The Dark Sons is a secret guild of artificers and magical weapon producers that operated out of Nymphsview on the coast of southwest Pteris.
Members
Despite having an active membership around the continent of 100 or so, the guild's presence in Nymphsview is packed with servants and slaves who do most of the manual labor, working directly under the instruction of various mages and leaders. The "sweat-shop" in Nymphsview is run by hundreds of Thri-Kreen and Gith, the Gith having been captured in the missions to obtain the crystals that power the guild's psionic towers (see below).
Kreen Guard
The Kreen Guard were elite squadrons of Thri-Kreen employed to work in the undercity of the guild. All four of their hands were bound with Sovereign Glue to a set of Vorpal Swords, ensuring that if they came in conflict with an intruder, it would be a very short battle indeed. Other Kreen roaming the undercity were psionically connected to Orbs of Annihilation, following intruders and ensuring again that any shenanigans were dealt with swiftly and lethally.
Infrastructure
Psionic Towers
Magic Items and Weapons can take a lifetime to make, but when many hands and souls work together on an item, it can shorten the creation time dramatically. In order to keep weaponry flowing, Solomon and guild members embarked on a mission to capture powerful psionic artifacts from another plane of existence, strong enough to break the will of even the Gith (it is suspected by the tendril engravings that these artifacts in fact once belonged to the Mind Flayer populations of the Astral Plane).
The artifacts, when properly positioned around the city, allowed Solomon and the Dark Sons to use hundreds of these "illegal aliens" as manual laborers, doing menial tasks to expedite production.
Undercity
Roughly 1,000 feet under Nymphsview lie the massive dungeon of a headquarters in which the Dark Sons headquarter themselves.The undercity housed most of the guild's dangerous weapons and was where operations were carried out, but also held a variety of more mundane chambers, including prison cells (which were coated in anti-magic fields), meeting chambers to talk with potential clients, storage chambers for the guild's food and clothes, as well as food for the monsters.
There were also a few chambers for artificers and enchanters who worked primarily on pushing the boundaries of magic and devising new weaponry for the Dark Sons. And of course there was a small, exclusive study which was the office of the leader Solomon, which only contained a few rare trinkets he personally collected.
Self Destruction
The undercity was rigged with a massive vault of Orbs of Doom, enough to obliterate the whole city, but because of the risks of having so much concentrated power, the self destruct system was rigged with a combination of Force Domes and Sovereign Glue, a secret combination guaranteed to keep whoever flips the switch in place. Once activated, the system has 60 seconds until it explodes, giving time for spies and traitors to be caught if they try it, and time enough for the levers to be reverted.
Operations
The Dark Sons primarily operate out of Nymphsview, with satellite guilds in most major cities in central and western Pteris. Due to competition in the highly metropolitan Oppidan, the Dark Sons don't operate any assassin or criminal services there, but do supply the many criminal organizations with poisons and weapons to do their own bidding, for a price.
Dark Son Arms
The primary income source for the guild, Dark Son Arms was the wing of the operation that negotiated with criminals all around Pteris, with occasional clients realm-wide, about supplying powerful arcane weapons and artifacts to help them with their business. The Dark Sons are strict about who gets their weapons, and their goals are to cause chaos, but not end the realm. As such, any possible customer who seems like the "apocalypse" sort of type is denied service and occasionally turned over to authorities anonymously (or very rarely "dealt with" on the spot).
Examples of the powerful weapons the Dark Son Arms had in the collection includes:
- Orb of Dragonkind
- Deck of Many Things
- Orbs of Doom
- Tome of Leadership
- Wand of Resurrection
- Boon of Undetectability - hides their work from the gods, shielding the entire underground operation with a form of nondetection
- Moonblades, taken from various elf lineages, these sentient weapons were very judgemental and could kill their wielder if it deemed them unworthy.
- Sovereign Glue
- Enchanted Weapons (+1, +2, etc)
Powerful Creatures
The Dark Sons kept a variety of massive monsters and creatures, willing to sell them out to the highest bidder, whether that is a mad wizard filling his labyrinth, or an arcane experimenter trying to get a hold of illegal monsters, or simply a vegeful soul looking to create chaos against those who wronged him. Examples of creatures Nymphsview had in their quarters included:
- Mutated Chimera, who was often used just as much as the personal guard dog of the guild.
- Storm Giant
- Dragon Turtle
Minions
Besides the tanks, the Dark Sons also offered collections of smaller but just as dangerous creatures, including:
The Wyvern
As most wyverns were destroyed in The Holy War, the powerful potent known as Wyvern Poison became one of the rarest and most powerful of the assassin's tools. The Dark Sons, again using their astral travels, were able to secure a wyvern and chain it up in their caverns, ensuring that the realm never went without the poison. For a period of time in the mid 700s PR it is believed that the Dark Sons were the only source of Wyvern Poison in the realm. They sold their poison to all purchasing parties, including The Gathering Shadow and The Council of Wrath.
Behind the Screen
- The name of the Dark Sons is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the Dark Sun campaign setting, which shares many features and traits with the Pteris continent, where the Dark Sons operate.
