I’ve sold ice in Icewind Dale.
— Secretarian’s boast
A secretarian’s focus is on people — and all the potential value that might be wrung out of them. Every person met outside a franchise is a potential customer to a secretarian, who does whatever they can to bring that relationship to fulfillment. A secretarian seeks always to promote their franchise and gain greater value than they give. They have the skills to negotiate with subemployees, temporary hirelings, seasonal staff, and other humanoid (usually) resources. When staff members have problems, the secretarian is the one who patiently listens (or at least pretends to) until everything calms down.
As a secretarian, you are respected for having the fortitude to listen to both customers and coworkers without going insane. You help advance your franchise by keeping staff happy (enough), hiring competent (enough) workers, coming up with slogans and catchphrases, launching marketing schemes, and getting jingles and slogans stuck in customer’s heads. And while your superiors don’t officially condone undermining the branding efforts of other organizations, no one can argue with the effectiveness of that approach.
Noteworthy Secretarians: Certainty Dran, Dunbar of Spreck
Essential Functions: Extract information; assess the strengths and weaknesses of others
Position Proficiency: In addition to the proficiencies noted below, you can add your proficiency bonus to an ability check to convince a suspicious crowd of your good (or at least non-evil) intentions, encourage franchise hirelings to work faster, or improvise a jingle extolling the virtues of your franchise.
The Secretarian
| Franchise Rank | Features |
|---|---|
| 1 | Proficiencies and Starting Equipment, Sending Stone |
| 2 | Portfolio Keeper, Rumor Mill |
| 3 | Cards of Sending, Improved Rumor Mill |
| 4 | Always Hiring, Charming Introduction |
Proficiencies and Starting Equipment
As a rank 1 secretarian, you gain proficiency with one of the following of your choice: gaming set, musical instrument, or disguise kit.
Head office also grants you the use of a tool kit for your chosen proficiency, a collection of sales brochures, a set of business cards, a metal bell, and a set of fine clothes..
My daughter Certainty created the secretarian role. Proved it out as a concept. I told her we didn’t need them. I was wrong.
Sending Stone
Also at rank 1, you are given use of an Acquisitions Incorporated Sending Stone, an uncommon magic item that resembles a gemstone in a bold setting. It functions like a normal Sending Stone, except that it has no matching stone and allows communication with Head Office, specific secretarians you know, and the secretarian nearest your location. You must succeed on a DC 15 Intelligence (Arcana) check to establish contact. Once the stone is successfully used, it can’t be used again until the next dawn.
Making contact with another secretarian assumes that they are in possession of their own Sending Stone.
Quirks of Your Sending Stone
| d8 | Quirk |
|---|---|
| 1 | It’s a flip stone. |
| 2 | It gets great reception everywhere except in your headquarters. |
| 3 | It sometimes picks up other magical conversations. |
| 4 | It’s the perfect size, shape, and weight to be used as a skipping stone. |
| 5 | It heats up when you use it, to the extent that it once burned through your gloves. |
| 6 | It has an obnoxious ringtone that you can’t work out how to change. |
| 7 | It fails to notify you of incoming messages except for a faint pulsating glow. |
| 8 |
It’s voice activated, so that every time you talk to someone, it tries to send a message to someone else. |
Portfolio Keeper
At rank 2, you gain the use of a weathered leather pouch that is an uncommon magic item. The portfolio keeper holds and organizes notes, brochures, and business cards bearing your contact information. It also has an inexhaustible supply of brochures related to your franchise’s current branding scheme.
When you meet someone for the first time, their details and a rough sketch are magically stored on a small parchment card in the portfolio keeper. You can access the details of any such stored card as a bonus action.
Sun Elf Secretarian (Barbarian)
Spreck isn’t a real place, but Dunbar knows most people won’t check. They’ll see the “of” in there and think, “Spreck, you say! Sounds fancy.” Maintaining a protective patina of efficiency around himself, the franchise, and the larger organization is his specialty. Secretarians talk to each other more than they talk to their own party members. But that works out in the end, because the secretarian network’s limitless perspectives mean that the network often knows more about franchisees than they do themselves.
Rumor Mill
Also at rank 2, whenever your franchise begins a major quest or mission, make a DC 15 Intelligence (history) check. On a success, you can learn up to three rumors related to creatures or organizations involved in the mission, which come to you through your sending stone. These rumors reflect current or historical knowledge possessed by Acquisitions Incorporated or the organization’s many contacts.
Cards of Sending
At rank 3, the power of your portfolio keeper becomes more potent, making it a rare magic item. When you give out a business card stored in your portfolio keeper, you can choose to have the card allow its recipient to contact you through your sending stone as if they had cast a sending spell. A business card loses this power seven days after it has been given out, and no more than five cards can have this power at one time.
You can also use your sending stone to cast sending and contact anyone who has one of your business cards. Once you use this feature of the stone, you cannot use it again until dawn seven days later.
Improved Rumor Mill
At rank 3, when you use your Rumor Mill feature, the DM provides you with a sense of which parts of a particular rumor are inaccurate, if any. You do not necessarily learn the truth behind those false rumors.
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