcing one-on-one confrontations in which Daask’s powerful monsters often have the advantage. Daask also uses Cog hubs to stash bodies, drugs, or prisoners.

Trying to find a Daask hub in the Cogs is an adventure in itself. Most members are understandably tight-lipped about the location of their meeting and hiding places. Once the characters know a hub’s location, they still must navigate the mazelike Cogs to find the place.

Cog Hub Features

The Cog hub shown in map 4.13 could be a Daask location, or it could be any Sharn underworld location you need it to be. Several crafted and natural labyrinthine passages no more than 10 feet wide lead to the main chamber. Many of these passages connect with stairs, ladders, and wells that lead higher or lower in the Cogs, in addition to small chambers that could be ambush points, temporary quarters for criminals or squatters, or places to lay a trap or place an alarm trigger.

These passages converge into a single large chamber that can hold a large group for meetings and serve as a temporary safe house or a place to stash contraband. When criminals occupy the area, at least one guard is always on duty, and typically there is one guard at every entrance to the chamber.

Smaller rooms with heavy iron doors adjoin the largest chamber. These rooms can serve as holding cells for captives, vaults for valuables, or hiding spots.

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Cog Hub Adventures

The Cog Hub Adventures table offers reasons why your characters might need to visit such a location. In addition, the characters could meet with a Daask patron in a Cog hub.

Daask Villains

If Daask villains want something, they take it, and they destroy anything that gets in their way. Though some members of the organization are brutes, many are more cunning than they appear. Often what seems to be random violence might be motivated by something other than greed and cruelty.

Examples of Daask villains appear on the Daask Villains table.

Daask Campaign Themes

On the surface, Daask appear to be nothing more complicated than a gang of violent monsters wreaking havoc in the worst parts of the city. If you want, this can be the only role they play in a campaign: a ready source of sudden violence. Low-level characters might work with the Sharn Watch or the Boromar Clan to curtail Daask muggings and raid dreamlily houses. This crusade against Daask will escalate as the adventurers become more powerful; Daask will unleash ever more powerful monsters, and its forces might start targeting the adventurer’s allies and loved ones. Those attacks won’t end until the adventurers delve deep into the Cogs and defeat Cavallah herself.

The Sharn Inquisitive—Monstrous Deception

Monsters are infiltrating our city! Though the Sharn Watch acts as though Daask is a problem only for Malleon’s Gate, and not a threat to law-abiding citizens, there is clear cunning in the criminal cabal’s actions. Their recent attacks have targeted properties throughout the lower wards, all owned by a certain halfling family, as if Daask were attempting a violent takeover of Sharn’s underworld. Once these monsters control the city’s crime, what will they do next?

Another option is to delve deeper into the motives of Daask, to explore the idea that these monsters aren’t as savage as they appear. The elite members of Daask are spies, soldiers, and saboteurs using their criminal activities as a cover for their true agenda. What is Sora Katra really trying to accomplish in Sharn? This question ties to how you decide to use the Daughters of Sora Kell, described earlier in this chapter. Do the Daughters simply want to ravage their enemies? Or, guided by the oracular visions of Sora Teraza, are they actually working toward some greater good? For instance, Daask agents could break into the vaults and workshops of dragonmarked houses and discover secret projects forbidden by the Treaty of Thronehold. They could clash with spies of foreign powers in Sharn, or pursue ancient artifacts in the ruins below the city to keep them out of others’ hands.

Dreamlily is relatively safe; dragon’s blood is not. Its effects are intentionally unpredictable, and you can take this idea wherever you like. Could drinking dragon’s blood cause someone to develop a dragonmark? Could it turn addicts into crazed, draconic creatures? Is Daask simply selling it to make money, or is the drug’s introduction part of a grander plan? Neither the Boromar Clan or the dragonmarked houses have been able to learn anything important about dragon’s blood.

