Faction Agent 5e
Many organizations active in the North and across the face of Faerûn aren't bound by strictures of geography. These factions pursue their agendas without regard for political boundaries, and their members operate anywhere the organization deems necessary. These groups employ listeners, rumormongers, smugglers, sellswords, cache-holders (people who guard caches of wealth or magic for use by the faction's operatives), haven keepers, and message drop minders, to name a few. At the core of every faction are those who don't merely fulfill a small function for that organization, but who serve as its hands, head, and heart.
As a prelude to your adventuring career (and in preparation for it), you served as an agent of a particular faction in Faerûn. You might have operated openly or secretly, depending on the faction and its goals, as well as how those goals mesh with your own. Becoming an adventurer doesn't necessarily require you to relinquish membership in your faction (though you can choose to do so), and it might enhance your status in the faction.
Source: Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide
Skill Proficiencies: Insight and one Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma skill of your choice, as appropriate to your faction
Tool Proficiencies: None
Languages: Two of your choice
Equipment: The badge or emblem of your faction, a copy of a seminal faction text (or a code-book for a covert faction), a set of common clothes, and a pouch containing 15gp
Features
Factions of the Sword Coast: The lack of large, centralized governments in the North and along the Sword Coast is likely directly responsible for the proliferation of secret societies and conspiracies in those lands. If your background is as an agent for one of the main factions of the North and Sword Coast, here are some possibilities.
The Harpers: Founded more than a millennium ago, disbanded and reorganized several times, the Harpers remain a powerful, behind-the-scenes agency, which acts to thwart evil and promote fairness through knowledge, rather than brute force. Harper agents are often proficient in Investigation, enabling them to be adept at snooping and spying. They often seek aid from other Harpers, sympathetic bards and innkeepers, rangers, and the clergy of gods that are aligned with the Harpers' ideals.
The Order of the Gauntlet: One of the newest power groups in Faerûn, the Order of the Gauntlet has an agenda similar to that of the Harpers. Its methods are vastly different, however: bearers of the gauntlet are holy warriors on a righteous quest to crush evil and promote justice, and they never hide in the shadows. Order agents tend to be proficient in Religion, and frequently seek aid from law enforcement friendly to the order's ideals, and the clergy of the order's patron gods.
The Emerald Enclave: Maintaining balance in the natural order and combating the forces that threaten that balance is the twofold goal of the Emerald Enclave. Those who serve the faction are masters of survival and living off the land. They are often proficient in Nature, and can seek assistance from woodsmen, hunters, rangers, barbarian tribes, druid circles, and priests who revere the gods of nature.
The Lords' Alliance: On one level, the agents of the Lords' Alliance are representatives of the cities and other governments that constitute the alliance. But, as a faction with interests and concerns that transcend local politics and geography, the Alliance has its own cadre of individuals who work on behalf of the organizations, wider agenda. Alliance agents are required to be knowledgeable in History, and can always rely on the aid of the governments that are part of the Alliance, plus other leaders and groups who uphold the Alliance's ideals.
The Zhentarim: In recent years, the Zhentarim have become more visible in the world at large, as the group works to improve its reputation among the common people. The faction draws employees and associates from many walks of life, setting them to tasks that serve the goals of the Black Network but aren't necessarily criminal in nature. Agents of the Black Network must often work in secret, and are frequently proficient in Deception. They seek aid from the wizards, mercenaries, merchants and priesthoods allied with the Zhentarim.
Safe Haven: As a faction agent, you have access to a secret network of supporters and operatives who can provide assistance on your adventures. You know a set of secret signs and passwords you can use to identify such operatives, who can provide you with access to a hidden safe house, free room and board, or assistance in finding information. These agents never risk their lives for you or risk revealing their true identities.
Suggested Characteristics
Use the tables for the Acolyte background as the basis for your traits and motivations, modifying the entries when appropriate to suit your identity. (For instance, consider the words "faith" and "faction" to be interchangeable.)
Your bond might be associated with other members of your faction, or a location or an object that is important to your faction. The ideal you strive for is probably in keeping with the tenets and principles of your faction, but might be more personal in nature.
Should You Be A Faction Agent?
Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold
This to me should be a whole system, not a background on its own. The Sword Coast’s factions play a major role in the world; people within those factions serve many roles from criminal to soldier to noble. This instead marries the Acolyte background to the lore around each faction and Insight and an Int, Wis, or Charisma skill. It's such a bizarre choice- I’d highly recommend picking a real background, and pledging allegiance to one of these factions instead if you’re in the Forgotten Realms setting.
Feature: Factions of the Sword Coast and Safe Haven
Factions of the Sword Coast just details the factions you can be a part of; it doesn’t provide any unique benefits beyond lore.
Safe Haven helps you find people who work within your faction- in the setting where these factions are playing a major role in the narrative, it can be valuable. If you’re going against a Cult of Elemental Evil or other factionless agency, you may find there aren’t places where this feature functions, even when you’re set in the Sword Coast.
Skills:
Insight can be handy for deducing standing in social situations; its a tool that comes up fairly often when exploring and interacting with peoples for the first time, making it a skill a decent chunk of characters are happy to have.
Getting your choice of an Int, Wis, or Charisma skill is a massive boon. Custom backgrounds offer you two for your choice- this is pretty close to that, as Perception and the social checks are all on the table. If you want an easy option that gives you the skills you want alongside helping you immediately fit into the Sword Coast, this does provide you with that.
Other Proficiencies
Two languages aren’t a good reason to consider this option. They’re way less useful than kits or artisan’s tools which other Player’s Handbook options have. Most creatures speak common, and many tables don’t want to handle the language barrier issues reality often confronts with wide ranges of cultures.
Equipment
There are two notable items: a badge or emblem, and a seminal faction text. These two directly tie you to your faction out the gate with established items. If you aren’t able to engage with the factions in other means, this is about as good a starting point as you could ask for. If those factions aren’t a major part of the world, they become entirely fluff, but good fluff at least.
Bonus Tables
You can’t just interchange “faith” and “faction” and have all of the acolyte tables work. “I quote sacred texts and proverbs in almost every situation” could be reframed to reference your faction’s texts, but there is a fairly large jump you have to make there. Other options like “I would die to recover an ancient relic of my faith that was lost long ago” doesn’t really work at all for some of the factions. There aren’t necessarily “holy faction relics” that directly correlate. There absolutely should be tables, and ideally faction specific background tables. Instead, you have to make do altering the Acolyte options yourself.
All Together
If you have no other way to engage with the factions of the realms and everyone is starting with these kinds of backgrounds, I can see this being a fine enough on ramp to engage with the Sword Coast’s factions in as hands-off a means as possible. Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica and does factions right- I’d highly recommend basing a system off of that instead, and not devoting your background to simply “belonging to an organization”.
Thank you for visiting!
If you’d like to support this ongoing project, you can do so by buying my books, getting some sweet C&C merch, or joining my Patreon.
The text on this page is Open Game Content, and is licensed for public use under the terms of the Open Game License v1.0a.
‘d20 System’ and the ‘d20 System’ logo are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
and are used according to the terms of the d20 System License version 6.0.
A copy of this License can be found at www.wizards.com/d20.