Steampunk Spinach: a Scion of House Ghallanda

I have written a post about my owlin rogue from our second Eberron campaign, but I haven't said much about my first two Eberron characters. There were probably some tweets about them, but that stuff has been lost to time. So let's take a look at Vinster and the first half of the campaign!

We started a 5e Eberron adventure after the last leg of our Starfinder campaign¹. I had pushed for it because I like Eberron quite a lot. If you aren't familiar, it's frequently described as a "steampunk" setting, but that's wrong. It's not a single-genre setting, and it's really up to your group: it can be a western, noir, steampunk, or whatever you wanna make of it.

I'd say it's what you get when somebody sits down and thinks through the implications of magic on the day-to-day life of normal people. Forgotten Realms has big magic schools in the major cities, and yet ... they're salting their fish to preserve it, when they could be building refrigerators with a Cone of Cold spell?

In Eberron, there are "dragonmarked houses", which are sort of like cartels of folks with magic tatoos. The tattoo you've got gives you a magic power. The real benefit is the economic power: these Houses are old and have organized whole industries around themselves, with the best tools being "locked" and requiring their dragonmark to access.

Vinster was a health inspector from House Ghallanda. This probably isn't a house that sees many player characters ... they're halflings who specialize in hospitality. The house's economic engine is taverns, inns, and lodging: they run a network themselves, and are responsible for certifying independent establishments across the Five Nations.

Early Life

At age twelve, Vincent undertook his Test of Siberys: one hundred goblins turned up at a quiet Gold Dragon Inn and he was the only staff member around. He manifested the Mark of Hospitality on his left bicep, and was able to churn out over a hundred plates of roast beast, quelling the hunger of the horde.

From there, he was a scion of the House. His parents had been trained for field operations during the Last War and deployed alongside more martial-focused Houses, to prepare meals and keep the camps running. With the Last War still raging, Vinster received the same training: both hospitality skills, and how to defend himself.

When the war abruptly ended, the trajectory of Vinster's life changed. Instead of being deployed to the front lines, the Viceroy of the House personally appointed him as a junior health inspector, and told him that he'd be dealing with some of the more "colourful" establishments. The proprieters would be unlikely to take Ghallanda's judgements well.

After getting some experience, he was given a tough assignment: a network of hostels and taverns were being run by the Boromar clan. This is a faction of halfling mafia, and they have a complicated relationship wit the halflings of House Ghallanda. The House wanted their businesses closed, and Vinster was part of the team that would deliver the notice and remove Ghallanda's seal from their signage.

In the third ale house, the Wolfwood Retreat, the inspectors walked in to an ambush: a dozen goblins & Boromar were waiting for them. The goblins were easily scared off when an inspector launched a firebolt into the kegs, but the Boromar were dedicated to the assault. Vinster put two of them down in quick succession while another inspector set the building ablaze.

The inspectors retreated outside and barred the door after them. The screams of the trapped halflings drew the city watch. Vinster flashes his Ghallanda signet ring and told them not to interfere. Begrudgingly, the watchmen stood idly by.

Adventuring

Vinster was in the upper tier of Sharn. There was a big celebration for some noble, with the common people invited to the feast. It was a rare opportunity for them to taste the finer things and see the skyway. Vinster, of course, was there for work: he kept an eye on the kitchens. It was uneventful.

On his way home, Vinster and a few other random folks witnessed a brutal murder. The killer then jumped off the skyway into the abyss, leaving the party with a freshly-murdered corpse. A guard came by, put two and two together, and was ready to arrest us.

But. It seemed like a lot of bother. Arrests come with paperwork, quadrupally-so when trying to arrest somebody with a dragonmarked house's signet ring. He gave us 24 hours to prove somebody else did the murder.

Vinster's combat style was interesting: he was a fighter with the arcane archer subclass, but reflavoured as using cantrips he'd learned instead of mystical elven nonsense. He used a shortbow (because 5e doesn't let halflings use longbows properly), but murder wasn't his go-to move. Being part of House Ghallanda, he'd instead try to use his Friends cantrip, de-escalate the situation, and get what he wanted that way. Or, failing that, de-escalate the situation so the rest of the party could get the drop.

He was very loyal to the House, and generally amenable to peers from the other houses. He was a little wary of them, but Ghallanda didn't get mixed up in heavy things like House Cannith, so there were fewer reasons for the other houses to try and run game on Vinster.

He was easy to get along with, and had a lot of synergy with our artificer, Robert Normalman. He was -- as his name suggests -- just a regular guy. Robert was a homebody at heart, and all he ever wanted to do was go home. Vinster would regularly badger him into doing things, staying with the group, and generally try to build him up so Robert wouldn't go cry in the corner during combat.

