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View Full Version : Help me fluff my evil crime syndicate/cult (my players stay out)



Sir_Chivalry
2010-11-26, 01:13 AM
Okay, so I have a city in my game where most of the action takes place. Over the course of many many levels, I will have the players come to realize that the city is being eaten away at from the inside by nine loosely associated devil cults, one for each archdevil (Belial and Fierna naturally share one). So I've attempted to create the most interesting disciples I can (including making eight of the nine PrCs needed, the other one done by mulletmanalive, much thanks to him)

So I'm going to post a little about these guys, and I'm looking for whatever critique, help or what have you you can offer. A single question for them all however is what should they be in charge of in the cities criminal underbelly? The local gangs in the city have recently been dismantled in game, so these guys are taking over rackets and bordellos and such. With the exception of the disciple of Mephistopholes (drug trafficking) I don't know what the others should do to lead to corruption and such... Ideas? If it helps, I've linked the classes, though I'm pretty solid on the mechanics of each character.

Disciple of Bel (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=143257)
LE gold dragon (or tien lung)-touched adu’ja hexblade 2/paladin of tyranny 2/commander 2/blackguard 2/disciple of bel 10
Oakwhisper is an Adu'ja (plant person, reproduce by budding, live to several thousand years) with gold dragon/tien-lung blood in him, making him immune to one of his few weaknesses, fire. Before his was found out, he worked for the Order of Illumination, a militant paladin order, as a trainer for new recruits to train them to become the core members of the order, the shadowbane inquisitors and stalkers. Very few people suspected his alleigances were with several fiends who lived beneath the Brawling Bear tavern, and so when he tried to set the harbour front ablaze, few people immediately moved to stop him. It was assumed he was rooting out demons or something of the like. They were wrong. He claims he did this to force his favored student (the PC paladin) to oppose him, to test her mettle against him, so as to discern whether she would be a suitable apprentice to take into his confidence. He is currently locked in the deepest cell of the order's prison, but seems almost unnaturally comfortable there considering his need for sunlight.

Disciple of Dispater (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=145788)
LE refined valkyrie disciple of dispater 10

Luavain was a valkyrie (Tome of Battle), an angelic creature born from the blood of a god injured in righteous battle. She still is, but now serves a new master, driven to paranoia and suicide by the machinations of her lord Dispater. The Lord of Dis took possession of her soul and jacketed it in a body of unholy iron, sending her to the material plane to wait, and to plan. Her form was not perfect though, her keen eyes and ears now picking up only the most obvious of details, half-blind and deaf. Her hands were two misshapen hooks, large and barbed. Her patience though, is supreme. She stands atop buildings in the city, motionless, looking like some gargoyle of both terrible beauty and horrible mutilation. Soon her lord will tell her where to strike, where to bring the war she was born from and the iron might her lord formed her with to bear.

Disciple of Mammon (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=146561)
LE female sepulchral thief rogue 5/disciple of Mammon 10

Sasha used to be a woman who was going places. Twenty years ago she controlled the criminal underworld of the city, opposed only by the assassin's guild. When the guild was toppled and a new man took control of it, she was sure she would soon control the whole city. She didn't count on her feelings getting in the way. The new guildmaster seduced her and took control of her guild from her, leaving her as a figurehead and lieutenant. Then he himself was assassinated, and she was lost. Her guild was worthless without this man, all her plans for the future lay with him, and her members were all loyal to him, not to her. She set fire to the guildhall and its business front and walked, with all her finery, down to the docks, out onto the pier and into the water.

She did not find piece though, and returned twenty years later as a sepulchral thief (technically not how they are made, but I like it), gathering the children of those she had once controlled, the people who had abandoned her, and gave these young men and women a choice: join her in taking back the city's underworld, or die. She was left with a small guild some fifty strong, and set about assassinating the various guild leaders who had allied with her former lover and his successors.

Disciple of Belial and Fierna (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=143313)
LE female nymph disciple of Fierna 10

Lady Meghan Glyniss is not what she appears. Her family, the only remaining group of nobles left after guildmaster Maparoon took over the assassin's guild and purged the nobles who stood against him, attempts to hide her away from the public, putting forth their two sons as their faces to the city, strong and intelligent lads well versed in swordplay and wizardry. In truth, the reason the Glyniss family hides their only daughter away is because she is not their daughter, but a changeling (the concept, not the race). She was a nymphling when her father found her, and he took her in, seeing his finding her as a blessing. What he got was a curse, for he selected for her tutelage the aged priest Reece Gwyneed.
LE male jerran cleric 7/disciple of Belial 10

Father Reece is a venerable jerran, a subculture of cannibalistic feral Halflings. He makes no secret of his heritage, but covers his mouth with a veil and his hands with fine silk gloves to hide his filed down teeth and the mutilated claws that were his hands. Though he poses as a priest of St. Cuthbert, he is in reality a cleric devoted to Belial, and has been tutoring young Meghan as his apprentice and lover. His position of respect within the community puts him above suspicion, especially considering his openness about his heritage and his desire to inspire all to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.