Daask can also serve as a group patron for a party of adventurers, as described in “chapter 1”. The Daask Assignments table provides objectives for adventurers working with the organization, and the discussion of crime syndicates in “chapter 1” includes additional ideas for parties with a crime syndicate patron.

Daask Adventure Hooks

The Daask Adventure Hooks table presents ideas for additional adventures themed around Daask.

House Tarkanan

The Voice of Breland—Assassins on the loose!

It is common knowledge that those with aberrant marks can’t be trusted. It’s not their fault; they’re touched by Khyber, and the Dragon Below twists their minds. All aberrants will eventually become killers. And though I can see the appeal in using these creatures as weapons against our enemies, how could we bring such vipers into our midst?

According to a high-ranking source in the King’s Citadel, this secret operation predictably ended in disaster. After a few missions, the strike force slew their handlers and deserted, disappearing into the criminal underworld. They could be anywhere. There can be no clearer sign that it’s time to bring down the monarchy and institute a government that is chosen by and answerable to the common people!

Long ago, the dragonmarked houses sought to exterminate the bearers of “aberrant dragonmarks”. Today, those who carry aberrant dragonmarks are still treated with fear and suspicion. During the Last War, the King’s Dark Lanterns of Breland trained a team of covert operatives who all bore aberrant marks. Considered expendable, this group was sent on one suicide mission after another. After half its members died in the field, the survivors turned on their masters. Six years ago, they fled to Sharn and founded House Tarkanan. The group takes its name from Lord Halas Tarkanan, who fought the dragonmarked houses long ago and used his aberrant dragonmark to destroy Old Sharn.

The smallest of the four criminal organizations described here, House Tarkanan has no interest in claiming territory or dominating the criminal underworld. The house takes neither side in the war between the Boromar Clan and Daask, and it will not assassinate high-ranking members of either organization. In other matters, it sells its services to all who have the gold to pay for them. House Tarkanan’s top priority is using its wealth to protect, train, and care for people who have aberrant marks. The leaders of the house are pragmatists and soldiers, and they train their recruits to be warriors and thieves.

Despite its name, House Tarkanan is not a dragonmarked house; it has taken the name to mock its enemies, and it doesn’t have the recognition, power, or resources of a dragonmarked house. In fact, many members of House Tarkanan hate the dragonmarked houses for being prejudiced against their kind and fear that they will instigate a second purge of aberrant marks. Others are more idealistic, and see the growing power of the houses as a threat to all of the nations of Khorvaire.

House Tarkanan Operations

House Tarkanan provides two basic services to clients: theft and murder. Fees for jobs are based on the task’s complexity and riskiness; a simple cutpurse contract costs far less than the assassination of a Sharn Watch captain in Skyway.

What differentiates the assassins of House Tarkanan from those of House Phiarlan and Thuranni is their accessibility. The dragonmarked houses sell their services only to a select list of wealthy and powerful clients, and they can pursue contracts anywhere in Khorvaire. Conversely, anyone with enough gold can hire House Tarkanan’s assassins, but they take jobs only within Sharn.

House Tarkanan NPCs

Because House Tarkanan helps all those who have aberrant dragonmarks, the organization has allies across a wide range of society, from beggars to nobles. Some of the organization’s most important people are these:

• Thora, a female human, has the ability to sense mystical energies—a gift that enables her to identify others with aberrant marks. She founded the organization and serves as its leader. While she uses the name Thora Tarkanan among her compatriots, she has established herself as Thora Tavin among the wealthy elite of Sharn and has cultivated relationships with many influential people.
• Rotting Bal is one of Thora’s most trusted lieutenants. A male human, Bal was part of the original squad of aberrant commandos. He’s an exceptional martial artist whose skills are enhanced by his mark.
• Zae is a female halfling who has the power to speak to and control vermin. Though she’s no warrior, her gift helps the house gather information.

