Founded by monstrous immigrants from Droaam, the criminal organization known as Daask has been building its power for a decade and has recently begun an aggressive campaign of expansion. Daask engages mainly in violent crime, including armed robbery, assault, arson, and murder. As its reputation has grown, it has added extortion to this list.
If you have a contact in Daask, you might know someone on the Daask Contacts table.
d6 |
Contact |
1 |
Whyhyr (gnoll), a talented tracker, loves a good hunt and finding people who don’t want to be found. |
2 |
Ralscar Shal (goblin) is a fence and information broker, who is happy to be paid in gold or secrets. |
3 |
Kar Bloodhorn (minotaur) is an enforcer who leads raiding parties in Callestan. Kal is rough and loud but well liked in the organization. |
4 |
Ash (kobold) is a sorcerer with talent in fire magic, who specializes in arson and assault. |
5 |
Cask (changeling), an artificer and alchemist, supplies Daask with drugs and explosives and likes devising new concoctions and finding people to test them on. |
6 |
Teller (human) is one of the few humans with a position of influence in Daask. A grifter, Teller serves as a spy in the upper levels of the city where monsters aren’t able to move around freely. |
Formed by monstrous immigrants from Droaam, Daask has been building its power in the Khyber’s Gate and Malleon’s Gate districts of Sharn for the last decade. It is most infamous for its monstrous enforcers, but the organization also draws members from the destitute populace of Sharn—largely goblins and shifters, but also humans, dwarves, and any other humanoid who feels that the current system has failed them. Daask makes its money through acts of violence, from mugging to armed robbery to outright pillaging. The group has diversified in recent years, building an extortion racket—threatening violence if tribute isn’t paid—and entering into the drug trade, selling both dreamlily and a mysterious substance called dragon’s blood.
From the outside, Daask appears to be interested solely in fomenting violence and chaos. The monstrous nature of its members reinforces this impression; most people consider the members of Daask to be savage beasts. The truth is more complicated. The Droaamites who make up the core of Daask aren’t merely criminals; they are elite soldiers of Droaam working for Sora Katra, and part of an operation that is taking root in larger cities across Khorvaire. The seemingly random attacks by Daask are part of a larger plan that, if it succeeds, will eventually give Sora Katra a foothold in the heart of Khorvaire.
Over the last two years, the Daask cell in Sharn has been waging a slowly escalating war against the holdings of the Boromar Clan. The Boromars were surprised by the violence of these attacks and have suffered significant losses. Daask prefers guerrilla tactics, using only as many combatants as necessary to get a job done, never staying in one place too long, and quickly retreating back to their turf. Though the Boromars still control much of criminal activity in the middle and upper parts of Sharn, Daask is gaining ground in the lower level of the city and controls crime in the Cogs.
Daask Operations
Violence and intimidation are Daask’s most used tools. Rather than using bribery, Daask manipulates the Sharn Watch through displays of force and brutal reprisals against officers who dare to stand in the way. Coupled with the fact that Daask primarily targets businesses with ties to the Boromars, this means that many of the Watch officers of the lower wards will step aside and allow a Daask raid to run its course.
As Daask has seized territory from the Boromar Clan, it has also begun taking over a few of the clan’s traditional businesses. In addition to dreamlily, Daask sells a highly addictive drug called dragon’s blood.
Daask has another, perhaps surprising area of operation: religion. The organization has brought priests of the Dark Six to Sharn and has restored a ruined temple to the Dark Six in Khyber’s Gate. Followers of the Dark Six have few other opportunities to practice their faith, and providing this new facility for them has made many allies for Daask across the city.
Daask NPCs
Daask’s lower ranks are made up of goblinoids, humans, shifters, and other humanoids recruited from the population of Sharn. The Droaamish soldiers that make up the core of the organization include changelings, gnolls, harpies, ogres, minotaurs, medusas, trolls, and other monstrous beings. Basilisks, cockatrices, death dogs, displacer beasts, and similar monsters are kept by Daask, though these creatures are usually used only within the Cogs.
