Kennedy and Heidi: Vicarious Patricide as Tony’s Decompensation

At the risk of needless redundancy, I think it’s helpful to summarize Tony’s state of mind going into the episode Kennedy and Heidi. His consciousness is teeming with ancient but recently-agitated memories showcasing his father’s violence and toxic influence, like Johnny shooting a hole through Livia’s hairdo and baptizing him in the act of murder. He’s unable to shake stories of parental neglect leading to tragic outcomes for children. He’s painfully aware of Christopher’s hatred of him and desire for murderous revenge, feelings ultimately rooted in the fact that Tony guided him into the same corrupt existence into which he himself had been led by Johnny, Junior, and company, suggesting a reciprocal, if unconscious, rage by Tony towards those men. His subconscious mind is under constant assault from hats and movie posters and coffee mugs bearing the image of a bloody meat cleaver, an emblem of his own lost childhood innocence and inculcation by his father into his brutal, ugly vocation. He is racked with acute but intense guilt over the role he thinks his life’s example has played in shaping his son’s values and poor sense of self-worth. And he is still repressing a mountain of hurt over the fact that his uncle and second father tried not once but twice to kill him, a repression Melfi warned would someday result in a total collapse of his defense mechanisms, that is, a collapse of his paternal hero-worship and related quest for the macho validation that has prevented him from critically examining his father, uncle, and the men upon whom he modeled his life.
Now consider the circumstances immediately before the crash. Tony and Chris are on a routine drive back from business in Christopher’s new black Cadillac SUV (the first Cadillac Chris has ever owned, incidentally.) The conversation turns to life priorities. Chris, conspicuously clad in a Cleaver hat, specifically mentions how Kaitlyn has changed his priorities, and Tony mentions the “shit with Junior”. So the context is immediately pregnant with the fact that Junior shot and nearly killed Tony within the past year and with the fact that Chris is in a new place of responsibility, a position where he is, for the first time, truly the custodian and trustee for another life.
In a perfectly-timed illustration of just how ill-equipped Chris is to live up to those responsibilities, he nervously and repeatedly fiddles with the car stereo, fidgets, and widens his eyes, telegraphing to Tony that he is high as a kite on drugs. “Comfortably Numb” swells on the sound system as Tony stares at him, the lyrics underscoring that, in that moment, he does not see Chris as a youngster, as the “adorable kid” he once road around in the basket of his bicycle, but as a grown man:
When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse Out of the corner of my eye I turned to look but it was gone I cannot put my finger on it now The child is grown, the dream is gone
Chris swerves, and the crash happens seconds later.

Tony as the Child in the Carseat

It’s critical to note that Tony initially manifests every intention of helping Chris, even as he’s fighting his own injuries. “I’m comin’,” he says as Chris asks for help. His expression and demeanor only change when he realizes what Chris means by “help”. “I’ll never pass a drug test,” Chris moans. “What?” Tony asks incredulously as Chris is inhaling his own blood. Almost simultaneously, Tony turns towards the back and sees that a tree limb has penetrated the passenger compartment, lodging in Kaitlyn’s car seat like a spear. While Tony would somewhat exaggerate the size of the branch in later narrations of the event, there’s no question that it was large enough to have impaled or seriously injured an infant.
Even after this warning shot over the bow, Tony apparently intends to help Chris, coming over to the driver’s side and breaking the window when he couldn’t get the door open. He draws his cell phone to call for help but stops when Chris again mentions being doped up, which suggests that Chris is more concerned about the legal consequences of his intoxication than about the fact that he is drowning in his own blood, completely belying his claim to a life newly ordered around the lofty priority of fatherhood.
That’s the moment when Tony forms a genuine murderous intent, an intent that has little to do with Christopher’s animosity towards him or the danger that he might flip. Those are conscious, background motives that help Tony rationalize and make sense of his actions later. But the factor impelling him to end Christopher’s life is his own, fundamental identification with the child who might just as easily have been killed or seriously harmed in that carseat.
To objectify this point, there is a slow pan of the limb sticking through the seat as Tony performs the suffocation, clearly not a shot representing Tony’s vision or gaze at that moment but objectively corroborating the earlier angle when Tony glances back and we see the seat from his point of view. The juxtaposition of these shots – subjective and objective – tells me the carseat is not just a convenient excuse for Tony. This is what he’s really feeling. In this moment, he is the phantom child in that carseat, a child whose safety and well-being come second to his father’s corrupt values and reckless self-indulgence, a child whose soul and humanity are metaphorically impaled by riding in and being taught to drive his father’s black Cadillac.
The exclamation point on the symbolism is provided by Christopher’s hat. Incredibly, it remains on his head throughout the crash and suffocation, its bloody cleaver logo pointing towards Tony when the car comes to rest. As Tony acts consciously on behalf of an innocent child, the symbol of his own lost childhood innocence is directly before him. And, for good measure, the cap and logo stare back at him in the hospital from the gurney laden with Christopher’s bloody clothing and the black bag containing his dead body. (The logo antagonizes Tony a final time from his coffee mug the next morning before he angrily tosses the mug into his backyard woods.)
Several points about the suffocation itself are remarkable. First was the look of absolute depravity on Tony’s face as he watched Christopher struggle to breathe. This look was unlike any ever seen on Tony’s face at any other moment in the series. Even when committing other personal and deadly acts of violence, his face and demeanor had always betrayed a commensurate level of animus, an active, passionate intent. In contrast, he reached through the window and pinched Christopher’s nose – and maintained that hold – with remarkable calm. His face and eyes throughout the suffocation were paradoxically both incredibly intense and completely devoid of human emotion, a look far more disturbing than any look of mere rage he’d ever worn before.
Second, although this act was, in my judgment, clearly about the release of Tony’s pent up rage towards his father figures, the method of killing evokes Livia. Besides her conspiracy with Junior to kill Tony (which she rationalized was for his own good) and general obsession with stories of child deaths, she had once threatened to “smother [her children] with a pillow” to save them from a fate she deemed even worse. Tony grabbed a pillow intending to smother her in the season one finale before nursing home personnel intervened. In Members Only, Tony spoke of being smothered with a pillow as a suitable form of euthanasia. Its functional equivalent at the scene of the crash had a definite vibe of putting Chris out of his own – and everyone’s – misery. So, in killing his “father”, Tony was also paradoxically suffocating his “son”, thereby channeling Livia’s filicidal urges and concept of mercy killing.
The most spine-tingling resonance with the scene comes from two season four episodes where Tony’s deep identification with “innocents” – be they children or animals – once again comes to the fore, as does his appreciation for the consequences of Chris continuing to use drugs. In Whoever Did This, Tony warns Christopher that he “can’t be high on heroine and raise kids.” And in The Strong, Silent Type, after learning that a doped-up Chris accidentally smothered and suffocated Adriana’s dog, Tony ominously snaps, “You suffocated little Cossette? I oughta suffocate you, you prick!” It’s such perfect foreshadowing that the earlier episodes seem to have been written with the outcome of Kennedy and Heidi in mind.

Righteous Retribution as the Explanation for Tony’s Lack of Sorrow

As previously noted, the most troubling aspect of the episode from the standpoint of character consistency and plausibility was not the fact that Tony murdered Chris. It was his vacuous expression during the killing and the fact that he never betrayed a moment’s genuine sorrow or regret afterwards. He remained, in fact, defiantly happy and unconflicted about it, especially to Melfi, and was sincerely troubled that neither she nor anyone else could see how Christopher’s death rescued Kaitlyn from a lifetime of risks and harm that she would naturally suffer as the daughter of a drug addict (and mob captain).
In his therapy scenes with Melfi, real and dream, Tony even makes the very contrast I raise, noting that he’s never felt this way after murdering any other person close to him. He alludes to his sorrow over Pussy and specifically allows that murdering Tony B left him “prostate [sic] with grief.” In effect, Tony himself is revealing that this killing feels righteous and justified to him on an instinctive level and is therefore not one about which he can feel guilt or sorrow.
That sentiment makes no sense if his dominant motives were those he talked about in therapy: Christopher’s animosity and resentment towards him after the Adriana hit and his drug-use and consequent risk to flip. Whatever weight those factors carry in justifying murder in the corrupt “ethics” of the mob (which, in any case, is less than the weight of the transgressions by Pussy and Tony B), they carry absolutely no legitimate moral weight outside it and could not sustain in Tony the sense of just triumph that he felt in response to Christopher’s death. What could inspire that sense of triumph is the perceived liberation of a child from a dangerous and toxic father, experienced subconsciously as vicarious retribution for the abuse and harm he himself suffered at the hands of his own father and uncle.

Significance of the Names “Kennedy” and “Heidi”

“Kennedy” and “Heidi” are the names of the young passenger and driver, respectively, in the car that sideswipes Christopher’s SUV before the fateful crash. The girls are barely onscreen a few seconds, just long enough to (somewhat artificially) learn their names in the following exchange:
Kennedy: Maybe we should go back, Heidi! Heidi: Kennedy, I’m on my learner’s permit after dark!
Much forum debate after the first airing of the episode centered around the significance, if any, of these names. I propose a related but even more basic question: why are the girls present in the scene at all?
Tony’s windfall opportunity to murder Chris and pass it off as death from accidental injury was entirely dependent upon being unobserved by others after the crash. Given Christopher’s intoxicated state and inattention to the curvy road while he fiddled with radio controls, a mere swerve and over-correction or swerve to avoid an animal (Tony’s crash with Adriana, anyone?) would have easily sufficed to trigger the accident but without the problematic involvement of another car, the driver of which would have to be made to flee the scene illegally and in contravention of the ethics and instincts of at least 95% of the motorists on the road. So the very fact that another car is involved, complicating both the story and the filming, suggests some symbolic or subtextual design to the involvement related specifically to the momentous event occurring right after the crash.
One aspect of that design is revealed and amplified when a grieving Kelly shows up at Christopher’s wake with dark hair framing her face and large, dark sunglasses covering her eyes. A member of the crew remarks, “Look at her. Like a movie star.” An odd look immediately crosses Tony’s face as he spontaneously responds, “Jackie Kennedy”, noting Kelly’s resemblance to the widow of John F. Kennedy.
In my mind, this striking moment in the episode can have only one purpose, and that’s to evoke Johnny Boy in relation to Christopher via a kind of symbolic math. If Kelly = Jackie Kennedy, then Chris = JFK = Johnny Boy since JFK was the explicit parallel figure for Johnny in In Camelot, the first episode of the series depicting cracks in the foundation of Tony’s paternal hero worship. When that foundation completely crumbles inside Tony’s subconscious a season and a half later, it’s entirely fitting that the JFK/Johnny parallel is renewed.
As for the name “Heidi”, most folks around these parts felt it was meant to evoke the idea of “orphan” because of the famous Swiss orphan tale of the same name and because Kaitlyn (and Paulie) both lost parents in the episode. That’s an entirely plausible analysis that requires no expansion, although I’m inclined to think there’s more to it than that, starting with the analogy of Tony himself to “Heidi”. No, Tony was never technically orphaned, though he arguably suffered more as the son of Johnny and Livia than if he had been. He was certainly deprived of real parental love and guidance, on both sides, and that roughly equates to the definition of “orphan”.
Before discussing this episode for the first time, I never knew that Heidi was the story of an orphan, only that it was some kind of tale for children. And I knew that only because of the epic 1968 football game between Joe Namath’s Jets and the Oakland Raiders, the climactic ending of which (an improbable comeback by the Raiders) was cut off abruptly for television viewers at the end of its scheduled broadcast slot so that a movie version of Heidi could begin airing on time. I was only four at the time of this debacle but recall my parents talking about it – and the considerable chaos it caused at NBC and at telephone switchboards around the country – for years afterwards. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidi_Game
It wouldn’t become clear until the end of Made In America, but there’s an obvious parallel to the Heidi phenomenon in the wind-up of The Sopranos. Consider that, like the Heidi Game broadcast, Made in America featured an abrupt, unexpected termination of excruciatingly tense action at a penultimate moment, pre-empting audience experience of what appeared to be an imminent and momentous climax. The Sopranos ending may not have disabled an entire telephone network, but it certainly generated an enormous amount of controversy that, for better or worse, persists to this day.
Beyond that, there were enough other football references in the final Sopranos episodes, and especially Jets references, to warrant further consideration of this football connotation for “Heidi”. In Remember When, Tony’s betting losses on Jets football games prompt his call to Hesh for a bridge loan. Later that same episode, Paulie annoys Tony and company with yet another old tale, this one relating how, after witnessing Joe Namath stagger drunk into a bar the night before a game, he bet a load of cash the following day on the Jets’ opponent. In Chasing It, Tony gets inside information on a Jets football game and is irate when Carmela refuses to bet money on it. The episode features a closeup of a large newspaper headline, “Jets Bomb Chargers”.
In Blue Comet, then-current coach of the Jets, Eric Mangini, makes a cameo appearance in Vesuvio, with Artie informing a suitably-impressed Tony so the two can go over and shake hands. News articles at the time clarified that the cameo wasn’t Mangini’s idea but the idea of Sopranos producers, who contacted him months in advance and made accommodations in the shooting schedule around his availability. So this seemed more than a casual desire to have some generic celebrity show up.
That especially seems true considering Mangini was given no dialog and that his meeting with Tony and Artie was only depicted in the silent background of a conversation between Charmaine and Carmela. Mangini’s only purpose on set was apparently to show his face briefly and to have the fact of his identity (Tony has to tell a bewildered Carm that Mangini is the head coach of the Jets) permeate the minds of the audience and the subtext of the scene, which is ultimately about chickens coming home to roost on Tony and Carmela because of the lives they chose.
As alter egos for Tony and Carmela throughout the series, folks who took the proverbial “other path” in life, Artie and (especially) Charmaine engage in subtle gloating in the scene. Football coaching was firmly established as Tony’s “road not taken” in Test Dream, so having an actual football coach present in the episode where the unsavory and downright deadly consequences of his chosen vocation are crashing in all around him provides dramatic ballast. All the better to have the coach in the scene be the coach of the team involved in the Heidi game in view of the ending planned for the following episode.
And speaking again of that ending, the wall behind Tony in Holsten’s is consumed with four large murals specifically brought in by the production crew for the shoot. The largest and most centered depicts a huge, light-colored building with lots of windows, somewhat reminiscent of the Inn at the Oaks in Tony’s coma dream. It’s apparently a high school, however, as it is flanked on either side by images of football players in full uniform with what appear to be names and year of graduation engraved at the bottom. To the side and extreme left is a mural of a tiger and the caption “Class of 1973” at the bottom. The tiger is presumably the mascot for the team and school represented in the other murals. So there is a strong symbolic presence of “football” in the last scene of the series, particularly of high school football from roughly the era when Tony would have entered high school.
Finally, though it may be completely insignificant, when Tony tells Carm about the accident from his hospital stretcher in Kennedy and Heidi, he mentions that he re-injured his knee, “the one from high school.” That certainly sounds like a reference to an old high school football injury.
If these loose strands from multiple episodes are indeed intended to connote football in relation to the name “Heidi”, what does that actually mean in the context of the episode Kennedy and Heidi? What does football have to do with Tony killing Chris or, more precisely, with him killing his father in the guise of Chris?
The linchpin in that symbolism, it seems to me, is Tony’s old high school football coach, the guy who would have been his coach when he originally injured his knee, the guy Tony dreamt repeatedly of trying to silence or kill, the guy whose puzzling duality in Test Dream suddenly makes sense when he’s viewed as a classic, Freudian composite of opposites, specifically a composite of Tony’s opposing father figures with Johnny dressed in the physiognomy of Coach Molinaro by Tony’s subconscious in order to render acceptable imagery of his latent, patricidal feelings.
If you further allow, as I do, that the Johnny look-alike shooting at Tony with a scoped rifle (ala Oswald/”Kennedy”) in that same dream is yet another Freudian “reversal into the opposite” by Tony’s subconscious to disguise his repressed paternal rage, then the Kennedy/Heidi connection is pretty clear. The names are presented proximate to the crash to connote that, in killing Chris, Tony has finally acted out the Test Dream imagery that haunted him for years: he has (symbolically) killed his father, the “Kennedy” and “Heidi” of his dream.

