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The Red Company of Goldsmiths is maintained as a small subsidiary of the Goldsmiths’ Guild (which, in turn, is largely controlled by the Ironworkers’ Guild). The Vladaams maintain it primarily to launder stolen funds and goods from their other enterprises.

Gold Strips: Suitable for crafting. Each strip is marked with the “V” sigil of the Vladaams (making them easily traceable).

Goldsmiths: Use artisan stats, Ptolus, p. 606.

• Proficiency (+2): Jeweler’s Tools
• Equipment: 1d10 x 1d10 gp, jeweler’s tools, Vladaam deot ring

Guildsman District
Gold Street – E9

AREA 1 – GOLDSMITHY

Gilted worktables with comfortable seats fill the room.

DAY: There’s roughly 8,000 gp worth of gold strips and 5,000 gp of jewelry in this room. 12 sets of jeweler’s tools.

NIGHT: The tools have been tidied away and the gold strips/jewelry moved to Area 2: Gold Safe.

SAFE DOOR (10-in. iron, to Area 2): AC 19, 300 hp, DC 24 Dexterity (Thieves’ Tools). An alarm spell is keyed to Guildmaster Telidor.

SECRET DOOR: DC 30 Intelligence (Investigation) check. The wall is hollow and this section is designed to be unscrewed.

AREA 2 – GOLD SAFE

The safe contains 25 pp, 350 gp, and 1,300 sp. It also contains large, heavy stacks of gold strips totaling 32,000 gp in value.

NIGHT: An additional 8,000 gp in gold strips and 5,000 gp of jewelry (secured from Area 1).

DC 20 Intelligence (Investigation): There is a hidden compartment in the tiled steel floor of the safe. It holds a number of small, mimatched bags containing 3,116 gp, 43,457 sp, and 103,900 cp.

DM Background: This money flows in from all the illegal operations of the Vladaams. After being held here, it’s transferred from the Goldsmiths’ Guild to legitimate banks.

AREA 3 – GUILD GATHERING HALL

A long, heavy table of polished oak runs the length of this room. A chandelier of wrought gold and rubies, lit with continual flame, hangs from the ceiling (5,000 gp value).

AREA 4 – GUILDMASTER’S OFFICE

A tidy, well-sorted desk. A gold inkwell (worth 100 gp) stands on top of the desk.

DESK: Ordinary guild correspondence is neatly stacked in one drawer; blank parchment and quills in another. A third drawer holds a black velvet pouch containing 770 gp.

• DC 14 Intelligence (Investigation): One of the drawers has a false bottom. DC 20 Dexterity (Thieves’ Tools) to open. It contains paperwork relating to the money laundering operations of the guild. There’s usually enough compromising material here to reveal 1d4+2 pieces of uncommon and 1d3 pieces of rare information from the Vladaam gather information tables.

AREA 5 – SMUGGLING HOLE

This appears to be a small, dusty, and forgotten room with a dirt floor.

DC 24 Intelligence (Investigation): Scraping away about a half inch of dirt reveals a trap door leading down to a tunnel which leads under the city wall and emerges about 500 feet away in a small copse of trees.

DM Background: This smuggling hole has not seen much use in recent years. (The Vladaams don’t want to attract unnecessary attention to a guild that’s very successfully laundering their money. But the Guildmaster and a few others in the guild are aware of its existence.)

GUILDMASTER TELIDOR

A striking woman with long black hair plaited with golden wire. She wears a beautiful golden necklace depicting a phoenix being consumed by flames formed from three large and several small red-gold tourmalines (3,000 gp). She also has a pair of matching bracelets, which are actually bracelets of friends (keyed to Navanna twice, Gattara once, Godfred once, Aliastar once, Marcus Corellius twice, and her two bodyguards).

Through her black market work and money laundering with the Vladaams, Telidor has become a very rich woman. As a result, over the past decade her social circle has rapidly escalated. And she likes it. Her ambition has led her to consider buying a familial share in House Abanar in order to raise her star even higher; the only thing holding her back is a fear of retaliation from the Vladaams.

Guildmaster Telidor: Use knight stats, MM p. 347, except she uses a cudgel (1d8+3 bludgeoning) and hand crossbow (1d6 piercing) for her attacks and she has Wisdom 15 (+2).

• Proficiency (+2): Jeweler’s Tools
• Equipment: bracelet of friends (x2), phoenix necklace (3,000 gp), diamond ring (250 gp), Vladaam deot ring
• Bracelet of Friends: This silver charm bracelet has four charms upon it when created. As a bonus action, the owner may designate one person known to them to be keyed to one charm. When a charm is grasped and the name of the keyed individual is spoken as an action, that person is called to the spot, along with their gear, as long as the owner and the called person are on the same plane. The keyed individual knows who is calling, and the bracelet functions only on willing travelers. Once a charm is activated, it disappears. Charms separated from the bracelet are worthless.

Telidor’s Bodyguards (Harla & Jarla): Female lizardfolk. Use gladiator stats, MM p. 348.

• Proficiency (+3): Perception, Stealth, Survival
• Equipment: flaming claw tips (Harla) / frost claw tips (Jarla), javelin of lightning (x2), potion of superior healing, Vladaam deot ring
• Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d6+4) piercing damage.
• Hold Breath. Lizardfolk can hold their breath for 15 minutes.
• Flaming Claw Tips: +1 to attacks and +2d6 fire damage.
• Frost Claw Tips: +1 to attacks and +2d6 cold damage.

