Today I’m going to take a look at DM1 – Prestige Groups for Greyhawk by Derek Long. This is a 17 page pdf with bookmarks (yay!), some color interior art (public domain), and a two-column layout.
This is a really useful and well-done booklet that describes a number of prestige groups; organizations that characters can join (or be brought into) that provide real mechanical benefits rather than just being for flavor (“Flavor is free!” as the author humorously says at the beginning.)
Each prestige group has qualifying conditions (what is needed to become a member), reaction elements (how your membership in the group will be dealt with by members of other groups), feats, and upgrades that allow the character to advance within the group and get more benefits that way. Several examples of prestige groups are given, including the Brotherhood of the Claw (granted by the leader of the tribes in the Burneal Forest), a generic section on knightly orders, the Greyhawk Guild of Wizardry, Royal College of Rel Mord, the Fists of Stonefist (or Stonehold, as we old timers call it), Knights of the Hart, Holy Shielding, and the Watch, and finally a Red Howl Warrior, also related to the Burneal Forest. The prevalence of the Burneal Forest should be explained by the author’s previous work, DB1 – The Burneal and the North (both of the Burneal-connected prestige groups are found in that book, but the others are new to this book). The book ends with prestige group feats and a brief section on faction bastions.
This is a terrific book for your 5E game, and could easily be converted for use with other editions, too. Well worth the $2.49.
You can purchase the pdf here.