House Tarkanan Villains

Some House Tarkanan villains are obsessed with bringing down the dragonmarked houses. Others are willing to take innocent lives if doing so means saving one person with an aberrant mark. Sample villains appear on the House Tarkanan Villains table.

House Tarkanan Campaign Themes

As assassins for hire, the members of House Tarkanan can appear in a campaign as agents of other enemies of the adventurers. But they can also play a central role in a campaign.

To use House Tarkanan as a recurring villain, you can stress its ruthlessness and emphasize its hatred of the dragonmarked houses. If any of the adventurers have ties to one of the houses, this confrontation could begin with a number of small attacks against the adventurer or their friends. Over time, these actions could escalate. In addition, you could build a story around Thora Tarkanan’s quest to discover the secrets of aberrant dragonmarks. Long ago, Halas Tarkanan and the Lady of the Plague possessed marks so powerful that they could destroy cities. Can Thora find a way to amplify her own power in the ruins of Old Sharn?

If one or more of the adventurers has an aberrant dragonmark, House Tarkanan can also serve as a group patron for a party of adventurers, as described in “chapter 1”. The House Tarkanan Assignments table provides hooks for adventurers who are working with the organization, and the discussion of crime syndicates in “chapter 1” includes additional ideas.

House Tarkanan Adventure Hooks

The House Tarkanan Adventure Hooks table presents ideas for adventures themed around House Tarkanan.

The Tyrants

No criminal guild in Sharn is more shrouded in mystery than the Tyrants. This organization of changelings deals in secrets and lies, selling forgeries, running long cons, and treating identities as a commodity. The Tyrants have spies throughout the city, even in places where they have no current plans or contracts. The organization gathers as many secrets as possible, then sells that information to the highest bidder, uses it for blackmail, or stores it for a time when it becomes useful.

The Tyrants have been operating in Sharn for over three hundred years from a base of operations in the Dragoneyes district, in Lower Tavick’s Landing. They have agents spread across the city. A beggar, a bartender, or a courtier could actually be a persona crafted by a Tyrant changeling. The Tyrants have a long-standing truce with the Boromar Clan and don’t take a side in the halfling family’s conflict with Daask.

Tyrants Operations

The Tyrants are master grifters, conducting a host of short and long cons throughout the city. Much like the Boromar Clan, they have a general live-and-let-live relationship with the Sharn Watch. As long as the Tyrants focus their crimes on foreigners and tourists—and donate generously to the local Watch—the officers will look the other way. In addition to pursuing their own schemes for gold, Tyrant charlatans offer a host of services to their clients; they can help to frame innocents for crimes, or make it possible for a criminal to seem to be in two places at once, providing an ironclad alibi.

The finest forgers in the city are in the ranks of the Tyrants, capable of duplicating anything from identification papers to works of art. Magewrights among the Tyrants have the ability to permanently alter someone’s appearance.

First and foremost, the Tyrants deal in information. They hoard secrets, and for the right price they can be persuaded to share what they know. Occasionally a Tyrant approaches someone with an offer of information in exchange for gold.

Tyrants NPCs

Members of the Tyrants have a loose definition of identity. The majority of the members are changelings. They often maintain multiple identities, and a particular identity might be shared among a group of changelings. A captain in the Sharn Watch who is actually an agent of the Tyrants might be portrayed by a member of the Tyrants’ inner circle in the morning, when he has to interact with a wide range of people. But when he goes off-duty in the evening and keeping up the identity is an easier task, the role might be taken over by a young recruit.

The following individuals are some of the Tyrant’s most important identities:

• Ek, often called Tyrant One, guides the inner circle of changelings that leads the organization.
• Kilk is the city councilor for Lower Tavick’s Landing and is a fictional persona created by the Tyrants, played by a variety of changelings at different times.
• The Spider is a changeling information broker who owns a cosmetics store called Honest Faces in the Dragoneyes district. This location is a common destination for people who want to purchase secrets from the Tyrants. Though the Spider often sells secrets for gold, sometimes it will trade its knowledge only for services or other secrets.

