Magludias Fynch’s Wandering Clockwork Workshop, Miniature Carnival, and Artisan Trade Show is known to a select, secretive few to provide several far less-frivolous, amenities. Amenities only found behind the flashy, noisy, overpriced games, gadgets, and repair services.

Read up on previous machinations of Magludias Fynch!

Magludias Fynch, has no friends and few enduring alliances. Trust is a high-risk currency, rarely exchanged for long in Magludias’s illicit world of ever-shifting loyalties. Two possible exceptions might include Zephii and Top-hat (see previous installment for details) , Fynch’s senior lieutenants.

Fynch primarily maintains a revolving set of associates meant to come and go, live or die. However, some business relations have developed into long-standing bonds of reliability over years. Those who remained discreet steer clear of the law and continue to be commercially viable remain among Magludias’s preferred collaborators and clientele. Some of these are detailed here.

The Belchgirdle Gang

This gang is a culmination of a solidarity movement by a number of primarily halfling street gangs and highway robbers. It consists of a collection of small-time pickpocketing, gambling, and burglary rings, local bandit gangs, and struggling thieves’ guilds. All have been active around nearby towns and cities throughout the region. They are unified and organized under the current “boss of bosses,” Adelbert Belchgirdle.

The gang has grown up town to town and city to city, all the while incorporating numerous bootlegging and smuggling operations (even non-halfling operations) along the way. They’ve begun to operate openly and independently enough to challenge the business interests of older, more expansive underworld organizations, including the violently repressive Cobblefoot Crime Syndicate.

The Belchgirdle gang’s elaborate black market, robbery, and smuggling operations have served Magludias Fynch’s purposes for years.

Captains Gerard-Alain Lucroy and Lord Corvus

These feathered captains are co-owners and co-commanders of four merchant ships outfitted for smuggling: the Nemain, the Babd, the Macha, and the Jackdaw’s Gambit.

The pair employs an exotic, motley array of officers and crew from lands known and unknown. A good number ofravenfolk(see Tome of Beasts 1) operate among them.

The dashing, flamboyant Captain Lucroy (commanding Jackdaw’s Gambit) and the dour, severe Lord Corvus (commanding Nemain) are both clever, seasoned ship captains. When necessary, both can become ruthless and cunning privateers. These two squabbling love birds, with their officers and associates, help Fynch with transnational shipping, correspondence, and overseas travel.

Captain Gerard-Alain Lucroy

Use malphas (storm crow) stats (see Tome of Beasts 1) with the following changes:

Captain Lucroy attacks with his magical, black steel, rapier +1, Whispersteel, which replaces the normal Longsword attack. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, one target. Hit: 9 (1d6 + 1) piercing damage and (1d6 + 1) cold damage. Targets must succeed on a DC 15 Charisma saving throw, or be under the effects of a silence spell until the end of their next turn.

Lucroy also wears styx boots (see Book of Ebon Tides).

Lord Corvus

Use ravenfolk doomcroaker stats (see Tome of Beasts 1) with the addition that Corvus carries a wand of shadows and wears a whispering cloak. (For both magic items, see Book of Ebon Tides.)

T’dahlia Firemead

Dusky skinned, pale haired, and obsidian eyed, the gnome called T’dahlia Firemead is the mistress and owner of the Black Dahlia Caravan Service. She is also the chief distiller and has for years controlled one of the longest-running overland smuggling and bootlegging operations on this part of the continent.

T’dahlia might at any time employ a dozen foreign mercenaries protecting a score of teamsters and hostlers working the dozens of draft horses, oxen, bison, and camels in her caravans. A small train of three private caravan wagons serves T’dahlia as both her home and her mobile headquarters.

T’dahlia relies on Magludias Fynch to maintain her collection of six clockwork kestrels (see Tome of Heroes), an ingredient in her long-running successes. Fynch also supplies illegal reagents and components for T’dahlia’s special recipes and distillery equipment.

Firemead and Fynch communicate regularly over vast distances through magic and messengers. Fynch is the middleman, linking Firemead’s wares to his contacts in the Belchgirdle’s vast distribution network.

T’dahlia Firemead

Use gnomish distiller stats (see Book of Ebon Tides). In addition, she wears shocking graspers when she expects trouble.

Shocking Graspers (“Muggers’ Mitts”)

Wondrous Item (Gloves), Very Rare (Requires Attunement)

This pair of electric eelskin gloves has fine traceries of wires, circuits, and other minute electrical components, crisscrossing the exteriors. A tiny, solar battery pack adorns each wrist like a large cufflink. Operational only as a set, shocking graspers hold seven charges and require 4 hours of uninterrupted sunlight to fully recharge.

When attuned and wearing these gloves, you gain the following abilities:

• Shocking Touch (1 Charge). When you make a successful melee spell attack using shocking graspers, the target creature must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or become incapacitated until the end of their next turn. If the target wears metal armor, their save is made with disadvantage. Targets who succeed on the saving throw suffer one level of exhaustion for 1 minute.
• Shocking Grasp (2 Charges). You cast the shocking grasp spell, requiring no spell slots or components.
• Shocking Display (5 Charges). You overcharge the graspers and deliver a spectacular electrical discharge in a 15-foot cone. Creatures inside the area must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or take 16 (3d10) lightning damage and may not take bonus actions until the end of their next turn. Additionally, all creatures within 10 feet of the lightning cone (including you) must succeed on a DC 12 Intelligence saving throw or be blinded for 17 (5d6) seconds.

Wrench Monkeys

Rarely glimpsed except by Fynch and staff (who know where and when to look), the wrench monkeys are squirrel-sized mechanical simians. They go about their various tasks practically unseen 24 hours at a time. They stay out of sight for good reason—designed for maintenance and spycraft, wrench monkeys are repulsive to see.

A wrench monkey’s mechanical hands, prehensile-tail, and ocular cavities can all be fitted with multiple tools, instruments, and utensils. Once fitted, encountering a wrench monkey up-close for the first time can be a horrifying experience.

When running an encounter with a wrench monkey, use clockwork servant stats (see Creature Codex) with the following changes:

Size Tiny
Speed 30 ft., climb 60 ft.
Challenge 1/2 (50 XP)
Ocular Attachments. The monkey is fitted with a telescoping visual-arrays granting darkvision 120 feet and advantage on Wisdom (Perception) rolls.
Tail Attack. The monkey makes 2 Slam attacks.
Tool Attachments. Roll a d8 on the Tool Attachment table for each tool mount desired (two hands and tail). Add damage bonuses to its Slamattack.

d8	Attachment
1	Drill: +1d4 piercing damage
2	Clamp: advantage on grapple checks
3	Shears: +1d4 slashing damage
4	Soldering Iron: +1d4 fire damage
5	Wrench: +1d4 bludgeoning damage
6	Grease Gun (Recharge 4–6): As grease spell
7	Screwdriver Set: lockpick tools and expertise
8	Battery Discharger: +1d4 lightning damage

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