Some of Daask’s most important members are these individuals:
- Sora Katra is the ultimate leader of Daask, but as one of the Daughters of Sora Kell, she remains in Droaam. The hag stays in contact with all of her main subordinates by magic and keeps a detailed ledger of the group’s activities.
- Cavallah is a disciplined female oni and the current leader of the Daask cell in Sharn. She is the mastermind of the organization’s machinations against the Boromar Clan, a scholar obsessed with studying Sharn’s manifest zone, and a devoted servant of Sora Katra. The oni wears a hag eye (see “Hags” in the Monster Manual) that enables Sora Katra to both see and hear what occurs in her presence.
- Harash, a male medusa, is Cavallah’s right hand. He is a specialist in diplomacy and intimidation whom Cavallah trusts to monitor the members of Daask and maintain morale.
- Ash is a female human priest of the Shadow. As the most powerful and beloved of Daask’s priests, she runs the Temple of the Six. Some worry that Ash plans to challenge Cavallah for leadership, which could cause a rift in the organization’s membership.
- The gnoll Keshta commands a small unit of elite gnoll commandos. Disciplined and ruthless, these soldiers are often called upon to carry out retaliatory strikes against those who defy Daask.
- Zaeran, an elf werewolf, is a recent arrival to Sharn. He’s one of the sons of the Droaamish warlord Zaeurl. Zaeran has come to the city with a small group of wererats and werewolves, and has an agenda known only to himself and Sora Katra.
Cog Hub
Daask members congregate in safe houses that are hard to find and easy to defend or escape from. The most popular gathering location is a Cog hub. The dark, twisting halls of these underworld hot spots are familiar to Daask members and confusing to their enemies. A Cog hub’s tight passages have plenty of choke points, forcing one-on-one confrontations in which Daask’s powerful monsters often have the advantage. Daask also uses Cog hubs to stash bodies, drugs, or prisoners.
Trying to find a Daask hub in the Cogs is an adventure in itself. Most members are understandably tight-lipped about the location of their meeting and hiding places. Once the characters know a hub’s location, they still must navigate the mazelike Cogs to find the place.
Cog Hub Features
The Cog hub shown in map 4.13 could be a Daask location, or it could be any Sharn underworld location you need it to be. Several crafted and natural labyrinthine passages no more than 10 feet wide lead to the main chamber. Many of these passages connect with stairs, ladders, and wells that lead higher or lower in the Cogs, in addition to small chambers that could be ambush points, temporary quarters for criminals or squatters, or places to lay a trap or place an alarm trigger.
These passages converge into a single large chamber that can hold a large group for meetings and serve as a temporary safe house or a place to stash contraband. When criminals occupy the area, at least one guard is always on duty, and typically there is one guard at every entrance to the chamber.
Smaller rooms with heavy iron doors adjoin the largest chamber. These rooms can serve as holding cells for captives, vaults for valuables, or hiding spots.

Map 4.13: Cog Hub
View Player Version
Cog Hub Adventures
The Cog Hub Adventures table offers reasons why your characters might need to visit such a location. In addition, the characters could meet with a Daask patron in a Cog hub.
Cog Hub Adventures
d10 |
Adventure Goal |
1 |
Obtain samples of dragon’s blood hidden in the Cog hub. |
2 |
Infiltrate a Daask meeting to discover the next Boromar Clan holding they plan to target. |
3 |
Capture a Daask worg and replace it with a worg loyal to the Boromar Clan. |
4 |
Sniff out a traitor among Daask lieutenants. |
5 |
Escape the Cog hub after being captured by Daask forces. |
6 |
Kick out squatters to get the Cog hub ready to serve as a Daask safe house. |
7 |
Assault Daask members meeting in the Cog hub to disrupt the organization. |
8 |
Defend a Daask Cog hub from a Boromar Clan attack. |
9 |
Rescue an injured Daask soldier hidden inside a Cog hub that has been taken over by the Boromar Clan. |
10 |
Place a lethal trap in a Cog hub, to be triggered the next time Daask forces enter the place. |
Daask Villains
If Daask villains want something, they take it, and they destroy anything that gets in their way. Though some members of the organization are brutes, many are more cunning than they appear. Often what seems to be random violence might be motivated by something other than greed and cruelty.
