The White Scorpions Assassins Guild is a supplement by Duncan Rhodes.

The Content

This supplement features a new faction called the White Scorpions Assassins Guild. The different about these assassins is that they are good aligned, in the sense that they don’t kill for money and their targets are only corrupt people.

The White Scorpions Assassins Guild is tied to the Forgotten realms. Places of the setting are mentioned in its story, and the story of its founder, and the god Tyr is one the guild serves. That said, it can be used to any setting with a bit of work.

It’s a fairly well designed faction, to be honest. There’s lore about its past as well as information on how it is organized and the process of initiation. There are also various other details, such as secret greetings, favorite killing methods, and more.

Moreover, there’s a character background included, in case a player wants to have their character be a member of the guild, called Trainee Assassin. It’s a fairly standard background with the exception that it is exclusive to characters who will take the Assassin Rogue archetype.

Another thing I noticed is that the assassins of this guild have immunity to the poison they use. That’s not game breaking since it’s only one poison. It’s also mentioned that they have advantage on saving throws against non magical poison from beasts. However, there’s nothing about that mentioned in the background, as in to when they get these abilities.

Moreover, there are a few NPCs included, that are members of the guild. There are the three masters and an interesting member. There’s quite a bit of backstory for them, as well as stat blocks.

A few notes

The layout and the editing could use a bit of polishing. Also, since there’s a detailed table of contents, it should be hyperlinked. The supplement was created using the Homebrewery(which I highly recommend) that let’s you create links to a page of the PDF really easily.

Moreover, one mechanic that’s used in the initiation process could use some work. You need to succeed on a Constitution saving throw that’s determined by rolling 3d6. The average of 3d6 is 10.5, but let’s say it’s 10 because there’s no 10.5 on a d20. That’s a 50% chance to succeed without adding any bonuses. However, for this roll you can get a bonus by making an ability check. The bonus depends on how well you roll and can go from a +2 to a +8. A rogue, with expertise on one of the skills allowed to make that roll with, will probably get a +4 or higher.

The issue is that, lore wise, the initiation is often deadly. The math of the mechanic, however, don’t back this statement. It would be better to decrease the bonuses and change the way the DC is determined.

Finally, I’m not sure how the background can be used by the player without focusing a lot on them. Even the plot hooks that are provided focus on that specific character. The author provides a couple of suggestions but, in my opinion, not all of them can work. All of them create a lot of work for the Dungeon Master, especially the suggestion to have one on one sessions with the player who has a White Scorpion character. I believe this faction fits much better to NPCs than players.

Final Words

Overall, The White Scorpions Assassins Guild provides a very good faction to use. I’m not convinced about using the background as a player option but, other than that, this faction is a very interesting one. If you want to use a faction of assassins, that isn’t your typical evil assassin’s guild, you should give this one a look.

Before you go

Duncan has released another supplement on the DMs Guild. It contains tables for critical misses. There are various tables that cover melee attacks, ranged attacks, spell attack misses, and even attacks with natural weapons. These are really interesting and my only objection is about how magic weapons are handled in case you roll that your weapon breaks(magic weapons should be much more sturdier than that). Moreover, there’s a small bit about how to use the tables so that they don’t become annoying, which I find very good.

And until next time, have fun!