Golgari Agent (Variant): Leech Image

You are a member of a teeming horde — one small part of a sprawling organism. Just as you are part of the swarm, the swarm is part of a larger ecosystem, a never-ending cycle of life, death, rot, and rebirth. You have spent your life in the slow churn of that ecosystem, in the dark places of the city where the messy parts of existence are on display. There is little squeamishness among the Golgari, no fear of death or taboo about the dead, just a fierce affirmation of the Great Wheel and all it entails.

All that being said, the Swarm are not necessarily trying to see their members crushed early or unnecessarily by said Wheel. They are no strangers to injury, disease and illness. Leeches - midwives, apothecaries, herbalists, back-street bonesaws and the like - are who many of the labor class Golgari turn to when afflicted so.

"A Leech? Right useful, they are. Set a bone, cut the green an' black out of a wound. Maybe even be able to brew up a little firewater to numb the pain down some first. Right useful indeed."

 
Skill Proficiencies: Nature, Medicine
Tool Proficiencies: Choose one of Herbalism Kit or Brewer's Supplies
Languages: Choose one of Elvish, Giant, or Kraul
Equipment: A Golgari insignia, a healer’s kit, a herbalism kit or brewer's supplies, a token of appreciation given to you by a patient or their family (choose one trinket as appropriate) OR a scroll case or old journal stuffed full of notes from your studies, a set of common clothes, and a belt pouch containing 10 gp worth of mixed coins.
 
Feature: Comfort of the Swarm

Your talents have earnt you the general respect of the Swarm and can make you a highly sought after resource, particularly in remote regions or smaller communities of the Undercity.

Those who recognize your skills or experience may request your services, and may offer you a reward in return should you choose to provide them. You might be able to receive free or discounted food and lodging, or gain access to normally off-limits locations and other favours by leveraging your position as a Leech if your services are needed. 

Thanks to the time you have spent practicing your craft on the sick and injured, you are familiar with all kinds of maladies and afflictions which might burden your patients.  When making a diagnostic Medicine check you do so with advantage.  You also are familiar with and know where to find some of the common herbs, fungi and materials needed to replenish your healing kit.

 
Spell List

For you, the spells on the Golgari Guild Spells table are added to the spell list of your spellcasting class. (If you are a multiclass character with multiple spell lists, these spells are added to all of them.)

Spell Level Spells
Cantrip dancing lights, spare the dying
1st entangle, ray of sickness
2nd protection from poison, ray of enfeeblement, spider climb
3rd animate dead, plant growth
4th giant insect, grasping vine
5th cloudkill, insect plague

Golgari magic is often accompanied by a sickly green glow and a rotting stench.

 
Suggested Characteristics

Members of the Golgari Swarm are unmistakably products of the undercity, ill at ease amid the comforts of civilization. They bring about the same discomfort in others by reminding them of death’s inevitable approach.

d8 Personality Trait
1 Remember, I could kill you in your sleep. Or put centipedes in your bedroll.
2 I like to remind people of their inevitable demise.
3 Sometimes I give voice to the whispers of the rot, which I hear but no one else does.
4 I do my best to discourage anyone from approaching or talking to me.
5 I have accepted my death. Hence, I don’t fear it.
6 Like roots growing through stone, I am relentless and determined in my action.
7 I put my knowledge of anatomy to use by narrating the injuries my enemies suffer in grisly detail.
8 Like a wild animal, I lash out viciously when I’m provoked — and I’m easily provoked.
d6 Ideal
1 Guild. My guild is all that really matters. (Any)
2 Stoicism. All of us are part of the cyclical march of nature, which will continue with or without us. (Neutral)
3 Nature. The natural world is more important than the edifices of the city and civilization. (Neutral)
4 Interdependence. We are all part of nature’s web. (Lawful)
5 Ambition. The time of Golgari ascendance is at hand, and I intend to have a prominent place in the new world order. (Evil)
6 Live and Let Live. Meddling in the affairs of other guilds is a great way to get squashed like a bug. (Neutral)
d6 Bond
1 I cherish the finger of a family member who was petrified by a medusa.
2 I have an identical twin who is as different from me as any person could be.
3 I want to lead one faction of the guild to a new position of dominance.
4 I love spending time in the moss-covered building where I took part in my first reclamation mission.
5 I found something in the sewer that must never come to light.
6 I am forever grateful to the reclaimer who found me floating facedown in the sewer, moments from death.
d6 Flaw
1 Death comes for us all, so you can’t expect me to take care of someone who can’t fight it off.
2 I assume that anyone outside the Golgari looks down on me.
3 I feel a need for revenge against those who enjoy the privilege of living above ground.
4 I don’t bother to couch my opinions in flattering words.
5 I can’t help but pocket any trinket or coin I come across, no matter how worthless.
6 I’m convinced that I’m better and stronger than members of other guilds, isolated as they are from the realities of life and death.
 
 
Contacts

To the extent that the Golgari Swarm acts like a single organism, you are connected to every other member in some way or another. Convinced that the rest of the world is out to get you, you find it easy to form close bonds with your guild mates, and harder to make meaningful connections with others.

Roll twice on the Golgari Contacts table (for an ally and a rival) and once on the Non-Golgari Contacts table.

d8 Contact
1 One of my parents is an elite assassin, a member of the Ochran.
2 I learned combat from a kraul.
3 I know a medusa who is stationed in the guildhall.
4 I had a torrid romance with a spore druid responsible for a large rot farm.
5 There’s a troll in a remote area of the undercity who seems to find me interesting — and who knows more than you’d think.
6 An elf lich is determined to see me become a lich someday, too.
7 A medusa decided it would be more fun to recruit me into the guild than to kill me.
8 I know a findbroker who can locate just about anything, for the right price.
d10 Non-contact
1 An Azorius arrester I literally pulled out of the gutter will do anything for me.
2 Someone joined the Gruul in a battle against the Boros once, and the sergeant of that Boros squad would love to prove that it was me.
3 I had a romance with a Dimir agent whom I still feed secrets to.
4 Roll an additional Golgari contact; you can decide if the contact is an ally or a rival.
5 I joined the Gruul in a battle against the Boros once, and the chief of that small clan thanks me for turning the tide.
6 An Izzet scientist resents that I sold a scrapped invention I found in the sewer.
7 My undercity explorations led me into an Orzhov vault, and a spirit thinks I stole something valuable.
8 I found a baby beast and sold it to a Rakdos wrangler who remains grateful to me.
9 A Selesnya druid and I share an interest in the same garden, and we have enjoyable arguments there.
10 I regularly pick up refuse from beneath a Simic laboratory, and sometimes I talk to the researcher who dumps it there.
 
Golgari Agent (Variant): Leech Image

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