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Iristul Vladaam is not currently located in Ptolus, and is not further detailed here. Each Vladaam heir, however, is detailed with:

• A universal roleplaying template, as detailed here, for easy use.
• Connections to other factions, scenarios, or major players in Ptolus.
• Responsibilities, which summarize which aspects of the Vladaam deot they oversee.
• A schedule of their activities, as detailed below.

Along with any additional details that are relevant.

FAMILY SCHEDULES

Schedule information is given below for each family member. If a specific investigation is made into the schedule of a specific heir, a Charisma (Investigation) check (DC 15) turns up one piece of information plus one additional piece of information for every 4 margin of success.

Use the following table to determine what sort of scheduling information is gained:

Note that the same random table is used for both recent activity and upcoming planned activity. Some of these activities may be one-time events; others might be something that happens semi-regularly. (Use your best judgment to determine whether or not to repeat certain events.)

ALIASTER VLADAAM

APPEARANCE: Bushy sideburns down to his jowls. A man in his fifties. Six fingers on each hand (and six toes on each foot).

• GM Note: His eyes are completely black. (But he wears magical lenses to make them appear normal.)

ROLEPLAYING:

• Lacks ambition and drive, but makes up for it with a thirsting desire for knowledge.
• Extreme cowardice.
• Jut the head forward and down; the eyes looking slightly up at anyone standing across from him.
• Traces figures in his left palm with his right index finger.

BACKGROUND: Aliastar is on friendly terms with Navanna and has no interest in vying with her for control of the house. He manages only those concerns within the deot that he finds personal interesting (primarily matters of magic or alchemy or, lately, chaositech).

Aliaster helps his half-sister with her schemes by casting spells on her or for her in the simple hope that she will leave him alone and not actually force him into a dangerous situation.

STATS: Ptolus, p. 101

CONNECTIONS

Aliaster is part of the thoughtstone network. (Ptolus, p. 158)

RESPONSIBILITIES

Aliaster handles anything magical or alchemical in the family’s portfolio. This includes:

• Alchemical Labs (Part 7)
• Red Company of Fletchers (Guild – Dreadwood Grove)
• Red Company of Founders (Guild – Founders’ Workshop)
• Oldtown Apartments (Part 15)
• Red Company of Magi (Part 13)

SCHEDULE

Regular Activity: Visits Haven’s Haven every Fireday to shave and trim his beard.

Aliaster’s Arcane Sigil

GATTARA VLADAAM

 APPEARANCE: A round face and shoulder-length, dark brown hair with reddish tints. She wears scandalously revealing garments and large, glittering jewelry much of the time.

ROLEPLAYING:

• Hopelessly mad, given to fits of irrational rage without notice.
• A high-pitched, tittering laugh.
• A raw, desperate flirtation that craves a mixture of acceptance and adoration. (Can easily flip into a cruel sadism.)

BACKGROUND: Once thought a promising wizard, she gave up her studies to serve as a priestess to the Galchutt. She maintains a fancy of opening a temple to the Galchutt in the Temple District (perhaps even using the Abandoned Temple of the Great Mother, see Part 6), but there is nothing concrete to any of it.

She has some contact with the chaos cults, but no direct contact with Wuntad. (He was initially intrigued, but he considers her madness and her irrational fervor too much of a liability.) Gattara has convinced Navanna to provide supplies to the chaos cults through various parts of the Vladaam deots.

Despite her madness (or perhaps because of it), she serves as something of the “family sage.”

STATS: Ptolus, p. 608

CONNECTIONS

BALACAZARS: Gattara has been good friends with Malkeen Balacazar (Ptolus, p. 103) since childhood. Rumors of them being lovers are false, but Malkeen will regularly consult with her regarding sorcerous matters – particularly those of the macabre or sadistic bent that he knows she will enjoy.

MARCUS CORELLIUS: Gattara has a good (and periodically intimate) relationship with Den Master Marcus Corellius (Part 8: Curse Dens). Although Godfred is technically in charge of the curse dens, Gattara liaised with Corellius regularly regarding the slave trade cover operations (Part 16).