“He’s Dead”

In my judgment, this explains Tony’s otherwise puzzling, peyote-induced insight when he proclaims, “He’s dead,” after winning at roulette on 3 successive spins, prompting him to fall to the floor in spectacular and uncontrollable laughter. What other, real death could have inspired such a euphoric and epiphanic reaction? What real death could Tony only have appreciated while in a drug-induced, altered state of consciousness?
Many felt the line referred to Christopher because he’d just died, obviously, and because Tony’s gambling luck suddenly changed afterward. That analysis never made sense to me.
First, Tony plays roulette at the casino while sober when he first arrives in Vegas and loses every round. Chris was already dead at that time, as Tony well knew and accepted. Indeed, Tony was never in any state of denial about Christopher’s death (or about having killed him.) He embraced it, both consciously and in his dream therapy session with Melfi after the crash.
The “he’s dead” insight occurs only after Tony takes peyote and notices a sudden and complete about-face in gambling luck. Why would he need psychedelic drugs to suddenly realize what he already knew and accepted about Chris? And why would Christopher’s death be tied in his mind to his own gambling luck anyway? No prior connection between those two things had ever been suggested.
On the other hand, Tony’s sudden escalation in gambling, which coincided with the agitation and intensification of his latent rage towards his father(s), could easily be seen as a subconscious rebellion against the stern, anti-gambling lecture Johnny imparted the night Tony witnessed the cleaver incident. To the extent that the rebellion results in huge financial losses and self destruction, it obviously fails. His father retains ultimate power and authority. To the extent the rebellion results in huge winnings, it succeeds, and Tony vanquishes his father.
That conquest was the ineffable and elusive “high” that Tony was subconsciously pursuing in Chasing It but which he could not articulate to Melfi. Thus the sudden change in gambling fortune on his Vegas trip is easily tied in Tony’s drug-altered psyche to a euphoric realization that he has conquered or symbolically killed his father, none of which Tony could appreciate without a vastly altered state of consciousness.
And that leads to why he went to Vegas in the first place. He asks that question out loud to the Vegas prostitute, Sonia, immediately before admitting that Christopher once mentioned taking peyote with her. Tony then confesses to having always wanted to try the drug.
Clearly, then, he didn’t just happen to pick Vegas and didn’t just happen to make contact with this girl. His subconscious was pushing him to that venue because he craved the enlightenment of a peyote experience. So while Tony’s real motives for the murder, and for his otherwise inexplicable jubilance afterward, were completely closed off to his conscious mind, somehow he sensed their existence and yearned to unlock and understand them. However his peyote revelations didn’t stop with simply understanding why he killed Chris.

“I Get It. I Get It!”

Tony’s desert epiphany is a bookend to his near-death coma experience and, I believe, can only be fully understood in relation to it. Yet exploring that relationship is a journey all unto itself, calling not only for consideration of the coma episodes and Kennedy and Heidi but the meaning of the cut to black that ends the series. While exploring the religious and spiritual underpinnings of those episodes is of even more weight and interest to me personally than the issue of Tony’s motives in killing Christopher, it deserves and demands its own, dedicated discussion. For now, I’d simply like to posit what I strongly believe Tony’s epiphany to have been with only minimal argumentation as to why I hold that belief.
The epiphany is presaged when Tony enters the casino on his peyote trip and notes that the roulette wheel is built on the same principle as the solar system. The ball spins round and round the center or “sun” of the wheel because of two delicately-balanced but largely opposing phenomena: the momentum of the ball (which, without the wheel, would carry the ball away in a straight line) and the centripetal force of the wheel (applied by the rim, which continuously pulls the ball towards the center even as the ball’s momentum continuously pulls it on a path perpendicular to the centripetal force.) The antagonism (or cooperation, if you prefer) of the forces gives rise to a unified system: an orbit.
If this sounds a bit like the Bell Labs scientist’s explanation of how two tornadoes are in fact just facets of one, unified system of wind, it’s likely no mere coincidence. As Hal Holbrook’s character argued, separateness is a mirage. The universe, and everything in it, is one big soup of molecules interacting in cause/effect fashion according to laws, making it one whole, not a bunch of discrete parts. “Everything is everything,” as the black rapper reduced it.
That was the philosophy that really made an impression on Tony in the days and weeks following his coma. The principles of quantum physics articulated by Holbrook’s character are likely as close as you can get to a scientific codification of Bhuddism and therefore reinforced much of what the Bhuddist monks conveyed to Tony in his coma. The monks laughed when Tony claimed he wasn’t Finnerty and explained that there really is no “you” and “me, that death would bring an obliteration of individuality. Separate consciousness – and the consciousness of separateness – is an illusion of the living.
So all this laid the philosophical groundwork for Tony’s Las Vegas trip. In that trip, Tony seeks out a girl with whom Chris had slept, then sleeps with her himself. He mentions having refrained from a longstanding desire to try peyote because he always felt the weight of his responsibilities, an implied contrast to Christopher, who always indulged in drugs despite his responsibilities. The idea that Tony was seeking to almost live life in Christopher’s skin in the Las Vegas portion of the episode was something several posters mentioned in first discussions after Kennedy and Heidi aired. Even the girl, Sonia, remarks how similar Tony and Chris are, a somewhat dubious observation that somehow offends Tony but which also helps define his impending epiphany.
That epiphany is spurred when the rising sun flares at him over the desert mountain vista. This recalls Tony’s earlier comparison of the roulette wheel to the solar system. It also resonates completely with the fact that Kevin Finnerty was a solar heating salesman from Kingman, Arizona, a town which, not coincidentally, lies 95 miles southeast of Las Vegas and shares the same desert landscape. Also not coincidental, IMO, is the fact that in the prior episode, Christopher spoke of the perks of joining witness protection and of “living large” in Arizona.
So I believe that, in that desert sunrise on the cusp of Arizona, in fulfillment of his identity as Kevin Finnerty, solar heating salesman, Tony saw his “son” – Christopher – “rise” and realized that, in murdering him days before, he (Tony) was really “rising” as a “son” against Johnny Boy. And in that linkage, he suddenly realized that “everything is [indeed] everything.” He is both Chris and Johnny Boy, both abused and misguided son and abusing, misguiding father. He is murdering uncle and would-be murdered nephew. He is both the mother that sees suffocation as mercy killing and the son who is suffocated. Christopher is both his son and his father. Johnny Boy is Coach Molinaro. “Kennedy” is “Heidi”. Opposites are really two sides of the same coin. In that fleeting moment of insight, Tony was truly feeling “one” with the universe.

The Second Coming

The episode following Kennedy and Heidi is titled The Second Coming after the Yeats poem that grips AJ in the English lit class he’s auditing. While the poem speaks to the bleakness of his depression and outlook on life at that particular time, there’s little doubt that – like everything of substantial weight in the Sopranos universe – it ultimately relates, first and foremost, to Tony. First referenced in the Cold Cuts therapy session dealing with pent-up rage where Tony’s deep shame from the cleaver incident is finally revealed, the poem seems the veritable inspiration for the storyline (as interpreted in this article) that culminates in Christopher’s murder:
The Second Coming By William Butler Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight; somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
The widening gyre, the orbit that breaks down when the center can no longer hold, is clearly a parallel to the decompensation of which Melfi warned, the point at which Tony’s defenses after Junior’s second murder attempt could no longer hold and the underlying pathological rage at his fathers would take over. True to the poem, a “blood-dimmed tide was loosed”, inspired by a perverse compassion for the “innocent”. While “the best” all mourned Christopher and thought his death a tragedy, Tony, “the worst”, was full of passionate intensity and could not understand why no one else saw the greater good in Christopher’s death.
The “revelation” occurs in a “waste of desert sand”, imagery easily compatible with Tony’s “I get it” moment in the Nevada/Arizona desert. The uniquely depraved look on his face as he suffocated Christopher is evoked by the line describing a “gaze as blank and pitiless as the sun”. “Twenty years of stony sleep” refers to the decades of denial Tony maintained, the defense mechanisms that kept him all his life from confronting and admitting that, in some very real ways, he hated his father. It’s a figurative sleep that was suggested literally in the noted fact that so many episodes in season 6B started with Tony in a deep sleep. Somnolence was suggested even in the choice of the song “Comfortably Numb” as soundtrack in the moments immediately preceding the crash, the moments right before the hour of the “rough beast” finally arrived. Even the incidentals are perfect allusions, as with the image of “stony sleep” being turned into a nightmare by a “rocking cradle”, or, in this case, by a car seat with a branch sticking through it.
I’m intrigued by the line describing the emerging beast as having “lion body”. It may mean absolutely nothing. But among the story points worth considering in relation to it are the tiger on the wall in Holsten’s and the enigmatic cat in Made In America.
More obscure is the fact that in Remember When, the single episode most explicitly dealing with the violent release of stifled paternal rage, Carter Chong described his grandfather as a “lion” and noted that his father owned “Grumman” stock. (Grumman manufactured a number of high-profile fighter military aircraft, most of them named for some kind of cat, e.g., Panther, Jaguar, Tomcat, Tigercat.) Carter was reviewing these facts to himself in the scene immediately preceding his vicious attack on Junior, suggesting that, in acting out on his stifled paternal hatred, he was adopting the predatory, aggressive characteristics of a wild cat. Notably, when Junior, the paternal surrogate who modeled this kind of aggressive behavior to Carter, was seen at the end of that episode bruised and literally defanged, his sunken mouth void of false teeth, he was stroking a harmless little housecat on his lap. Once a lion, the former mob boss was a lion no more.

