ORGANIZATIONS

By Monte Cook

WWW.PTOLUS.COM

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2 PTOLUS: ORGANIZATIONS

INTRODUCTION

■ IntroductionWhere Do I Start? . . . . . . . . . . . .4

Page Numbering . . . . . . . . . .4Groups for All Seasons . . . . . . . .5

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . .5What is Ptolus? . . . . . . . . . . .5

Ptolus City Map . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

TABLE OF CONTENTS

■ OrganizationsNoble Houses . . . . . . . . . . . . .7

Abanar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8Dallimothan . . . . . . . . . . . .9Erthuo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11Kath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12Khatru . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12Nagel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13Rau . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13Sadar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14Shever . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16

Vladaam . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16Balacazar Crime Family . . . .20

Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . .20Menon Balacazar . . . . . . .21Malkeen Balacazar . . . . . .22Maystra and Fesamere Balacazar . . . . . . . . . . . . .23Arkhall Vaugn . . . . . . . . .24Cerrinthan Sanserra . . . . .25The Rest of the Organization . . . . . . . . . .25

Brides of Magic . . . . . . . . . . .26Brotherhood of Redemption .27Circle of Green . . . . . . . . . . .28Dark Leaf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28Delver’s Guild . . . . . . . . . . . .28

Membership Levels . . . . .29The Fallen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30

Raguel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31Lilith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31

Fate Weavers . . . . . . . . . . . . .32The Forsaken . . . . . . . . . . . .32The Guilds . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34Inverted Pyramid . . . . . . . . . .35

Membership . . . . . . . . . . .36Joining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37The Dreaming Apothecary . . . . . . . . . . . .38

Keepers of the Veil . . . . . . . .39Killraven Crime League . . . .41

Kevris Killraven . . . . . . . .41The Organization . . . . . . .42Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . .43

Knights of the Chord . . . . . .43Knights of the Golden Cross .44Knights of the Pale . . . . . . . .45Knights of Shadow . . . . . . . .47Longfingers Guild . . . . . . . . .48The Malkuth . . . . . . . . . . . . .49Naltegro Suun . . . . . . . . . . . .50Order of Iron Might . . . . . . .50

ORGANIZATIONS

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

WRITING:

Monte Cook

EDITING AND PRODUCTION:

Sue Weinlein Cook

COVER ART AND LOGO:

Todd Lockwood

CARTOGRAPHY:

Ed Bourelle

FEATURED ARTISTS:

Jason Engle, The Forge Studios (Maciej

Zagórski and Pawel Dobosz), Michael

Komarck, Eric Lofgren, Howard Lyon,

and Michael Phillippi.

CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS:

Toren “MacBin” Atkinson, Kev

Crossley, Talon Dunning, Brian

LeBlanc, Alan Pollack, rk post, Peter

Schlough, J.D. Sparks, Arne Swekel,

Sam Wood, and Kieran Yanner

GRAPHIC DESIGN:

Lisa Chido and Brian Rasmussen

TYPESETTING:

Lisa Chido

PROOFREADING:

Brian Gute and Miranda Horner

INDEXING:

Lori Ann Curley

MIDTOWN PARTISAN:

Erik Mona

PTOLUS RESIDENTS:

Michele Carter, Andy Collins, Sue

Cook, Bruce R. Cordell, Jesse Decker,

Erik Mona, Christopher Perkins, Sean

K Reynolds, and Keith Strohm

VISITORS TO THE CITY:

Steven “Stan!” Brown, Jeff Quick, Keri

Reynolds, Charles Ryan, Ed Stark, and

James Wyatt

HEROES OF ANCIENT PRAEMAL:

Michele Carter, Bruce R. Cordell,

Christopher Perkins, John Rateliff,

Teresa Reid, and Sean K Reynolds

Pactlords of the Quaan . . . . .50Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51

Pale Dogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51The Shuul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51

The Dark Secret of the Shuul . . . . . . . . . . .52Membership . . . . . . . . . . .53

Sisterhood of Silence . . . . . . .54Organizational Relationships 55The Sorn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57Soul Riders . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57Urthon Aedar . . . . . . . . . . . .58The Vai . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59Viridian Lords . . . . . . . . . . . .60Using Organizations . . . . . . .61