THOUGHTSTONES: Gattara is part of the thoughtstone network (Ptolus, pg. 167)

RESPONSIBILITIES

Gattara likes slaves. She really, really likes them. Navanna generally leaves her to it, although she makes a point of regularly checking the books.

• Part 16: Slave Trade

SCHEDULE

Regular Activity:

• Danbury’s (Ptolus, p. 192): Socializing at this tavern for wizards and sorcerers three nights out of four.
• Jade Woman (Ptolus, p. 277): Visits roughly once a week to shop for a new set of garish outfits.

GODFRED VLADAAM

APPEARANCE: Tall, dark-haired, and pale, with extremely broad shoulders. Thick hair and bushy eyebrows. A long scar down one side of his often unshaven face.

ROLEPLAYING:

• Slow witted and rash. A lumbering oaf.
• Haughty, with an immense sense of entitlement.
• Looks down his nose (literally) at anyone he deems to be a lesser being… which is virtually everyone.

BACKGROUND: Youngest of the heirs and Iristul’s favored, but Iristul is smart enough to know that the boy isn’t capable of being in charge.

Godfred is a master of the greatsword and wields the only hungersword Iristul has yet found.

STATS: Ptolus, p. 102

CONNECTIONS

None of note.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Navanna has handed over responsibility for the drug-running activities of the Vladaam deot to Godfred and, with them, the family’s shipping concerns. This is ideal because these aspects of the deot largely run themselves (either through the Fleet of Iron captains or the Red Company of Surveyors), and she also figures that if these activities were to ever blow up, she could lay the whole thing on Godfred and call it a day.

• Curse Dens (Part 8)
• Fleet of Iron Sails (Part 9)
• Red Company of Surveyors (Part 14)
• Vladaam Drug Running (Part 18)

SCHEDULE

Regular Activity: Godfred’s entire schedule is relatively predictable. The White House, Lady Cardie’s, and the Waterfall are all basically daily activities for him. The Arena is only irregular because it largely depends on when his fighter is scheduled.

NAVANNA VLADAAM

APPEARANCE (GLAMERED): A black dress with burnished armlets which send patterns of magical shadow writhing up her arms. A large glittering ruby in a simple fixture of taurum has been affixed directly to her breastbone. All of this stands out starkly and sharply against her dusky skin.

• GM Note: The ruby functions as a hat of disguise.

APPEARANCE (ACTUAL): Short-haired, pointy-chinned, extremely fit and thin. Her hair is dark brown and her skin is extraordinarily black – almost blue. Her teeth are bright yellow and she has four tiny red horns on her forehead right at the hairline.

ROLEPLAYING:

• Polite, charming, and perfectly willing to stick a dagger into your back at the first opportunity if there’s any profit in it.
• Coolly asexual, although she can drape other personalities (from femme fatale to gregarious bard) onto her false identities.
• If driven to true fury, she hisses like a cat. (She has not hissed in years.)

BACKGROUND: While Iristul is away, Navanna runs House Vladaam. Like her siblings, she is wicked and cruel – but she is also extremely devious and painstakingly cautious. She is not the most powerful of the family, nor the eldest, but she is the best leader.

KEY INFO: Navanna is constantly accompanied by at least four of the Twelve Claws (her personal werewolf bodyguards; see Part 5: The Vladaam Estate).

STATS: Ptolus, p. 101

CONNECTIONS

• Renn Sadar (Ptolus, p. 98)
• Commissar Igor Urnst (Ptolus, p. 140)
• City Council (Ptolus, p. 140)
• Menon Balacazar (Ptolus, p. 103)

RESPONSIBILITIES

Navanna officially runs the deot of House Vladaam while Prince Iristul is away. Although certain aspects of the deot are handed off to her siblings for daily operations, she still oversees everything.

• Abandoned Temple of the Mother (Part 6)
• Ithildin Couriers (Part 1)
• Red Companies (Part 1)
• Undead Shipping Warehouse (Part 17)
• Vladaam Family Estate (Part 5)

SCHEDULE

Regular Activity:

• Visits the Winsome Gallery (Ptolus, pg. 277) every week on Airday to see the latest arrivals and occasionally purchase pieces she fancies.
• Meeting of City Council. (1 in 6 chance of meeting each day. She has, however, been leaving a larger number of votes in the Trade Circle to the family’s proxies.)

