So if you like the secrecy/conspiracy part, you can have your players be part of the VA or work for them to undermine the Sorcerer King and his Templars (if Kalak is still alive in your setting)
Otherwise the bad guys/maffia, are the Templars running the city... As long as the Sorcerer King is getting his taxes and his collection of sacrifices for the dragon's levy, not too many questions are asked, leaving leeway for the templars in charge to run their own side businesses... prostitution, drugs, slaves, you name it... The mafia is basically running the town...
Now if you run your campaign post Kalak's demise, then the balance of power will be different... The Templars still run most of the administration, but becuase some good guys are now in charge, they can't be so openly corruptible, etc.
So then, maybe you could have other factions running a mafia-type business...
1- Members of the True who want to resurect/reinstate Kalak...
2- Or maybe a vicious and corrupted Merchant House, trying to impose itself as the reigning House over the new and still fragile Tyr economy, they are now so powerful that you have to go to them for most supplies and food, meanwhile, the blackmail everyone in the city and literally kill competition...
3- Also, why not having a bunch of newly freed slaves, who do not have enough to make ends meet, organise themselves as a mafia/asssassin/criminals guild...
4- Finally, regardless of the point in time, you always have the never-to-be-trusted Elves, who are always a good source for crimes and bad deeds...
As an example, the True could hire the characters without disclosing their ultimate goals and send them on missions to get ingredients for the macabre invocation, and maybe have them rally more participants to the cause... Have them pay generously and be very fair to them but yet secretive on the reasons why they need all these things done... And then, once they complete the mission, the group should know about a ceremony and feel the urge to spy on it to find out... And realizing the horror they have caused, jump in to interrupt it and fight a Kalak ressurected at half strength (or tweak his power to whatever level the group is).
To go back to merchant houses, I find the possibilities endless, and maybe one of the best ways to start an adventure (as opposed to the traditional scene in the Inn)... They have motives, and they have money to hire adventurers on missions they find too dangerous or compromising for themselves... If adveturers gets caught doing something conforntational, it would be harder to connect to the source and expose who is pulling the strings...
They can act as a mafia, or a large international corporate:
- discover new sources of revenues (Go explore a new mine),
- wage war on rivals (Hire characters on intimidation, assassination or sabotage missions),
- find new trading partners (Go in the forest to negotiate with the canibalistic halflings for rare wood or medicinal ingredients, Go negotiate with a more powerful rival that needs to be appeased, etc.)
- Escort convoys
- Explore recently found ruins
I had some similar ideas run through my head on the merchant house plots. In addition to those the Templar spy is going to hire them do some of his dirty work and gather information on the current state of Tyr after Kalaks death. Which will be interesting considering on of my Players is a Templar from Raam who was sent to Tyr to do the same thing. I really like the True plot idea it will make for a nice scary red herring. Templars who appear to be "bad" may actually be attempting to restore order and keep the peace.
Veiled Alliance who appear to be "good" may actually just be seditious miscreants who don't like living in the bounds of authority and like to dress up their misanthropy through high-minded idealism (think Earth Liberation Front).
My last Athasian one-shot found the PCs enlisted by a Templar of Tyr to help him ferret out some spies from Urik who were, supposedly, attempting to use the recent upheavals in Tyr to their city-state's advantage. They went along only to hear the spies claim that the Templar was actually trying to reinstate the "old order" of Tyr, complete with slavery. He was trying to paint them as spies because they were working against him. The spies also insinuated that they were working with the Veiled Alliance and could help the PCs contact them if they wanted.
Turns out both sides were right. The Templar really did want to reinstate slavery and the spies really were spies with no contacts in the VA. Unfortunately, the whole party self-destructed toward the end of the adventure during a multi-faction encounter when one of the party members defiled, leading to other party members turning on him and attacking him. Another of the party members (unbeknowest to me prior to the session, as this was a one-shot) had Spy of Urik in his background. Finding this out, the spies of Urik involved in the fight revealed themselves to him, and they all turned on the now-fractured party, destroyed it, and road off into the sunset on their kanks.
