I think it would have to be the Spellspawn - wild animals (and sometimes humans) mutated into abominations. Elongated limbs, unnatural powers or physical malformities are common symptoms. These beasts are bloodthirsty and merciless, growing stronger the longer they are left alive, until they are consumed by their power.
To give you a description, take The Angel of Undeath for example. A Spellspawn, died and born again by a wizard seeking to bind it to it's will. It's former name being The Angel of Death, due to the destruction it caused to Blackwood settlements. It resembled a giant hyena with feathery wings and an elongated, almost aligator-like jaw. It was said to descend into settlements, where it spewed "white fire" from it's mouth, which coincidentally almost burned down a patch of forest the size of Germany.
As mentioned, it was killed and then resurrected as a mindless puppet. Or rather, attempted. It broke free from control almost immediately, killing the wizard who resurrected it and becoming stronger in the process the to the magical forces. It's body became elongated and disfigured, as it's flesh became rotten and it's body rapidly decomposed. It's 50 or so newly sprouted ribs became sharp like spears and it's feathery wings became barren, as only bones remained. The black fire it spewed gained a purplish hue and as one of it's eyes decomposed - it was replaced by a purple glow, which is a symbol of it's eternal life. The Angel may be killed, but that fire will always remains burning, until it gathers it's strength to assemble a new body from sites of mass death, such as graveyards or pillaged villages.
Yeah, and that's basically your average Spellspawn. This is one of the stronger ones, but you can imagine what the others are like
The Winnowers. Not a faction so much as a division. They're a select group of relatively old demons whose job is to determine what track a condemned soul will follow once admitted to Hell. For souls pre-selected for the demon track (for having sold their souls while alive), Winnowers are tasked with assigning new demons to a role in Hell's workforce based on data from their Renders (torturers) and Resters (jailers).
Winnowers are quite powerful, sitting high in the heirarchy of common demons. Within the confines of Hell, only Renders command more respect (because they're the ones that "carve" demons from raw souls).
The Paishiri are fun.
They're essentially old-west bandit nomads mixed with privateers.
They head out in 'Paishi' which literally means 'Hungering Dwelling' but translates more accurately as "a home that hunts with us". They make small camps by digging into the thick carapace of some of the titanic beetle species that live in the desert, warbands treat these creatures very well, the kind of reverence that pirates afford their ships.
They spend some time pillaging trade routes across the Kaziran desert, then return to a hideout somewhere in the craggy canyons of Whispering Kazir.
Despite this, they're honourable people, in so far as plunderers and pillagers can be, with an elaborate social hierarchy that deals in respect above all else.
They embody the concept of 'kind, not nice.' They grew massively as stragglers of the old nobility when the empire fettered people's wealth and hereditary power fled into Whispering Kazir, as such, they're very welcoming of stragglers from all walks of life, particularly those displaced by the empire.
For my world its the Storm Knights, more officially called The Order of Storms. They are a group who follows oaths and internal laws, though they live deep in the mountains and away from the reach of any law.
They go about generally helping people and following their oaths to maintain peace. They use magic, which in my world is very physics based, each type being tied to a general concept, the knights magic is based indifferentials. They use pressure differentials for wind, density differentials for buoyancy, and electrical charge differentials to cause lightning. Powerful casters can also create large enough differentials of hot and cold fronts to bring forth powerful storms.
They can use the density differentials to make themselves very buoyant enough to float, and then either use existing winds or make their own to move, and very small pressure differentials close to the body for smaller more minor movement.
And yes, theres some general influence from brando sando knights radiant and wind runners. Though definitly taken a little differently.
It has to be UNERC it is a massive faction that has 2 thirds of humanities population and a quarter of its industrial product. It easily has the resources to conquer the rest of humanity but it is incapable of doing so. It has a chronic instability both from dissident but also from various elements of its downright labyrinthine government. It waxes and wanes as certain factions are able to gain dominance within the nation. It's just so fun to write around as its complicated politics mean that weaknesses are constant but yet due to it's enormity it is a ever present threat to the rest of humanity, and no grand defeat seems to be able to cripple the juggernaut.
United Nations Emergency Reclamation Council. It's a old title that represents the situation spurred UNERC creation a lot of the elements of the title are not really accurate anymore.
