The Tyrants are forgers and grifters, specialists in deception and the acquisition of information. Most of the members are changelings, who use their shapeshifting abilities to fool marks and acquire secrets. There are magewrights among the Tyrants who can permanently alter your appearance. So, the Tyrants can steal someone’s identity, but they can also provide a fugitive with a new life.
If you have a contact in the Tyrants, you might know someone on the Tyrants Contacts table.
Tyrants Contacts
| d4 | Contact |
|---|---|
| 1 | Korryn (elf) maintains Korryn’s Quill, a shop in the Bazaar of Dura that sells supplies for artists and scribes. In addition to being a remarkable calligrapher, Korryn is an expert forger. |
| 2 | Gray (changeling) is a bartender at the Crooked Mirror in Callestan and is an information broker, with access to a wide array of rumors. |
| 3 | Chaela Tas (half-elf) is a grifter with dozens of plots afoot at any given time. Though this identity is the face they wear with you, they maintain many different personas tied to their schemes. |
| 4 | Weave (changeling) is a body artist who runs a salon in the Dragoneyes district. |
No criminal guild in Sharn is more shrouded in mystery than the Tyrants. This organization of changelings deals in secrets and lies, selling forgeries, running long cons, and treating identities as a commodity. The Tyrants have spies throughout the city, even in places where they have no current plans or contracts. The organization gathers as many secrets as possible, then sells that information to the highest bidder, uses it for blackmail, or stores it for a time when it becomes useful.
The Tyrants have been operating in Sharn for over three hundred years from a base of operations in the Dragoneyes district, in Lower Tavick’s Landing. They have agents spread across the city. A beggar, a bartender, or a courtier could actually be a persona crafted by a Tyrant changeling. The Tyrants have a long-standing truce with the Boromar Clan and don’t take a side in the halfling family’s conflict with Daask.
Tyrants Operations
The Tyrants are master grifters, conducting a host of short and long cons throughout the city. Much like the Boromar Clan, they have a general live-and-let-live relationship with the Sharn Watch. As long as the Tyrants focus their crimes on foreigners and tourists—and donate generously to the local Watch—the officers will look the other way. In addition to pursuing their own schemes for gold, Tyrant charlatans offer a host of services to their clients; they can help to frame innocents for crimes, or make it possible for a criminal to seem to be in two places at once, providing an ironclad alibi.
The finest forgers in the city are in the ranks of the Tyrants, capable of duplicating anything from identification papers to works of art. Magewrights among the Tyrants have the ability to permanently alter someone’s appearance.
First and foremost, the Tyrants deal in information. They hoard secrets, and for the right price they can be persuaded to share what they know. Occasionally a Tyrant approaches someone with an offer of information in exchange for gold.
Tyrants NPCs
Members of the Tyrants have a loose definition of identity. The majority of the members are changelings. They often maintain multiple identities, and a particular identity might be shared among a group of changelings. A captain in the Sharn Watch who is actually an agent of the Tyrants might be portrayed by a member of the Tyrants’ inner circle in the morning, when he has to interact with a wide range of people. But when he goes off-duty in the evening and keeping up the identity is an easier task, the role might be taken over by a young recruit.
The following individuals are some of the Tyrant’s most important identities:
- Ek, often called Tyrant One, guides the inner circle of changelings that leads the organization.
- Kilk is the city councilor for Lower Tavick’s Landing and is a fictional persona created by the Tyrants, played by a variety of changelings at different times.
- The Spider is a changeling information broker who owns a cosmetics store called Honest Faces in the Dragoneyes district. This location is a common destination for people who want to purchase secrets from the Tyrants. Though the Spider often sells secrets for gold, sometimes it will trade its knowledge only for services or other secrets.
Tyrants Villains
The Tyrants are a covert force. They operate in the shadows, trade identities, and like to manipulate their enemies into fighting each other. Tyrant villains rarely show their true faces. Examples of Tyrants villains appear on the Tyrants Villains table.
