“Sure, you get to travel to exciting locales and uncover lost treasure. Sure, sometimes some of that treasure winds up in your saddlebag. But really it’s all about helping the kids.”
—Engar “Flat Nose” Trumbell, senior adjunct regional instructor,
Morgrave University constantly sends expeditions to the four corners of the world to dig up ancient treasure, but its faculty members are just a bunch of weak-kneed scholars. They don’t know how to get along in the world. That’s why they bring along people with what they call “experience in the field.” They bring the maps and do the digging—you just make sure they don’t get killed, then take your cut. But it’s tough to make the right contacts to get those gigs. It’s a mean old world out there, and they only want people they can trust. That’s why they come to the Morgrave Outreach Association whenever they can. Once you’re in here, you’ll never lack for good-paying work again.
Morgrave Outreach Association Guildhalls
Morgrave Outreach Association Guildhall of Sharn - The main guildhall.
Morgrave Outreach Association of Stormreach
Morgrave Outreach Association of Regalport
Morgrave Outreach Association of Stormhome
JOINING THE OUTREACH ASSOCIATION
The Morgrave Outreach Association is a guild for adventurers who are interested in acting as guides, guards, and field experts for academic expeditions sponsored by Morgrave University. Their main guildhall is in the University District of Sharn near the Morgrave campus. (The building is owned by the university, but is leased to the association for a reasonable fee.) Large guildhalls stand in Stormreach, Regalport, and Stormhome, with smaller regional guildhalls found in virtually any town or port from which a Morgrave expedition is likely to depart.
Becoming a member is relatively easy. The association isn’t particular about ability, nationality, political persuasion, or even interpersonal skills. They only care about two things—whether or not you can hold your own in the wild, and whether or not you can be trusted to lead a group. The university pays to get expert advisors, and it will stop paying if association members prove to be less competent than the students they’re guiding.
Likewise, the university will take its business elsewhere if association guides abandon their groups at the first sign of trouble—or worse, lead them into the wild only to kill them, steal their equipment, and leave their bodies to rot.
Once you’ve convinced the captain of the master guildhall to take you into the association, you must pay 100 gp in dues. (The association assumes that if you can’t afford the fee, you likely aren’t much of an adventurer.) For this sum, you receive a small medallion that identifies you as a member of the association for one year. The medallion changes from year to year (one year it might be an eagle cast from bronze; the next, a silver coin), and you must pay 100 gp to replace it each year. Possession of a current medallion is considered proof of membership.
Entry Requirements: 6th level in any class.
The Morgrave Outreach Association functions much like an adventurers guild. In other words, each class fills exactly the same niche it does when the characters are adventuring on their own, with the only difference being that in addition to their own welfare, they are also responsible for a group of students and faculty from Morgrave University.
The association does not provide any special training to its members, since it expects them to have enough experience to take care of themselves. It does, however, provide information about the nature of its association with Morgrave University and what standards of behavior and professionalism the association expects of its representatives while in the field. Basically, this behavior amounts to protecting the faculty and students from animals, monsters, natural disasters, and competing academic parties. It does not, however, include protecting those academics from their own foolhardiness. Association members are expected to be civil to university personnel—except if they prove really annoying, when it’s okay to scare them a little. If anything does go catastrophically wrong, the association member must report the incident to the nearest guildhall. Failure to do so is considered dereliction of duty and is grounds for expulsion from the association. The catastrophe will also be blamed on the member in question when reported to the proper authorities.
ASSOCIATION BENEFITS
Being a member of the Morgrave Outreach Association is, in many ways, its own reward. That is, you do not get anything in particular from your membership other than the chance to participate in expeditions that have a high likelihood of being exciting and profitable. What you make of those opportunities is up to you. At the university’s expense, the association provides you with equipment, information, and other necessities for the successful completion of each assignment. Beyond that, though, you are left very much to your own devices.
Goods: The only item that every member of the association receives (upon payment of the association dues) is the membership medallion, which allows them to take on assignments. Beyond that, a member receives whatever gear Morgrave University deems necessary for a particular assignment, plus a weekly stipend (also decided by the university). Members have very little room for negotiating better rates or more equipment, but better access (see below) can often be arranged.
Services: Each guildhall has connections to local laborers who are willing to hire on for an expedition. The association takes care of their salaries. Arrangements can be made for more highly skilled help (spellcasters or other trained characters), but paying for those services could reduce the stipend paid to association members.
Information: The association gives its members all available information about the particular sites, regions, and countries they are sent to. However, this information is sometimes compromised, since it is provided by Morgrave University, and the university guards its secrets jealously. The association makes every effort to confirm the information before presenting the details to its members.
