The Adventure Zone, an actual-play Dungeons and Dragons podcast from the McElroy family, struck gold with its first season. Part of what made this initial adventure so compelling was the story's structure, setting individual quests in the context of a broader mission.
Providing this larger structure is the Bureau of Balance, a benevolent organization with strict hierarchies that is trying to rid the world of some powerfully evil artifacts. The Bureau of Balance provides not only a setting for the world but also an impetus for the quests, making it a crucial component of the Balance universe.
The Organization
The Bureau of Balance, created and directed by NPC Lucretia, is a secret organization devoted to restoring the balance of good and evil to the world by removing from it items of unimaginable thrall and power that have been wreaking havoc on the land. Each of these Grand Relics becomes the object of one of the quests in Balance, giving each arc a MacGuffin and a definitive end to the whole season.
The main characters run across their first Grand Relic accidentally. While answering a Craigslist-style call for adventurers, Merle, Magnus and Taako are drawn into a quest with even higher stakes. While trying to rescue a companion lost in a cave system, they run into an employee of the Bureau, who identifies the adventurers as potential recruits. Before Merle, Magnus and Taako reach the Bureau, they feel like an unlikely group of adventurers, linked only by the shared trauma of their first quest.
The Corporation
The Bureau of Balance follows a very rigid corporate structure. New recruits, like the three player characters, must undergo a rigorous interview process -- troll combat -- to determine if they're a good fit. All employees are also required to wear a bracer with the Bureau's logo on it, showing their commitment to their organization.
The main characters are brought aboard as Reclaimers, those responsible for retrieving the Grand Relics and bringing them back to the Bureau so they can be destroyed. They work alongside Seekers, who deal in information as they attempt to track down the location of the remaining Relics, and Regulators, responsible for dealing with anyone who has given into the thrall and used one of the Relics. The strict hierarchy of roles is rigorously adhered to, especially once Merle, Magnus and Taako prove themselves to be the only ones capable of regularly resisting the thrall of the powerful artifacts.
In addition to the strict division of labor, the Bureau also institutes performance reviews and year-end bonuses, giving the organization a very corporate vibe. The modern, corporate ideology in a very fantasy D&D setting is a fun space to play in and makes for amusing adventure set-ups.
The Physical Space
The Bureau is located on its own, hand-crafted moon, giving the staff the ability to quickly travel to anywhere in the land that may hold a Relic. The way of travel to and from the moon is a literal canon, firing glass balls holding the travelers. Employees can summon one of these transports using their Bureau of Balance bracer. It's revealed the moon itself can move as well, though traveling by moon isn't very subtle.
While the moon isn't large, it does contain its share of other businesses. In addition to dorm rooms, training chambers and offices of the Bureau itself, it also features a Fantasy Costco, selling adventurers all of the magical items they might want.
Part of what makes the Bureau of Balance so secretive is that folks are prevented from discussing it. The Bureau makes use of a creature called a voidfish which feeds on information, erasing it from memories for those who haven't been inoculated. This secrecy is crucial for the Bureau -- they used it to erase the knowledge of the Grand Relics from the land in the hopes that it would help reduce their devastation. It also means that when Merle, Magnus and Taako first met a representative of the Bureau (and someone under the thrall of a Relic), they hear static whenever these items were discussed.
Continued Mysteries
Not every secret, evil-fighting, moon-owning organization is out for good, however. While the Bureau staff seem trustworthy, some unanswered questions call the adventurers' continued work for the Bureau of Balance into question.
After successfully reclaiming a Relic, the three adventurers return to the Bureau's moon and immediately must hand it over for destruction. The process is intense but leaves a lot of room for items to be switched out and secreted away, making the adventurers suspect that they may be reclaiming these Relics for some other purpose. The three characters also have a roommate who is mysteriously mind-controlled and caught exploring the director's quarters. Coupled with the use of voidfish technology and suggestions from other characters, it's enough to suspect the Bureau of ulterior motives.
The Bureau of Balance is a fallible, corporate-inspired organization that does the heavy lifting of setting up the stakes and the mood of the larger The Adventure Zone: Balance story. By providing individual arc goals in the form of quests for the individual Relics but an overarching continuity, it drives the structure of the podcast. But by including interesting characters with individual motivations -- to play their music for someone who will appreciate it, to quench their thirst for invention, to hit people really hard -- it also becomes a lived-in space, full of interesting stories.