Asbestos Dumping as a Metaphor for Tony’s Toxic Spill of Rage

Kennedy and Heidi opens with a controversy between Tony and Phil Leotardo over asbestos disposal. One of Tony’s contractors was removing asbestos from old buildings, while following none of the strict (and expensive) asbestos-handling laws regulating worker and public safety, and was seeking to dump completely uncontained truck-fulls at waste stations controlled by Phil. Phil’s guys were denying the trucks the right to dump. As a consequence, huge, openly-smoking asbestos mounds were building up at job sites.
After Christopher’s death, Tony was doing little to find a solution, skipping town to gamble, get laid, and get high and leaving the contractor high and dry. Finally, near the very end of the episode, the contractor dumps heaps of asbestos at dawn in an open marsh area resembling the New Jersey Meadowlands.
Asbestos is a naturally occurring mineral that gained widespread use in the 19th and 20th centuries as an ingredient in various building industry materials – including wall compounds, insulation, and roofing materials – primarily because of its extreme insulative properties and resistance to heat and fire. In the last 40 years, it’s become better-known for its cancer-causing and toxic effects on those mining and working with it in manufacturing, demolition/remodeling, or other “raw” environments.
Both the heat resistance and toxicity of asbestos make the shoddy removal/dumping storyline a compelling metaphor for Tony’s equally shoddy “dumping” in Kennedy and Heidi. The smoldering heat and flames from his hatred towards his father and uncle were contained beneath his consciousness by an insulating firewall of denial and repression. In essence, this denial and repression was Tony’s psychological asbestos, and it (more or less) contained the heat and fire within him for 47 years.
But it finally broke down, allowing the flames to rage and do damage and necessitating a messy disposal. Unfortunately the breakdown didn’t happen where it should have, in his therapist’s office as the result of honest introspection and dialog about little things like his uncle trying to kill him twice and his father indoctrinating him to murder at 22. That would have been the equivalent of careful, legally-compliant asbestos removal. Instead the breakdown occurred in a roadside ravine and the resulting “waste [in the] desert sand” was every bit as toxic as the smoking piles illegally dumped in the Meadowlands immediately before the desert epiphany and which we saw reprised in the very first shot of the following episode.
Think about that for a moment. Tony’s “I get it” moment was literally sandwiched between shots of noxious mounds of asbestos blowing in the New Jersey wind, a significant clue that some other kind of perversely cathartic disposal was in the middle of that sandwich.

The Orbit of the ‘Blue Comet’: Long Journey to Nowhere

It’s fair to ask: if the broad strokes of my interpretation are valid, what impact did the epiphany have on Tony going forward? After the drugs wore off, did he actually retain any specific understanding of his subconscious motives for killing Chris? Was he left only with the impression that he had enjoyed a very brief moment of enlightenment but without intellectual distillation of the enlightenment itself?
Because the insight was founded upon the secret that he had murdered Chris, even if Tony had retained it, he couldn’t overtly share it with anyone. Still, I lean toward the interpretation that the specifics (at least the ones I proffered) were lost to him when the altered state of consciousness ceased. When he tried to describe the magic of what he experienced in the desert to his crew, he could only come up with the most mundane, inadequate words: “The sun . . . came up.” They all looked at him like he was half retarded.
He was slightly more specific with Melfi, offering that he saw “for pretty certain” that this reality is not all there is. He couldn’t define the alternative but was still convinced there was “something else”.
He did speak in therapy of appreciating a balance and unity in opposites that he hadn’t appreciated before, a “ying” [sic] and “yang”. And he offered that “mothers are like buses . . . the vehicle that gets us here,” but that, once here, we are all on our own, individual journeys (mothers included.) So, to the extent his epiphany comported with what he revealed in therapy, it seems to have had little to do with fathers and with Christopher’s murder and more to do with letting go (finally) of some of his issues with his mother.
But perhaps the best clue to his residual state of understanding came when he indicated that some of what he thought he had grasped in the desert now eluded him. “You think you know, you think you learn something . . . like when I got shot,” he begins. Then, speaking specifically about the peyote experience, he reports that the insight gained is “kinda hard to describe. . . . You know, you have these thoughts, and you almost grab it . . . and then . . . ftt.” He flicks his fingers away from his chin as if to indicate “nothing”. So, to paraphrase Edna St. Vincent Millay, a fragment of what he knew remains, but, apparently, the best is lost.
It wouldn’t take long for all of it to be lost. By the time Tony sits with AJ’s female therapist in Made In America, “going about in pity” for himself because of who his mother was, he has come full circle, essentially back to where he was to start the series. Like a “blue comet”, his orbit was highly elliptical, if not erratic, and carried with it the potential of veering off into deep space or crashing into the sun. But despite killing his own nephew, having a near-death experience himself, and saving his son from an act of suicide, the orbit held. The sober breakthrough never came. The repudiation of his father and of his way of life never took hold in his consciousness. And so, by series’ end, we, like Tony, were exhausted from a long journey that ultimately took us nowhere.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Eyes On Stimulus Developments Again
Investors are still largely focused on new twists and turns with stimulus efforts in the U.S. Last night, President Donald Trump said talks had resumed on an aid package for the struggling U.S. economy, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin are expected to talk once again. Global stock markets have started the day off with a dose of optimism. The Shanghai Composite Index rose 1.7% following a strong read on services activity in China and the SZSE Component Index was up 3.0%, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell back 0.3% and Japan's Nikkei slipped 0.1%. European stocks are largely higher despite sluggish PMI data, with the Stoxx 600 Index gaining 0.2%. France's CAC 40 and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 are both in positive territory in mid-day action. Meanwhile, U.S. stock futures are setting up for a positive open, with S&P 500 futures up 0.4% and Dow Jones futures 0.3% higher. Crude oil stays on track for big week
Oil (CL1:COM) is poised for its biggest weekly gain since May, even though prices have tracked back just a bit. Operators in the Gulf of Mexico have closed off about 92% of production ahead of Hurricane Delta as the storm barrels toward Louisiana. Yesterday, OPEC forecast global oil demand will keep rising until around 2040, when it will plateau at about 109.3M bbl/day, or about 10% above the level of production in 2019. Later today, traders will get their hand on the latest Baker Hughes U.S. oil rig count report. In early action, WTI crude oil futures -0.8% to $40.86/bbl and Brent crude -0.3% to $43.20/bbl.
AMD seeking to buy Xilinx in latest big semiconductor tie-up
Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) is in advanced talks to buy rival chip maker Xilinx (NASDAQ:XLNX) in a deal that could be valued at more than $30B, WSJ reports. Earlier talks are said to have stalled before recently restarting, and the latest deal under discussion could come together as soon as next week, according to the report. A deal for Xilinx would raise AMD to a more even competitive footing with Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) and give it a bigger position in the growing telecom and defense markets.
Golden Week traffic in Macau disappoints
Traffic in Macau fell 85.7% during Golden Week to come in well short of most expectations within the industry. Of the 139,280 visitors to enter during the holiday week, 97,126 came via the Gongbei Border Gate, 4,190 by ferry and 7,149 by plane. JPMorgan reset expectations on a Macau recovery after the Golden Week disappointment. "Choppy demand and dwindling hope of 'return to normalcy in 2021' make us acknowledge the sector's risk-reward isn't as attractive as we had envisioned, despite seemingly undemanding valuation (on 2022, not 2021)," updated the firm. Earlier this week, the Macau sector received some good news when Bernstein Research predicted that all six casino operators will retain their licenses, although the government is likely to impose additional economic conditions. The firm doesn't think the current tensions between Washington and Beijing will prevent U.S. operators from staying in Macau.
Nikola talks up hydrogen potential
Nikola (NASDAQ:NKLA) showed off its prototypes to the hydrogen industry yesterday at an event that also covered the company's patents and strategy to be a technology integrator. The presentation coincided with National Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Day 2020. Nikola noted it has developed core IP related to, among other things, vehicle integration and hydrogen storage and fueling, and continues to work with its world-class partners to develop next-generation standard fueling hardware and advance hydrogen fuel cell-based transportation. "Nikola is creating an ecosystem that integrates next-generation truck technology, hydrogen fueling infrastructure and maintenance. By removing commercial trucks from the carbon equation, Nikola is fulfilling our mission of leaving the world a better place," said CEO Mark Russell. Shares of Nikola are up 2% premarket
Takeda in group trial for COVID-19 hyperimmune convalescent plasma treatment
Japan's Takeda (NYSE:TAK) is part of a group of companies testing an experimental COVID-19 convalescent plasma treatment, derived from those having recovered from the disease. The "hyperimmune" drug combines antibodies from multiple recovered patients, vs. typical convalescent treatments derived from single patients. Takeda, Emergent BioSolutions (NYSE:EBS), CSL Behring (OTCPK:CSLLY) and Grifols (NASDAQ:GRFS) are gathering antibodies in the government trial, funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; it could be completed by year-end.
DOJ eyes cryptocurrency threats
The Department of Justice said in a new report that law enforcement is hampered by the global nature of digital coins and the lack of consistent regulation across regions. Cryptocurrencies in general are called detrimental to the safety and stability of the international financial system due to the opportunities for rogue nations, criminals and terrorists to skirt reporting requirements. "Current terrorist use of cryptocurrency may represent the first raindrops of an oncoming storm of expanded use,” stated Attorney General William Barr's Cyber-Digital Task Force. The task force warned that cryptocurrencies provide bad actors with the means to earn illegal profits and become a threat to national security. The DOJ's larger goal with the report is to lay out a framework for cryptocurrency enforcement.
China Services PMI runs hot
China September Caixin Services PMI came in at 54.8 to top both the consensus mark of 54.3 and the 54.0 reading for August. Services PMI has now increased for five straight months, and the latest rate of expansion was among the highest recorded over the past decade. Growth was supported by a marked rise in total new business, though new export work continued to decline. A sustained rise in overall client demand led firms to expand their payrolls for the second month in a row amid increased capacity pressures. Companies also retained a positive outlook regarding activity over the year ahead, with business confidence improving since August.
Chinese funds targeting Ant IPO draw $9B from millions of retail investors
Five Chinese funds targeting the upcoming mega-IPO of Ant Group (NYSE:BABA) sold out in days, having cumulatively raised about 60B yuan - or about $8.93B - from more than 10M retail investors. The funds launched Sept. 25 to raise 12B yuan each and invest up to 10% of assets to buy shares in the Ant IPO, aiming to raise about $35B in a Hong Kong/Shanghai dual listing and value the company at more than $250B. Two of the funds hit their target even before a week-long holiday that started Oct. 1; Ant's Alipay says today the other three sold out as well.
What else is happening...
LSE (OTCPK:LDNXF, OTCPK:LNSTY) to sell Borsa Italiana to Euronext (OTCPK:EUXTF) for €4.3B. NXP Semiconductors (NASDAQ:NXPI) shoots to 52-week high after strong preliminary Q3 numbers. GameStop (NYSE:GME) soars after Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) development. Disney (NYSE:DIS) moves 'Soul' to streaming, in theaters' latest loss.
Today's Markets
In Asia, Japan -0.1%. Hong Kong -0.3%. China +1.7%. India +0.8%. In Europe, at midday, London +0.7%. Paris +0.4%. Frankfurt -0.05%. Futures at 6:20, Dow +0.4%. S&P +0.4%. Nasdaq +0.3%. Crude -0.8% to $40.86. Gold +1.2% to $1918.70. Bitcoin +2.9% to $10890. Ten-year Treasury Yield -2 bps to 0.765%
Today's Economic Calendar
9:00 Fed's Barkin: “Community Conversation: Resiliency of the Economy” 10:00 Wholesale Inventories (Preliminary) 1:00 PM Baker-Hughes Rig Count

Breaking:- According to present data Binance Coin (BNB) and potentially its market environment has been in bearish cycle last 12 months (if exists). Our AI cryptocurrency analyst implies that there will be a negative trend in the future and the coin,BNB, is not a good investment for making money. Since this virtual currency has a negative outlook we recommend looking for other projects instead to build a portfolio. Trading in bear markets is always harder so you might want to avoid this currency if you are not a veteran. Moreover, it is widely know that Binance coin, in its self is not free from the volatiles of the crypto market and the exchange itself has often been hacked with potentially MILLIONS OF $ being stolen. It is also widely known that with the introduction of Binance USD (BUSD), the exchange is using its power to drive USDT'S influence downwards by limiting the margin available on Binance's Tether pairs and increasing it on BUSD pairs, a controversial move. Lastly, the exchange is under fire for not letting usersput stop losses and sell targets simultaneously which puts the assets of Binance users particularly at risk. In other words, LINK has been surging especially in the current bullish trend with the coin bypassing its all time high and showing no signs of going down, despite constant sell pressure. Rumor has it that binance itself is in on the coin and is using the profits from LINK to distribute dividends in the form of sxp (swipe). LINK's recent success have been further fueled by the addition of the world's first decentralized casino,Earnbet adding LINK to the currencies users can wager with.