NAVANNA’S FALSE IDENTITIES

Navanna maintains a number of false identities in the city. She is constantly discarding old identities and creating new ones as opportunities and needs arise.

Navanna will use her ruby of disguise and then simply teleport out of the Vladaam House Estate. Some of her identities maintain rooms at the Soaring Idyll across the street (so she simply teleports there). She also rents a room in Oldtown almost directly below the House Estate and she can teleport there.

ELLA FENRIS: A swarthy-skinned half-orc. Master Delver of the Delver’s Guild (Ptolus, p. 108). Rarely goes on actual delves, but uses guild contacts to find out the latest discoveries beneath Ptolus.

IDORU: As Idoru, Navanna works as a freelance representative of the Eight Shadows (Ptolus, pg. 377). In that role, she either approaches (or is approached by) would-be clients of the Eight Shadows (either for vile fantasies at their brothel or, more likely, their job as drug dealers, assassins, spies, and enforcers). The Eight Shadows are part of the Balacazar criminal cartel, but neither they nor the Balacazars know that Idoru is secretly Navanna.

NICALON REGELIS: A new member of the Knights of the Golden Cross (Ptolus, p. 120). Spread story of being recently imprisoned by the Vladaams and would speak out strongly against the House in order to find out what her enemies have to say. She sacrificed this identity (blowing months of work) in order to identify the Hand of the Banelord and steal it from the PCs. See Banewarrens, p. 42.

OALA: A hostess at the Onyx Spider (Ptolus, p. 203). The owner of the Spider knows that Oala is an agent of House Vladaam, but doesn’t realize she’s actually Navanna in disguise. Navanna finds it useful to be able to move freely through the crowds here, eavesdropping wherever it seems wise.

Go to Part 3: Clue List

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This is a brief overview of the entirety of House Vladaam, including its members, citizens, business affairs, and criminal enterprises. You can use it to orient yourself as you explore and run the adventure.

LORD VLADAAM

IRISTUL VLADAAM: Leader of the Vladaams. Currently searching the world for hungerswords. (Ptolus, p. 100)

HEIRS

ALIASTER: Eldest brother. Specializes in arcane magic and alchemy.

GATTARA: Eldest sibling. Given to fits of irrational rage. She abandoned arcane studies to become a priestess of the Galchutt.

GODFRED: Younger brother. A lumbering oaf who enjoys violence.

NAVANNA: Younger sister. The de facto leader of the family in Ptolus. Mostly keeps out of the public eye.

The heirs are described in more detail in Part 2: The Vladaam Family.

HOUSE ESTATE

Vladaam is one of the smaller houses, claiming a total deot of 636 citizens. (However, it’s suspected that their actual total may be higher due to shadow members of the deot who participate in criminal activities.)

NOTABLE PROPERTIES:

The Vladaams own dozens of properties throughout Ptolus and many more through their various guilds (see below). Notable properties include:

• Vladaam Family Estate (Part 5)
• Abandoned Temple of the Great Mother (Part 6)
• Alchemical Labs (Part 7)
• Oldtown Apartments (Part 15)

PROPERTY LEASES:

If a search of a property’s deed is made at the Administration Building — DC 25 Charisma (Investigation), -1 per 5 gp of bribe, minimum DC 15 —the following ownership can be discovered:

• The ownership of any guild’s properties is generally in the name of the guild (and these guilds are recognized as being part of House Vladaam’s deot).
• The deed for the Abandoned Temple of the Great Mother is held by the Red Company of Goldsmiths.
• The Alchemical Labs are all directly owned by House Vladaam, except for the Storefront on Guilder Street (which is officially the Red Company of Alchemists).
• The Curse Dens are all owned by Marcus Corellius (Curse Den Master).
• The Oldtown Apartments are all directly owned by House Vladaam.
• The Slave Trade Warehouse is owned by Marcus Corellius (Curse Den Master).
• The Undead Shipping Warehouse is officially owned by the Guild of Silver Seamstresses (an organization that doesn’t actually exist, but pays its taxes regularly).

