Five Companies

Faction Overview

Great Halruaa has fallen, but its legacy lives on in these five bands of roaming mercenaries, smugglers, traders, and buccaneers. Each possesses a magical vehicle known as a skyship. Tavern talk has it that each company formed around a wizard who escaped Halruaa. The formed Five Companies are a collection of individuals and family clans that value the protection and success of their own which is often measured in the freedom and riches they possess. They are whatever they need to be to get by in this world that is rapidly changing. While they are buccaneers with a code and generally avoid vile crimes to get what they want, they will still take from those who are not strong enough or prepared in this world to put up a fight. Those people are naive and will probably lose their valuables to someone so it might as well be Five Companies.

History

Before the fall of Halruaa, an archmage who attained the of Elder is awarded a Halruaan Skyship and the secrets to recharge them. Tavern talk has it that each company formed around a wizard who escaped the disaster of Halruaa. After the destruction of Halruaa, wizards fleeing from Maeruhal, along with their few skyships, came across the pirate base of Yaulazna. A renegade Halruaan mage had protected the buccaneer haven with powerful magic, but the wards ran amok during the Spellplague, shattering the town and turning part of it into an earthmote. In a brief clash, the refugee Halruaans took the Yaulazna mote and made an accord with the remaining pirates there. At the start, Yaulazna’s folk had five working skyships and a small, highly defensible settlement. They made the Yaulazna Pact, an agreement to protect one another. From their position, they set out to assure their survival, and eventually, the Five Companies were born. Descendants of those who made the Yaulazna Pact almost a century ago run the Five Companies as independent but allied groups. As the heirs of Halruaan magic, the mercenaries count a large number of wizards in their membership. A hired skyship often provides ranged support from the air or other magical services.

Membership

Human arcane lineage from Halruaa mixed with pirate factions (and many races) of Yaulazna has created a wide spectrum of those who have taken the pirate oath of Five Companies. Humans, Halflings, Dwarves with a good-sized minority of Lizardfolk and Halfelven Drow make up their ranks. The leadership of the faction is very much decided by the founding dynasties that formed Five Companies but happily add new members to their ranks from all walks of life. New membership has recently become easier with those joining voluntarily seeking protection or escape from the dangers of the Spellplague that hit the Shinning South especially hard. But the pirates still find members with many good old fashion techniques such as impressment (forced recruitment) or kidnapping which becomes a voluntary contribution to join due to the crew. Joining is often an informal matter of earning the crew's respect and proving your loyalty. After such a time this is done the Captain of the vessel will formalize your test in some celebratory form culminating in the recruit taking an oath to the ship, its captain, and Five Companies. Lastly, their names are being added to the roster back in their stronghold at Yaulazna to finalize their place in Five Companies.

The Companies

Company Bez

Arcane combat is the specialty of Company Bez. Mariss Bez is the current captain of Storm of Vengeance, the company’s skyship, which is known for blistering airborne assaults. The vessel has turned the tide of more than one battle.

Company Errowd

Company Errowd is the most service-oriented of the five. Its wizards perform rituals and offer other magical services, especially in the areas of containment, smuggling, and fast transport. Shield of Savras is the company’s skyship, is famed for showing up right when needed or wanted. Its captain, Jorrz Errowd, possesses great oracular power.

Company Flurrig

Although it engages in war for profit, Company Flurrig maintains a stricter contract policy than its fellows. Captain Ianjo Shton, the descendant of the Flurrig noble line of Halruaa, prefers the moral high ground. That doesn’t mean he and the crew of the Lamassu haven’t been on the wrong side of the law, though.

Company Tundag

The best soldiers of the Five Companies belong to Company Tundag, a mixture of dwarves and humans who originally came up with the idea of the mercenary outfit. Tundag’s ship, Thunder Hammer, flies under the command of the dwarf Kurkar Randred.

Company Yargo

A prominent halfling family, descended from the infamous Pirate King Yargo of old Yaulazna, still leads Company Yargo. The company takes all sorts of work, and its members aren’t reluctant to spill blood for the right price. Buccaneer’s Tear, the skyship captained by the brash Shil Yargo, has been implicated in high seas and overland piracy.