APPENDIX

■ Legal and MoreOpen Game License . . . . . . . .62Legal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62

CREDITS

GUIDE TO THE PTOLUS PDFS

Throughout this book you will find

references in the text and in the side-

panels to other books in the PT series

of Ptolus PDF editions. For your con-

venience, here’s a listing of all the titles

in the series and their corresponding

title codes:

A Player’s Guide to Ptolus PT1

The World of Praemal PT2

Organizations PT3

Districts of the City, Vol. 1 PT4

Districts of the City, Vol. 2 PT5

DM’s Companion PT6

Beneath the Streets PT7

Adventures PT8

The Spire PT9

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INTRODUCTION

This book deals not with any particular portion of the city of Ptolus. Instead, it covers the city’s residents:the groups and families that wield power and influence here. These organizations are in many ways

the heart and soul of the Ptolus Campaign, and most player characters will dealwith them extensively, some as allies and some as enemies.

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Welcome to Organizations, designedto introduce you to the most inter-esting groups within the City of

Ptolus. The material in this book correspondsdirectly to Chapter 6 in Ptolus: Monte Cook’sCity by the Spire.

This is one in a series of nine Ptolus PDFreleases from Malhavoc Press. When usedtogether, they comprise the entirety of the Ptolusprint book. Each one is also usable on its ownfor city-based fantasy d20 roleplaying cam-paigns.

WHERE DO I START?If you’ve purchased this book as a generalsourcebook and you’re not sure what Ptolus is,check out the sidebar on the next page for aprimer on the product and the city it details. Ifon the other hand you’re starting to plan yourown Ptolus Campaign, here are a few guidelineson how to get started.

Whether you are a player or a DM, start byreading A Player’s Guide to Ptolus. Thatbook—free to download as a PDF at<www.ptolus.com>—provides a quick overviewof everything else in the book. Of course, itdoesn’t go into any of the secrets of the setting—

those are for the DM to reveal as time goes on.DMs should print out a copy for each player.Let everyone have a chance to learn about thecity and get a feel for the setting.

Where you go next depends on how you’regoing to use Ptolus. If you want it to be yourcampaign setting, start reading The World ofPraemal and learn all the basics of the world.

If Ptolus is destined to become a city in yourexisting world, jump straight to the Districts ofthe City PDFs and read about the various partsof town.

If you only want to mine the setting for ideas,flip through the various PDF releases that inter-est you and look at whatever strikes your fancy.You’ll find interesting city locales, strange andfascinating NPCs, dungeon complexes, evilfortresses, haunted ruins, complex organiza-tions, a few new races, monsters, prestige class-es, spells, and a lot more.

Ready-made adventures for characters oflevel 1 to 4 are available in PT8, Adventures.For those of you who need adventures beyondthose offered there, check out the ninety-six-page Night of Dissolution Ptolus adventure. Itprovides an exciting Ptolus-based adventure for4th- to 9th-level characters.

PTOLUS: ORGANIZATIONS

Two sets of page numbers appearat the top of the pages that comeafter this introduction. The mainpage numbers correspond to this

book’s table of contents. The onesin parenthesis correspond to the

page numbers of the Ptolus printbook. They are there so you can

properly check the side-panel cross-references of important words that

you’ll find boldfaced throughoutthis book. These cross-references tellyou where to find more information

about a given term, character, orplace. They direct you to either a

page number in this book, a chapterin another book, or a page number

and title code of another install-ment of the PT series. We reference

the page numbers from the printbook so that, whatever edition ofPtolus you have, you can discusspage references with friends andnot risk any confusion. Look fora rundown of all PT title codes

in this book’s Table of Contents.

PAGE NUMBERING Sam

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INTRODUCTION

If you want to read every last bit of informationavailable on the city, look for two Ptolus-relatedproducts previously released by Malhavoc Press:The Banewarrens and Chaositech.

To delve even deeper into Ptolus, check out theofficial comic book, published by DB Pro, avail-able from Diamond Comics. We’re also proud tooffer metal miniatures from Paizo Publishing, specialty map products from cartographer EdBourelle’s SkeletonKey Games, and the PtolusCounter Collection from Fiery DragonProductions.