NOTABLE HOUSE GUILDS

The house guilds of the Vladaams are also known as the Red Companies. (The Red Company of Glaziers, for example.) The house controls a couple dozen guilds of various sizes and importance. Notable red companies are listed below.

RED COMPANY OF ALCHEMISTS

Red Company of Alchemists. Officially operating out of a building on Guilder Street, the Red Company of Alchemists maintains a network of secret alchemy labs around the city for making illicit substances. (Part 7: Alchemical Labs)

RED COMPANY OF FLETCHERS

Well-known for the distinctive black shafts of their arrows. These arrows have become particularly favored by assassins in Ptolus, although the Vladaams deny any direct connection. After all, anyone is free to purchase their guildcraft; they have no control over what they do with it after that.

The Red Company of Fletchers also maintains a black market in dreadwood arrows. They harvest the wood from an underground grove maintained by the guild. (Part 10: Guild – Dreadwood Grove)

RED COMPANY OF FOUNDERS

Publicly a guild of brass and bronze workers. In practice, however, this guild has become the focal point for Vladaam research into chaositech.

Word on the street is that the Shuul believe the Red Company of Founders is responsible for a recent theft from the Foundry. They have been unwilling to make an official complaint due to the prestige of House Vladaam, but they are currently looking to hire some mercenaries to steal their goods back. (Part 11: Guild – Founders’ Workshop)

RED COMPANY OF GLAZIERS

Essentially the only guild in Ptolus specializing in paned glass. They achieve this distinction – and the monopolistically high prices that come with it – by virtue of violently shutting down competitors. (The term “glass-shatterer” has become common slang in Ptolus for guild-on-guild violence.)

The company also supplies alchemical glassware.

RED COMPANY OF GOLDSMITHS

A small metal-working guild. The Vladaams use it to launder stolen funds and goods from their other enterprises. (Part 12: Guild – Goldsmiths)

RED COMPANY OF MAGI

This is a wizard’s guild directly under the control of Aliaster Vladaam. Although relatively small by some standards, in the shadow of the Inverted Pyramid, the Red Company of Magi is one of the largest groups of organized spellcrafting in Ptolus. (Part 13: Guild – Red Company of Magi)

The group is ostensibly dedicated to research, but the junior members of the company are deeply enmeshed into the illegal activities of the Vladaam family (providing arcane might where and when it’s necessary). The company’s dedication to research is not entirely a sham, however: The senior members of the company – referred to as “Archmages” – are often pursuing arcane research.

RED COMPANY OF SURVEYORS

This company of mapmakers rose to prominence nearly three centuries ago when they began producing incredibly detailed maps of the Serpent’s Teeth based on the exploration ships that were sent into the southern reaches of the island chain by Yrkyth Vladaam. These charts greatly expanded trade throughout the Whitewind Sea during the decades leading up to the Great Sea War.

The Red Company of Surveyors still uses as its mark the great seal Yrkyth used when he was head of the household. It’s also said that the company was intimately involved in the creation of Yrkyth’s “Enigma Engine”. The company’s influence considerably declined following Yrkyth’s disappearance in 651 IA, but continues to be known for their accurate navigation charts.

The company’s chart-making workshop is located in Oldtown. Their apprentices work as boy messengers on the Docks, purchasing interesting chart data from docking ship captains. (Some of these apprentices are part of Part 18: Vladaam Drug Running.)

The guild uses a diamond-feather badge (representing the quills of the cartographers, but also having deeper meanings for the Brotherhood of Yrkyth).

See the Brotherhood of Yrkyth, below, and Part 14: Guild – Surveyors’ Headquarters.

RED COMPANY OF PAINTERS

Colloquially known on the streets as the “Forgers’ Guild”. They provide portraiture and murals of all kinds, but fifteen years ago they were involved in a minor scandal involving their forgeries. The company was able to successfully weasel their way out of it by claiming that the works were merely imitations and were never meant to actually deceive anyone.

RED COMPANY OF PAVIORS

Responsible for laying much of the original roadwork for Rivergate, the company still holds license for maintaining most of those paving stones and also the maintenance of the Rivergate Bridge.