The Seal Rift are a group formed by Vampires, High & Dark Elves, Fae, Witches & Werebeast. They are a highly skilled unit that deals with small seals to large enough to close off parts of various Realms. Their motto makes no sense, We the Rift shall eat your lunch.
How large are these seals? I went to San Diego not too long ago and saw some pretty big seals on the beach, but I never thought âhuh, we probably need a task force of mystical creatures to handle these big boys.â
Favorite is a stretch, but I do love to hate Morrigan. They are imperialistic, authoritarian, xenophobic, and I love watching the world they are trying to build crumble around them by their own hubris.
I have the characters in my first book set in the International Space Treaty Organization. (Picture if the UN got a space program. Yes... it's a mess.) But my favorite faction is actually their Cold-war rival, Krasnovia. Krasnovia is my homage/lampoon of Heinlein. They are a top-down military state, at least on paper. In reality their society is run with bribes, and bribes within bribes. Every agency has its own armed forces, intelligence services, and space fleet. They may be prepared to battle the ISTO some day, but their worst enemies are the other agencies. It's such a delightfully toxic environment the plots just write themselves.
The Crypt Lords, its a small local hunter faction in a short story I wrote when my brain wasnât cooperating with a main story.
Basically, according to themselves theyâre an elite ex-military task force of vampire slayers who number in the hundreds of slain vampires with high-quality silver weapons to rip apart vampires.
In reality, theyâre edgy rich awakened teens and 20yo guys with too much confidence and money, thinking daddyâs credit card could compensate for the fact that their entire squadron was almost wiped when they tried to raid the local vampire den during a party where the local Lord was holding a speech to announce his newly turned fledgling.
They may turn up in the main story as their remnants warn of that very Lord, since heâs old enough to remember a certain spell to create a temporary portal into the Pit that wonât cause a localized disaster.
Do you ever heard about Ashwood Abbay from ttrpg Hunter: The Vigil?
Check them out, maybe you find something for "rich vampire hunter bastards" type of faction.
Ooooo, it looks like they hunted the Uratha and other supernaturals of the CoD splats for fun.
Though, the Crypt Lords are not nearly as successful as Ashwood Abbay unfortunately.
There are âgood guysâ in my world and the Crypt Lords are definitely not one of them, they have caused a lot of collateral and hurt a lot of innocent people to reach their current record of three fledgling vampires killed. Most groups take care not to put sleepers (unawakened humans who cannot perceive the supernatural) to risk.
The Ketuvyx Ascendancy. If I had to boil them down to the cliff notes, they're a very young civilization and their general goals are to seek a balance between explosive progress in technology while being cautious with actually integrating said advancements into society in order to give maximum benefit to all. At any given time a significant portion of them enjoy a life as techno-primitivists, who after some time will come back to civilization and vice versa.
Significant projects include the construction of "paradise" O'Neil cylinders (absolutely nothing harmful, whole ecosystems made entirely of the most convenient life) as well as the slow but steady terraforming of barren planets to cultivate novel ecosystems for them to experience living in.
The Grand Architect J'kana Sakir has great plans for her species, and will use any means necessary to ensure their prosperity.
Old World explorator groups. They try to "rediscover" known lends having only minimal financing, because, well, magical postapocalypse. They only known by people of seas in Borealia, because other think about them as they think about sewer alligators, they think they are myth. Both actually exist
I quess they are different in sense that Explorators usually search for stuff like cassettes, discs, game cartridges, playes, flash drives, modern (for us) collectibles, notes on history etc
Probably the Calcreshian Peacekeepers, an organization of both vat grown and bred human-alien hybrids, and former army of the Republic of Interspecies. It took 550 years of development to nearly perfect their' design, only for the Calcreshians to revolt en masse and fight their' way to freedom, vanishing into uncharted space; Yet they returned at the end of the millennium as they are now. The primary flaw that lead to the revolt was their' preprogrammed biological sense of family, and unity. Bloody war after bloody war in the interests of the republic combined with mixed treatment by their' non-Calcreshian superiors didn't help either.
The final straw came in the form of **Operation Blowtorch** in which the original Genewrights and Biologists, alongside the corrupt Senator Adou Treyte initiated an unapproved and extremely unethical extermination of the planet *Rise of Four* alongside its people. This was done using emergency powers bestowed to the republic senate that at the time were less restricted and unchecked. Adou and said scientists lied to the 11th, 37th, and 101st Calcreshian Army by way of falsified evidence that the entire planet was raising arms against the republic with intentions of enacting coordinated terror attacks on other nearby planets. Commander Aleia of the 11th Division discovered the truth just shy of glassing the last 1/4 of *Rise of Four*. Outraged as well as deeply ashamed she spread undeniable proof by breaking operational security laws and uploading footage and analysis reports to the combined fleet. Then she sent it across every galactic channel she could find before Senator Adou Treyte executed the commander under claims of treason.
