Now Live! Rogue's Gallery: the Tusall Gang

My newest product is now available for download on Itch.io and DriveThruRPG. I would really appreciate your support – your purchases support the upkeep of the site and allow me to continue sharing my homebrew publicly.

This product contains a collection of NPCs for use in your roleplaying game campaign. They are designed and themed for use in a "Wild West" fantasy game, though feel free to take inspiration and use them as bandits in whatever sort of game you want.

Each member of the Tusall Gang comes with a 5e-compatible stat block and original character art drawn by Carissa Knickerbocker, as well as system-neutral and setting-neutral descriptions of their preferred tactics, backstory, and motivations for getting involved with a posse of outlaws.

Historical Inspiration

At Veritas Tabletop, we emphasize using history as inspiration for roleplaying, and the Tusall Gang is no exception. It is inspired by the James-Younger Gang, led by Jesse James, in the American West.

While we often think of Jesse James as simply an outlaw motivated by gold, historian T.J. Stiles, in his biography of James entitled Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War, argues that Jesse James' previous experiences fighting for the Confederacy as a bushwhacker during the Civil War – a guerrilla fighter in Missouri on the side of the Confederacy – was far more responsible for his continued raids than a simple profit motive. In essence, he was trying to continue the civil war alone after the fight was over.

This is an important element of the Tusall Gang. In my setting for my home game, there has just been a major war between the supporters of arcane magic and the forces of religious magic. Astor Tusall, leader of the gang, fought on the side of the religious. As a result, his continued criminal activity is also largely centered on continuing that fight as he tries to "liberate" religious artifacts from their homes. While I want this supplement to be setting-neutral, I do suggest some guidelines in the document, including that some sort of ideological war about religion has just happened and that Astor was involved in it.

This makes Astor a far more interesting villain than a simple bandit – or even a bandit trying to loot religious artifacts. Astor is fighting a war, and he uses that to justify his actions. Even if the players never really explore or try to find out about Astor's history or his reasoning, it gives a GM the opportunity to really ground Astor and his twisted sense of morality. Astor does not flinch at killing because, to him, he is constantly on the battlefield. All's fair in love and war.

The Rules Stuff

While most of the descriptions – the backstory, the tactics, the motivations – are all system-neutral, I also wanted to provide stat blocks. The included stat blocks are compatible with Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) 5e, and the gang as a whole is about a medium challenge for a party of 4 5th-level adventurers. Right now, I don't intend to adapt them into any other rules system but feel free to steal and modify them for home use in whatever system you want.

An important note is that, if you want to use the gang as a villain later on, they have a built-in way of advancing and growing more powerful: religious artifacts. This is how I advanced them in my home game. The gang is looking for religious magic items to steal, and consequently, making them a more difficult fight – with built-in rewards – is as easy as giving them magic items that increase their damage/hit points to an appropriate level.

Final Words

This is not going to be a full-length post because the real 'meat' of the article would be all that is contained in the actual product. Please head over to Itch.io or DriveThruRPG to download Rogue's Gallery: the Tusall Gang – it is only $1 for 5 fleshed-out NPCs whose tactics support one another to make a formidable enemy party.

Thank you again for supporting Veritas Tabletop!