Faction Retinues
Faction Retinues
A rules reference for the standing groups of faction personnel each of you now commands. Each retinue has its own page with the letter that came with it, the people in it, and their current postings — this page covers how they work in general.
Each faction calls its own group something different — the Order of the Gauntlet and the Dawnbringers say lance, the Harpers say cell, the Zhentarim say crew, the Talons of Veylan say flight, the Scales of Eldath say hearth. "Retinue" is just the common word for all of them.
What a retinue is
On reaching Rank 3 with a faction, you are given people. Not adventurers, and not soldiers you take into a dungeon — competent professionals who do your faction's work, at a distance, on your instructions.
They are a standing asset, like a stronghold or a magic item. They persist between sessions, they can be moved, and they can be lost. Higher ranks bring larger commands.
Size
Your retinue numbers a complement equal to your proficiency bonus, plus a leader who is not counted.
| Character level | Complement |
|---|---|
| 5–8 | 3 |
| 9–12 (now) | 4 |
| 13–16 | 5 |
| 17+ | 6 |
The increase is automatic. Your faction sends another body when your standing warrants it; there is no ceremony and nothing to spend.
Your squire does not count against this. Squires may run messages or act as liaison without consuming a slot.
The leader stays home
Every retinue has a leader, and that leader remains at Nuts Deep. They do not travel, they do not take field assignments, and they cannot be redeployed. They run the retinue, hold its facility at the fort, and are the person you actually give instructions to.
| Retinue | Leader | Where they sit |
|---|---|---|
| The Anvil | Knight-Sergeant Bertrand Kell | The fort |
| The Nightingales | Merrivet Ashcombe | The fort, reading the notebook |
| Talonfall | Nettle | The treeline outside the walls. She does not come indoors. |
| The Broken Latch | Ollam Pryce | The fort, handling freight |
| The Hearthwardens | Aldith Fenn | The fort, running the yard |
| The Dawnwatch | Brother Ovid Morningward | The fort, keeping the flame |
Postings and movement
Every member of your retinue is either posted somewhere doing a job, or in transit. A member in transit is doing nothing for you.
| Moving someone | Time |
|---|---|
| Within the same settlement | Hours |
| Within a region | 3–5 days |
| Across the Sword Coast | 10 days or more |
Move them rarely and on purpose. Where someone is standing usually matters more than what you asked them to do — a Harper agent already in the city will find things no archive holds, and a Talon posted on a road knows what crossed it.
A posted member also works on their own initiative. Expect occasional reports and results you did not ask for; these cost you nothing.
Giving orders
Tell your retinue's leader what you want. Each retinue has its own list of standing orders (below).
- Routine work in their specialty simply happens. They are professionals. No roll.
- Contested or dangerous work may fail. The DM will resolve it. Outcomes range from clean success, to success at a cost — a delay, a debt, an injury, the wrong sort of attention — down to outright failure.
- Bad failures cost you a person. See below.
They do not fight beside you
A retinue never appears in initiative. They do not take turns, they do not have stat blocks at the table, and they are not a second party.
If violence reaches them, it is resolved as above rather than played out. If one happens to be present at a fight you are in, they are worth a single narrated effect — holding a doorway, telling you where the second group is coming from — declared by the DM, not rolled.
They also do not adventure. Taking your retinue into the kind of place this company works in will get them killed, and every one of your faction's letters says so.
Losing people
People in a retinue can be killed, captured, bought, or burned. Each faction's people break differently, and it is worth knowing which way yours will go — your letter tells you.
Replacing someone takes a downtime week and your faction's willingness. A faction unhappy with you can simply decline to send anyone.
Upkeep
Between adventures, tell the DM where each of your people is standing and what they are doing. That is all the bookkeeping there is.
The six retinues
| Retinue | Held by | Faction | Standing orders |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Anvil | Xanphina | Order of the Gauntlet | Hold — set them on a place and it stays held · Escort — what they escort arrives · Lend — detach them to an ally, which counts as your company's work |
| The Nightingales | Gootcha | Harpers | The notebook — one open question at a time, answered in anything from ten minutes to ten days depending on what you asked · The field — an agent posted where you are asking makes the answer far faster and far better |
| Talonfall | Keyleth | Talons of Veylan | Watch — you learn what moves through a place before it reaches you · Guide — safe passage through bad country · Cull — they hunt and kill a named target, nothing older or larger than a young wyrm, and it takes weeks |
| The Broken Latch | Shade | Zhentarim | Move — anything or anyone, unrecorded · Acquire — buy what is not for sale, including magic, on a timetable by rarity · Lean — pressure a person or business until it reconsiders |
| The Hearthwardens | Karma | Scales of Eldath | Mollify — a village the Cult is working on does not turn · Forage — name the kind of reagent and they find it · Tend — one week rebuilding a hurt place, which earns lasting goodwill |
| The Dawnwatch | Baelgrum | Dawnbringers | Consecrate — ground the undead and infernal find no purchase on · Ward — warning of undead and fiends before they arrive · Carry the light — hope to the frightened and the beset · 'not yet conferred' |
The Dawnwatch has not been conferred. Baelgrum has not yet reached the rank that grants it. The page exists so he can read what is coming.
Goodwill
The Hearthwardens' Tend order earns goodwill with the places they rebuild, recorded on the Council Disposition Tracker.
Goodwill extends to associates — every retinue and every squire. A village Karma's people put back together will shelter a Nightingale, walk a Talon to the right trailhead, and forget it saw either, without asking whose they are.
See also
- The Anvil · The Nightingales · Talonfall · The Broken Latch · The Hearthwardens · The Dawnwatch
- Renown Tracker — the ranks that grant these
- Council Disposition Tracker — goodwill and coalition standing
- Nuts Deep — where every retinue's leader sits
- House Rules