The Unbroken Seal
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The Unbroken Seal
The rain pelted down in lashing waves, the same campfire struggling in vain to stay alight. Kolo ran his fingers around his neckerchief, “I don’t like this Shun’l, I’ve had the hairs on the back of my neck all day”
His dragonborn partner just grunted in reply, her eyes narrowed into the dark night.
Gangrap giggled in his bounds between the two, their thin lizard tongue licking over their snout, “Hehe, the gang’s coming for you, they’ll want me back, you’ll be dead by dawn guard”
“Not a guard” Shun’l replied without looking around, “and shut up unless you want the gag again”
Gangrap tries a different tack, “Y’know I’m innocent, just an innocent passerby caught up in all this hubbub”
“Don’t care, not my job” Shun’l growls back.
A flash of lightning cracked out over the road, illuminating three figures crawling slowly towards them, as Shun’l nods with grim satisfaction.
“Kolo, get your bow up, they’re coming”, as she hefts her staff, the arcane magics crackling along its length.
With a sudden burst, the first skulking figure leaped out of the gloom, a dark blade in its hand, but with a sudden thunk, an arrow sprouts from an eyesocket, as Kolo finds his first target.
The other two sprint in, Shun’l unleashes a gout of flash at the nearest, their burning clothes lighting up the night, their scream echoing around the hollow. They stumble, the arcane flames slowly burning the life out them.
The last attacker, seeing their two allies die so quickly and easily, throws an apologetic look at Gangrap before turning tail and running into the night.
Kolo releases the breath he’d be holding all this time, sitting back down by the fire, as Shun’l resumed her watch, another night in The Unbroken Seal.
The Unbroken Seal
Many cities have prisons, many towns have a guardhouse. But for places too smaller for even that, there is The Unbroken Seal. A trusted and bonded guild of traveling jailers, taking the criminals from where they are arrested, to where they will be locked up.
The Unbroken Seal operates two-person teams, working together so that one can rest while the other watches, making sure their charge doesn’t get a chance to escape or to be broken free by their allies. The members of the seal are willing, able, and keen to deal out lethal damage to anyone attempting to interfere with their prisoner.
They attract a certain sort of mercenary, hardy and stoic, with a dogged determination to do their job - those who lose a charge don’t get a second chance. You can tell them by their green neckerchiefs, tied loosely around their necks, each will carry a signed letter of authority, charged with their duty.
Importantly, the Seal doesn’t get involved in any matters of guilt or innocence, they leave that to the guards and the courts, they are just the transporters, not any sort of judge.
The Unbroken Seal
This week’s invention comes from a really quite practical place - of needing a simple way to move a party of players from a local town to a big city and to make that journey something interesting. I didn’t want to make it something we just abstract away, ‘you turn up in the big city without incident’, or throw some unconnected random encounter at them. And so I hit upon the idea of a prisoner transfer, and so The Unbroken Seal came about.
I’m always a fan of Guilds in games, it gives a continuity of contacts for the players, a new town isn’t entirely a fresh start, they already have had an in, so the idea of a guild or clan struck me, of who moves prisoners from small towns to big cities, and offers the players a chance to join up.
From a table point of view, The Unbroken Seal works as either an ally or enemy, depending on the temperament of your party. For mine, they joined up as members and had to escort a criminal across the wilds, whilst fighting off ever-increasing attacks from that criminal’s old gang. But maybe your players are the ones attempting a rescue, to break an ally free of the Seal, before they reach town.
Whichever way you play it, I hope you find a place for The Unbroken Seal at your table.