A century ago, the Red Company of Paviors was involved in a scandal involving repeated sabotage of the Wings Fall Bridge. Their tolling rights for the Rivergate Bridge were stripped from them, but the Vladaams responded by getting all bridge tolls banned within the city.

OTHER ACTIVITIES

BROTHERHOOD OF YYRKYTH

The Brotherhood of Yyrkyth is a secret society founded by Yrkyth Vladaam in 600 IA. Its membership is primarily made up of the senior members of the Red Company of Surveyors and the captains of the Fleet of Iron Sails.

In the early decades of the 7^th century, the Brotherhood coordinated the gathering of arcane knowledge from the arcane isles of the Whitewind Sea using the Fleet of Iron Sails and the Red Company of Surveyors. They were also involved in the creation of Yrkyth’s “Enigma Engine” (the plans for which are still held in their secret headquarters beneath the Red Company of Surveyors). Following Yrkyth’s disappearance in 651 IA, the Brotherhood withdrew itself into a greater cloak of secrecy.

The Brotherhood is deeply tied to a variety of Vladaam activities, but is notable because none of the current Vladaam family are members. It’s a secret within a secret. However, the Brotherhood does arrange for certain arcane information gathered by the Brotherhood to be transmitted to the family for its benefit. (For example, the Brotherhood was responsible for forging the family’s connection with the dark dwarves in Catar, which resulted in the family gaining the services of the dark dwarf alchemy masters. See Part 7: Alchemical Labs.)

The sign of the brotherhood are four quills laid over each other to form the pattern of a diamond.

See Part 14: Guild – Surveyor’s Headquarters.

CURSE DENS

These dens of iniquity feature a rich drug culture mixed with strange curse magicks and gambling. (Part 8: Curse Dens)

DRUG RUNNING

The Vladaams deal primarily in three drugs. The Fleet of Iron Sails (see Part 9) is used to smuggle in Snakeweed and Abyss Dust from Freeport, while the slave trade (Part 16) is used to create Liquid Pain. (See Vladaam Drug Running.)

ITHILDIN COURIERS

The Vladaams also run one of the many companies of couriers in Ptolus. The Ithildin Couriers carry small badges of ithildin (a decorative silver that glows at night but is dull and almost invisible during the day) and are notable for three reasons: First, they operate primarily at night, a time when most other courier services are either shut down or operating at a reduced capacity. (This has also earned them the nickname of “the night couriers”.)

Second, the ithildin badges they carry provide a rudimentary form of message authentication. The message sender takes the badge and speaks a password to it. The receiver can then speak the same password and the ithildin will flash brightly.

Finally, they carry the full and brutal protection of House Vladaam. No one dares to interfere with an Ithildin Courier, and that includes the Watch.

As a result, the Ithildin Couriers are one of the most secure methods for sending a message in the city.

FLEET OF IRON SAILS

The Vladaams maintain a fleet of trade ships which are active throughout the Whitewind Sea. They are notable for their dull grey sails. The current Fleet of the Iron Sails contains 18 ships. See Part 9: Fleet of Iron Sails and Part 16: Slave Trade Ships.

Note that all ship captains of the Fleet of Iron Sails are members of the Brotherhood of Yrkyth.

SLAVE TRADE

The Vladaams are involved in the slave trade in two ways.

• The Fleet of Iron Sails – specifically the Pride of Morrain, Eye of the East, and Sarathyn’s Sail – are regularly used to transport slaves for the Ennin. These ships collect slaves from the Serpent’s Teeth and deliver them to the Ennin Headquarters (Ptolus, p. 168).
• The Vladaams maintain a warehouse as a place where the Ennin can temporarily store slaves who are going to be sold at the Ennin Slave Market (Ptolus, p. 399). It’s used as either an overflow storage facility or as a place to move the current stock of the Slave Market if  it’s threatened by law enforcement. The Vladaams offer this service gratis in exchange for being allowed to use the slaves to process Liquid Pain (see Drug Running, above).

See Part 16: Slave Trade.

UNDEAD SHIPPING

The Vladaams maintain a black market for undead in Ptolus based out of a warehouse in the South Market. See Part 17: Undead Shipping Warehouse.