Tyrants Villains
| d6 | Villain |
|---|---|
| 1 | A changeling rogue infiltrates adventuring parties to steal their magic items. |
| 2 | A cabal of changelings shares an identity as a Sharn Watch captain. They use the disguise to free criminals from prison. |
| 3 | A changeling assassin murders members of the Boromar Clan, Daask, and House Tarkanan, then takes on the identities of its victims. |
| 4 | A changeling bard gathers incriminating information about members of the King’s Dark Lanterns, then blackmails them. |
| 5 | A Brelish changeling veteran of the Last War was distrusted by fellow soldiers because of the shapechanger’s heritage. The veteran now exposes those soldiers’ darkest secrets to their friends, families, and employers. |
| 6 | A changeling mage masquerades as a priest of the Silver Flame and uses spells to send the religion’s faithful “signs” from Tira Miron that encourage them to spy, steal, and kill for the Tyrants. |
Tyrants Campaign Themes
The primary theme of the Tyrants is mystery. In dealing with the Tyrants, there is always a question of what is real and what the true objective actually is. With the Tyrants, anything could be a long con, and both allies and enemies may not be who they appear to be.
The Tyrants have three objectives: acquiring gold, gathering secrets, and protecting the changelings of Sharn. In working the Tyrants into a campaign, the first question is which of these objectives will take precedence. Are they primarily grifters, trying to squeeze as much profit as possible out of the situation? Are they mainly working to gather secrets, and to use those secrets to manipulate others? Or are they most concerned with helping other changelings, who are often with the objects of fear and suspicion?
The Tyrants offer an easy way to provide adventurers with information. The Spider can be a strong ally for adventurers, and you can always arrange for an agent of the Tyrants to step out of the shadows with and offer to sell a secret.
The Tyrants could also have a long-term sinister agenda—something they’ve been working on for generations, which is only coming to fruition now. Do they want to replace the entire city council of Sharn, or are their aspirations even higher than that? In a campaign that examines this idea, the Tyrants might impersonate the patrons and allies of the adventurers, thereby tricking them into carrying out questionable tasks.
The Tyrants can also serve as a group patron for a party of adventurers, as described in chapter 1, especially if the party includes one or more changelings. The Tyrants Assignments table provides hooks for adventurers working with the organization, and the discussion of crime syndicates in chapter 1 includes additional ideas.
Tyrants Assignments
| d6 | Assignment |
|---|---|
| 1 | Kill an important figure without leaving evidence behind so a member of the Tyrants can replace the target. |
| 2 | Steal a formal badge of office or uniform for a member of the Tyrants to use as part of an assumed identity. |
| 3 | Act as bodyguards for a member of the Tyrants who is pretending to be an important figure. |
| 4 | Assume new identities to infiltrate the Sharn Watch and steal criminal records. |
| 5 | Use incriminating information to blackmail a member of the city council. |
| 6 | Find evidence that can be used to blackmail a member of a dragonmarked house. |
Tyrants Adventure Hooks
The Tyrants Adventure Hooks table presents ideas for additional adventures themed around the Tyrants.
Tyrants Adventure Hooks
| d6 | Adventure Hook |
|---|---|
| 1 | A friendly NPC dies in combat. The corpse reveals its true form to be that of a changeling. |
| 2 | A list of Tyrants agents and their identities exists somewhere in Sharn. Every legitimate and criminal organization in the city competes to find it. |
| 3 | The Sharn Inquisitive publishes an anonymous article accusing several members of the Sharn Watch, the city council, and the dragonmarked houses of being changeling members of the Tyrants. The accused individuals vehemently deny the claims. |
| 4 | A shamed Brelish general of the Last War goes on a killing spree against changelings, claiming the Tyrants ruined his life by exposing his extramarital affair. |
| 5 | A Sharn Watch captain being blackmailed by the Tyrants has had enough. He publicly exposes his incriminating secrets, then offers a reward for information concerning the organization. |
| 6 | Roll on another organization’s Adventure Hooks table; the Tyrants are secretly involved in the situation. |