Let's Read Neverwinter: Minor Factions, Part 1
Looks like I accidentally skipped a few posts when making my last update! So instead of going to chapter 04 now, we’ll finish out chapter 03 and look at the minor factions over this and the next two posts.
These factions are considered “minor” because they’re either simpler, less powerful, or less involved in the region than the majors. Most don’t have custom stat blocks associated with them, and even if they do I’ll only spend time on them if they’re really interesting. This post covers the “urban” factions, those whose territories and attentions are in the city proper.
Dead Rats
Looks like the wererat gang has a chapter in Neverwinter, led by a one-eyed lieutenant of Toytere’s name Rrost. Their main racket is smuggling, and as the campaign starts they managed to set themselves up as the middlemen in the weapons trade between the Sons of Alagondar and the Thayans. More on that later.
In the longer term, the Rats would like to usurp control of the rebels and use them to become big shots in the city’s underworld, remaking it in Luskan’s image.
Their roster features rats, dire rats, and any low-level thug-types you can fit in, the latter of which can be boosted by a wererat theme pack that gives them regeneration, an infectious bite, and the ability to assume hybrid form. Rrost uses the stats for a Wererat Mugger introduced here, a Level 4 Brute with a poisoned morningstar and a stronger bite than what’s in the theme.
The gang would love to kill the Dead Rat Deserter PC, and their ties to the Thayans are just the thing to get that PC more personally involved in the campaign’s larger plots.
Impressions
Rrost feels like a “Small Bad” who will be a problem at the start of the campaign for city-focused parties. His plans are big but his faction has no hope of seeing them realized before the PCs end the Rats’ ambitions for good.
Sons of Alagondar
The Sons of Alagondar are die-hard Neverwinter nationalists who believe the city should be independent of foreign control so that it can once again be the Jewel of the North and a bastion of goodness. They draw most of their membership from the holdout population of Neverwinter: those people who never left the city and spent twenty years protecting and rebuilting it before Neverember arrived with his mercs. As you might imagine, they vehemently oppose him.
Until very recently their overall leader was a Harper named Cymril, who was brutally murdered under mysterious circumstances shortly before the start of the campaign (as seen in the Harper Agent theme). Her death split the Sons into two sub-factions along generational lines.
On one side you have the Nashers, who take their name from the first Alagondar lord (the one from the computer games). These young rebels are willing to pay any cost to see a free Neverwinter and readily resort to violent actions like rioting, assassination and sabotage. Their leader is a firebrand named Arlon Bladeshaper.
On the other you have the older Graycloaks, who take their name from the old city militia. They see themselves as focusing on the big picture, with the city’s welfare as their highest priority. They focus on building support and alliances with like-minded groups and the city’s population in general. They also try to infiltrate and influence Neverember’s organization through bribery, blackmail, and secret deals. Their leader is the human mage Madame Rosene.
(The Nashers call the Graycloaks “greyhairs”, and the Graycloaks call the Nasher “gnashers”. Also, there’s a subsection here titled “Fractured but Whole”, which I can never take seriously after learning about that South Park game.)
It’s the Nashers who decided to partner with and accept help from the Dead Rat gang and the Thayans. Bladeshaper was a bit leery of this at first but he quickly changed his mind once he saw his faction start racking up bigger victories against Neverember’s forces. The Rats, as mentioned before, plan to take over the Sons and make them into an extension of their planned crime syndicate. The Thayans are using them to distract New Neverwinter from their own shenanigans and are happy to push their own agents and the Sons to ever greater heights of violence to that purpose.
The encounter table for the Sons is entirely composed of stat blocks belonging to typically playable ancestries, matching Neverwinter’s demographics. Players who oppose the Sons will do well to play on their divisions, those who want to support them should focus on healing that same rift. Cymril’s death nearly broke them completely, and finding the truth behind it would be a big goal in a rebellion campaign. As we saw in the Harper Agent’s background, there’s room for a variety of sinister explanations.
Impressions
Probably the most complex of the minor factions here. It’s possible to make a campaign entirely focused on the Sons’ struggle, but it would have to start with earning their trust. They are not predisposed to allying with PCs and are likely to be actively hostile to certain themes like the Harper Agent or even the Neverwinter Noble, whom they might see as just another pretender.
Harpers
Making Neverwinter into the bastion of good it once was is also part of the Harper’s mission statement, and they are generally better at sticking to it than the Sons, but they were broken even more thoroughly by Cymril’s death. She was their highest ranking member in the area. With her gone, there are about a dozen members left, and only two of them are full agents.
These local Harpers are pretty focused on opposing Neverember at the moment and are completely ignorant of the machinations of the Thayans, Netherese, or Aboleths in the area. It’s unlikely they will find out on their own, but if they learn through other means they will instantly shift their focus to opposing these greater threats.
If the PCs manage to acquire a reputation as local heroes, the Harpers might approach them and ask them to help the Sons of Alagondar get back on track.
Impressions
The Harper presence in the city is larger than I was led to believe from reading the Harper Agent theme. My inclination is to only include them as written if the party doesn’t have one or more PCs with that theme. If it does, then the PC is the sole Harper left in the region.
Many-Arrows Orcs
The orcs of the North usually stayed away from the Neverwinter area, because the city was hostile to them and they had many stories about how the surrounding woods were haunted. They have recently dismissed these stories as myths and grown a little bolder and more curious.
King Obould XVII of the Kingdom of Many-Arrows recently sent a scout force here with the mission to find what was going on and report back, but the force’s power-hungry commander far exceeded her orders and decided to push into the city and take over the Cloak Tower, claiming the surrounding territory in Neverwinter’s ruined northern half as her own.
If I remember correctly, Obould was depicted elsewhere as a reasonable king who had the capability to turn his people away from their universally hostile ways and forge more peaceful bonds with his neighbors. Commander Vansi is none of those things. After taking over the Cloak Tower, she was approached by the aboleths and gladly accepted a “blessing” of the Spellplague to get stronger. There’s a stat block for her here. She’s a Level 6 Soldier (Leader) that fights with a flail and a spiked gauntlet. The Spellplague covered her in fiery bone spurs, so she loves to grapple.
The encounter table for them is obviously all orcs all the time, with the occasional ogre or half-orc thrown in for variety.
Impressions
I kinda like that there’s a more elaborate reason than just “they’re chaotic evil” for why this group of orcs are hostile occupiers. Neverember has an open call for adventurers willing to help drive them out of town, and their connection to the AbSov might be what clues the PCs in to the presence of that faction.
It’s even possible that King Obould would reward the PCs for dealing with the rogue detachment if you want to play up the newer, less hostile orcish civilization.
Bregan D’Aerthe
These assholes again. They wrung Luskan dry a few decades ago and left the area when the cataclysm hit. Now a handful of their spies have made their way back to seek profitable opportunities and report back.
In practice this means you can spice up certain encounters with drow mercs or informants. They have no elaborate goals for the area yet.
Impressions
Again, this feels like a minor faction I would only use if there are no Bregan Spy PCs in the party. If there are, then the PC is their sole representative in the region. They appear again in a slightly more fun form in the upcoming locations chapter.