(The pirates of Five Companies' success is linked to their Halruaan lineage and their skyships)

Strongholds

Yaulazna

Yaulazna is a stronghold and trade center carved into the seashore rock of its highly magical earthmote, originally part of the coast of Halruaa. The settlement contains storehouses and merchant holds, as well as housing for the citizens. Old sea caves and excavated pirate hideouts honeycomb the mote. A citadel made up of five towers and a central keep rises from the village’s central square—one tower for each of the Five Companies, the central keep for the Disputers, whose lineage descends from House Jordain. The Disputer enforcers are experts at hand-to-hand combat techniques as they police the Mote of the Five and live to ensure the security of Yaulazna, and the Disputer members of the Pact Council only guide discussion and never vote except to break ties. They are highly skilled at observation and memory, and they have a supernatural ability to redirect attacks aimed at them. They execute the will of the Pact Council against foes of Yaulazna and impose the rule of law even on the Five Companies.
The Ruling Yaulazna is a body known as the Pact Council, formed of ranking members of each company, representatives from the village merchants, and a single member of the Disputers. All council business is conducted in the Halruaan language, which is largely dead outside this enclave. Yaulazna’s best defense is its mobility. The whole mote floats slowly in whatever direction the Pact Council selects. In emergencies, the mote can temporarily cross into the Astral Sea. Yaulazna operates separately from the Five Companies. The town staunchly maintains itself as neutral ground and a center for trade, welcoming all who respect its tenets. It even operates transports to and from the ground when it’s open for commerce.

(The fortress town of Five Companies floats in the Bay of Pirates just southeast of Halruaa)

A notorious collection of skyship sailors, pirates, and wizards. Five Companies operates from their earth mote stronghold Yaulazna and is ruled by the Pact Council. Made up of ranking members of the Five Companies, representatives from the village's merchants, and a single member of the Disputors Table (House Jordain descendants). All business was conducted in the Halruaan language, which was little used outside of Yaulazna since Halruaa's destruction.

Goals

• Protect yours and your own.
• Amass wealth.
• Look for opportunities to seize power.
• Secure and maintain dominion of the skies.

Beliefs

• Five Companies is your family. You watch out for it, and it watches out for you.
• Freedom must be taken, freedom is everything.
• You are the master of your own destiny. Never be less than what you deserve to be.
• The greatest life is found in a unified band/community. Once you cannot know everyone, then it leads to laws that restrict freedom.

Members Traits

A member of the Five Companies thinks of themselves as a member of a family and relies on the Five Companies for resources and security. The ship captains are your patriarchs/matriarchs to be respected, give it to earn it and everyone in your family is important and to be protected. Your family is always by your side, so you do not abandon your family for long periods of time without the permission of your captain. Freedom is everything, you are free to walk away from your oathed family but it is with contempt to be outcasted to never speak or receive help from Five Companies again.

Ranks

• Freebooter (rank 1)
• Skydog (rank 2)
• Cloudsair (rank 3)
• Bosun (rank 4)
• Sky Captain (rank 5)

Homeland

Faerûn - Halruaa

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Halruaa was bordered by mountain ranges on its north, east and west sides, known as the Walls of Halruaa, that acted as natural fortifications around the kingdom. Halruaa was a land of magic, renowned for its electrum mines and its Haerlu wine. The fabled, quiet, and wealthy magocracy was justly depicted as full of wonder. Created by archwizards foreseeing the fall of Netheril, Halruaa combined peace and harmony with the magic powers of their ancestors, but without the taint of their ambitions. Nearly all arcane-casting Halruaans were wizards, with one-third of the total populace having some magical powers.
During the Spellplague, Halruaa was seemingly destroyed. With many of its people were lost to the shifting lands due to the world Abeir appearance back within Toril. Many areas were destroyed with even large cities such as Halagard completely disappearing. The capital of Halarahh destroyed by a series of eldritch meteorites has brought great destruction to the city and nearby lands and unleashed a plagued land right within the city. Many locals refer to spellplagued areas as the Deep Haze which produces many magical anomalies and monstrosities that terrorize the people who have resisted to leave the region

(The origins and main domain of operations for Five Companies is out of their homeland Halruaa)

Location

Halruaa

Skyships

(A Halruaan Skyship now under the banner of Five Companies)

"The skies may be rough, but a pirate's heart is always steady."
— Shil Yargo, Captain of Company Yargo