Breaking:- According to present data Binance Coin (BNB) and potentially its market environment has been in bearish cycle last 12 months (if exists). Our AI cryptocurrency analyst implies that there will be a negative trend in the future and the coin,BNB, is not a good investment for making money. Since this virtual currency has a negative outlook we recommend looking for other projects instead to build a portfolio. Trading in bear markets is always harder so you might want to avoid this currency if you are not a veteran. Moreover, it is widely know that Binance coin, in its self is not free from the volatiles of the crypto market and the exchange itself has often been hacked with potentially MILLIONS OF $ being stolen. It is also widely known that with the introduction of Binance USD (BUSD), the exchange is using its power to drive USDT'S influence downwards by limiting the margin available on Binance's Tether pairs and increasing it on BUSD pairs, a controversial move. Lastly, the exchange is under fire for not letting usersput stop losses and sell targets simultaneously which puts the assets of Binance users particularly at risk. In other words, LINK has been surging especially in the current bullish trend with the coin bypassing its all time high and showing no signs of going down, despite constant sell pressure. Rumor has it that binance itself is in on the coin and is using the profits from LINK to distribute dividends in the form of sxp (swipe). LINK's recent success have been further fueled by the addition of the world's first decentralized casino,EarnBet adding LINK to the currencies users can wager with. The casino will also incorporate ChainLINKs state of the art technology in its sports betting and algorithms

the 7’s in tarot can be quite complex to interpret, and as i was beginning my tarot journey, were some of the most complex for me to understand. all numbers are divine in their own way, and 7 is certainly no exception.
we go the casino to play, and win when three 7’s appear. the 777 sequence is divine fulfillment and movement. it is considered a ‘lucky’ number if one believes in that sort of thing. 7 constitutes the number of days in a week, and 7 is the number of earthly chakras within the human body. this is just scratching the service of the number 7.
in tarot, the 7’s are complex because they signify ‘fortunate instability’, at least in my interpretation. much of what will be written shall be text of a channeled nature, so please take what resonates and allow yourself to be guided by what feels ‘right’ to you.
7 OF SWORDS
let us begin with the suit of swords, shall we.. we here, very much like to ‘debunk’ myths & travesties, and it is a travesty that the suit of swords is commonly purported to be ‘negative’ in tarot.
as swords are mental, the seven of swords is indicative of the ‘fortunate instability’ of the mind. here will be expressed thought processes which are shrewd, perceptive, cunning and calculated. 7 is a harbinger of change; of MOVEMENT of some sort at the very least. 7 is swirling and whirling, and since the number itself is uneven, is subconsciously searching for the stability that the even numbers carry.
7 of swords indicates MENTAL PROWESS of the highest kind. this card emulates premeditation, for the sole purpose of bettering the perceived mental encapsulation of the psyche. the key word here is AWARE. whatsoever is going on within the mind of said individual, held captive within the swords of seven, at least he is AWARE of it, and CONSCIOUS of his abilities.
his mind may be twirling about in some sort of turbulence, but he is attempting to rectify it; through any means. this is why the ‘deceptive’ connotation is favored when most explore this card. the 7 of swords does not wear his thoughts on his sleeve. he does not provide information if he deems it to be invalid in whatever predicament he is in. he may not lie outright; and in most cases, he does NOT ‘lie’, at all. omitting information, is not a lie in and of itself.
the 7 of swords can be likened to the master poker player. he keeps his hand held close and observes those around him, basing his next move on what ‘the other’ is doing. this is not considered a sneaky tactic by any means; it simply is ‘unmovement’ of certain things, until more information can be gathered from his environment.
this shows someone who is a wonderful observer of their environment, who is well versed intellectually, and who takes great care to think prior to making a decision. even if it seems as though a decision is made ‘on the fly’, be assured that the 7 of swords individual has carefully thought it through in his mind. this is someone who may indeed have the sweetest intentions, yet will remain virtually unreadable to ‘the other’, making them APPEAR deceptive.
to touch quickly upon the reversal of the card.. the 7 of swords simply means that their intentions, whatsoever they may be, pure or impure, will be NOTICEABLY VISIBLE to the other. this pertains to what one would consider ‘trying too hard’. the reversed position here simply indicates an individual who has an ‘overactive mind’.. again, we say, 7’s are MOVEMENT. there may be so much mentally that this individual is trying to conceal, that it becomes blatantly obvious that he is hiding something. suspicion is an adequate word to use here. the reversed 7 of swords may appear suspicious to others, because his psyche is so focused on BEING suspicious OF others. so essentially, it shall come to pass that he is viewed suspiciously, even if he is innocent in nature.
7 OF CUPS
the 7 of cups denote the emotional nature of the 7’s. this is the ‘feeling chamber’ of the individual, and often denotes the realm of the subconscious mind. as we continue to proclaim the 7’s as ‘fortunate instability’, we will say this: it is a great blessing to be able to FEEL, as feeling is the catalyst which propels conscious manifestation.
the 7 of cups is certainly FEELING alright. the emotions may sway from one dream to another, not quite settling on any one thing.. because the individual is AWARE of the many choices in which he can feel, he is almost childlike in wonderment of his psyche. the suit of 7 is that of a mental nature, so AWARENESS, be it conscious or subconscious, shall be found throughout, with sheer abundance. when one perceives themself to hold no limit, and the realization that anything can occur, is beholden to him, he now is almost rampant with desire for EVERYTHING.
and hence the 7 of cups. ‘i realize that i am eternally now, and what i desire shall be brought to me’.. is very fitting for the cups of 7. 7 energy, which is prowess, coupled with emotion, awakens the natural instinct to daydream within the psyche. it is like observing a buffet with nothing but your favorite foods laid out in front of you, and being so awestruck that you forget to actually CHOOSE what it is that goes onto your plate. when this card is drawn in tarot expect there to be many options presented to you at once, each of them leading down a different emotional pathway.
YOU HAVE ARRIVED AT THE MOMENT TO CHOOSE, yet you stand there gaping at what lies before you. it is a beautiful place to be; knowing one can have it all, though many times the individual may become overwhelmed at the sensation that they CAN have everything they desire. it is essentially an internal emotional debate about what they want MORE, which leads them to stand on the precipice of dreams fulfilled, without actually taking the plunge to dive in.
sometimes we see this card referenced as being somewhat of a ‘lord of illusions’, though not in fact rightfully so. none of the choices one sees before them is an illusion because it already does exist. we like to use the coined term ‘if you can dream it, you can do it’. the issue becomes making the choice itself. 7 of cups is someone who KNOWS they can have it, feels they can have it, and imagines having it however pleasurable it may be. yet they remain content in just dreaming it, instead of deciding to solidify the image.
this card may occasionally indicate a deep, burning desire for the very things the individual dreams of, yet the physical action to complete the desires into fruition on the material plane may be lacking. again, this is ‘fortunate instability’, as we call it, because one is totally aware of how they feel about what they want, and they are evaluating which of these things ‘feels the best’ to them. it is much more satisfactory to choose the best feeling path after careful consideration, than to choose a more disheartening path ‘on the fly’.
which leads us to the reversed 7 of cups. here is where one has so many emotions that they may misconstrue the way they are feeling for their STATE OF BEING. there is awareness in the sense that many emotions are occurring, however, they may take unwell thought out action now, just to NOT feel overwhelmed. the individual here can appear to be behaving erratically, because they are attempting to mute the emotions which have now seemed to taken over their psyche.
7 OF PENTACLES
in this card, we typically see someone who is depicted ‘observing’ or ‘picking’ something out of their physical environment. the pentacles suit is one of earthly nature, and the 7’s here bring it slight instability. but as mentioned with the previous elements, it is ‘FORTUNATE INSTABILITY’
the 7 of pentacles is the time when one KNOWS, wholeheartedly that they have maintained a positive outlook, done the necessary physical steps, and have intended for their outcome to happen. it just ‘seems’ to not have arrived yet.
i like to think of this card as ‘building momentum for manifestation’. the 7’s are abundant, though still slightly disorganized in motion to the untrained observer. however, there still is energetic motion spiraling down from the ethers into the material plane. when this card is pulled, be certain that SOMETHING is on its way to the seeker in the physical realm. they may even be witness to synchronicities regarding what they are intending, and may come out disappointed because of this, because it isn’t their desired manifestation, only an indicator of its soon-to-be arrival on the earthly plane. they are evaluating their surroundings and looking for clues on how to tweak their technique, whether required or not.
the 7 of pentacles shows ‘gathering’ of earthly matter. it is fortunate to see this card in a reading because it implies that efforts ARE being rewarded, though maybe only on the etheric plane at the time being. when this card is drawn, it is advisable to remain firm in the conviction that what one desires WILL materialize, and that it already has happened energetically. the importance of this card is knowing that now is the time to ‘amp up your vibration’, if one chooses to, in order the accelerate the manifestation’s arrival
the appearance of the 7 of pentacles indicates that what one desires exists NOW, and they must be vigilant in maintaining their positivity regarding the manifestation. since it does not yet appear physically, now is the optimum time to clean up any doubt or fear that may be surrounding the intended outcome.
an individual operating at the 7 of pentacles level may appear cautious and studious, bright and alert, also ever observing and evaluating. this is not someone who leaps without looking. this is someone who has an agenda, though it may not be known at the time to one dealing with him. the 7’s, as mentioned, as shrewd and cunning, adept at keeping their intentions under wraps. so, when dealing with someone operating here, it is important to be aware that they ARE AWARE OF YOU. they are scrutinizing your ways on the physical plane. they may not advertise it, but they are studying you. this is someone who is stealthy in his doings, even if it for positive reason.
if the 7 of pentacles should appear reversed, know that whosoever is doing the observing shall be found out, because they are not as slick as they aim to be. there may be an air of someone who is overworked, or participating in a physical experience that he assumes he has no control over. here is where the 7’s become chaotic in the physical experience. if a plant is given TOO MUCH water, out of fear of it becoming dehydrated, the green thumb becomes the destroyer of the very thing it is trying to grow. when this card is drawn reversed, it is advised to stop, slow down, or take a break from whatever physical work one feels they ‘have to’ do.
7 OF WANDS
the 7of wands is where the fire element runs rampant and dances wildly with the 7’s. though most would consider this card to be one of conflict, we view it as ‘being prepared on the fly’. there is a certain spontaneity here, when we take into consideration the ‘FORTUNATE INSTABILITY’ of the 7 suit.
wands are fire energy, and they too are quite unstable and erratic when left to their own devices. because of this, they actually pair quite nicely with the 7’s because this is someone who is always ‘ready for anything’.
this card indicates someone who may not know what is coming next, but remains nonchalant about it because he knows no opposition. this may be liken to one who is meandering along his journey, a grizzly bear pops up in the road, and the individual instinctively jumps into the river, to be carried swiftly downstream and out of the grizzly bear’s line of vision. we are talking ‘swift action without forethought’.
this individual is instinctual, almost primally prepared for whatever comes his way, so ingrained in his psyche that he worries not of outside circumstances at all. there may be an animalistic quality to the nature of this person, and he may be one who is considered to be ‘sporadically passionate’. his energy flows in waves and he seems to only move when circumstances are moving around him.
when this card appears, it may be indicative of someone who knows not what to expect and kind of likes it that way. this is not one who solely operates revolving around a schedule. they may appear to be random and scatterbrained, ‘all over the place’, but when the time is right to make the leap, rest assured they will. and will will make it look effortless.
if the 7 of wands should appear reversed, there may be a tendency to follow fear instead of intuition. 7’s can have an air of paranoia in the reversal, and the wands take the animal instincts and push them into overdrive. this may indicate an individual who is so riddled with fear, that he stifles his own intuitive nudges and finds himself in undesirable circumstances. ‘daredevil’ qualities are likely to show themselves as well as agile determination

