No one gets harsh in your house...unless you want it that way. Nothing says player like having your own HQ. If it doubles as a place to sleep, eat, and throw the occasional bash, that's fine--as long as there's room for all. An HQ has three components: Size and Location, Physical Security, and Supernatural Security. If you are messin' with the arcane, deadbolts and armed guards just don't cut it.

Sheffield Arms Inn

• Built in the late 1990s
• California Spanish, deco influence
• 68 rooms
• Located west of Kasu’s apartment in what used to be the heart of Rhy’Din.
• The lobby contains a television.
• Guest Rooms mentioned: 217, 315, 515
• The elevator is working. Walker uses it or the stairs to get to his room on the 2nd floor. Unlike many European hotels that have the Lobby on the ‘Ground Floor’ and the next level up the “1st Floor”, many American hotels list the Ground Floor as the 1st Floor with the Guest Rooms listed as starting on the 2nd Floor.
• A common ice machine (or at least a freezer with an ice bucket) is at one end of every hall. Bo uses the ice bucket to keep his blood cold.
• Just inside the doors to the left is a small alcove with a table and a chair.
• Walker's office has 2 entries. A door directly from the lobby and one from behind the reception area.
• When they first arrived, it had not been long since they moved into the inn. There was a thick layer of dust everywhere, file boxes to be put away, and framed pictures stacked against a wall near the reception desk.
• The inn has an old Valet Parking area out back that contains enough shade around 3:30-4pm to allow Vampires to be outside.
• They have a cash box for storing small amounts of money.

Size and Location

How large and widespread is the organization's HQ? You guessed--the bigger it is, the more it costs. The more money and influence the group has, the better their quarters are: each Governmental Cloud level and each Financial Clout level purchased previously provides one free point to spend on this section.

Size: Large...

Akero Investigations' location is large, like an entire office building or hotel (Sheffield Arms Inn, specifically), with multiple rooms and storage space, maybe even covered parking. Three points must be spent.

Location: Multiple Locations...

The agency has several bases or branches around the world.

Physical Security: Good...

How safe are the headquarters? Are the secrets of your group entrusted to a rusty lock you can pick with a credit card, or something just a bit fancier? Like the various forms of Clout, Security comes in five levels, each better than the last, costing one point per level. If no levels of Physical Security are chosen you got the aforementioned rusty lock and little more. Better be packing heat (or cutlery) yourself.

Akero Investigations has Good alarms and security devices, security cameras in strategic locations, and, for Large or greater facilities, human guards.

Supernatural Security: Warded...

This being the world of Rhy'Din, where Demons and warlocks are but a cell phone call away (or closer), supernatural devices are available to those with the right connections. Like Physical Security, there are five levels and each costs one point. Also, you need at least one level of Supernatural Clout to get any level of Supernatural Security.

Protective spells like the one making violence impossible at Caritas or preventing uninvited beings from entering (much like the traditional limitation against Vampires, but applied to all supernatural beings). Note that such barriers can be overcome by creativity and ruthlessness (like firebombing a place from the outside).

While a normal shadow dancer may create up to 3 shadow companions of 6 hit dice each at the height of his career, when Edgar absorbed an enormous measure of divine power from Vecna the Maimed Lord, Vecna’s undead essence enervated Edgar’s spirit and caused these manifestations of his will to become unbelievably powerful.

After six years of languishing in the demiplane in Edgar’s old haunt and waiting for their master to return they crept along planar pathways and found their way to the prime, where they now lurk in Sheffield Arms Inn, emerging at night to spy on people and gather information.

If noticed and attacked or pursued they merely vanish without a trace, most often flying into solid ground and escaping in that way. Otherwise they flitter back to the demiplane of shadow to emerge somewhere else on the prime material plane.

Due to the evil artifact pellets of negative energy known as the Seed of Nerull which Edgar used in creating his servants, all of these normally incredibly powerful creatures have had its strength doubled. Extremely dangerous in combat for their blurred speed and amazingly fast strength draining attacks, none who have fought with one of these beings has yet lived to tell the tale.

Instances in which they have attacked anyone are amazingly rare and they do not communicate with or fight with creatures who have not greatly offended Edgar Bellmont in some way.