The Lighthouse Organisation - Clubs and Congregations (RPG Blog Carnival)

Answering the RPG Blog Carnival prompt on Clubs and Congregations from Codex Anathema I decided to pull out a faction that I had run against my PCs for the first 'season' of my current home campaign.

From the prompt post, grace of Google Translate "All campaign settings, whether official or original to each DM, are filled with a wide variety of larger organizations: religious cults, merchant guilds, arcane cabals, and state governments being the most typical examples. [S]hare ideas about your favourites, comment on how you handle them in your campaign, or show us your creation. [...] What makes the organization unique? What is your role in the world and how do you stand out in it? What benefits does it grant to those who belong to it? How do members interact with non-members? Do you use special rules like Renown or Piety with them?"

For a faction, I am going to run through the prime-adversary for the first cycle of my home campaign which was 'the Lighthouse'. Initially a shadowy organisation identified only as the hidden hand assisting other bad actors the players spent a large chunk of effort back-tracking clues, running down research and then leading the palace guard on raids to finally pull its teeth. Below is a log of the first 58 sessions of the campaign, the city-based portion, with red tags indicating a Lighthouse focussed session.

What makes the organization unique?
Originally an archmages servants and minions, as he fell into obsession, the minions locked him in his own laboratory and took over operations themselves. Originally an action of self-preservation, the Lighthouse then sought new goals, some of which was to enrich itself. What I liked about it was sketching out the organisation as the archmage would have set up to suit them - and then lopping the archmage off the top and trying to figure out how this cellular organisation with a mixed bag of assets would function.

What is the organisations role in the world and how does someone stand out in it? Starting as a vehicle for at archmage to get things done, it became an espionage machine and then twisted into a part-criminal, part-political organisation. I realise writing it down that I might be writing about an old ex-cold war intelligence directorate but I had not thought of that until now. By the time the players ran into it parts of the organisation were pursuing old goals of the archmage that were never countermanded, parts were indulging themselves in trying to get rich and others were following deeper political goals with actors that had been trying to influence the archmage before.

I built it out using a cellular structure - there were the old archmages chief minions, each now heading up a cell that did different things. There was the charismatic rebel, interfacing with a disaffected bunch of locals in the players home province. There was the spymaster with his remaining sneaky agents. There was the power-player, never unmasked, for whom this was one of a number of cats-paws hi interacted with. There were the smugglers who had been the logistics support for everyone else but were now out to make coin for themselves.

The key unique asset they had was 'The Lighthouse' a tower with a magical front door that was a travelling portal which moved from location to location every month.

For members of the Lighthouse, the path to success and recognition within the organisation varies with what cell they were part of. In all cases, keeping their membership hidden and excelling at the fieldcraft of operating clandestinely were critical

What benefits does it grant to those who belong to it? For members of the Lighthouse, the benefits were a broad range of covert support for whatever their pet causes were. Few were members for coin only, most had some cause they believed in that was in some way aligned with their role in the organisation. In return for doing their part, the could trust that a hidden hand was pushing their agenda behind the scenes, perhaps along channels very different to the one that a given member occupied.

Day-to-day benefits were not spectacular for members - there was no wealth of coin or luxurious living arrangements being handed out.

How do members interact with non-members? Most members live another life and are only part of the Lighthouse as a sideline. They get their instructions and messaging and then work independently and covertly to carry out their task. Activities the players discovered included depositing jars with magical amulets into public meeting locations to increase strife among organisations that supported the players. Another was smuggling agents from another foreign power into the players city to cause havoc. Another was inciting rebellion amongst a group of under-privileged subjects. Another was supporting cultists of evil gods within the realm of the players own noble house. The over-arching goal was to make the players noble house that the archmage had thought snubbed him look incompetent and weak.

Do you use special rules with them? I never used any special mechanics, they just used reasonable spycraft for a high magic world. No member knew many other members. They had extensive cut-outs with communication by bird messenger, dead drops or other one-way-only messaging. The most complex things about the Lighthouse was figuring out what it knew about what was going on as the players began to close in on it. The cellular system that made it hard to find also made it difficult to propagate word fast enough to react. They had to make some brute force moves which hacked off and abandoned chunks of their organisation as they tried to escape the players attentions.

Effectiveness in game The Lighthouse was a pretty effective foil for the players as it had them jumping at shadows and working hard to ferret out who they could trust. The players had access to extensive military power in the form of their house and the city guards so they could drop the hammer whenever they found a foe but the Lighthouse was hard to pin down. Going back over my notes to write this, broadly there were four 'arcs' - figuring out they were up against some sort of organisation, finding the Lighthouse itself and raiding it, breaking the conspiracies and hunting down the last of the agents at large. Eventually after a series of raids, stake-outs and the hiring of other adventurers the players managed to dismantle most of the active parts facing them, defang the major plots and enjoy an anti-climactically smooth dynastic wedding that the archmage had been seeking to prevent all along.