NOTE: We are out of room. Post continues here: https://www.reddit.com/d100/comments/8w13in/lets_finish_businesses_and_trades_in_a_frontie
Some people are attracted to the frontier of civilization for the adventure. Others might be drawn there for a host of reasons; looking to make coin in a new market, keeping ahead of the law, spreading their faith, bringing order and strengthening the borders of their homeland, or perhaps a noble house has too many scions and hopes that one late-born member might make good with his share of the family coffers.
Let’s build a list of NPCs with businesses and trades in a frontier outpost or settlement.
I’m about to introduce simplified kingdom building mechanics to my Pathfinder Campaign. Basically, it allows your adventurers to govern and grow the settlement they are based in. So I’m looking to make a list of businesses and trades that might be compelled to put stakes down in a frontier outpost with colorful NPCs that might provide plothooks and role-play opportunities.
In my campaign the adventurers are getting a charter from the local military to rebuild a settlement in an abandoned town they have just cleared out of undead and bandits (nominally). It will begin as a outpost to the guard, but can be reoccupied by the former residents, serve as homes for new wonderers, refugees and eager enterprisers. It’s a location that can attract low-fantasy motifs of traditional trades but also allows for interlopers from the feywilds and other planes. So businesses could range from the mundane, such as tanneries or grain mills to the exotic and arcane like a drug den but where the intoxicants are dreamscapes from the feywilds.
Interested in storyhooks and interesting npcs. If you are familiar with any kingdom building mechanics feel free to drop in any additional info that might help GMs—building stats, building costs, settlement effects. Just descs are fine too.
Edit: Feel free to suggest similar businesses already on the list if you have a different spin on it. A little competition is healthy.

