Faction Friday: The Crow Bandits

Posted by on March 10, 2017

Ta Prohm by Staffan Scherz on Flickr

The Crow Bandits can be used either as a friendly faction that sends the PCs out on a mission, or as a foe that the PCs must overcome. This group of outlaws wears crow-feather cloaks and uses trained wolves. They live in an abandoned temple, where their leader, Lathir Featherfall, found an old store of reagants and a spell book, and is teaching himself magic.

Lathir is an old elven man who’s seen much of the world and wants to do something exciting. He met his lieutenant, Darroc, several years ago; Darroc is a keen trainer of wolves and fell deeply into debt. Lathir suggested banditry, primarily as something interesting to do.

As a friendly faction, the Crow Bandits are Robin Hood-like crusaders for justice, stealing only from those who are both wealthy and guilty of unpunished crimes.

Plot hook: As if banditry wasn’t interesting enough, Lathir’s slowly teaching himself magic. He hires the PCs to find unusual ritual components, like harvesting giant caterpillar eggs or the eyes of gibbering mouthers. He needs these to build a wand of suggestion, which he’ll use to make future targets stand down.

As a foe faction, the Crow Bandits are an unusually successful gang, thanks to Lathir’s intelligence and wisdom. Just the sight of the cloaks is now enough to cause some to drop their weapons.

Plot hook: A nearby city’s merchant guild, the Crossed Arms, has lost three caravans in the last month to the Crow Bandits. The Crossed Arms hire the PCs to find the bandits and stop them.

Abandoned Temple
The temple must be entered through a corridor at the far east of the complex, then the party must turn left or right and follow long corridors to the various internal rooms. Lathir likes this because the bandits can hear intruders approach.
Room 1 Room 2 Room 3 Room 4
This 15×15 foot square room, reached from the left of the entrance, holds nothing of value except a magical trap of Lathir’s creation.

Anyone who enters the room takes 1d10 thunder damage (and the bandits are now alerted to the PCs’ presence, even if they were being stealthy). A DC 12 Wisdom (Arcana) check will detect the spell, and a DC 15 Wisdom (Arcana) check will dismiss it.

 

Further along the right-and corridor, one passage opens to this complex of four 10×10 foot rooms. Once private cells for the priests who lived here, the Crow Bandits now keep their wolves here.

This area normally contains Darroc and 4-6 wolves.

 

At the end of the right-hand corridor sits three adjoining circular rooms, each about 15×15 feet. The bandits store their spoils in these rooms and sleep here.

The bandits will defend this room, but they will give up if overwhelmed. Lathir will retreat to room 4.

This secret room, reachable only from room 3, is Lathir’s inner sanctum. Once a library, most of its bookshelves and papers have crumbled to dust, but a few books remain, as well as about a dozen jars of reagants and spell components.

Friendly: The PCs will likely never enter this room, unless Lathir wants to discuss something with them privately.

Foe: Lathir will fight alone in here as his last stand.

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