Hollow Shards

Experts, bards, rogues, illusionists, and clerics of Olladra or the Traveler (or any other faith that espouses the Trickery domain) are drawn to the ranks of the Hollow Shards. Joining the Shards is easy enough, since membership grants petitioners very little until they prove their dedication to the undermining of all things and the deception of others not only for profit, but also on principle.

To join the Shards is to draw back the veil on the relic trade in the city, and new members are dumbfounded to learn just how significant a portion of the items sold in the Marketplace are nothing more than worthless knock-offs. Older members love to regale novices with lists of their classic work on display in magically warded exhibits in Morgrave University as priceless relics and landmark discoveries “intrinsic to weaving the complex tapestry of Xen’drik’s long history.”

Herein lies the key to the Shards’ tremendous power. It is one thing to sell a fake wand to a fool of a wizard, but to create history itself and hoodwink an entire continent of scholars and researchers into buying your own personal version of the past’s most important moments . . . that is power beyond that of any dragon or rakshasa. The Shards erase gods and raise meager civilizations from obscurity to be memorialized as gloried kingdoms of a continent’s golden era . . . and this prodigious power is wielded by a ragtag collective of forgers, con artists, and thieves.

Lies are your living, and you live for a good scam. Don’t ever tell the whole truth, it’s sacrilege. Chicanery and legerdemain are constants in your life. Lying is like any other skill, so if you don’t practice all the time, you get rusty.

Combat

Violence is failure. If you can’t talk your way out of a situation with your silver tongue, then you are losing your touch. Likewise, if you need someone eliminated, you can always talk a third party into it. Frame enemies for crimes, convince others that your foes are acting against them (even if they are not), or repeat a few choice insults they uttered about someone’s mother in your presence (even if they didn’t say a word). Then sit back and watch the bedlam unfold.

If forced into a fight, make sure you are on the winning side. The real battle takes place before swords are drawn, when you convince all conflicting parties that you are really one of them. If cornered, defend yourself with deception and trickery. Feint with word and deed, tricking opponents into believing you are going to do one thing and then surprise them with another attack. Distract, dazzle, or confuse them through magical or mundane means. A noxious smokestick proves a valuable ally in a pinch, as does a quick spell to blind a foe. Concealed weapons give you an edge. Use a poison-smeared diamond to bribe your enemies, or a letter from their superior that is actually a parchment inscribed with explosive runes. These are all tactics you employ to ensure that you live to fight another day, and your enemies . . . not so much.

Advancement

As a Shard, you’re only as good as people think you are. There is no way to work up the ranks aside from propagating schemes and pulling off deceptions. You must be able to con your fellow Shards as easily as you can a person on the street if you want to become a true charlatan. Pulling off a great scam is one way to get respect, but the better way is to run a scheme so wildly convoluted that even most of your fellow Shards can’t piece together how you came out on top, and what exactly you got away with. Steal the credit for successful scams by lying to everyone about your involvement in them . . . and if you can, convince the actual con artists responsible for the job that you were masterminding the whole thing.

The Shards run hundreds of scams every day, from fleecing visitors with sales of “magic” giant artifacts, to lightening the coin purses of local nobles out to collect works of ancient drow art, to defaming highplaced personages through campaigns of disinformation and rumor-mongering. Shards are expected to spend a great deal of their time spreading falsehoods for falsehoods’ sake and planting the specific seeds for larger conspiracies of misdirection. Trips to taverns in various guises, attending meetings dressed as a highplaced official, and other wild jaunts into deceit and fabrication are always on the menu.

Switch jobs in particular are dangerous missions, but lucrative. A group of Shards infiltrates a museum, a wealthy collector’s estate, or a dragonmarked enclave and steals an authentic relic/prototype magic item/ ancient tome of power/object of art and replaces it with a fake of such impressive craftsmanship that the former owners are none the wiser they’ve been robbed.

Imagination goes a long way, but to create consistently convincing fakes of Xen’drik relics, sometimes the Shards send lesser members to get an eyeball on the real things, or even procure true artifacts from hidden tombs and trapped treasure vaults.

On occasion, all Khyber breaks loose when a widespread scheme of lies crumbles. At these times, Shards band together to perform damage control and shield their members from punishment by deflecting blame for any conspiracy upon non-Shard patsies set up to take the fall.

A Hollow Shard can be found nearly anywhere in the city: on a street corner posing as an artificer selling his wares, in the bustle of the Marketplace pawning worthless knock-off relics, or seated by a Storm Lord’s side as her personal advisor on any number of topics. All Shards’ roots never grow too deep, though, since one thing is for certain: If revealed as frauds, they always beat a hasty retreat rather than face the music. PCs might be duped by the Shards personally or hired by someone who got ripped off to seek justice and get their money back. Alternatively, the PCs might seek out the Shards’ assistance. An evil enemy of the characters might demand a powerful relic from their latest trip to Xen’drik’s interior, and the Shards can supply the PCs with a duplicate, allowing them to foil their foe’s evil plans and escape unscathed.

Structure

The Shards are a loose-knit bunch. Too many con artists spoil the scam, as they say. Members’ chaotic proclivities preclude them from working together for lengthy periods of time.

Most Shards wander between “consortiums.” Each consortium is a short-term alliance of Shards brought together to enact a dubious moneymaking scheme or engage in a rampant campaign of misinformation to some end or another. Any Honest Shard can convene a consortium, drawing in tricksters and con artists to serve as their catspaws in whatever twisted web they intend to weave. These consortiums don’t last long. Most members lie to each other as much as they do their marks, and before long their ulterior motives and dozens of side scams dissolve the consortium. This is never seen as a failure, since any true act of deception breeds more convoluted lies to erase its tracks. The Honest Shard who convened the consortium in the first place is happy to walk away, his goals achieved, and his lessers’ selfish schemes in place to take the heat if his con is exposed. Thus it goes in the Shards; if you’re not the best liar around, then you’re a dupe like everyone else.

NPC Reactions

No one likes a liar. People who know of the Hollow Shards hate them with intensity more appropriate to violent criminals. In Stormreach, death is often preferred to being made to look the fool. If a Shard is exposed, a lynch mob gathers quickly to dispatch him. Yet others idolize these masters of the con, and even more find the Shards useful, as long as they can be controlled . . . but few realize just how hard this is to do.