Tyrants Villains

The Tyrants are a covert force. They operate in the shadows, trade identities, and like to manipulate their enemies into fighting each other. Tyrant villains rarely show their true faces. Examples of Tyrants villains appear on the Tyrants Villains table.

Tyrants Campaign Themes

The primary theme of the Tyrants is mystery. In dealing with the Tyrants, there is always a question of what is real and what the true objective actually is. With the Tyrants, anything could be a long con, and both allies and enemies may not be who they appear to be.

The Tyrants have three objectives: acquiring gold, gathering secrets, and protecting the changelings of Sharn. In working the Tyrants into a campaign, the first question is which of these objectives will take precedence. Are they primarily grifters, trying to squeeze as much profit as possible out of the situation? Are they mainly working to gather secrets, and to use those secrets to manipulate others? Or are they most concerned with helping other changelings, who are often with the objects of fear and suspicion?

The Tyrants offer an easy way to provide adventurers with information. The Spider can be a strong ally for adventurers, and you can always arrange for an agent of the Tyrants to step out of the shadows with and offer to sell a secret.

The Tyrants could also have a long-term sinister agenda—something they’ve been working on for generations, which is only coming to fruition now. Do they want to replace the entire city council of Sharn, or are their aspirations even higher than that? In a campaign that examines this idea, the Tyrants might impersonate the patrons and allies of the adventurers, thereby tricking them into carrying out questionable tasks.

The Tyrants can also serve as a group patron for a party of adventurers, as described in “chapter 1”, especially if the party includes one or more changelings. The Tyrants Assignments table provides hooks for adventurers working with the organization, and the discussion of crime syndicates in “chapter 1” includes additional ideas.

Tyrants Adventure Hooks

The Tyrants Adventure Hooks table presents ideas for additional adventures themed around the Tyrants.

Sharn Watch

A common viewpoint among the citizens of Sharn is that in the upper wards, the Sharn Watch works for the wealthy; in the middle wards, it works for the Boromar Clan; and in the lower wards, it doesn’t work at all. This assessment is close enough to the truth. There’s an important undercurrent in the situation, however. Although most officers of the Watch take bribes, that doesn’t mean all of them don’t care about their city and won’t try to keep their communities safe; they do so because they see their benefactors as being an important part of the continued health of their community. For instance, those officers who take gold from the Boromar Clan believe that the Boromars help keep the city running and give the people what they want. But if some strangers in town break the law, they’re just troublemakers who deserve to be run in.

As another example, the guards of the Dura Bazaar have an understanding with the gang of pickpockets known as the Little Fingers. As long as the thieves target only tourists and foreigners, the Watch will dismiss any charges brought against them. Why should an officer of the Sharn Watch care if some Aundairian with more gold than sense gets robbed? But if the Little Fingers pick on a local, they’re asking for trouble. The relationship works both ways; the pickpockets are privy to things the Watch officers aren’t, and they often warn the Watch about suspicious people or activities they witness.

Watch officers do exist who are entirely crooked and care nothing for the law. At the other extreme, some officers are entirely honorable and place the law above all else, and most of those are willing to risk their lives to save an innocent bystander from a rampaging Daask troll. But most members of the Watch are pragmatists who put the needs of their clients uppermost, the needs of the citizenry second, and generally don’t take action against locals.

The upshot of all this is that the Watch’s response to a crime can vary significantly depending on the nature of the crime and where it’s committed. As a rule, when a crime is committed in Skyway, any of the upper or middle wards, Lower Central, Lower Tavick’s Landing, or Precarious, members of the Watch arrive to intervene and investigate as soon as possible. In Cliffside, Lower Menthis, and Lower Northedge, the few Watch members in these locations address crimes in order of priority. In Lower Dura and the Cogs, the Watch’s response is typically very slow.