Examples of Daask villains appear on the Daask Villains table.
Daask Villains
d6 |
Villain |
1 |
Several harpies travel to the upper wards and use their luring songs to make rich people fall to their deaths. The harpies pick the corpses for valuables. |
2 |
A pack of gnolls rampages through the lower wards, killing any halflings they come across. The gnolls take the halflings’ ears as trophies. |
3 |
A shifter priest of the Devourer wants to crash Skyway by performing a ritual to create a cataclysmic storm. Sacrifices to the Devourer fuels the ritual. |
4 |
A changeling agent of Daask seeks to frame the Tyrants for attacks on the Boromar Clan, driving a wedge between the two organizations. |
5 |
A wererat priest of the Mockery starts a cult in Lower Dura, teaching its followers the arts of assassination. |
6 |
A gargoyle sharpshooter continually finds new vantage points in the upper wards from where it can assassinate targets in the middle and lower wards. |
Daask Campaign Themes
On the surface, Daask appear to be nothing more complicated than a gang of violent monsters wreaking havoc in the worst parts of the city. If you want, this can be the only role they play in a campaign: a ready source of sudden violence. Low-level characters might work with the Sharn Watch or the Boromar Clan to curtail Daask muggings and raid dreamlily houses. This crusade against Daask will escalate as the adventurers become more powerful; Daask will unleash ever more powerful monsters, and its forces might start targeting the adventurer’s allies and loved ones. Those attacks won’t end until the adventurers delve deep into the Cogs and defeat Cavallah herself.
Another option is to delve deeper into the motives of Daask, to explore the idea that these monsters aren’t as savage as they appear. The elite members of Daask are spies, soldiers, and saboteurs using their criminal activities as a cover for their true agenda. What is Sora Katra really trying to accomplish in Sharn? This question ties to how you decide to use the Daughters of Sora Kell, described earlier in this chapter. Do the Daughters simply want to ravage their enemies? Or, guided by the oracular visions of Sora Teraza, are they actually working toward some greater good? For instance, Daask agents could break into the vaults and workshops of dragonmarked houses and discover secret projects forbidden by the Treaty of Thronehold. They could clash with spies of foreign powers in Sharn, or pursue ancient artifacts in the ruins below the city to keep them out of others’ hands.
Dreamlily is relatively safe; dragon’s blood is not. Its effects are intentionally unpredictable, and you can take this idea wherever you like. Could drinking dragon’s blood cause someone to develop a dragonmark? Could it turn addicts into crazed, draconic creatures? Is Daask simply selling it to make money, or is the drug’s introduction part of a grander plan? Neither the Boromar Clan or the dragonmarked houses have been able to learn anything important about dragon’s blood.
Daask can also serve as a group patron for a party of adventurers, as described in chapter 1. The Daask Assignments table provides objectives for adventurers working with the organization, and the discussion of crime syndicates in chapter 1 includes additional ideas for parties with a crime syndicate patron.
Daask Assignments
d6 |
Assignment |
1 |
Convince several new businesses in the lower wards to pay protection fees to Daask. |
2 |
Cause as much death and destruction as possible inside a Boromar-owned establishment. |
3 |
Guard a priest of the Dark Six as he preaches the word of the Mockery on the street. |
4 |
Assassinate a member of the Boromar Clan. |
5 |
Convince a dragonmarked noble to offer the house’s services to Daask for free. |
6 |
Mug someone to steal a magic item in their possession. |
Daask Adventure Hooks
The Daask Adventure Hooks table presents ideas for additional adventures themed around Daask.
Daask Adventure Hooks
d4 |
Adventure Hook |
1 |
Daask harpies raid a Skyway mansion and tear the place apart looking for a Boromar Clan member. |
2 |
People who take dragon’s blood begin turning to stone, and no one can figure out why. |
3 |
Cavallah announces a contest within the organization, promising a valuable magic item to whichever Daask soldier kills the most members of the Boromar Clan. |
4 |
Ash challenges Cavallah for control of Daask, creating a schism that erupts into a violent gang war. |