Regalport Job Board: Earning Renown in the Lhazaar Principalities

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The Lhazaar Principalities campaign begins small: a crew with no name, no flag, and no reputation. Tier 1 of the campaign is all about building that reputation, forging alliances, and learning who can be trusted in Regalport. The structure that holds this early arc together is a job board adventuring model, a flexible engine that keeps the campaign lively, episodic, and full of faction politics.

This article is part of a series of posts about a Lhazaar Principalities D&D Campaign:

The Party’s Goal

At this stage, the crew isn’t saving the world—they’re trying to survive and stand out. Their goals are:

Build a reputation in the aftermath of the Last War.
Form alliances with Regalport’s factions.
Outperform rival crews at every turn.

Everything else—the missing captain, Dyrrn’s corruption, the cosmic horror—lurks in the background, waiting for the players to notice.

The Job Board Process

The job board sits in the Gilded Hook Tavern, a lively hub where crews gather to drink, boast, and find work. Every job has a faction sponsor—a patron whose favor can be gained or lost depending on how the party handles things.

We use a 3–2–1 job model:

Session Zero: Offer 3 jobs. The crew chooses one.
After Job 1: At the end of the session, two jobs remain. The party picks one of them.
After Job 2: The final job disappears (claimed by their rivals), and 3 new jobs appear.
Progression: Completing two jobs = a level-up.

This cycle makes the campaign modular: it’s easy to slot in custom jobs, shift factions, or foreshadow bigger arcs.

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Tracking Factions

Factions give weight to the job board system. Each job is tied to a patron, and success (or failure) changes the party’s standing with them. To keep it simple, track no more than three factions at a time, with relationships falling on a spectrum: allied, friendly, neutral, suspicious, hostile.

Completing a job improves standing with the faction who offered it, but might sour relations with their rivals. For example, completing a smuggling run for the Seadragon Principality will put the crew on bad terms with the Direshark Principality.

Here’s a list of possible factions for our Lhazaar Principalities Campaign:

Prince Rygar (Seadragon Principality)
Prince Kolberkon (Direshark Principality)
Gray Tide Changelings
House Kundarak (Dreadhold Prison)
House Thuranni (Mark of Shadow)
Wind Whisperer Principality (Mark of Storms Foundlings)
Iron Council (Mror Hold Clans)
Empire of Riedra (Psychic Ambassadors of Sarlona)
Elves of Aerenal (Court of the Undying)
Blood of Vol (Self-Improvement Religion)

Rival Interventions

Rival crews are essential. In Session Zero, we let the players build their own antagonists for extra dramatic tension. The rivals make the job board feel competitive instead of mechanical. Use them to keep tension alive:

Tavern Taunts. Every time the party returns to the Gilded Hook, have rivals mock them or try to snatch a contract first.
Job Theft. Sometimes the rivals try to swoop in mid-adventure—snatching the relic, intercepting the shipment, or claiming credit for the party’s work.
Recurring Antagonists. Rivals don’t need to be villains, but they’re constant competition. This makes victories sweeter and failures sting.

Foreshadowing

Job board adventuring is episodic by design—it should feel breezy, fun, and varied. But we can drop breadcrumbs toward the larger story, and towards adventure arcs yet to come:

A minor cult reveals ties to the greater Cult of the Dragon Below.
Carvings hint at an aberrant seed spreading corruption.
A job reveals clues toward the kidnapping of the crew’s changeling captain.

These clues don’t interrupt the episodic flow—they add depth, hinting that something bigger lurks beneath the surface of the Lhazaar Principalities.

Closing Thoughts

Job board adventuring gives the early campaign structure without railroading. It keeps sessions modular, balances roleplay with action, and ties the crew’s progress to their reputation. Most importantly, it gives us space to slowly seed the larger narrative while the party builds bonds, rivalries, and a name worth remembering.

Try this model in your own game. Drop a job board in a tavern, give every contract a faction sponsor, and watch your players compete for fame, fortune, and survival in Regalport’s cutthroat waters.

This article is part of a series of posts about a Lhazaar Principalities D&D Campaign:

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