Ok, just as a little side filler thing I had some Aspis Consortium agents hire some thugs to try and kill any one of the group of PC's. There was essentially no real danger and I'm not even sure if any of the PC's got hurt.
There were a lot of plots, betrayals, greed, power-mad, and just generally unpleasant things going on right then. I hadn't intended it to be anything major. It was just to show a general "Hey there are a whole lotta not very nice people after the same thing as you."
But for some reason, the group really latched onto that one thing as particularly offensive. And they want to go after the Aspis Consortium in a big way.
I might string together a few of the PFS scenarios that go up against the Aspis. But I'm also looking for more details about the organization.
How large? Where strongest? What are they like? Typical builds? How are they organized? Stuff like that. I have the Inner Sea World Guide. But it doesn't really have all that much in the way of details. Any other material out there?
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Aspis Consortium = Pathfinder Society's slightly more evil twin. They often work to actively subvert the goals of the Pathfinders. They carry badges that are their equivalent to Wayfinders. It's fun to kill them, collect the badges, and use them to make jewelry :)
Lets see, from what I've learned during PFS scenarios:
Hierarchically, they're broken up into 3 "tiers", Bronze, Silver, and Gold. Their badge will be made up of the corresponding metal. These are only actual members, and most of the heavy lifting is done by hired mercenaries working at the direction of a bronze or silver. Bronze are the general working level agents, the equivalent of a PC Pathfinder. Silver would be over a large city or region, similar to a VC. Gold are the top leadership.
Aaand that's about the limit of what I know about them. We're probably going to find out quite a bit more in PFS Season 7 - two of the major scenarios at GenCon directly concern Aspis, and the rumor is that Season 7 as a whole is going to center around their activities.
Thanks Akari.
Do the Aspis agents you've seen have a 'type' usually encountered?
I mean are the usually multiclass rogues, wizards, or something like that?
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The only real "type" I've gathered is scumbag :) Aside from that, they could be anything a non-good PC could be - you won't find a Paladin in Aspis, but you could find most anything else. There is a PFS scenario where you pose as Aspis agents (4-07 Severing Ties), serving as bronze agents working for the silver agent that's running Aspis operations for the city; as far as I can tell, they don't comment one way or another on the PC's class, so it doesn't seem like they are surprised by PCs of any class that show up.
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They do have a prestige class you could check out - the Aspis Agent (from Paths of Prestige). It advances certain classes at half rate (rogues, bards, inquisitors) and has a partial focus on rigging and setting off traps.
I created a rival group of Aspis Agents that worship Zyphus for Serpent's Skull - it's interesting how well the two mesh. A Reese's Peanut Butter Cup of "accidents". :D
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Aspis Consortium = Pathfinder Society's slightly more evil twin. They often work to actively subvert the goals of the Pathfinders. They carry badges that are their equivalent to Wayfinders. It's fun to kill them, collect the badges, and use them to make jewelry :)
Lets see, from what I've learned during PFS scenarios:
Hierarchically, they're broken up into 3 "tiers", Bronze, Silver, and Gold. Their badge will be made up of the corresponding metal. These are only actual members, and most of the heavy lifting is done by hired mercenaries working at the direction of a bronze or silver. Bronze are the general working level agents, the equivalent of a PC Pathfinder. Silver would be over a large city or region, similar to a VC. Gold are the top leadership.
Aaand that's about the limit of what I know about them. We're probably going to find out quite a bit more in PFS Season 7 - two of the major scenarios at GenCon directly concern Aspis, and the rumor is that Season 7 as a whole is going to center around their activities.
Looking forward to learning more about them.
They also have electrum agents, but only as part of the ultra-secretive Conference Z (see Occult Mysteries). Very X-Files, research into aliens, interdimensional events, and other esoteric fields. They also have an MiB-style agency working for them. Interesting stuff. :)
Anything you imagine the villains in an Indiana Jones movie to do, could work for the Aspis Consortium. Either that, or think of basically any really scummy company (fictional or otherwise) and you;ll have some good ideas.