d100	Name	Desciption
1	Bottlejaw’s Barbershop (and Dentistry)	The spinning helix of the barber pole atop the shingle of criss-crossing razors and shears placemarks Bottlejaws Barbershop. Edmund Bottlejaw, an always-smiling halfling whose pleasant demeanor might be a professional front has a ramshackle building with very expensive touches. Perhaps the centerpiece is a shiny leather-upholstered hydraulic chair that adjusts not just for the variety of heights of his customers, but also comes with restraints when his work involves the occasional tooth extraction. Busts of humanoids showcase different styling and services, including a dwarf sporting beard-wigs intricately plaited and an orc with a hairpiece dramatically adorned and dyed. He is assisted by a silent and brooding young aasimar, Rajar, who mainly sweeps and appears to be able to provide the muscle.
2	Erastil’s Blessings: Seed bank and lending Library	An elderly human and a baby-nursing half-elf woman came into town on an elk-drawn tarp-covered carriage. Most of their belongings were stacks and stacks of practical books, almanacs, manuals, plants guides and many copies of Parables of Erastil, the holy text of the elder god for a traditional way of life. Molthuse and Nirmal are a fount of practical knowledge. They set up quiet places to read and reference their library in a simple wooden structure, allowing visitors to copy information on paper available for purchase. Nirmal is also in charge of a thriving garden, often pressing cuttings and seedling to visitors. Near the entrance of the library, stands pots of seedballs for sale, seeds of useful plantlife and nutrient packed in mud.
3	The Central Prospect	A small shed with a stable door, operated by Able, an elderly dwarven fellow with a bald head and long grey scraggley beard. The "store" provides basic tools for prospecting, crow bars, shovels, pick axes, gold pans, etc. Able also has well documented maps of the area showing points of interest.
4	Riverbottom Candleshop	Wendy Riverbottom was one of the first inhabitants of area, in fact only the oldest explorers can even remember her moving in. One question always comes up when they see her shop, “Why a Chandler in the middle of nowhere?” to which she gleefully replies that everyone enjoys the light aroma of a candle or a well-crafted bar of soap. She’s open to share her history about the world but strictly adamant against anyone going downstairs to the workshop and seeing the crafting process.
5	The Loose Stool	A tavern run by a dwarf named Kirgan. The interior looks nearly as rundown as the exterior of the building. Creaky floors, tables with uneven legs, and to top it off, the bar top is only 3 feet high to cater to Kirgan's shortness. He is old, even for a dwarf, sporting long gray unkempt hair. He is rather grumpy, always having something to complain about. Don't you dare ask him about the scar on the side of his face or you'll regret it. All that aside he sells great ale by the barrel to travelers interested in taking the party to go
6	Aegert’s Breads	The small cart parked in the center of the settlement has become a familiar sight to the residents. The cart serves as the shop for Joarr Aegert, the resident half-orc baker, to sell his breads. While his rolls and loaves are nothing fancy, they are tasty and filling. Joarr is saving up to buy a small home so that his wife and children can come join him. He misses them dearly, and they him.
7	Illia's Rug Shack	The hunch-backed, plump-faced woman who runs this decrepit store out of what was once a large tool shed doesn't have a set price on a single one out of the dozens of crude rugs she sells out of the dusty shack, but despite her condescending demeanor she is usually willing to let potential customers haggle for them. Illia is almost never seen outside of her store and nobody is quite sure how she gets her rugs. Secretly, Illia is a hag who uses the store as a front for her child peddling business. If you go to the back door at night and knock in a specific pattern, then mention her secret passcode: "worm food," she will sell you any of the children she keeps locked in the back bound and gagged, for the right price. Illia has an orc bodyguard who can usually be seen standing outside the front of the store smoking a pipe.
8	Pete’s Pelts	Pete mostly mumbles, but he is an excellent hunter. Pete sells pelts and dried animal meat. He also sells assorted hunting supplies. He has a small shack he lives in. His furs and other wears are hanging in a barn just outside guarded by his old dog, Grungy . Pete is also a master fletcher and will build specialty arrows for you for the right price.
9	Mat’s Maps	A man named Mathew who sells maps next to his twin brother.
10	Map’s Mats	A man named Mapthew who sells mats and rugs next to his twin brother.
11	Coinz4Shineez	A small stall operated by a group of Goblins. They exchange gems, gold, anything of value for coins. They offer a favourable rate, but will not haggle. Loot is placed on a set of scales, and the appropriate coins appear in a small chest. The loot then goes in the chest and disappears. They are underwritten by a noble wizard in the capital.
12	B'Rody's General Store	This recently widowed Dragonborn has packed up her wagon caravan in the South and set up shop in the North where her remaining family can be found. She's made her fortune dealing in exotic goods and just wants a bit of peace and quiet. Caution: She is known to breath fire at shoplifters. (pro. Bah' Rudy)
13	M'uhctek's Market	Ash M'uhctek, a half-elf moon druid and initiate wizard that leans heavily towards the teachings of Solonor Thelandira, owns the largest produce stall in town. Carries a bit of everything in his wagon and loves to trade. He struck a deal with the local council for a farm and the large swath of forest behind it to remain untouched. In return he uses Plant Growth to bolster harvests in the province. Oddly enough he does this in every town he visits and has set up quite a few franchises and private wildlife preserves.
14	Black Books:	Bernard Black is the owner of this small, dusty and very disorganized book shop. He is a disheveled misanthrope, cynical alcoholic, and a proud chain smoker. He has a strong disdain for people and avoids interaction with his few customers as much as possible. On occasions where he is forced into interaction with customers his response is snarky and mocking. The shop has an incredible collection of books, but almost all of them are in terrible condition — Bernard has read them all.
15	Laif and Kheem's Frontier Furnishing	Laif is a viking as he is pictured in books and on the embossments of viking shields. His majestic beard is always waxed and his posture is proud and loyal to the gods of order and justice. Kheem is a mounted archer as is portrayed by legends and frightened battle reports of the tribes of the tundra. His beard is like that of a mighty dragon and his shoulders are guarded by the heads of beasts whom he hath' slain.The two are united only by honor and their great adventure, of which they are the only survivors. Having done their share, they traded in the one or other limb for experience and settled to construct the settlements of your oncoming NPCs. (They are actually still pretty badass, but Laif can't speak common!)
16	Ar-Og's very good tools	Ar-Og is a troll or possibly orc, or a half-breed of some sort. We don't know. His temper is as slow as dripping tar, and nothing seems to get him into anything related to the bloodrush of those whom he possibly is related to. Except if you question the quality of his tools. Which, as he proclaims, are very good.If you need a hammer, or perhaps a bizarre axe to chop trees which grow in nooks of some stone canyon, just barely out of reach from a regular axe, he is your man! Or possibly troll.
17	Questionable Ehrnard's Questionable Products!	Look, there's nobody for miles - the last shepherd you saw was literally just an unsupervised dog. Really, that there's any store at all is a small miracle. Thinking anything about the economics of running this store would have clued you in on the questionable nature of its owner and products. But what you see is what you get and some of the products don't seem terrible. Plus, it's not like you can be picky, just watch your pack while you're inside.
18	Infernal Delights Diner	This seemingly quaint diner has a charming and flirty red teifling cook by the name of Pot and a demure and empathetic server ‎aasimar‎ by the name of Cake. These two are always playfully arguing with one another and always seem to know just a bit more than they should about their customers. They are in fact an angel and a devil who have abandoned their posts and now reward or punish customers in mysteriously karmic ways. Locals don't know exactly what goes on in the dinner but they know its a good way to test whether visitors are trouble makers or future friends so often will send any new visitors to the dinner.
19	Gregarious Gnome Gebby's Quality Used Golems!	Gebby is a fast talking, slick haired, and sharply dressed salesman with a bevy of used golems of all types. He provides them to rent or own but if you to fail return the golem in time he will charge a generous interest rate and if it comes back too damaged? Well you break it you buy it! The golems are useful for protecting the town and building houses and Gebby makes a good deal of coin providing their services but he might be willing to give a discount if you can help repair some of his damaged golems or help retrieve a late payment or two.
20	Keara's Bar & Barbershop	Keara Blackblade is a retired dwarf soldier who has opened up her dream business. She serves fine drink and will trim your hair and beard into fine styles. She loves her job and she assures you she cuts hair best when drunk. Her husband Nug Blackblade a cigar chomping grump runs the bar while she cuts hair and is less pleased about the work than his wife if only because his supply of drink is constantly running low.
21	The Spit	A tavern housed in a small two storey building. The tables are placed around the walls, and a staircase rises to the next floor at the back of the room. In the centre of the room is a fire pit, with meat of unknown varieties cooking on spits over the flames. The proprieter is a friendly Orc-ish fellow (he's part Orc, so he's Orc-ish) by the name of Grub. The upper floor is a mezzanine that circles the inside of the building. There is a hole in the centre of the roof that the smoke billows from. In bad weather, Grub will hoist a canvas sheet over the outside of the hole, filling the building with smoke.
22	Watery Fowls	A tavern on the main trade road with a short-tempered and incompetent Elven owner Basil, his wife Sybil, a Dwarven chef called Munnuel, and an Aasimar receptionist called Polly. Basil is spectacularly racist, and tries to micromanage everything, to hilarious consequence.
23	Poe and Shaun's Potion Shop	There they were, two Halflings with a dream. They wanted a store where they could test their experimental potions and make a little money on the side. Their potion shop is covered in bottles, hanging down so people must brush them aside to even make their way to the counter. A constant bubbling and hissing from mixtures can be heard throughout. Poe handles the social interactions while Shaun can be found in the back, wearing thick goggles and testing out their experiments. Sure they have some of the boring regular potions one might find at any store, but where's the fun in that when you could have a gander at Potion Experiment #626?
24	Prickly's Fortunes	Within a large cactus resides an equally prickly dryad. This sarcastic and snarky dryad is willing to trade fortunes and, for major deeds, resurrections in exchange for environmental activities. She is tuned to the frontier and can sense any potential threat to the wilderness of these lands and request a task capable of her visitors, so a farmer will get their fortunes told by planting some bushes but an adventurer? Well, she will likely expect more.
25	Hunters and Slayers	Triplet Catfolk Rangers running a beast and monster slaying company. Prrrr favors monstrosities, Grrrr favors beasts, and Hsss favors staying at the office selling the hides, meat, teeth, and other goods his siblings harvest from their hunts. They are always willing to share the profits for an especially dangerous hunt.
26	Grilled Bears	A wilderness survival store with a focus on the essentials like rope, knives, tinderboxes, etc. They sell a proprietary magical canteen that refills to full whenever it is emptied. Sadly, the contents only refills with water, and it always tastes like urine. The owner, known as BG, has a habit of overstating his knowledge and lies constantly about his past in the elite guard.
27	Meer Ray	A kind Tabaxi fellow offering lessons in surviving the wilderness. Starting with the basics of building a fire and making camp, patrons can progress to more advanced skills like tracking, hunting and herbalism. Ray also has a selection of survival tools available, but they tend to be more advanced than his competitor GB's wares.
28	Rocky Rambler's Rolling Canyons!	"Hi, I'm Rocky Rambler! Have you recently moved onto a new property in a sparse frontier and need to remodel your landscape? Then boy, do I have the product for you! Get new Landscape Rolls TM! Ever bought rolls of sod? The cheap dead grass rolled up in bundles? Well now you can buy rolls of just about anything! Want a green meadow filled with blooming wildflowers? Slap it down, roll it out! Want bumpy landscape with rocks and cactus? Unroll it like a rug! Or even a babbling brook for relaxing white noise? They may leak, but they're loaded with fish! You want a heavenly cloudscape? Well, it'll likely float off once you lay it down, but we've got 7 left over from a refunded order! For the next week and a half, buy any two landscapes and get a roll of Clouds absolutely FREE (with purchase of any two outdoor landscapes, offer invalid with wooden floor rolls and interiors, limit one cloud roll per person per day, offer not valid on Thursdays, taxes and fees may apply, offer not valid to Cloud Giants, Cloud Dragons, or Air Elementals. No Refunds, all sales are final). So Come on down to Rocky Rambler's Rolling Canyons! Located adjacent to Rocky Rambler's Animal in a Bottle Warehouse and Enchanted Boot Emporium!"
29	Cold River Shipping Company	Running up in the northern frontier near the Frozen Pines, the Company consists of a fleet of canoes, rafts, and barges along the rivers. Mainly shipping smaller goods or individuals across the rivers and streams, it is a loose outfit put together by four half-orc brothers with native help. They plan to gather enough funds to buy a ship good for breaking ice flows and make their business legitimate.
30	The Silver Sledge	This mining corporation was formed earlier on during the beginning of the frontier by a prominent dwarf miner, Fuaser Robishau. Earning his fortune early on through a large silver payload, which he and his family defended savagely, he has now sponsored several other mines under his new corporation. He mainly favors fellow dwarves who come to work for him, setting them up as work crew bosses and foremen. He does not mind the cheating of common workers, but any who undercut him, even fellow dwarves, are often found outside of town with a pickaxe lodged in their skull.
31	Hedge Mage Headquarters	The frontier proved a great opportunity for up and coming wizards wishing to establish a name for themselves after completing their apprenticeships. Founded by the gnome Fullbery "School Marm" Washup, the headquarters functions as a secondary academy, lodging, and work area, but also as contact for services requiring magic. While the work is not nearly as precise or as epic as from master wizards, it provides affordable and regular services.
32	The Stoor	"Come on up, don't be shy. Sure it's not much but—oh pardon me, let me pull that carpet back down o'er the box, er, shop here. But we got just what you need this far out. What things? Oh you know, lots of things. Many things. I keep them tucked behind this box for safety is all. It's one of them bags o' holdin'... but a box. Oh these? These rocks? Oh these are, uh, rocks... the finest rocks in the land. No better rocks out there, I got 'em all righ' here. And I spent a fair bit o' time searching for them, no need to thank me. Now are you buyin' a rock or not?"
33	Graves Lost & Found	An unusual partnership with an greedy female Ratfolk Ranger named Rugel and a noble female Centaur Cleric name Clover. The two seek out the frontier for unmarked graves of fallen travelers. Clover performs rights upon the corpse, speak with dead to find out who they are, burns the body, and recovers the ashes. Rugel tracks the bodies down, steals anything of value off the body, investigates for any clues regarding the identity of the person, and gets info when Clover speaks with dead about any other treasures the dead may know of. They are hired to find the graves of lost travelers and return the ashes or they will try to return the ashes if they get the name of the family of the perished traveler. They also have a shed of unidentified ashes they hold on to. The information they get from the dead can also be purchased from this odd pair.
34	Belix's Obelisks and Menhir Workshop and Delivery	Belix appears to be human in most respects, if one of prodigious dimensions. What might give an observer pause is his incredible strength, evident as he works his trade, literally carving out a natural wall-face to produce oblong menhirs that tower over most people and easily hefting the pure rock sculptures as if it were no heavier than a sack of feathers. It is rumored that the menhirs might be the source of his strength, but none of his customers appear any more vital. However no one can deny the charm of his simple but impressive handiwork, the Founders Stone a simple giant obelisk that towers in the town square, being an excellent example. He is always working on a few extra obelisks and menhirs just in case despite the limited market, but in his many hours of downtime he hunts boars, with one or two always on a spit roast at his quarry. He’ll accept coin, but some have discovered he will barter nearly any task or item for a potion, any potion. He appears to be looking a particular potion, but he’s willing to try any in his maniacal quest.