It was, in some ways, a perfect Dark Sun adventure.
It was, in some ways, a perfect Dark Sun adventure.
Ahaha, Indeed. Were your players real-life friends? (and were they still friends after all this happened
)Your scenario idea is pretty cool, notably with the culmination as a multi-faction fight. I like when it gets messy! I may steal it in the not so distant future... maybe once I am done designing my next one involving taking down a drug dealing mafia/group in Tyr while solving a related murder investigation (in competition with Templars).
It was, in some ways, a perfect Dark Sun adventure.
Ahaha, Indeed. Were your players real-life friends? (and were they still friends after all this happened
Your scenario idea is pretty cool, notably with the culmination as a multi-faction fight. I like when it gets messy! I may steal it in the not so distant future... maybe once I am done designing my next one involving taking down a drug dealing mafia/group in Tyr while solving a related murder investigation (in competition with Templars).
I was actually the one who was pissed at first because one guy started defiling and just kept doing it, leading to the party turning on each other. It was chaotic and felt like they were just saying, "Screw this plot." It ended up coming together better than I could have planned it, though, once the "spy" party member remembered that was part of his background. It was hilarious when the NPC they'd been fighting said, "For Hamanu's glory, let's destroy these weak freemen!" And the two of them teamed up to slaughter the remains of the party. I certainly didn't foresee it going that way, but when they started fighting and killing each other... I decided to just roll with it.
Before Kaleks death:-
The templers were infighting self serving monsters who were constantly stabbing each other in the back, trying to set each other up.
They hunted down mages of both the defiler and preserver types with impunity.
The people were either slaves (for the most part) and bloody gladiatorial games were commonplace.
Merchant houses also joined in the powerplays although against other merchant houses and never against templers
After Kaleks death:-
Templers were now infighting anew with each owns personal powerplays. Defiler templers were now worse than ever as their was little law to come down on them if they were suspected of defiling( Kalek would have flayed any defiler alive!!!).
Mages were still being hunted, although there was less energy put toward hunting preservers (but bear in mind most people didn't know a difference and viewed all wizards as dangerous so mages were still hiding).
The people are now struggling for every morsal as the now freed slaves didn't know what to do with themselves and didn't know how to do anything other than serve others, many ended up being paid only their days food and having to pay for their lodgings (effectively slaves again).
Merchant houses now fought everyone for power and position with the loss of Kalek meaning that Templers held limited fear for the strong merchant houses.
Long and short their are many options available for both before Kaleks fall and after.
In the after option I even put slavery back in and gladiatorial fighting, just more akin to ancient Rome with many ex-slaves going back into fighting as they know nothing else and at least they got fed and had shelter.
D&D being a politically-correct game when sold, the Alliance was presented as freedom fighters. In the novels there were hints that the organization is ruthless, able to kill civilians and innocent bystanders in their way to killing templars or escaping pursuit or evading a raid. More precisely, they might be described as freedom fighters using terrorist tactics. Does that make them a terrorist group?
I suggest it's potentially richer in opportunities to make them a gray-area organization, able to do great evil and injustices to achieve the goal of liberating everyone from the subjugation of the sorcerer-kings..or perhaps simply being able to use magic at will without retribution.
I agree with you about the terror leanings of the VA, but there is one thing which separates the VA from a flat-out terrorist organization like the Initiates of the Smoking Crown. The VA has been known to care little about collateral damage, killing civilians who get in the way of their military assaults on defilers, to be sure. However, the SCI--like a true terrorist group--actually goes out of their way to kill civilians, not simply as collateral damage. The SCI will burn down an orphanage simply to put pressure on the sorcerer-kings. The VA might not care if an orphanage burns while they're blasting at the defiler's lair next door, but they wouldn't kill the kids just to make the sorcerer-king look bad the way the SCI would.