Disciple of Levistus (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=143178)
LE male nether hound savage vampire celadrin paladin 2/swashbuckler 4/disciple of Levistus 10

Caelcanaiton Faelandalan, known as Cael the Glutton in most circles, is a well known serial killer and kidnapper. He is a celadrin, a planetouched elf with a bloodline traced back to the firre, fiery eladrin. He began his career simply enough as a paladin of some note, devoted to good but known for a wandering eye and a bit too much libido. When his urges got him expelled from his order, he began to grow resentful of other paladins, and began to systematically kidnap or murder their friends and loved ones in his envious rage. This continued unabated, as his elven vitality made him capable of planning these acts down to the last detail, and they occurred far apart from each other, sometimes in completely different kingdoms or countries. It was only when a prominent paladin of the Order of Illumination came home to find his two young daughters gone that anyone sought out the felon, and Cael was found out. When arrested, he was found quietly dining in the dining hall of a manse he had bought, and the contents of this feast spoke both to his depravity and his sociopathy, and resulted in his nickname.
When he was executed for the crime and buried, a strange thing happened. The guards, when passing by the cell he had occupied in the order’s prison, found him quietly humming to himself and playing with a rat. No one dared enter the cell, for fear of what he might be, and the fact that he stopped asking for food meant no one had to go near his cell, so he was left be. He was released ten years after his conviction however, on the urging of both Head Trainer Oakwhisper, but was never transferred to the trainer’s custody, instead killing his escorts and escaping into the night.

Disciple of Glasya (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=143058)
LE female centaur of legend monk 2/fighter 2/disciple of Glasya 10
Abnormally gaunt and large, Argo Mohr is a centaur of few words. Little is known about her besides her heavily scarred body, the mithral mask that she wears at all times, and the long tongue that occasionally slips through the mouth of the mask to taste the air. One thing people do notice most prominently though is the three pin pricks of light burning in the three eye holes of her mask, and for this reason the few people who have seen her whisper of aberrant blood, undeath, taint/maho, or farspawned lineage. The only thing truly known is that she is a capable brawler, and that she runs a ring of underground fighting competitions, though the winners are rarely heard from again. It is said that those who anger her are turned to salt by some fell power she wields, though these rumours are seen as more than a bit ridiculous by most.

Disciple of Baalzebul (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=146626)
LE male advanced (18 HD) greater barghest disciple of Baalzebul 10

Drust began his life in the normal way, for a barghest at least. He consumed souls and flesh and grew slowly until he reached adulthood. But it was here he did not stop, or yield to impulse but continued to feast and grow until he was massive in size. His thirst for soul and flesh sated, he sought wellsprings of magical energy, and came upon one in the depths of the city, an ancient cave called the Pool of Black Water, where a now extinct tribe of lizardfolk has come to worship eons ago. Through this pool he gleamed visions of Baator, and turned his gaze across its plains to view the layers. What dark secrets and pacts he made are unknown, for not even he remembers, but he emerged changed, his body decaying, his hide and fur crawling with endless vermin and his arms branded with the symbol of Baalzebul.

Wandering the caverns and forgotten tunnels beneath the city, he came upon a group of goblinoids, driven there by hunts against their people, and saw an opportunity to recruit a following for his master. Combining his ability to shapeshift with his knowledge of various alchemical formulae, he began creating various explosive items to sabotage those who had hurt his adopted people. Though they think of him as an avatar of some forgotten aberrant goblin god (he never assumes he true form or even wolf form in their presense) he merely uses them as a means towards an end, sowing lies and deceipt among the people of the city and guarding the pool, his source of power (as far as he knows).

Disciple of Mephistopholes (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=145356)
LE male hellbred sorcerer 4/disciple of Mephistopholes 10/stranger with the burning eyes 1

Susurrus is ancient, even by the standards of most of the other disciples. His body corroded away centuries ago, and he now survives by jumping from body to body. Whichever body he ends up in, its blood is transformed into a substance called Syn, which grants infernal powers to those who consume it. He sells vials of his blood, along with more mundane drugs, to the poorer and less well-patrolled areas of the city, using a tribe of doppelganger werewolves to pedal his wares while remaining anonymous.

Disciple of Asmodeus (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=146663)
LE fire-souled tainted minion tainted raver human warlock 2/disciple of asmodeus 10

Faramond is the lynch pin of this whole organization. Two hundred years ago, he was a mortal warlock who sold his soul to Asmodeus in order to gain power over the hearts and minds of his fellows. His quest for power brought him to the Pool of Black Water, and he was only stopped from attaining his goal of dragging the material plane down to hell by four adventurers who chose to build a city in the ruins of Faramond’s fortress. That city now thrives, and Faramond has returned from the dead, driven insane by his stay in hell and eager to renew his plane, even though he is less than powerful at the moment.