Go to Part 13: Red Company of Magi

Roleplay Rescue invited me onto their podcast to talk about the upcoming So You Want To Be a Game Master! Our far-ranging conversation talks a lot about RPG scenario design and the Big Secret every new GM should know.

This episode is the final one for this season – no, really – and it’s my pleasure to bring you a conversation about a significant new book for the RPG scene.

Justin Alexander is a freelance writer and the author of the grand repository of ideas that is The Alexandrian. This is an interview with Justin about his forthcoming book, released in November 2023, So You Want To Be A Game Master.

Big thanks up front to Justin for agreeing to come and talk about his new book – it truly was another joyous and interesting conversation. I hope you find it illuminating too!

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You can find links to my two previous appearances on Roleplay Rescue at the Alexandrian Auxiliary.

Had the great honor of returning to the Worldbuild With Us podcast to talk about my upcoming book, So You Want To Be a Game Master. Pop over there for a sneak peek at the treasures I’ve hidden inside the book, but stick around for the amazing game setting we brainstorm at the end of the podcast.

This week, we’re honored to have author, RPG designer, and Game Master extraordinaire Justin Alexander back on the podcast to discuss his upcoming book So You Want to Be a Game Master: Everything You Need to Start Your Tabletop Adventure for Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder, and Other Systems!

Justin gives us a tour of this step-by-step guide and how it can help GMs new and experienced alike run their best games, avoid railroading, do quick-and-dirty worldbuilding, and more! Plus: early misadventures with homebrew Batman RPGs, the unexpected power of TV trays, questions from our patrons, a worldbuilding jam featuring the waters of Europa, and heaps of other topics in this XXL episode.

So You Want to Be a Game Master? is due out in November, so be sure to preorder it today or pick it up from your friendly local bookstore when it hits the shelves! Check out https://thealexandrian.net/so-you-want-to-be-a-game-master for more info and links.

Listen Now!

You can find my previous appearance over here.

If you went back in time, there would be plenty of differences you’d expect to see, but there would also be a lot of differences that would take you by surprise. (As L.P. Hartley wrote, “The past is a foreign country.”) I suspect that for most, one of these would be the sheer number of people who were scarred.

Specifically, scarred by smallpox.

Smallpox was a truly terrible disease. Thirty percent of those who caught it would die. Those who survived would almost certainly be marked with distinctive, pock-marked scarring on their skin. Many would be blinded. (Before smallpox was eradicated, 90% of the blind had been blinded by smallpox.)

I have two points here.

First: Vaccinations are good.

Second: Our view of the past is lilied by the Romantic paintings and Hollywood glamour through which we typically view it.

Can we take advantage of this when we’re worldbuilding?

Of course we can!

To start, if your game is set in any kind of pre-modern era (whether in the real world or otherwise), you can just make a point of including smallpox scars in your descriptions of NPCs.

More than that, though, you can use the inspiration of smallpox scars to introduce completely fantastical elements into a setting. For example, we could run down the list of D&D diseases and simply brainstorm the distinctive scars they might leave in their wake:

• Cackle fever could leave some of its victims with rictused atrophying around the corners of their mouth, locking them into a permanent laugh.
• Some of the victims of demon fever could be left with pale, reddish-grey hair.
• Even those who recover from slimy doom might have damaged sebaceous glands, resulting in their sweat having a thick, gelatinous quality.

(Not every disease, of course, leaves permanent scarring. You don’t need to overdo it here. A little can go a long way while also being more effective than a cavalcade of disease-signs.)

But that’s not all!

Look around your setting and ask yourself what other fantastical elements could leave their mark (literally) on the characters?

This is exactly what Frank Herbert does in Dune, for example, by having large amounts of Spice stain the iris and sclera, resulting in the distinctive blue “eyes of Ibad.”

So we can similarly imagine:

• Survivors of a werewolf attack having claw-scars marked silver from the dust sprinkled in them to fight off lycanthropy.
• The drug spacers take to prevent bone loss having the side effect of causing their iris to lose color, resulting in spacers being referred to by the slang/slur “white eyes.”
• Those living in an antimagic field developing chalky, flaking skin.

What type of mana-scar does a magic missile leave? Is it the same or different than a prismatic spray?

What about a wound inflicted by an elemental?

Does repeatedly jumping through a stargate leave a mark?

Something else to consider is what non-human scarring looks like. For example, Amazon river dolphins are born gray-skinned, but often look pink because (a) their wounds heal pink and (b) they fight each other so much, their entire bodies are usually covered in scars.

• Does an elf sunburn the same way a human does? Or does their skin turn a metallic copper or silver instead?
• Can serpent people lose (and regrow?) their tails like geckos?
• Would a tabaxi exposed to the sulfurous atmosphere of Avernus see its fur change color?
• When a tiefling is injured, do their wounds heal with a slightly more demonic/devilish appearance?
• Does a magically healed wound heal perfectly? Or does it leave a distinctive mana-scar? (Could the appearance of this scar differ depending on what type of magic was used?)

Tangentially, flamingos are pink because carotenoids in the brine shrimp they eat turn their feathers pink. So you can also invoke the effects of strange or limited diets.

Scars are badass and every scar tells a story — either about the character with the scar, the world as a whole, or both.

A procedural adventure is a guarantee for success: The GM will know exactly what to prep and the players will know exactly what to do. But it can also feel hollow. ENnie Award-winning RPG designer Justin Alexander reveals the simple trick for aligning character to campaign, whether your PCs are street rats or demigods. Your games will never be the same.

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