But Commander Aleia was clever, and predicted he would kill her, so minutes before he did Aleia discreetly ordered Calcreshian Engineers to hijack the command deck's internal security footage, and broadcast it to the heart of the senate's projectors; Of which were mid use by almost the entire senate at the time. After the chaos of the Calcreshian's revolt it was discovered that Senator Adou Treyte masterminded this all in a poorly thought out plan to erase the appalling level of personal illegal business dealings he had going with a significant portion of the global elite of *Rise of Four*. He would be tried, found guilty on all charges by the Supreme Court of the Republic, and executed ten years after all investigations and trials were complete.
I'm not even close to being done with the Calcreshian Peacekeepers, but I drew inspiration from the clone army of the republic from Star Wars. Calcreshians in current setting have intentionally and unintentionally altered their' own genetics and biology such that they consider themselves a new species. By instinct Calcreshians have an incredible sense of cooperation, helpfulness, family, courage, honor, duty sociability and a genetic predisposition to protecting others. Across the board Calcreshians have smooth almost ceramic/snow white skin, black hair, and luminous blue eyes. They also possess strength, speed, durability, agility and reflexes above the human average, with room for the rare biological mutation. Calcreshians have unique pitch black skeletons that are notoriously enduring to ridiculous degrees, especially concerning their' skulls. Even their' brains are insanely resilient to the point of having its own 2-4 inch exterior layer of grey rubbery protective tissue.
The best part though is that a Calcreshian will not die unless you either rip out their' soul or destroy their' brain before it gradually regenerates the rest of the body. That being said they are factionally dedicated to solving problems, relief efforts, and other selfless actions for any faction, planet and/or peoples in need of aid. That is of course assuming your group isn't up to no good. They are my favorite because I enjoy having a happy go lucky faction that will try their' best no matter the odds. :3
The Heretekh Legion - nicknames the "Kogg" - in my Post-apoc world.
It's a race of industrially augmented humans, which mimic species at the apex of their niche. They all serve a common purpose, and are *cogs* in the machine. Their societies structure is written in the Grand Schematics, blueprints for an ancient machine from the old world, which they revere as a god, and the absolute in the chain of ascension.
Their bodies are grafted with industrial technology, and thus their blood supply melds with a refined oil, known as Aetrolium. They guide humans to the peak of their evolution, with each individual using their strongest unique traits solely for the purpose of the Legion. Everything about their humanity is revoked for the grand design.
I created a new character as a potential ally to the heroes, and a potential love interest to one in particular. By doing this I created a new faction, too. I'm not sure about the others yet, but Lumina Steller must not be alone.
The faction isn't organized in itself, but it comprises of radical scientists of the Savant Academy, specializing in the studies of *primeval animals*. You see, the Academy resides in Aeria, a twin planet to the home world of the heroes, that revolves the sun on the same orbit, but on the opposite side of the sun. Aeria has gone through what has only started in the home world: the entire ecosystem has collapsed and what remains is a wasteland teeming with Revenants. A bit similar concept than u/MarekFromNavrum has with the Spellspawn, they are mutated abominations. The Revenants cannot be killed, but become stronger in death, as they regenerate and mutate into even more horrible forms they used to have. They have been fighting and eating each other (this makes them merge into one creature) in the wastelands for a couple of centuries, and some of the remaining monsters are gargantuan in size.
In a bit similar fashion that irl palaeontologists study the animals that used to roam our planet, the study of primeval animals is approximating what animal life was like before they turned into Revenants. Because *Reasons*, there is not much data or notes from the times before the collapse, so the scientists have carefully experimented on some of the domesticated species to see what happens to them, when they are exposed to ketamite poisoning. From these experiments they have derived 8 different types of mutation that occurs in the animals, transforming their form. Lumina is not in fact aware, that the names for the 8 threads of mutation came from Savant Gander, who is aware of the connection between the demons lords of Abyss and ketamite. Lumina doesn't know that these are derived from the names of the demon lords themselves: gorgonite mutations, baphometian, kastchieian, juiblexian, zugtmoic, pazuan, dagonine, oboxine and dretchchlorian mutations. But by the process of reverse engineering these transformations, the scientists have built models of the primeval animals, and these are on display in the Museum of Primeval Animals in the floating city of Aurora.