Go to Part 2: The Vladaam Family

SPOILERS FOR PTOLUS: BANEWARRENS

In Monte Cook’s Ptolus, the Vladaams are one of the noble families who rule the city. They feature prominently in the Banewarrens campaign, where they hold the Banewarrens Key in their vault (see Chapter 4 of the campaign book).

In my own Ptolus: In the Shadow of the Spire campaign, the PCs became increasingly interested in the Vladaams. In response, I developed The Vladaam Affair, a node-based mini-campaign of massively interlinked scenarios that fully describe the arcano-criminal network of the family.

You can easily incorporate The Vladaam Affair into your own run of the Banewarrens by keeping Navanna Vladaam’s involvement in those events at a high pitch. Because the Vladaams are a major faction in the city, it would, in fact, be relatively easy to incorporate this material into almost any mid-tier campaign set in Ptolus. (There are also, for example, connections to the Night of Dissolution campaign to be found here.)

These notes were developed for use in my Ptolus: In the Shadow of the Spire campaign. They’ve been adapted to 5E for use with the newly adapted release of the Ptolus sourcebook and campaigns.

My own version of Ptolus was integrated into my campaign world, where it was excised from the Empire of Tarsis and instead incorporated into a merchant empire. References to my campaign world have been stripped out to make this material easier to use for a standard Ptolus campaign (or more easily cross-converted to your own variant of the city).

The one exception is the use of the term deot, which is used to describe the total holdings and the vassal “citizens” of a noble house. The Vladaam Affair is more or less the description of the Vladaam deot, and so I found it convenient to leave references to the deot intact. The concept of the deot can be pretty easily added to a standard Ptolus campaign, or it’s easy enough to just ignore the term while running the adventure.

Even if you’re not running a Ptolus campaign, you may find The Vladaam Affair useful for any arcano-criminal conspiracy in your setting.

GETTING STARTED: INFINITE SCENARIO HOOKS

The Vladaam Affair doesn’t have an initial node (i.e., a specific scenario hook from which the rest of the scenario flows). It doesn’t even really have specific entry nodes. The deot’s design is much more organic than that, with the Vladaams affairs all being intermeshed with each other. No matter where the PCs get involved with the Vladaams, they’ll find a path of clues and leads that will lead them through the family’s entire criminal network.

Generally speaking, there are a couple ways to get the ball rolling.

Gather Information: The Vladaam Affair was originally designed for PCs who were already interested in House Vladaam and were looking to investigate their affairs. There are obviously many ways this could happen, including the Vladaam’s involvement in the Banewarrens. Once it does, you can use the information tables in Part 4 to feed the PCs information about one or more of the Vladaam’s ventures.

Scenario Hook: Alternatively, or in addition to the method above, simply pick any one of the Vladaam’s ventures and create a scenario hook pointing the PCs in that direction. At this point, the PCs may not even realize that Vladaams are involved until they start digging deeper.

• While dealing with cultists, the PCs encounter an evil mage. Investigation reveals that she was a member of the Red Company of Magi (Part 13).
• A slave escapes from a Vladaam warehouse (Part 16) and begs the PCs to help her.
• The PCs are investigating gang activity, and one of the members leads them to a curse den (Part 8).

And so forth. A few surprising scenario hooks never hurt anybody. For more on this technique, check out Juggling Scenario Hooks.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Part 1: House Vladaam
Part 2: The Vladaam Family
Part 3: Clue List
Part 4: Gathering Information

THE DEOT OF HOUSE VLADAAM
Part 5: The Vladaam Estate
Part 6: Abandoned Temple of the Great Mother
Part 7: Alchemical Labs
Part 8:Curse Dens
Part 9: Fleet of Iron Sails
Part 10: Guild – Dreadwood Grove
Part 11: Guild – Founders’ Workshop
Part 12: Guild – Goldsmiths
Part 13: Guild – Red Company of Magi
Part 14: Guild – Surveyor’s Headquarters
Part 15: Oldtown Apartments
Part 16: Vladaam Slave Trade
Part 17: Undead Shipping Warehouse
Part 18: Vladaam Drug Running

ADDENDUMS
Alchemical Lorebooks
Chaos Lorebooks
Dragonscales
The Spells of Arkath
5E Chaositech
5E Drugs

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