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The Aspis Consortium is Golarion's megacorporation. Founded hundreds of years ago in Cheliax, they've since grown worldwide. A massive organization with vast resources and hordes of lower-level underlings to do their bidding. Many times Aspis is behind something and nobody knows it; they like to hire people anonymously. Even their official agents don't typically know much about what's going on; the Consortium's biggest plots are intricate, long-term, and tend to be very VERY lucrative.
They're evil capitalists that are completely unhinged; profit is their ONLY motive. Did you see Pirates of the Caribbean? The East India Trading Company works very well for some inspiration. As do the various historical counterparts to that organization. Did you see the Robert Downey, Jr. Sherlock Holmes movies? Professor Moriarty would not be out of place in the Consortium.
These are the guys that start wars in the middle east to jack up oil prices and create demand for their munitions. These are the guys that bomb planes and short-sell the airline stock, while introducing some alternative transportation solution to the market. These are the guys that are slowly buying up all the unusable land out in the desert because it's secretly got the water resources for the entire region underneath. And that's just the big stuff. At the lower level, they've got their fingers in dang near everything. If there's a pocket, their hand is in it. If there's a pie, their fingers are there. If there's a politician to be bought, they own them.
If your players want to go after Aspis, they might discover they're in for way more than they bargained for. Or maybe they never do find out. Maybe it's just a little thing, and they put them out of their mind, only for it to come back in a big way later on. Maybe the hit was a botched job, but maybe it was never supposed to succeed. With Aspis, all you can know for certain is that money's changing hands.
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The Aspis Consortium is Golarion's megacorporation. Founded hundreds of years ago in Cheliax, they've since grown worldwide. A massive organization with vast resources and hordes of lower-level underlings to do their bidding. Many times Aspis is behind something and nobody knows it; they like to hire people anonymously. Even their official agents don't typically know much about what's going on; the Consortium's biggest plots are intricate, long-term, and tend to be very VERY lucrative.
They're evil capitalists that are completely unhinged; profit is their ONLY motive. Did you see Pirates of the Caribbean? The East India Trading Company works very well for some inspiration. As do the various historical counterparts to that organization. Did you see the Robert Downey, Jr. Sherlock Holmes movies? Professor Moriarty would not be out of place in the Consortium.
These are the guys that start wars in the middle east to jack up oil prices and create demand for their munitions. These are the guys that bomb planes and short-sell the airline stock, while introducing some alternative transportation solution to the market. These are the guys that are slowly buying up all the unusable land out in the desert because it's secretly got the water resources for the entire region underneath. And that's just the big stuff. At the lower level, they've got their fingers in dang near everything. If there's a pocket, their hand is in it. If there's a pie, their fingers are there. If there's a politician to be bought, they own them.
If your players want to go after Aspis, they might discover they're in for way more than they bargained for. Or maybe they never do find out. Maybe it's just a little thing, and they put them out of their mind, only for it to come back in a big way later on. Maybe the hit was a botched job, but maybe it was never supposed to succeed. With Aspis, all you can know for certain is that money's changing hands.
A masterful summary. :)
Hmm... Sounds intriguing. But I'm not sure I'm good enough to handle something like this.
I'll have to think about what I can do and talk with the players to see how much into this they really want to get.
Thanks folks!
If you think this too daunting, they can still fight them without trying to bring the whole organization down. You can still scale the campaign/series of adventures to their challenge ability.
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If you think this too daunting, they can still fight them without trying to bring the whole organization down. You can still scale the campaign/series of adventures to their challenge ability.
Indeed.
Aspis are all about the bottom line. You just have to do enough damage to convince them that you aren't worth sinking further resources into. They might even pay you off... :)
Will there ever be an actual arc or season or special where PC's really go to war with the Consortium? I know that the Society and them are always at odds but i mean a really war between the two? A win or lose all out fight. I think that would be really cool and while the loser of this war would be very weak at the end i dont think it would be fully destroyed but it would take a while to rebuild.
Ok, I sent a text and got a response from a couple of them. They don't seem really bent on taking out the whole Aspis Consortium. But they very much want to find the jack-hole that placed the hit order on them.
So that is much less intricate and doable for me. I'll probably just string together some scaled up PFS scenarios, where they are getting the next name on the list then a fight to dig into some hidden urban lair to get the Silver Aspis that gave the order.
I'll see about getting the Aspis PrC for some of them (or at least the boss).
Thanks guys you helped.
