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Sponsors

There are many organizations within the world that seek to spread their name and cause throughout Aelros and beyond. It is not uncommon for these groups to recruit like-minded adventurers into their fold. Being sponsored means that a character has agreed to be part of one of these organizations, under the assumption that they will bring desirable recognition to their benefactors.

Sponsor organizations are broken down into major and minor sponsors. Major sponsors have much greater reach and power than minor sponsors, but tend to have very generic goals. Minor sponsors are more likely to the meet the specific needs of an individual, but have less power and influence.

Check out the Aelrosian Organizations page for a comprehensive list of sponsors, both major and minor.

How Sponsorship Works

A sponsored character receives certain benefits and penalties in regards to their status.

Benefits:

• Discounted prices. When purchasing an item from your sponsor, they may grant you a reduction in the market price as indicated in their entry.
• At any level a character may submit a request for assistance. If it's determined that the character has less personal liquidated wealth than their suggested wealth by level, their sponsor may grant them a free magic item of their choice (or possibly several, based on total wealth). This process must be overseen by a GM, and if it is determined that the character in question is not deserving of assistance (perhaps they intentionally sold off or gave away large portions of their wealth in order to receive a free item, or they generally use far more consumables than necessary), then the sponsor is free to ignore the request.
  When requesting assistance, a sponsor can only provide items from the categories on their list of goods and services, up to the levels indicated. They never give out cash rewards.
• The sponsor automatically provides favours in relation to player reward coins as determined by their purpose and the level of the sponsored character. Heroic tier characters automatically receive minor favours. Moderate favours for paragon characters and major favours for epic characters.
• Sponsors, especially major ones, have access to unique resources that they may impart upon their charges.

Downsides:

• A sponsored character loses one of their available quest slots, as they are considered to always be working for their sponsor to some degree.
• Some sponsors do not get along well with each other, which could cause problems in certain situations.
• Sponsored characters must meet the restrictions of their sponsor, which may include species, gender, class, alignment, age, or any other arbitrary element.
• Sponsored characters must adhere to the code of ethics of their sponsor.

Acquiring Sponsors

New characters and characters that have never had a sponsor may pick a sponsor organization without consequence.

A character that currently has a sponsor and wishes to exchange it for a new one, or that was sponsored at one point but no longer is, may acquire a new sponsor by expending a moderate favour.

Losing Sponsorship

A sponsored character that knowingly and willfully disrespects their sponsor's code of ethics is at risk of losing their sponsorship. Admittedly, this depends almost entirely upon witnesses, but you never know who might be watching, or how magical that oath you took was. This also applies to characters that willingly leave their sponsor.

Losing a sponsor means that the character is free to seek sponsorship from another, however, they lose all benefits of their previous sponsor, and may actually gain their enmity. All benefits of the character's previous sponsor are lost, including magic items that were gifted to them (or else they'll be wanted for theft).

Designing Sponsors

See Organizations and Minor Sponsors in the game masters guide for details.