Dan D. at Throne of Salt requests from the jackalope:
d6 Chuckleheads you have to deal with from the local wizard mafia
The Plan
This should be easy:
- Binge-listen to Crimetown.
- Define the Local Wizard Mafia.
- Write up some chuckleheads.
Wizard mobsters are probably like normal mobsters, but with funny hats. (Funny hats are by Lorc and Delapouite via game-icons.net, used under a CC-BY 3.0 license.)
The ’Valizzi
Description
The ’Valizzi is the local wizard mafia, an organized magical crime syndicate. Even when their ends are mundane, their means are supernatural. They run extraplanar smuggling rings, deal in apotropaic protection rackets, and arbitrate disputes between wizards and godlings. Where magic is illegal or disreputable, they have business with necromancy, fortune-telling, and the manufacture of consumables (potions, scrolls, drugs, and so on).
There is no requirement of blood relation to join the ’Valizzi, only magical ability. Because of their persecution, proper members of the ’Valizzi are magically bound to never verbally confirm if an individual is or is not a member of the ’Valizzi. This curse is taken voluntarily, and has never been known to be broken. Current members will also never knowingly risk letting an outsider know who is or isn't in the ’Valizzi through other means.
Motto
Anything in the world is ours to take, and in exchange we offer order.
Beliefs
- Always repay debts.
- All magic and all crime should be conducted under our auspices.
Goals
- Enrich selves.
- Control all forms of magic.
Hooks
- The PCs need a divination, and the only purveyors in town are ’Valizzi.
- Returning to town, the lone guard at the gate doesn't remember them at all. He is being memory-wiped with some regularity by potion smugglers.
- The flood of magic items brought back to town by the PCs has upset a local wizard, who calls in a favor from the ’Valizzi to see about cutting off the supply.
- The PCs perform some minor magical service in town, for example a healing or a detection spell. The ’Valizzi won't be happy to hear about upstarts cutting in on their turf.
The Chuckleheads
1. Father Corx
Overview: Father Corx is a dapper priest who goes way back with the ’Valizzi.
Appearance: He has neat salt-and-pepper hair and a low booming voice.
Abilities: He has the spellcasting ability of a low-level cleric.
Talents: He assuages people's guilt, including his own.
Mannerisms: He takes long pauses between sentences (or as dramatically appropriate).
Interactions: He is very understanding of others, to the point of condescension.
Knowledge: He always knows how to make things right and who to set up meetings with.
Ideals: A strong, if twisted, belief in hierarchy governs his actions.
Bond: He is childhood friends with the current leaders of the ’Valizzi, and sees no conflict between his religious teachings and their actions.
Secrets: He has covered for the ’Valizzi in several large court cases, using his station to sway the jury.
2. Jerry "the Ferret"
Overview: Jerry used to be a smuggler and a burglar with the ’Valizzi.
Appearance: Even bent over a cane, his wiry frame is still tall.
Abilities: He can open a door to any other door in the same building, one-way, provided they both have doorknobs.
Talents: He misdirects at every scale.
Mannerisms: His teeth whistle slightly, enough to stop him casting spells (part of the terms of his release).
Interactions: Jerry is faultlessly polite and fabulously generous, so long as he thinks he might learn something from you.
Knowledge: He can get into and out of any building, or at least knows how.
Ideals: Jerry is a self-made man and values that independence.
Bond: Jerry's only loyalty is to his immediate family, to the chagrin of his former compatriots and cell-mates.
Secrets: Jerry knows where the gold from his last big heist is buried, and intends it to be his son's inheritance.
3. Nicalos, Old Fredward's Boy
Overview: Nicalos is a goon and errand-runner employed by the ’Valizzi.
Appearance: His personal grooming is impeccable, but he wears outdated, fraying clothes.
Abilities: Nicalos is slightly un-magical, and if a spell can fail around him, it will tend to.
Talents: Nicalos has a real knack for hiding and sneaking.
Mannerisms: His speech is heavily-affected cartoonish mob-speak (Nyah, see?
).
Interactions: He always seeks to make himself look good, and to win approval from others.
Knowledge: Whatever the characters' business with the ’Valizzi, Nicalos will have a better understanding of the implications and repercussions than they do.
Ideals: Nicalos has aspirations to run the show, and will take initiative given the opportunity.
Bond: Nicalos keeps his mother sheltered from his activities a ways outside town.
Secrets: Depending on the characters' goals, Nicalos' are either exactly the same or exactly opposite. He will not let on to this.
4. Barb, the Lightning Witch
Overview: Barb is an electric witch, an invaluable asset to the ’Valizzi.
Appearance: Short middle-aged woman, long blond hair always floating on end with static charge.
Abilities: Barb can unerringly send one-way messages to the deceased.
Talents: Barb has a flair for the theatrical, which serves her well in séances and rain-calling.
Mannerisms: Cackles.
Interactions: Barb's interactions with others are purely transactional, and she works to maintain her image at all times.
Knowledge: Barb has a finger on the pulse of all the metaphysical movers and shakers, like who is researching what spells, where Excalibur was last seen, which godlings haven't been properly appeased, etc.
Ideals: Barb delights in the exercise of power.
Bond: Everyone owes Barb something, and it makes them uncomfortable, and she knows it.
Secrets: She can no longer charge the batteries that power her magical equipment, and is currently running on fumes.
5. Buddy, the Actual Elected Mayor
Overview: Not a wizard, not a mobster, but in deep with the ’Valizzi regardless.
Appearance: A broad-shouldered, square-chinned, deep-voiced, white-toothed perfect politician.
Abilities: Buddy commands local law enforcement and municipal services.
Talents: People trust Buddy, unless they know him well.
Mannerisms: When he's thinking, Buddy fiddles with a fancy gold fountain pen, occasionally dropping it and surreptitiously retrieving it.
Interactions: Buddy will readily agree to any seemingly-fair deal, but won't do any work to uphold his end of a bargain.
Knowledge: Buddy knows just the right words to sway an audience, or the right gestures to get their attention.
Ideals: Buddy believes in the status quo and in his city. He believes that all of its faults are necessary, and that he can protect it.
Bond: Buddy knows who got him elected.
Secrets: Buddy knows where the bodies are buried.
6. Ruby
Overview: Ruby is a promising young wizard that the ’Valizzi is actively recruiting.
Appearance: She has ankle-length black hair and wears baggy clothing, but she's in there somewhere.
Abilities: Ruby knows a charm to silence her movement at will.
Talents: Ruby learns quick, be careful what spells you let her see.
Mannerisms: When she's not talking, Ruby stands unnervingly still.
Interactions: You can rely on Ruby if she says she'll do something, but she doesn't say much.
Knowledge: She has some idea what the magical abilities of everyone else in the wizard mafia are, and how they work.
Ideals: Ruby values novelty, and will want to try anything new that she hasn't seen before.
Bond: The ’Valizzi bankrolled her magical education, and she's working off that debt one job at a time.
Secrets: Ruby wants out, and will leave once her obligations are fulfilled.
Thoughts
I really like the 5e method of defining an organization, which I first saw used in Krevborna and Cinderheim, so it was a natural fit for defining the organization. Then I thought I'd try the 5e method for defining NPCs also, which ended up being a lot more work than I would normally put into a single NPC.