Solving the murder took the party to a resturant owned by Big Mondo (a Boromar boss), got intel from House Orien², and eventually located the killer: Vek the Grin. He was terrified of the Boromars (despite being a murderer himself), and surrendered to the party in exchange for protection. After roughing him up a bit.

The party got more jobs around town. Our contact from House Orien was interested in something House Cannith was up to. We infilitrated (and burned down) several Cannith facilities in Sharn. The Boromars were wrapped up in it somehow, too. Here's an except from our onboarding material about our modus operandi at this point in time:

Vinster's story arc was less "develop as a character" and more "prosecute a war against the Boromar on behalf of Ghallanda". Which we did. To great effect.

The Boromar situation culminated in a gala at an estate in a rich party of town. The Boromars had a representative on Sharn's ruling council, so they had to do Politics by way of Big Parties sometimes. We needed to sneak in, grab some documents, and eavesdrop on a meeting that our Orien contact was expecting to happen during the party.

Security was tight: they'd brough tin guards from the Talenta Plains. Lots of halflings on raptors, ready to ride down any intruders.

We solved the problem of needing to stealthily infiltrate a heavily-guarded compound full of civilians in the most Spinach Inquisition manner possible: we planted explosives the night before, and set them off to create a distraction. While people were trying to evacuate out of the manor, the VIPs went deeper in, and the guards tried to deal with the fires and casualties.

We slipped in. And by "slipped", I mean Vinster distracted some of the guards who remained at their posts so the party could knife them in the back. The rest of the mission was easy after that.

But the Boromar were pissed. There were reprisals: Big Mondo himself tried to ambush the party with a ton of thugs. It was broad daylight in the middle of a street. But his planning was inadequate and all Big Mondo managed to do was switch careers from "mafia boss" to "corpse".

This was a big setback for the Boromar; I guess Mondo was a big "power behind the throne" type of guy. I don't believe we ever killed the Boromar council rep, but they stopped fucking with the party afterwards.

Death

There had been some shennanigans happening in Sharn that was -- at least on the surface -- unrelated to the House Cannith investigation. A bunch of demons or monsters had started appearing in the Lower Dura district of Sharn, and some of the religious-types from Thrane's Church of the Silver Flame made a big splash by marching into town. They're supposed to be good at hunting down evil monsters, but they ended up sitting around and looking pretty in their armour while citizens got eaten.

A friend we'd made from House Phiarlan³ reached out to us on behalf of a local Silver Flame church; one of their priestesses had gone missing in Lower Dura, and the big church militia wasn't looking for her. The party was hired to go down there ahead of the Silver Flame cohort and try to rescue Phaela -- or recover her remains.

This seemed like a story arc ripe of Bullshit and betrayals. Why wasn't the church's big militia doing anything? What was House Phiarlan's interest in church politics? It sounds very interesting and exciting, right?

The party headed down to the lower bits of Sharn. When we walked onto the first street of the Lower Dura district, some kind of eldrich trap was sprung. A barrier went up behind and before us, and some heaps of junk animated.

These monsters are kind of weak

• Game Master Magic J. Fork

The "junk" that stood up was a group of rutterkin, relatively weak demons. They should not have been a problem, but for one small mechanic...

Bite. Melee Weapon Attack ...

If the target is a creature, it must succeed on a DC 13 Constitution saving throw against disease or become poisoned ...

If the target is reduced to 0 hit points while poisoned in this way, it dies and instantly transforms into an Abyssal Wrech.

Some of the rutterkin got lucky early in combat. One player was poisoned, then hit 0 HP and insta-died with no death saves, converting into a CR 1/4th monster. Which enabled the rutterkin to down a second player...and a failure cascade occurred. Robert Normalman was the only party member who got to die a "normal" death.

This is the first and only total party kill that we've had in seven years. Vinster's war against the Boromar, the party's investigation into the machinations of House Cannith, and this particular story arc ended abruptly.

Closing Thoughts

I take solce in the fact that a later revision of the rutterkin stat block changes the CR 1/4 Abyssal Wrech to a CR 1/8 monster. I dunno if that would have made a difference, but clearly somebody at WotC realized the potential for a failure cascade.

One other item of note: when I originally made Vinster, he used the playtest rules for the Eberron book. If you could get to level 8 and take the Greater Dragonmark feat, they become incredibly strong. Vinster's mark would have given him access to Sanctuary & Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Mansion, which fit his theme really well but also are really, really good.

Then, the final Eberron book dropped and, IIRC, DnD Beyond forcibly converted everybody's characters to the official rules? Alas...