O is for the Outstretched Hand

I’m excited that I can post today, as I ran out of pre-scheduled posts, and was worried I might not have time to get this one written. I’m proud of the fact that I am maintaining a schedule for posting details of my favorite campaign this month as part of the A to Z Blogging Challenge and my entry in this month’s RPG Blog Carnival (A two-fer!). I still have a couple posts to write to catch up, as I started late, but I’m confident I can do that in these last two weeks. Today, I’m writing about one of the factions I’ve created …

The Outstretched Hand, or sometimes just the “Hands”, is a loose organization originally founded to support the downtrodden of Rusheniya. They run a hospital and several kitchens in the city, providing healing and food for those who cannot afford it. A faction within this group, calling themselves the Upraised Fist, sees the nobility and corruption in the city as the cause of the pain of the underclasses. (More on Upraised Fist later.)

The Hands believe that there is strength and beauty in showing charity toward others and providing help for the helpless. They provide that support and ask nothing in return. Sister Pomuskeniya is the leader of the hands, and works from a hospice and shrine in the Temple Walk block of the Old City. This location is currently overloaded, as the hospital the Hands operated in the South District, outside the city walls, was one of the buildings burned to the ground in that neighborhood recently. The Hands are currently looking for a new location for the hospital, but have few funds to rebuild.

The PCs might be contacted by the Outstretched Hands to find an ingredient for a special healing salve that has been resistant to magical healing. They may also be asked to help transport or rescue some citizens displaced by a noble’s new manor being built, or by some localized disaster.