Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything is well into its international release and adventurers all over the world have been itching at getting ahold of a copy. Wizards of the Coast’s newest rules expansion adds new magic items, subclasses, feats, spells, and more!
One of the most interesting features added in with Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything is the Group Patron feature. Group Patrons are organizations or powerful entities that allow your players to work for them in exchange for boons, gifts, resources, and more! The previous entry in this series covered the Aristocrat group patron, whilst the one below will cover the Criminal Syndicate group patron.
With the Dungeons and Dragons universe being permeated with seedy guilds and dangerous enclaves, Criminal Syndicates have a wide range of organizations that it can cover, from Thieves Guilds to Assassins Societies to Pirate Fleets.
With this particular patron comes a wide variety of perks associated with it, as detailed below:
Assignments – The syndicate doesn’t pay you directly, but it assigns you to particular tasks on behalf of its clients or the organization. Someone hires the syndicate to perform a task (such as an assassination), and the syndicate passes 85 percent of the fee on to your group. If the aim is to enrich the syndicate (such as by pulling off a heist), you have the privilege of keeping 85 percent of what you steal. Other syndicates take more or less than a 15 percent share, at the DM’s discretion.
Contraband – You have access to your syndicate’s business in contraband, such as poisons or narcotics. You don’t receive a discount on these goods, but you can always find someplace to purchase them.
Fences – Members or associates of your syndicate are skilled at disposing of stolen goods, and you have access to this service as well. Fences are useful for selling not just illicit goods but also expensive items such as works of art and magic items. In the case of magic items, this allows you to delegate the work of finding a buyer (a downtime activity described in the Dungeon Master’s Guide and Xanathar’s Guide to Everything) to the fence. When using the syndicate’s fences, you run no risk of a double-cross or other mishaps in finding a buyer, but the syndicate takes 20 percent of the sale price as a finder’s fee.
Safe Houses – The syndicate maintains safe houses or other secret hiding spots across a wide region. Your group knows how to locate these nondescript redoubts and can maintain a poor lifestyle in one for no cost. Revealing a safe house, whether purposefully or by accident, causes you to lose favor with the syndicate and may see you banned from using them.
Syndicate-Owned Businesses – The syndicate owns several businesses, primarily as fronts for laundering money. When you buy from one of these businesses, you get a 5 percent discount. The DM decides what goods and services are available
Quests that the Criminal Syndicate provides to players will make use of their abilities in bigger assignments that have the potential to reward big time. Small robberies and pocket-picking are chump change compared to the heists you can pull off here.
If you like this content and would like to see more, it’s recommended to visit the Unearthed Arcana portion of the DnD website for more information.
