Decorating the shoreline, down a little from the university and in the kind of district you'll find arty coffee shops that serve them in three separate shot glasses, are a pair of tower buildings- aesthetically pleasing, unbranded, and filled with office spaces. They're known locally as the 'Cherkhan Towers', after the Indian-based development company which owns them, and each runs to 59 storeys high, with 7 levels of extensive underground parking. The upper 15 storeys, as well as the capping penthouses on both buildings, are still inhabited by Cherkhan Holdings, and run an enormous, world-wide stock trading business, making fine gains in the market.
The mysterious owner, Mamun Cherkhan, is a reclusive figure, rarely seen without a dozen bodyguards. He is a well-built, handsome figure in his early fifities, always wearing an impeccable suit worth more than most cars, a neatly-cut mustache and beard, and a confident and disarming smile. If a Western movie were made about him, they'd cast George Clooney. He is a mover and shaker, sponsoring community organizations, especially those to do with his native West Bengal, a proud disability advocate, and is well-known in the halls of power. Those who have the chance to observe him closely notice a disfigurement about his hands and he often transfers his cane to his left hand to awkwardly shake hands with new people he meets. He seems to be able to do no wrong in business, and often anticipates exactly what another is about to say, or offer. He is known for shrewd and impresive investments. Cherkhan's personal office takes up an entire room, glass on every side, and is filled with ancient relics- a suit of seventeenth-century Mughal period armour, a stand of tarnished but still keenly sharp kukri blades, paintings worth millions, hand-woven deep-pile rugs with intricate details. He is clearly a man who enjoys his level of prestige and power, and wants others to feel his presence. Cherkhan is also a villainous Rakshasa, an immortal and evil tiger-spirit, and has devoured no less than three of his own employees, and two poor individuals who happened to share an empty elevator with him, over the past five years, in addition to countless others who have crossed his path in a quiet alley or darkened street. He knows no bounds in his depravity, and exalts in employing others to clean up his villainy, thriving on their uncomfortability and guilt. He is truly a villain par excellence, and knows enough of the Secret World to avoid crossing the edicts of the Archons, too far. How you can use Mamun Cherkhan in your game: - As a CR 10 creature, Cherkhan makes an ideal BBEG-level villain for an O7 game- scheming, politically powerful, legally near-untouchable, and able to threaten high-level characters on his own. He can instigate a lot of plots without having to be personally involved, and as a creature with innate magical talents as well as an interest in the material world Should you wish for an NPC to be your campaign's villain without making them some sort of eldritch abomination, he'd do very nicely. - If you want to make your game a little morally compromising, having one or more of your PCs employed by Cherkhan Holdings makes a good way to bring them together- investigating a competitor, concealing some horror, or researching ancient secrets and seizing them before Cherkhan's rivals can reach them. As they come to realize more about the Secret World, they could start to realize something very uncomfortable about their employer. - Alternately, your players could have crossed paths with the wily Mamum Cherkhan in their backgrounds, uniting them against the mighty Tiger of West Bengal. Reaching a point where they could even confront him personally will be a quest worthy of legend, and likely to end in their unmarked graves. Comments are closed.
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AuthorI'm Luke. He/him pronouns. Archives
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