Access: Most important, membership in the the association provides valuable access to historic sites, ancient ruins, and newly discovered natural or magical phenomena. Because the expeditions approve of a reasonable level of profit sharing, a member of the association can walk away from every assignment with a signifi cant bonus, whether in the form of treasure, antiquities, or magic equipment.
PLAYING AN OUTREACH ASSOCIATION MEMBER
There are as many reasons to join the Morgrave Outreach Association as there are reasons to live the life of an adventurer. Members of the organization have proven their capability under fire and have a broad range of experience in the wilder parts of the world. They are more likely to trust their instincts than the book knowledge of academics, and that’s exactly the expertise that the Morgrave expeditions look for (even if faculty members sometimes rankle at being told what to do by “undereducated, grime-encrusted thugs with no sense of history or the importance of the university’s work”).
A member will have very little contact with the association except to pick up new assignments and report the results of completed ones. The association exists as a kind of broker, allowing academic groups to meet individuals with practical expertise. It has no particular agenda, nor any interest in helping its members do anything other than make a steady living. Members of the association are competent and trustworthy, and an assignment taken from the association is likely to be straightforward and unencumbered by political machinations or hidden dangers (other than those found in the wild).
Combat: The Morgrave Outreach association does not have any particular style of fighting. In fact, each individual or group is expected to have its own developed techniques, proven by success in earlier adventures.
Advancement: In most instances, the association does not actively recruit new members. Its reputation for providing high-paying, relatively low-risk assignments is well known among the adventuring community (as is Morgrave University’s reputation for allowing members of its expeditions to pocket the occasional valuable item). Although the association is always willing to accept new members, the fact is that it has enough current members to fill most available assignments. The only time this might not be the case is if an expedition shows up unexpectedly at one of the smaller guildhalls. The local guildmaster might then actively recruit the most competent, reliable help currently available in the area.
Once you have paid your membership dues, what you get out of the Morgrave Outreach Association is up to you. Expeditions leave from most guildhalls at least once a month (and several times per week at the larger sites such as Stormreach). Assignments can vary in length from a week or two (if the group is simply doing a survey of a historic site) to several months (for an extended excavation or renovation of a large site). Occasionally, extended assignments might last for a year or more. These journeys focus on exploration, mapping, or the study of a particular culture.
The association encourages members to be selective when choosing assignments. Once an expedition is under way, an association member is expected to see it through to completion no matter what circumstances might arise. It is unacceptable to abandon faculty and students for any reason, so choosing a mission and group that you will find palatable is important.
Because all assignments are performed for teams from Morgrave University, faculty and students returning to Sharn will carry word of how easy or diffi cult an association member is to work with. After completing a few successful missions, a member (or group of members) might develop a reputation among the university staff. This could result in future expeditions specifically requesting to work with particular members of the association.
Missions: Assignments usually fall into one of three categories—exploration, cultivation, or communication. Exploration assignments are those in which an academic group is visiting a site for the first time or traveling through uncharted territory to identify sites suitable for future exploration. Cultivation missions involve taking a team of faculty and students to thoroughly examine a site and collect interesting specimens, artifacts, and art objects.
This is the most common type of assignment, and the most lucrative as well. A mission of communication is one in which the university team meets with representatives of a foreign culture. This might mean living with a remote tribe, or could involve negotiating with foreign governments or warlords for the right to send future expeditions into their territories.
THE MORGRAVE OUTREACH ASSOCIATION IN THE WORLD
“No matter how many treatises a student reads on a subject or a site, the most important information comes from spending time with someone who has actually been there and returned to tell the tale. Our expeditions are always more rewarding thanks to the Outreach Association. Sometimes experience really is the best teacher.”
—Larrian ir’Morgrave, Master of Morgrave University
The Morgrave Outreach Association is a convenient way to give player characters access to a wide range of adventures and locations. Practically any adventure can be framed as part of a university-sponsored expedition, and the PCs will always know where to go when they find themselves with idle time. The promise of pay over and above a share of any treasure found gives the PCs incentive to take part in adventures they might otherwise have no reason to accept. The association also provides a way to introduce new PCs and supporting characters so that existing PCs have a legitimate reason to accept and trust them.
Organization: The Morgrave Outreach Association is, at best, a loose affiliation. Members do not have any need to gather in great numbers, nor are they expected to make any special commitment to the group. They pay their dues and take assignments whenever it suits their taste. The PCs can function as a whole unit, or can team up with other association members when an assignment requires a specific skill set they do not possess.
The association is run from the main guildhall in Sharn’s University District. Assignments are handed out from there or sent to regional guildhalls to be filled locally.