Sharn Watch Divisions

The discussion above primarily concerns the rank and file of the Sharn Watch, the guards who walk the streets day in and day out and the officers who supervise them. The Watch also includes a few special divisions that could cross the paths of the adventurers.

The Blackened Book is an elite core of abjurers and diviners, charged with investigating and containing magical threats. These wizards are highly dedicated to their work and their city, and generally don’t take bribes. It’s up to the higher-ups, however, to decide what missions to assign to the Blackened Book; if there’s a case that a noble doesn’t want investigated, it probably won’t be.

The Guardians of the Gate came into being during the Last War to monitor the activities of foreign nationals and immigrants. Their duties have expanded since the surge of refugees into Sharn following the Mourning, and the Guardians of the Gate closely supervise the district of High Walls. The Guardians are chosen from among the best soldiers of the Watch and are devoted to their city. Many of them, however, place the safety of the city ahead of strict adherence to the law, and complaints are raised against them from time to time for unnecessary violence against refugees.

The Redcloak Battalion is an exceptional unit of soldiers that is called upon if a situation calls for extreme military force. The Redcloaks are heroes of the Last War, and now that the fighting is over most of them don’t appreciate being used as local police. The Redcloaks are absolutely faithful to Breland: they are willing to lay down their lives in the service of their nation. Trying to bribe a Redcloak is a good way to lose a hand. Like the Blackened Book, however, the Redcloaks are elite troops that act only when they’re mustered by a captain of the Watch; typically, they won’t be asked to respond to a situation if it’s not in the interests of the Boromar Clan. The Redcloak Battalion is described in more detail in “chapter 3”.

Sharn Watch NPCs

The Sharn Watch includes people from all walks of life: veterans of the Last War, retired adventurers, lifelong residents of the city, and immigrants who have become Brelish citizens. You can select from or roll on the Sharn Watch Races and Sharn Watch Personalities tables to generate a Watch NPC. There is a 75 percent chance the NPC is taking bribes from the Boromar Clan or another wealthy patron. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the officer is willing to take a bribe from one of the adventurers.

The Sharn Inquisitive—A Life of Watchful Service

Brelish folk often forget that the Guardians of the Gate have a civilian branch that handles administrative issues and special customs investigations. Tethyn Olar has led that arm of the Sharn Watch for more than a decade.

Many immigrants owe their safe and comfortable lives in our city to this man, but claims have surfaced recently charging him with corruption, saying that he took money from immigrants in exchange for a faster path into Sharn. Olar has refuted those claims with this statement: “Look at the lower wards to see the vast number of poor immigrants the Gate allows to enter in the city. Those with wealth tend to be more responsible and quicker to put their paperwork together, but none with worthy cause to be here are barred.”

Some of the Sharn Watch’s most important people are as follows:

