Which Faction to Focus on / Use first?

[MrStabby]

So I am building/expanding my world for my first time DMing in 5th. I am building locations, random encounters, factions and selections of plot hooks. So I have a couple of ideas I want to run past people for factions to see which ones to run with.

First Faction
Cult of Mirrored Bone

A long lone time ago... there was an illusionist who was looking for immortality and turned himself into a Lich. After using his magic to carve out an empire he was defeated but his vanquishers couldn't find him among his illusions to kill him. Instead they had to resort to using a ritual to imprison him and his lair in an extra planar space.

The Lich still has weak ties to the prim material plane, especially near his lair and has communicated with people nearby. In exchange for granting them some power they are doing his bidding. His objective is to scour the world looking for information on the magic that banished him, finding an epic level freedom spell to reverse it and to get his cult to cast it.

His agents in the world will be rogues at low level (arcane tricksters, as they need to know enough about magic to research the history of spells) but as they advance in the Cult they make personal contact with the Lich and he acts as a Warlock Pact Patron and they will tend to go down a bladelock type path (and will be making use of spells like spider climb to get into unexpected places and lay ambushes).

Agents will not be immediately obvious out of combat but in conversation they may give away small clues such as being very well informed on history and arcana...



The second faction I am looking at is a thieves guild from out of town. These thieves are mainly wizards, conjuring counterfeit goods, forging documents etc.(putting the Con in Conjuration). They have run into conflict with the local thieves guild and are being hunted down.

They are a more diverse mix of people from a few very ruthless characters, some that want to become extraordinarily rich, some that feel they are in well over their heads and just want to get out of this alive.

A senior conjurer in the guild has made contact with the other guild and is negotiating selling out the conjurers. In exchange for his support in selling out her guild and "thinning out" their numbers she has been promised leadership of that part of operations in a combined guild. She intends to quickly take over the leadership once inside the guild however she also doesn't trust her new allies. She is undertaking a witch hunt in her own ranks as she believes that once she has giver the thief-master what he wants he will have a subordinate kill her.

The conjurers will present a confusing mix of paranoia, naivete and intelligence to the PCs. The PCs will have to dig within this faction to find out what is really going on. The perspective may be further confused if they get a perspective from the thieves guild as well. Where possible the conjurers will not fight but will try and lead their enemies into fights with other people. When they do fight they will try and use overwhelming force (although threatened members of the guild will be quick to "strategically withdraw" if they feel their lives are threatened. The guild has a lot of money but if the PCs don't check they will be paid for their services (at least the first time) in conjured gold that disappears (they will be able to make it back later though).

The third faction is the King's secret police. This faction is not about martial power but about information. They are seeking out spies, crime, and any threat to the kingdom. They are not nice people and can call upon a lot of resources from local guards. Lawful Evil type characters but strong on the lawful but not too evil. Typically their agents are not afraid of a fight but they like to call in backup and they like to gather as much intelligence as possible first. Mechanic wise these guys will be vengeance Paladins - at higher levels they will take more spellcaster levels - usually diviner wizard to help them gather information. Clues to who these people are may be gathers from where they are and what they are doing: in a bar they will be the person drinking alone, with their back to the wall and in a position with a good view of the whole room (or at least the door).

They will usually want the PCs to act as enforcers, especially if they hare reson to not rust the local guards or other authority here. They will also contact the PCs if they need work done outside the borders of the Kingdom.


Which of these should I build on/prioritise? Which sounds the most entertaining to interact with (PCs can be friendly or hostile (or neutral) to any of them. Also, whist these are the more cryptic factions they can find (or that may find them) there are plenty of other more visible ones. It isn't all going to be cloak and dagger!

[Daishain]

What we think of the factions is less important than what your players will think. What do you know of these people and how would they react to the challenges in question?

[Gritmonger]

So, with both factions centered around arcana and trickery - why couldn't the cult of mirrored bone be infiltrating various thieves guilds (both the local and the remote one) looking for more material that may have been gathered by unwitting stooges? You can combine both by having multiple loyalties for various folks - maybe the cult of mirrored bone doesn't want conflict and insurrection because that would cut into their use of the guilds for information gathering. Making them less discrete and more combined, which seems natural in this case, gives an added layer - and you don't have to run one plot beginning-to-end before introducing the next elements. Let the players explore and decide which is the bigger threat - the bizarre faction that seems to want peace, but you're not sure of their agenda, or the arcana marketers who seem out to make a quick buck.

[MrStabby]

Well as a group there are a few things that are worth mentioning. They are inquisitive but cautious. The world is intended to be both flexible and inflexible. Flexible in that they can attempt anything. Inflexible in that if they try something very difficult I wont make it easier for them to help them survive.

This said I operate a kind of clue based system. Rumors of high end stuff being very powerful acts as a warning. Really high level encountes will tend to be behind doors and traps of high DC. Finally there will be some pretty high level henchmen for most encounters that will be very hard - and the act of fighting your way through these will help demonstrate if you are at an appropriate level of power.

I say this because caution, intelligence gathering and general exploration will be an important part of the campaign and will keep the players alive. This is a feature that came up when we had a long discussion about what we liked/didn't like about previous campaigns.

In terms of the depth of clues and the subtlety of them there will certainly be a couple of takers. The paranoid one and the one that tends to over-think things will get into it I think. We have a strong role-player who will probably want to make decisions for character/alignment/history reasons so I will need to ensure that all the factions will be fleshed out there to help her make decisions. The final player is new and might need a bit of help going through some of the story. I have said to him that he will get to have the freedom to change his character after a couple of levels.


So, with both factions centered around arcana and trickery - why couldn't the cult of mirrored bone be infiltrating various thieves guilds (both the local and the remote one) looking for more material that may have been gathered by unwitting stooges? You can combine both by having multiple loyalties for various folks - maybe the cult of mirrored bone doesn't want conflict and insurrection because that would cut into their use of the guilds for information gathering. Making them less discrete and more combined, which seems natural in this case, gives an added layer - and you don't have to run one plot beginning-to-end before introducing the next elements. Let the players explore and decide which is the bigger threat - the bizarre faction that seems to want peace, but you're not sure of their agenda, or the arcana marketers who seem out to make a quick buck.

I did like the idea of a lot of infiltration and some parties will certainly be infiltrating others. I had mainly thought of this in terms of the Secret Police infiltrating thieves guild and the thieves guild infiltrating conjurers... but the mirrored bone using these other guilds as pawns as well makes perfect sense! A few references to thieves being directed to rob houses of rare books or scrolls of arcane lore might help tie things together.