GROUPS FOR ALL SEASONSThis book details dozens of the organizations thatoperate within and below the City of Ptolus.Perhaps you are looking for groups for your play-er characters to join or groups for them to battle.Or maybe you simply need a group from whichthey can solicit information. Either way, you’llfind an appropriate organization in these pages.Knightly orders, crime families, guilds, racialgroups, noble families—even associations ofangels and demons—are only some of the groupsdetailed here.

Much of the information in Organizations isof interest to players, but most of it shouldremain a secret at first. For example, considerthe majority of the cosmological details privi-leged information—facts the PCs might discover as the campaign progresses.

Throughout Organizations, all references tospells, feats, and other rules come either from thisbook or from the v. 3.5 revision of the three CoreRulebooks: the Player’s Handbook, DMG, andMM. This book is protected content except foritems specifically called out as Open GameContent on the Legal page. For full details, pleaseturn to the Appendix. Open content is not other-wise marked in the text of this book.

Bonus source material and ideas to augment the information in the Ptolus PDFs appear on mywebsite. Find the links to these free web enhance-ments, my campaign journal, and much moreonline at <www.ptolus.com>.

Thanks for trying the Ptolus Campaign! I hopeyou enjoy it as much as I do.

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These people and things playeda significant part in the creationof Ptolus, even if indirectly, andthus they have my thanks:

Kelley Barnes-Herrmann, PhilBoulle, Ed Bourelle, DeanBurnham, Michele Carter, MikeChaney, Andy Collins, Sue Cook,Bruce Cordell, Jesse Decker,Denmark (and new friendsthere), fans of The Banewarrens,Red Garland, GatewayComputers, Gen Con, Get Fuzzy,Brian Glass, Godspeed You BlackEmperor, Gary Gygax, ConradHubbard, everyone working onLost, H.P. Lovecraft, Marley,China Mieville, Matt Milberger,Erik Mona, Monster EnergyDrink (lo-carb), Grant Morrison,Chris Perkins, Porcupine Tree,posters on our message boards,Jeff Quick, John Rateliff, ReducedFat Wheat Thins, Sean Reynolds,Rufus, Charles Ryan, Seattle’sweather, Morgan Spurlock, SonyElectronics, Source Comics andGames, Spock's Beard, Stan!,Tortoise, two different ergonomickeyboards and three (optical, notblind) mice, Aaron Voss, SteveWieck, Stewart Wieck, Fred Yelk,and Yes.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

WHAT IS PTOLUS?If you were to imagine the most deluxe roleplaying game product ever, what would be in it?

More than 600 pages of fantasy source and adventure material from one of the industry’s greatestdesigners? Check. Glorious full-color art? Check. Double-sidedposter map? Player handouts? A CD-ROM packed with bonusmaterial? Check, check, and check.

As a book, Ptolus is many things all at once. It is . . . • The ultimate fantasy campaign in which adventurers

plumb the depths of a gigantic underground labyrinthfilled with treasure, monsters, and traps—or try to makenames for themselves in a city filled with intrigues, poli-tics, and mystery.

• The very first and longest-running 3rd Edition campaign,run by one of the game’s designers for industry celebsincluding two editors of Dragon® magazine, two editors ofDungeon®, three Wizards of the Coast roleplaying design-ers and three editors, and even the former D&D businessmanager.

• A detailed city setting crammed with characters, locations,and enough adventures to take characters from 1st to 20th level.

• A work of unsurpassed usability, featuring extensive indexing and cross-referencingthroughout, designed and tested by the author of the Dungeon Master’s Guide and the“Dungeoncraft” column in Dungeon to make play even easier and more fun.

• The most deluxe RPG package ever designed; the 672-page print book includes more than130 pages of color artwork and maps, three bound-in fabric bookmarks, four tear-out card-stock bookmarks, two dozen handouts, and a CD-ROM containing 700 pages of additionalbonus products, Ptolus adventures, reference documents, and source material.

• For our readers who prefer electronic (PDF) versions of roleplaying products, we’ve madethe entire book available as a series of PDFs: the PT series (see page 3). When you buy allnine PDFs, you have the same print items available in the physical Ptolus book.

MSRP $119.99 • Stock #WW16114

ISBN 1-58846-789-9

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