Many members never visit the main guildhall, taking assignments only through their local branch. More widely traveled members, however, might visit dozens of different guildhalls—stopping in whenever their wanderings bring them to a town that houses one, performing an assignment or two, then moving on to their next destination.
NPC Reactions
The general populace knows very little about the Morgrave Outreach Association, and most people simply assume that it has something to do with Morgrave University. Scholars from other universities and institutions likely treat association members with the same disdain they feel for Morgrave itself. Adventurers might either be interested in fi nding out how to become members, or show contempt for anyone who takes on such mercenary work.
The association does not have any enemies per se, but various scholarly groups hold it in very poor regard. If the university representatives at a local site are seen to be removing, defacing, or trespassing on property held in high regard by the local populace, they and their associates could become targets of derision, ostracism, or even violence.
THE MORGRAVE OUTREACH ASSOCIATION IN YOUR GAME
The Morgrave Outreach Association is not the sort of organization that draws a lot of attention to itself. As such, the association can easily function in the background of a campaign, with the heroes not even hearing about it until they meet an expedition in the field or a local guildhall master offers them an assignment. The DM can introduce the option of membership only when the PCs are ready for it, or make it (and its lucrative assignments) something that lower-level PCs aspire to.
Once the PCs have joined the association, the best way to keep them happy is to provide a steady stream of assignments for them to take. If these assignments offer increasingly better pay, provide the chance to explore interesting and unique locations, and introduce important NPCs, the characters will feel their membership is worthwhile.
Adaptation: If your campaign does not feature Morgrave University, simply change the association into a more generic adventurers guild. Rather than focusing entirely on academic expeditions, the guild would be an organization that any group or person could approach to hire a group of seasoned adventurers for any sort of mission.
Encounters: Encounters can vary widely from assignment to assignment, covering a wide range of possible expeditions. Common missions include exploring a newly discovered ancient temple, capturing a rare species of animal or monster, investigating a mysterious natural or magical phenomenon, and searching for a previous expedition that has gone missing.
Typical Association Guildhall
Guildhalls are usually two- or three-story buildings that resemble inns or private residences. They have a small staff (sometimes consisting solely of the hall’s master) and are not long on comfort. They do, however, provide access to the bare essentials. Association members, university faculty, and their guests can gather comfortably in the common room. Members can stay in the upstairs rooms for one or two days at a time for no fee (extended stays cost the same as renting a room at an inn). The hall is decorated with paintings and trophies from association expeditions.
Every guildhall has maps of the local region, descriptions of known dangers, basic medical supplies, and a supply of masterwork weapons. A well-stocked guildhall might have such amenities as a kitchen and cook, ale, wine, and other spirits, a healer, and local guides. Most guildhalls have connections to local smiths, healers, and merchants who provide association members with discounted services.
An association guildhall can make a good base of operations for a group of PCs. They will always be welcome, they always have a source of work, and they can meet trustworthy NPCs who will carry news of other adventures and events in the world. Indeed, if the PCs decide to settle in a specific town or region, they might be able to become the masters of the local guildhall, or open a new hall of their own.
What do you Know?
Knowledge (Dungeoneering)
DC 15: The Morgrave Outreach Association is an adventurers guild with ties to Morgrave University.
DC 25: The Outreach Association provides adventurers with lucrative university contracts involving escorting scholars and students on dangerous journeys. If you don't mind work as a guide or bodyguard, and you don't mind coddling some weak-kneed academics, it's good work.
Knowledge (Local)
DC 10: Morgrave University has a reputation as a place to study the history of Xen'drik and it sponsors a large number of academic expeditions to Xen'drik and other dangerous locales. The university often employs adventurers as bodyguards and guides on such expeditions.
DC 15:The Morgrave Outreach Association is an organization tied to Morgrave University. It is a general intership or apprenticeship program conection students with non-academic mentors.
DC 20: More accurately the Outreach Association is basically an Adventurer's Guild that receives regular contracts to escort university expeditions of scholars and students on dangerous expeditions - often to Xen'drik, but sometimes closer to home. The university pays the association to provide what are essentially guides and bodyguards to these expeditions.
DC 25: The Morgrave Outreach Association's main guildhall is in the University District of Sharn, near campus. It also maintains guildhalls in Stormreach, Regalport and Stormhome, as well as smaller halls in other towns and ports near sites of interest to Morgrave scholars.
Knowledge (nobility and royalty)
DC 30: The Morgrave Outreach Association fell on bad times shortly after the end of the Last War, when it was blamed for the disappearance of one of King Boranel's nephews, Lujaad ir'Wynarn, in the wilds of Xen'drik. The association seems to have recovered from that scandal, and it is said that Lujaad is none other than the infamous sky pirate whose exploits run in several chronicles.
Source: Player's Guide to Eberron
