Ayo Jabe's adventuring party

This unnamed adventuring party was active in 836 PD. The party formed in Xhorhas and traveled to the city of Ank'Harel in Marquet to explore the realm of the Netherdeep. This party acted as rivals, friendly or otherwise, to the player character adventuring party in Call of the Netherdeep.

Members

 * Ayo Jabe: the water genasi leader of the party. While her family has lived in Jigow for generations, she was "born to orc parents during a terrible storm in the Emerald Gulch". She wants to go on adventures and become a legendary hero. Chris Perkins described Ayo as a Captain Kirk type of character who "is basically the struggling leader archetype, the one who is always moving forward, but not always with both feet on the ground".
 * Dermot Wurder: a goblin cleric of The Luxon who is childhood friends with Ayo. He sought out martial training to support Ayo's dream of adventuring.
 * Maggie Keeneyes: an ogre mercenary who was looking for work when she became friends with Ayo. She is a tactical expert who loves both poetry and music.
 * Irvan Wastewalker: a young human from a clan of Xhorhasian nomads who has left the clan. He has a party animal personality, however, he is hiding that he went through consecution and that in his previous life he was a bugbear member of Den Hythenos. He also has a crush on Galsariad.
 * Galsariad Ardyth: a drow wizard in his second century who is the newest member of the party. He is from Rosohna and wishes to discover more about the Age of Arcanum.

Development
Matt Mercer highlighted that the inclusion of rival adventurers in the Call of the Netherdeep adds a "ticking clock to the narrative". Mercer elaborated: "I’ve played a lot of RPGs, and it’s natural for the story to be centered around the players. But I love the idea that the party has the realization that they’re not the only adventurers out there. Suddenly they understand that if they aren’t going to step up and answer the call of fate and they wait too long, somebody else is going to grab the opportunity. [...] It’s easy to assume that because these characters are rivals they should be considered enemies to fight. That’s definitely one way to go. But we wanted to offer the opportunity for DMs to think outside the box and to allow the players to build those relationships in a natural way that allows for dynamic change."Christian Hoffer, for ComicBook.com, highlighted that the rival adventuring party "will level up as the players do, with them gaining new abilities and changing to match the player characters as they progress through the adventure. This is a new-ish mechanic to D&D 5E, although Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos featured NPC statblocks that could be used in a similar fashion as Strixhaven students progressed through their four years of college".