35	The Outlook	A small tavern with a few spare rooms for any travelers making their way through. It's a nice place to stop at if you need to rest up and take stock before heading out. The main draw though are the scouts that like to hang around and guide any newcomers. There's a bit of competition among the scouts as business isn't exactly thriving this far out. The unspoken agreement among them is they each have a specialized area of what they know and they stick with it. Know ahead of time where you're going if you want a guide from here or else there's sure to be a bar fight among the guides. As troublesome as it sounds, these guides are certainly experts of their area.
36	Eastwood's Stables	This gruff cowboy is a literal cow-boy. A Minotaur that gave up the life of a bounty hunter to raise and sell horses to those in need. A loner who prefers the company of horses he known to be fair if rude. One would be wise not to cross Eastwood, he is as dangerous as he looks.
37	Ranch and Menagerie Grove	This Druid Grove is home to a Druid Collective that both protects and sells the creatures kept within the grove. They provide some of the animals within the grove for hunting or labor, for a price, as long as excessive damage is not done to the frontier. They have also been know to go out to hunt down poachers that threaten the wildlife of the frontier. They are willing to provide services if one brings them rare beasts of the frontier to be protected within the grove.
38	Big Dog's Casino	Run by Big Dog, an awakened bulldog, this high-end casino is where those who have earned their riches in the frontier can socialize and gamble in safety and fun. Big Dog is a mysterious dog seeming to have lived through several major events in history and is far more clever than he appears at first glance. He has somehow convinced a cyclops, Snake Eye, to man the door and a pair of bugbear brothers, Blackjack and Roulette, acting as muscle within the casino itself. His employees are remarkably loyal and protective of Big Dog, which is good because he has far more enemies than any dog should.
39	The Holy Church	An aged Cleric Elf runs a church of the town known only as Father and rumored to have come from the Fey realm. A child that was possessed by a demon was visited by the Father and it is said that when he walked into the room the Demon-possessed child went silent, then screamed, and the demon banished itself. The grounds of the church is truly hollowed ground as one can feel the divine energy radiating from it to the point that it glows ever so slightly at night.
40	The Public Library	Run by a Kitsune Bard Loremaster, named Shu, and her adopted daughter, a Changeling, named Frell. These two shapshifters gather knowledge from the frontier and record them into the books of the library, making magical copies to send to other libraries around the world. They are willing to pay for any unique knowledge you may offer and the library is free to use for anybody though there is a donation box. Usually only one will be in the library as the other would be searching the frontier for unique plants, creatures, or lore to add to their books.
41	Normal Carpentry	This place is completely normal. It does carpentry. There is no sinister basement. There is no evil cult. Its just a normal carpentry shop. We are not aberrations.
42	Under Well Shop	A well has appeared though its waters seem toxic and its seems a shop is attached to it underground. It's keeper, a cloaked in Drow, possess goods only found within the underdark. The shop owner will tell you a creature is within the waters of the well polluting it and it needs to be slain to purify the water.
43	Lake Town	A nearby lake has had a settlement of aquatic races move in. A gillman named Ted runs the trading post between the town and the lake. He holds a bevy of goods created and harvested by the citizens of the lake.
44	Tim Tim Tom's Cobbler Store	Tim Tim Tom is a true master cobbler. A halfling who makes the highest quality shoes in the frontier, perhaps the world. His shoes are incredibly comfortable and near indestructible as his skill is so polished it seems divinely touched. Nearly everybody in town has a custom pair make for them despite the incredible prices he charges as he is willing to take payments over the course of years for permanent residents. But if adventures want a pair of his shoes you will need to gather some of his rare material.
45	Jackdaw's Discount Weapons	Jackdaw is a weaponsmith who gets about half of his stock from adventurers passing through with weapons they looted off of fallen foes. As a result, much of his loot is eclectic and unique in its style and material.
46	Fangjaw's Proteccy Clothez	A lizardfolk armorer who doesn't speak great common, but makes damn good armor, whether it be metal or hide. He moved out here because in the bigger cities, his accent proved more of a deterrent than out here.
47	Athena's Aegis	A female former gladiator who specializes in making magical protective shields. Especially those that can be thrown into the enemies' faces. (Captain America style)
48	Lone Star Courier	A courier service that gives zero regard for the safety of their deliverymen and as a result, will rarely refuse a contract. However, they are also always looking for new couriers.
49	Goldie's Bank and Storage Services:	This bank (one of many) is run by gold tinted Kobolds serving a particularly organized and neurotic Gold Dragon, Goldie, who uses the holdings as their hoard. The bank holds onto goods and money allowing it to accrue interest as long as the holder checks in once a year. If the holder does not show during a year the treasure is held but no interest is gained. Treasure can be retrieved if proof of ownership or holder returns and a holding fee is paid. If the holder is found dead and the initial insurance is not paid the treasure becomes the property of the bank. The bank will often set up bounties to determine if the holders are alive or dead and request proof of either. Killing a holder during a bounty mission has serious consequences and those who kill holders or those who have not paid off their loans have especially high bounties put up by the bank.
50	Gible Gom's Circus	A strange circus that seems to pop in and out of existence within the town. Run primarily by Goblins and Hobgoblins they put on exciting acrobatic and athletic feats, enchanting performances, and spectacular magical tricks. The people are a bit wary but those who go seem to truly enjoy the show and miraculously the only money lost is that willingly spent. Some very angry looking elves from the Fey have been seen staring at the circus but they vanish before anybody gets close. Gible, the circus master Hobgoblin, seems nervous and is seeking help regarding the elves.
51	Helding’s Hardware	Helding's Hardware is a small tool shop run by the owner and sole employee Javis Helding. The store is a small but well-kept building situated between two larger buildings on either side, making the clay brick shop appear even smaller. Multiple racks line the walls and form aisles in an orderly fashion, each one holding his collection of a certain tool. Hammers, shovels, saws. Javis almost always has something that fits the bill, and if he doesn’t, he’ll make sure the blacksmith starts working on something that does. Javis himself is a burly halfling, an uncommon combination of words that nonetheless describes the 4-foot high bundle of good humor and masculinity. Nothing matters more to him than his tiny shop and the people he meets there. Those that know him know that when they walk through his door, they will get the best help he can provide.
52	Fettlepox's Studio	Mauxi Fettlepox is a lanky figure who while known to be temperamental exercises the best manners. His business is not so much a storefront as a narrow alcove where he stacks the canvases he paints. On the sidewalk he places a few easels displaying of his most recent work—typically a maelstrom of frenzied brushstrokes that coalesce to an enthralling simulacrum of his subject. When the easels change, it is a minor event, with even critics pausing to update their opinions. It has become a habit to drop a coin in a tin bowl beneath the work, the clinking announcing each viewer. There’s often an unsettling quality to the work even as they are undeniably captivating, much like the man himself. His ethnicity, heck, even his race, is difficult to place—human might be the best guess going by his ears and dun pigmentation. But there’s something other about him. There’s some talk that he might seal a part of his subject’s soul in his paintings—that’s surely hogwash… But why can’t he never be found in his room at the tavern he rents out? And how does outdrink the stoutest dwarf with none the worse for wear?
53	Cold Justice Law House	Judge Jaws, a lizardfolk Inquisitor, judges the criminal of the frontier with his lawmen. Deputy Chill a Water Suli and Sheriff Scorch a Fire Suli. Chill is a Ranger and Scorch is a Monk. Chill finds and Scorch runs down and beats them senseless. Recently they found a bandit camp and need some help taking them down.
54	Frenti Chartered Architect & Assoc.	In a display of her skills, the entrance to Aleski Frenti’s offices are accessible via a mechanical contraption she calls “the elevator.” A balcony encircles her office allowing visitors to circumambulate and observe the vista of the growing outpost. The office itself is busy with workspaces covered with blueprints and designs. Tableaus with maps and plans can be wheeled around the space; a number of draftstables have active building designs underway; and a giant table allows for papers to be spread widely with many half-drunk cups of a some brown syrupy liquid scatter upon it, sometimes apparently serving as paperweights. A narrow winding staircase apparently leads to Aleski’s quarters. She is often found bent over a blueprint, scribbling notes with her sleeves folded to her elbows. Her assistant, a young gnome, Jerfery often follows behind her collecting the scraps of paper in her wake. While she is retained by the Council, she can be hired by private individuals either to design or consult.
55	Cool Winds' ButcheAnita's Fight Club	An androgynous undine named Jacky (isn’t too hung up on pronouns) and a half-orc who goes by Anita run the cold store and butchery. Jacky is undoubtedly the face of the establishment, and apparently responsible for the cool temperature generally and the arctic chill in the meat room. Jacky does the more traditional butchery, trapping game, quartering and dressing carcasses, and preparing and preserving meats. They have become a regular supplier to a few homes and businesses but they will handle meats on request. Anita is reticent and gruff. However, she hosts a “secret” fight club after hours once a week in the meat room with Jacky’s reluctant consent. Victors, and scrappy losers, even, can expect eye contact, discounts and even a smile from Anita. The fraternity of brawlers is becoming a real thing in the outpost.
56	Sir Calleb Dallas's Home for Orphans and Wayward Children	Sir Calleb Dallas, a human, was from a high ranking noble family who tried to become more selfless and charitable by opening an Orphanage in the frontier. Unfortunately his noble upbringing has left him ill-suited to frontier life and dealing with rambunctious children. To make matters worse his family has cut off funding to his orphanage! This desperate situation has caused the eldest and most dedicated orphan, Red an 60 year old Elf (technically still a child), to run off into the frontier for some treasure to save the orphanage. If you can go find and rescue Red, Calleb is willing to give up a treasured family heirloom as a reward.
57	Expose Inc.	Expose Inc. is a trio of mystery-solving reporters. The blond male trap master Aasimar named Ascot is the leader of the group. The clumsy attractive redhead half-elf sorceress in purple robes is named Dnger Pronee is the interviewer, and the female bespectacled gnome loremaster, Jinkies, is the head researcher and writer. A monster is scaring off the new owners of the Belfast Manor, will you help them capture the creature and get the story?
58	Fey Pharmaceutical Delights	A skinny cowardly Drow Fey Druid in a green shirt wearing a brown mushroom hat, named Norville, runs a shop with drugs of various effects from both the Fey realm and the Underdark. His best friend is an awoken equally cowardly talking dog, named Dooby. Both act as if effected by their product but they are in truth just silly and simple. Will trade product for delicious food. They will give the very best of their product if you get the legendary God Dog Biscuits for them to snack on.
59	Markus the Canoe-Maker	Markus… he doesn’t make canoes. It’s a just a moniker that stuck for the meticulous way he hollows out the corpses of the departed that no one claims, making careful anatomist sketches and inks. Otherwise, he provides sombre, brief, professional funeral services, minus the homilies, demonstrating a savant-level knowledge of faiths and cultures. Those services go a long way to balance out the gaunt, sallow wizard’s macabre pursuits—that and his restraint in raising the dead. In fact, he’s probably the best person around for an exorcism or discreet consultation about the ol’ family ghost. Perhaps unsurprisingly he’s quite the expert in pathology, either coming to unerring conclusions or withholding his judgment. When in doubt, he will simply cast speak to the dead, a task that the local law have been known to require.
60	Quality Custom Magic Jewelry	This ant colony is a hive mind that burst out of the ground and created a house sized ant hill. No one is sure how they came to be or where they come from but they seem friendly enough. To create the jewelry a person must sacrifice an item of great sentimental importance to the customer, high quality gems, precious metals or rare bones, a cup of the customer's tears, a pint of customer's blood, and 25 pounds of sugar and/or sweets. The ants will take the items and work for 2 weeks to create unique magical jewelry usable only by the customer or their heirs with abilities that match the customer's personality. They can only make one such item for each person though they can still make high quality normal jewelry if the raw material and 10 pounds of sugar and/or sweets is provided. If the ants see you as receptive they may ask for help in stopping their former master from finding and enslaving it. Their former master is a wizard that has changed himself permanently into an ant monster that can control ants psychically.
61	Lydia’s Arbor	The dryad Lydia welcomes all visitors to her small arbor, maintaining a staff of workers to harvest the fruit trees she nurtures. Parents have learned that they can safely keep their children in her care. Adventurers short on coin might spend a night under the canopy of her orchards. In exchange of a favor, she might even woodshape an enchanted object. She is well-versed in the medicinal properties of her plants. That a dryad would choose to make a home in a frontier town would rightly surprise a visitor. Much like others of her kind, Lydia began her life with an aversion to civilization. It was only when her grove was met with destruction, not by the woodmen that were pushing back the forest, but by an enormous wildfire that her destiny was altered. Lydia melded herself to her oak tree, resigned to her fate when a druid compelled her to withdraw. The human druid took her back to a hamlet and kept her alive. Though weak, she wandered the hamlet drawn to its oldest tree, amazed at the care the inhabitants took to that tree in particular. She swallowed her bitterness at how this tree could survive amidst humanity who destroyed so much of nature and communed with the elder tree. That experience changed her. The druid led her back to the tree that she had bonded with. There a sapling had sprung where the giant oak once stood. She carefully uprooted the sapling and set out to find another frontier town where she could set her roots, and possibly proselytize a green way forward.
62	Fritz's Magic School Wagon	This small yellow wagon is larger on the inside and can house an entire class of students. It can also transform, shrink, grow, and travel between the planes. The teacher is a powerful human fey sorceress. With her iguana familiar and class in tow they take the wagon on magical educational trips. She is looking for some chaperones to help her on her next grand trip to hell!
63	The Doll Maker	This quaint little shop is surprisingly dark. Inside are countless dolls and stuffed animals of very high quality though some look off-putting and creepy. The shop owner is a vampire named Dex who who drinks from a heart of never ending blood. He really loves his dolls. Dex has a private collection of old, possibly haunted, dolls. If you promise to care for them, Dex will give you one of his special custom-made dolls or stuffed animals. They are very special dolls.
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From the beautiful minds of u/no4u, u/generic_brand_cola, u/IAMA_llAMA_AMA, u/ASzinhaz, u/Kardinalin, u/Table_Bang, u/Papenhausen, u/generic_brand_cola, u/Hwga_lurker_tw, u/Woopdeedo, u/Ytumith, u/ceilius, u/FadoraNinja, u/WitchDearbhail, u/Patchwork18, u/SquiddneyD, u/GhastlyKing, u/ThePragmaticPimp