• Lord Commander Iyan ir’Talan is a male human in charge of the Sharn Watch. As long as the city’s wealthy elite are content to keep Iyan in power, he does little more than maintain the status quo.
• Commander Lian Halamar is a male halfling who leads the garrison in the Daggerwatch district in Upper Dura. The Boromar Clan bribes Lian to make sure the Watch is away from the scene during their criminal activities. The Boromars are pressuring Lian to crack down on Daask, but he has no desire to put his officers in danger unnecessarily.
• Commander Belew Yorgan is a male dwarf who leads the Sword Point garrison in Middle Central. He does his best to serve the interests of the nobles and wealthy patrons in the Central Plateau, and as a result these wards are among the safest in Sharn. But Yorgan’s loyalties are first and foremost to his purse, and the troops under his command serve whoever’s paying the most.
• Commander Silaena Cazal is a female elf who runs the Warden Towers garrison in Middle Menthis. Over a century of service, she has woven a net of graft and extortion across Menthis Plateau; she looks after those who pay their dues. Her mother was driven from House Phiarlan when she developed an aberrant dragonmark. Because of that treatment, Silaena harbors deep resentment for the dragonmarked houses and will occasionally take actions to inconvenience them. Thora Tavin of House Tarkanan is working to strengthen her relationship with Commander Cazal.
• Commander Iyanna ir’Talan is a female human who commands the Black Arch garrison in Lower Tavick’s Landing. The daughter of the Lord Commander, Iyanna is idealistic and honorable. She fights for the good of the common people. If the adventurers need an honest ally in the Watch, Iyanna is perhaps their best hope. Despite her father’s best efforts to keep her from getting entangled in the criminal underworld, her actions have won her no friends among Sharn’s crime lords, and her life could be in danger despite her parentage.
• Lady Warden Maira ir’Talan, a distant relative of the Lord Commander, leads the Blackened Book. A gifted diviner, Maira is a highly effective leader. What none know is that she’s also an agent of the Dreaming Dark. Five years ago, a kalaraq quori (see “chapter 6”) named Tirashana implanted a mind seed in her thoughts. Maira continues to do her job while concealing any evidence of the Dreaming Dark’s schemes.
• Captain Daja Brel is a female human who commands the Guardians of the Gate. Daja firmly believes that the Guardians are all that stands between order and chaos in Sharn, and she acts with unbridled force if she believes a group or an individual threatens the city.
• Captain Khandan Dol is a male dwarf who leads the Redcloak Battalion. Khandan is a local legend who served in the Brelish army throughout the Last War; he was knighted by the last king of Galifar and swore an oath to the first queen of Breland. He enjoys drinking and gambling. He takes discipline seriously, though, and expects his soldiers to show complete loyalty to their country and its king. Because of his experiences in the war, he has a deep dislike for Thranes and followers of the Silver Flame, but he rarely lets these feelings interfere with his duties.

Watch Station

Sharn Watch stations are located throughout the city. The largest are the garrison posts like Daggerwatch and Sword Point; smaller stations in various places are used to hold criminals, dispatch patrols, and take care of day-to-day business.

A typical Sharn Watch station has two well-guarded entrances. One is connected to a main vestibule, where an officer in a security room with a magically reinforced window signs visitors in and confiscates their spell components, spellcasting focuses, and weapons. The other entrance is a large barred and warded door that leads to the garage, which holds skycoaches and soarsleds. Both of these areas are connected to the station’s bullpen by way of locked and warded doors.

The Watch Station Adventures table offers reasons why the characters might need to visit (or break into) such a location.

Sharn Watch Villains

Corrupt or extremist members of the Sharn Watch are villains of a special sort: legitimate authority figures who have access to the city’s law-enforcement resources. The protections these villains enjoy often call for drastic measures to stop them, which the characters might be labeled as criminals themselves and might have to go underground to avoid arrest or harassment. Examples of Sharn Watch villains appear on the Sharn Watch Villains table.

Sharn Watch Campaign Themes

If you want to make the Sharn Watch a significant part of the campaign, you can develop a story for a particular commander. Lian Halamar is the primary agent of the Boromar Clan, and if the adventurers are fighting the Clan, any interaction with the Watch can ultimately come to Lian’s attention, with his corruption slowly becoming more and more evident. If the characters oppose House Tarkanan, it could be Commander Cazal who keeps interfering with their investigations and placing obstacles in their way. Can the adventurers find a way to remove their rival from power?

Another option is to focus a story on Commander Iyanna and her efforts to purge corruption from the Watch. A chance encounter could bring the two together; perhaps the adventurers are on the scene when Iyanna is targeted by assassins. Iyanna could call on the adventurers to investigate corruption and to deal with officers who are breaking their oaths. How deep are they willing to go?

If the adventurers do form an alliance with a Watch officer, you can use the Sharn Watch Assignments table to create adventure hooks for parties and side quests for individual characters—cases their ally doesn’t trust the Watch regulars to handle fairly.

Sharn Watch Adventure Hooks

The Sharn Watch Adventure Hooks table presents ideas for additional adventures themed around the Sharn Watch.