Welcome to the 41st [Lets Build]!
TOPIC: Factions

Die Roll	Result
1	The Old Lord's Watch - A group of retired combatants that protect a small village from evil threats. They put up the disguise of an old man/woman, but they haven't forgotten their training.
2	The Wayfarers - a band of pirates who pilot the seas off Waterdeep. They offer peace with pirates who run the Wayfarer flag. The High Wayfarer is an illithid pirate.
3	Compassion Conclave - A conclave of Lawful Good Warlocks who work to promote being kind, helping others.
4	My Eyes are Down Here - Gnomes, Halfings, Duergar, Kobolds, small races of all kinds grouping together for awareness of Shorter races and delivering speechs and information on how to talk to those of shorter stature.
5	The Unchained - Mercenary band comprised of former slaves and prisoners. Make use of scavenged or improvised weapons. Often found fighting in rebellions. Have a very loose command structure and usually exist in smaller groups.
6	Society for the Protection of Nature - Various Druids, Monks, Paladins and Cleric of natural domains. Fighting against pollution of natural habitats, deforestation, industrialisation etc.
7	RSPD - The Royal Society for the Protection of Dungeons. A group of fanatics who believe that dungeons are to be preserved and not delved in for treasure or glory, or even to sort out the kobold problem.
8	The Legion of the Faceless - a nebulus organization that practices intense anonimity, always wearing masks when in combat or public settings. They claim to be everywhere and to hear everything, making them excellent at political blackmail and manipulation.
9	The Cult of the Clear-Eyed Mind - a small group of dwarves that have sworn off alcohol. They boast of fantastic powers, such as remembering what happened last night.
10	The Jötunn Valkyries: Half giant and half Aasimar these armored shield maidens inspire both dreadful fear and fierce loyalty. Their hair dyed red with blood and their eyes burning with a rage only a fool would ignore sets the tone on the battlefield.
11	The Banner of Pine Needles - A warband of elfish archers known for hunting goblins and orcs. They show no mercy and offer no quarter.
12	The Glürgil Tinkerocracy - A Gnomish scientific community that believes wild and dangerous progress for the sake of progress is still progress...only faster.
13	Lords of the Gyre Mountains - Dwarven emissaries, traders, warriors, smiths, and diplomats. Powerful and rich families comprise this clan. Their ancient walls have never been breached.
14	The Scale - Lizardfolk, Dragonborn, and Tortles known for their ambushes and their proclivity to bed in the sewers of large cities.
15	Morg Trigal - An abnormally large war band of goblins, orcs, and worgs. The large column of torches and smoke often gets them confused with a fire wurm. A war chief and shaman priestess leads the horde.
16	The Ivory Jacks - Led by the large, mustachioed Rupert Quakesly, the Ivory Jacks are the city's premier white collar gang. They deal in upper class drugs, underground fight rings, brothels, casinos, and they have their hands in the pockets of most politicians.
17	The Nobles of Naught - Led by the Crow Prince, a mysterious figure who wears a cloak of black feathers, the Nobles of Naught are everywhere. Dedicated to bringing an end to corruption and the mistreatment of the poor, the Nobles could be anyone, from the city guard, to the baker, to the small orphan on the street corner.
18	The Sirens - Led by Madame Tuvelle, an elegant older woman, the Sirens are a group of elite spies and assassins around the world disguised as escorts and whores. Their base is in a huge, gaudy establishment known as the Sanguine Songbird, which fronts as an upper class casino/babrothel.
19	Council of the Eight Tipped Star - An order of mages led by eight masters, each focused on one of the schools of magic.
20	The Knights of the Arsenal - An order of holy knights who value showmanship. They stage elaborate gladiatorial bouts as a way to fund expeditions to hunt and destroy evil forces throughout the world.
21	The Deep Corsairs - Vicious pirates, mutated by some elder sea god into half-humanoid, half-fish monstrosities. Usually, they don't bother with ships of their own, simply rising out of the sea and sending their victims (and their treasure) to watery graves for later retrieval.
22	The Order of St. Davûm - A holy order, founded by a priest of the god of death, whose priests go with armies marching to war to serve as healers and medics; they perform burial rights after battles for the fallen soldiers on both sides to prevent them from being brought back as undead.
23	The Fraternal Order of the Azure Quill - An organization of sages and spies. Secretly run by an evil blue dragon, most members do not realize that they are collecting information specifically on the dragon's rivals to help him take them down.
24	The Order of the Archive - A knightly order dedicated to preserving all knowledge, even reprehensible works by demon worshippers and necromancers, against a future dark age, and making sure it stays safely in the right hands. Knights of the Archive train rigorously in shutting down black mages, helping those who have had their minds stolen by evil magic, and protecting and copying ancient writings.
25	The Gabbo Initiative - A group of wizards that are convinced they can civilize goblins.
26	The Council of Gears - Warforged, Gnomes, and Dwarves sit on this very public group whose main purpose is to limit the proliferation of dangerous technologies. Their influence spans continents.
27	The Hollow Moon Pack - Lycanthropes, shape changers, and animagi so ancient they no longer change with the moon. They mostly keep to themselves, but when angered their savagery is legendary.
28	Crone Rock Watch - A group of paladins and clerics that hunt down hags and witches.
29	The Magistari - Five aasimar wizards sent from the east to destroy a great evil.
30	The Silver Woodsmen - Anti lycanthrope, and expert monster hunters. They have all lost family to this affliction and are not known for showing mercy.
31	The 50's - A gang of half-breeds. Half-orcs, half-elves, half-halflings (quarterlings?). You name it. They just want to be seen as legitimate races.
32	The Order of The White Stag - a group of rangers still loyal to an elven Prince in exile.
33	The Last Arc - a group of environmentalist who believe that the end of days is coming, and have built a huge raft to ride out the apocalypse.
34	Fragmented Truth - a faction of believers who think that the written history of the land is a lie, created by the ruling kingdom to control the common people. They seek the truth about history so they can expose the kingdom for the fakes they are.
35	Angelic Fighters - a well known faction of warriors who wish to finish to take their last breath on the battlefield. The faction will fight for any side in any conflict for the right coin.
36	Glory's Treasure - a faction of low rank adventurers, searching for the long lost treasure of the ancient kingdom.
37	Altered Magic - The faction of dark mages who wish to change magic forever.
38	Librarians of The Kingdom - a faction that seeks the knowledge lost to time. This faction consists of several scholars ranging from Historians to Poets. This faction has one core belief that the blue dragons are the superior creatures of this world, and as such the Librarians can't harm a blue dragon.
39	Shady Ladies - The mysterious faction of ladies who have been cast out of society for various reasons. The faction works in secret to gain enough power to over throw the current kingdom.
40	Black Bards - a famous group of bards that travel the lands searching for musical talent to join their faction.
41	Huntsmen of Grim-Lock - a group of huntsmen that protect the town of Grim-Lock from the unknown evil of the world. This faction is mysterious in nature, and the very location of Grim-Lock is unknown. Joining the faction much less finding them is a struggle of impossible feats.
42	The Gaia Chain - A massive, world-wide, ancient order comprised of druid circles, dragons, and elementals. Membership is usually passed along bloodlines. However, they have three gigantic temples that are open to the public only once a year.
43	The Razing Horde - Barbarians, Orcs, and Goblin tribes that united and utterly destroyed a city for tormenting them with necromancy and dark magiks. They diverted a river to wash away the ruins of the wizard filth.
44	The Capellbairn of Craghoof - Mostly scouting parties, traders, farmers, and warbands of centaurs & halflings. Very territorial... and very odd to see.
45	The Witchgamut - An order headed by three sphinxes, three LE hags, and three Aasimar that are dedicated to keeping wild magic in check.
46	The Praxus Inquisitors - Order dedicated to purging the world of magic and their practitioners.
47	Infiltration Unit 42 - Warforged led spy cabal that hasn't stopped even though the Great War is long over.
48	Flumphs for a Peaceful Future - A cloister of flumphs have made a group that encourages peaceful interactions amongst the Underdark.
49	The Green Order - A group of knights that protect a forest. When knighted, as part of their oath to the [forest/diety/whatever] their hair turns a dark forest green. (Shamelessly stolen from Matt Colville's Ratcatcher books)
50	The Unalloyed - A group of xenophobic Dwarves that want to remove all non-Dwarves from Dwarven lands.
51	Order of the Black Sun - a group of monster-hunters, made up of people who have lost family or friends to monstrosities. They are lead by a Knight in dark armor who's face is never seen. The Order is made up of good people, who aren't afraid to get their hands dirty.
52	Dragão azul (Order of the Blue Dragon) - A secret organization of agents that handle the less scrupulous needs of the ruling class. They have a set of coded chits they keep on their possession when communicating with each other.
53	The Glacial Stream - A mercenary group of made up of goliaths that were expelled from their tribes. They travel the world and take on dangerous tasks that either lead them to glory or an honorable death.
54	Syndicates - a group of wizards, scientists and engineers who develop technologies to dominate the world. They live and work in underground chambers, protected by runes and automatons, and often attack settlements for supplies and test subjects.
55	Owlbear Team Nine - an elite force of highly skilled combatants, who respond to immediate terrorist threats, and hunt down their headquarters in order to eliminate them.
56	The NewWorlders - magic users who believe to have discovered a way to create a new plane of existence. Their objective is to create a realm of pure good, where all races can live happily and safely forever. They attempt to achieve this by the easiest and quickest means, which often involves theft and murder.
57	The Knights of Pi - a group of paladins/druids that live in a big forest, supposedly protecting it from evildoers. They channel their magic using math, that always involves circles, and shouting the letter π.
58	The Scarlet Troupe - a company of tricksters, jugglers, acrobats and strange animals that roam the land delighting the masses with dangerous acts and daring twirls. But that's a façade, for the Lady —head of the troupe— is a Mistress of the Assassin's Guild, and she moves the Troupe to where she (and them) must fulfill contracts.
59	Knights of Levistus - an ancient group of devil worshippers that use only fire based magic. Their only goal for centuries has been to travel to their master in the Fifth Layer of Hell and melt the ice that imprisons him, and in turn they have been promised eternal life and power if they succeed.
60	The Sixth House - Members of a dishonoured / forgotten noble family who work in the shadows to destabilize the ruling Five Houses.
61	The Circus of Smiles - A roaming caravan of performers and clowns which is actually a dangerous cult of chaos and insanity. This roaming band leaves only destruction in their wake, as their charms lure members in with displays of debauchery and madness.
62	The Curators - An organization of wizards of several races that have banded together to create the greatest compendium of magical knowledge called Index. They are known to fanatically hunt down and catalogue magical artifacts and tomes to add to their already sizable collection. They have even been known to trade in countries' secrets and intelligence, running a vast underground spy network.
63	The Nighthawks - A group of assassins, under the guise of servants of the local death god/goddess. They are a rogue element, and disavowed by the death temple, as they actively kill, rather than letting death come naturally. Of course, this is a front for their true identity, a cult of demon worshippers, hunting artifacts of ancient power to fuel the gate spells that they intend to cast in order to allow their demon king to cross to the material realm and claim it. The most dedicated/depraved members have been gifted/cursed with a charm of undeath, rising a short time after they are killed as near-unkillable vessels of the demon king to exert his will and rage upon the mortal world for a time.
64	The Golden Legacy - A terrorist organization composed of the descendants and worshippers of a tyrannical gold dragon. The dragon left behind its naturally good outlook on life in pursuit of greater power, starting a cult during the process. Even though it has been centuries since the dragon’s passing, members of all races can be found among the ranks of those that believe that the dragon will return one day. The organization is led by gold dragonborn who are believed to be of the dragon’s lineage, and are thereby holy in the organization’s eyes. The faction’s main focus is to seize the “holy land”, the capital of a nearby empire which had originally been the dragon’s lair. In addition, the faction is strongly predjudiced against all dragonborn that are not gold, even other metallic-descended dragonborn. They are seen as unholy, and the Legacy wages a race war on all “inferior” dragonborn in order to purge such “blasphemous creatures” from the world.
65	The Church of the Great Eye - A cult that worships Chezdrur, a beholder.
66	The Faith of the Lazer Eye - A similar cult that worships Eloks, a rival beholder of Chezdrur.
67	Anonymouse - A group of anarchistic ratfolk. Known for their foul mouths and horrible pranks.
68	Tiamat's Teeth - Dragonborn and human followers make up this army. Conquest for their dragon masters is the only thing they know.
69	The Oak Defenders - Mostly comprised of farmers, fighters, and freed slaves they will fight to protect their lands. They have quite the armory from all the foes they've defeated over generations. The local nobles are getting scared of their growing political aspirations.
70	The Stone Hewers - They built most of the walls in the kingdom. Mostly civilized giants, human engineers, dwarf masons and ogres. They have a monopoly on both building walls and destroying them.
71	The Tonabi - Hunter gatherers that live in yurts along a coastal mountain range to the north. Their territory extends to many islands and many an intruder has fallen to their arrows and harpoons. Love to trade fish, meats, pelts, and seaweed for metal.
72	The Yarn Pride - Tabaxi rouges that got tired of being treated poorly by society. They steal anything not nailed down. Scratch that...they just stole the nails. Check your pockets.
73	The Sel'drow Heretics - Former wanderers and slaves from the Underdark. These Drow have taken to farming the lands of the surface world over generations. They spread out like ants, forming colonies with underground tunnels that connect to their home caves. They have never forgotten the old ways though.
74	The Piruaga - Jungle dwellers that claim a large territory and are known for sending out emissaries to trade. Their fruits, bushmeats, nuts, medicines and other exotic goods are highly prized. Their dart poisons, however, are a well kept secret.
75	The Tokupi - Known headhunters. They are experts at water warfare. Their obsidian weapons are meant more to maim instead of kill. They are known slave traders.
76	The Red Thrush - A group of Kenku that splintered off from the local Thieves Guild. An abandoned wizard's tower is their base of operations.
77	The Ainmhithe Triads - Three corrupted druid conclaves that are committed to destroying every city on the planet.
78	Daughters of the Nymph - All female druid-led communes that hunt and capture men once a year.
79	The Paper Court - A secret organization of scholars, wizards, and other knowledge-seekers. Most librarians and booksellers in the region are affiliated with them in some way. It is said that they have a sprawling underground library under a major city.
80	The Fold - A very selective organization of efficient mercenaries led secretly by a bronze dragon.
81	The Order of Balance - An ancient mystical organisation of wizards and sages who try to keep the equilibrium between order and chaos. Not much is known about them but they appear to have had their hands in every major political conflict in the past thousand years.
82	Multiverse Intervention Block - short MIB, A shadowy organisation that deals with beings from another realm, unknown to most people. Conspiracies have formed about the existence of this group. It consists of highly trained mages and fighters who seem to be wherever some unidentified creatures causes havoc. They always wear black and seem somewhat inhuman to the people they encounter. Unfortunately, nobody ever remembers their faces or what happened after their visit.
83	The Wee Green Men - Gnome farmers that will take over any land they feel they should own, and convert it to cabbage farming. They turn an impressive crop, but since most of it is fermented into alcohol they end up a nuisance for every nearby town a few weeks after the harvest. No town has survived more than one farming season without driving them out.
84	Madam Maga's Travelling Brothel - A roaming caravan filled with, for lack of a better term, magic prostitutes. They use magic to charm people into entering and then change their forms to suit the needs of their , ahem, clients. It's run by a succubus with no real interest in wars or political troubles, unless it effects her work for the worse.
85	The Rosehills - A traveling family of halfling diplomats committed to making peace between all races and factions. In fact they’re so committed to peace that they are willing to lie, steal, bribe, kill, and in extreme cases commit genocide if that’s what it takes to stop the bloodshed.
86	Cade’s Foundation - An order of wizards who seek to educate the common people about magic and make taboo magical arts, such as necromancy, more socially acceptable.
87	The Dammed - A group of druids protects a forest directly next to a massive trade city. Any time the city attempts to expand into the forest, The Dammed responds by organizing all the beavers in the forest to dam the main trade river that leads into the city.
88	The Goblin Crown - They possess one third of a magical crown that can control an ancient army of golden clock-work automatons. Known for kidnapping gnomes and dwarves in an effort to find the other pieces.
89	The Ancient Golden Dwarves - They possess one third of a magical crown that can control an ancient army of golden clock-work automatons. Known for kidnapping gnomes and goblins in an effort to find the other pieces.
90	The Clockwork Gnomes - They possess one third of a magical crown that can control an ancient army of golden clock-work automatons. Known for kidnapping goblins and dwarves in an effort to find the other pieces.
91	The Kingdom of the Blood Oak - A heavily armored and regimented army of elves. Their forest strongholds and forts are found along established trade routes. Their expansion throughout the forest resembles symbiosis more than conquest.
92	Eyes of the Serpent - Yuan-Ti Purebloods, Lizardfolk, Tortles, and Dragonborn make up the bulk of this spy network. They trade in poisons and secrets. Their negotiations start with offering you a drink, and ends when they decide to give you the antidote.
93	The Emerald Kingdom of Zô - A giant Dwarven stronghold sits on a bed of giant green crystals. These crystals are the size of mountains and run forever in rich subterranean veins. Home to dwarves, gnomes, and halflings they rarely allow the tallfolk to enter their domain. Their crystals release a gas that fuels an armada of air ships.
94	Siggi's Marauders - Vikings, barbarians, berserkers, shield maidens... once they were roving tribes of raiding parties. That was until a legendary shield maiden gave her life to save the entire northern part of the continent. United under her banner, the peace her sacrifice wrought encouraged trade and expansion south. To kill a fellow Northerner is taboo and punishable by blood eagle.
95	The H'radrome Empire - A hobgoblin civilization based on ancient Rome. They use goblins as foot soldiers and their grand coliseum hosts daily games. The twisted columns leave much to be desired.
96	Order of the Shadow Lotus - Yuan-Ti Pureblood royal assassins and alchemists make up the upper echelons of this group. There are whispers of a lich leading them for the last 500 years.
97	The Red Kings - An alliance of monsters and villains bent on ruling the world. Currently led by Kaanchiweartoliock the red emperor, an ancient red dracolich.
98	House of Bjernson - An ancient Nordic clan. Every male is named Bjern Bjernson and seeks some unique accomplishment to use as a Suffix. Founded by Bjern Bjernson the Lightbringer, vampire-hunting paladin. Currently lead by Bjern Bjernson the Darkslayer, monster hunter who has killed over two-hundred shadows.
99	The Halls of the Dead - Reformed undead, vampires, zombies, ghouls and skeletons that just want to be left alone. They consider necromancers doctors and their territory envelopes graveyard after graveyard.
100	The Titan Provincial Government - Refusing the ordning and the inequality it promotes, these giants have established a peaceful, stable community with humans out in the wilds. It is a true democracy, but is known for utterly destroying hostile invaders...and their homes...and their cities...and their countries. One of the last places on earth known to harvest the giantsbane plant. "Humanoids are friends, not food...unless they attack first."

Special thanks to u/dndspeak, u/Slainlion, u/SonicWafflez, u/the3rdtea, u/technowriter, u/Weishaupt666, u/NachoFailconi, u/Gabrielckc, u/Jacknerik, u/definitely_joe, u/RavenRoostBandit, u/Xurandor, u/buddychrist627, u/Hwga_lurker_tw, u/OptimumTurner, u/fringd, u/Qozux, u/unitedshoes, u/benjamin-graham, u/skele, u/ThePragmaticPimp, u/DraXus87, u/Nyarlathotep__ u/Patergia, u/LordOph