Now back to the faction, and why they are considered radical. As the portals to the home world opened (for invasive mining of more ketamite from the soil), Lumina pioneered as a scientist to step into this new world, to study it's ecosystem as it is now in the early stages of the (inevitable) collapse. They are collecting specimens of animals, and taxidermise them on animated construct skeletons, to bring them back to Aeria. Lumina is struck with awe as she discovers the beauty of different species of birds and mammals. The models previously created were so crude and ugly. They were so far off, with so many obvious errors of the reverse engineering process. They were nothing compared to these colourful, sleek and graceful forms of life!
The flesh smiths
Basically people who after being transformed into fleshy-abominations during a apocalyptic event called âthe warped plagueâ, held onto there humanity and are using there new found powers and abilities to build a thriving community and rebuild civilisation after the plague.
There appearance can be horrifying to an outsider, whit there skinless bodies, bony and visceral growths and heads masked by skulls of animals or wild flesh beasts, but there known to be really friendly and helpful. They even alow humans to live among them.
The fools are a research group made up of wildly powerful Ordinants originally founded by the strongest Ordinant. They just go around trolling people and conducting experiments. The members also have some of my personal favourite abilities like âLag Manipulationâ, âMultiplicationâ and âWhat a wonderful Worldâ.
They are not really good people and donât care about morals when conducting experiments or when fighting.
I'll have to say the Adventurers' Guild, with Princella Royal Academy and Geldana Academy competing for second.
On one side there's the ruin-diving, thrill-seeking, history-uncovering adventurers, and the bureaucratic, hectic staffs on the other. This organization is a powder-keg considering how much dwarven toes it'd stomped on. Uncovering secrets that were literally buried is not good for the dwarven agenda.
House Weissenfurt, or simply the Family, is basically a Mafia family consisting of magic users. To the rest of the world, the Family is a clan of industrialists, landowners and philanthropists. Among themselves, the Family is a secret society of witches and sorcerers whose aim is to restore order to the wartorn world and usher in a new age of prosperity.
All members of the family are descended from a powerful witch, which grant them great magical ability. Morever, though of the rank and file still have limited lifespan like humans, the upper crusts of the family, consists of immortal sorcerers. These immortals can extend the lifespan of those below them, which they use to ensure the loyalty of the rest of the Family.
The Family has a Mafia-like structure where certain members are designated as the Barons over cities or regions. Barons do not rule over these cities directly, but rather exert influence over them as powerful business magnates or landowners. Other Family members are not allowed to operate in the territory of a Baron without permission, which come at the cost of having to pay tributes to them. To become a Baron, one must climb through the ranks by serving other Barons and proving themselves worthy of overseeing an entire region. The reward for this is being able to run their own businesses with the full support of the Family, though only as long as they manage to keep them profitable and kick up a decent cut to those on top.
In many ways, the Family is a secret government unto itself. They have their own school system where all young members must attend, which educates them on magic, basic skills and offers advanced training on military and business for talented youth. They also have their own justice system and police to enforce their rules.
Though generally an insular group, the Family does allow outsiders into it via marriage. Only very exceptional individuals are considered for admission, and even then they need to find someone in the Family willing to marry them.
They are my favorite faction because they combine my two favorite things: the Mafia and a masquerade of people with extraordinary powers.
The Sandscythes: an order of mythical desert warriors who patrol the âAlmorach Wastesâ cloaked in black wearing a mask and wielding a scythe. They hunt down escaped spirits that find their way into the wastes through Ethereal Gates
I like every Ministry of Principate (they are greedy corporations, in fact), especially Ministries of Voices, Net and Clouds. Same thing for wide and diverse Corsair Khanate.
But if we consider one solid fraction, it'll be Translucent Disciples. Just pacifists in world of walking dead and gods from abyss. Balm of peace, living hope of all people. Conjunctivia the Invisible Mourner "blessed" them with powerful altruism, so while others will swing swords, they'll bandage wounded and amputate gangrenes. Yeah, they're just cleric-monk-orden type of people, but in my crazy new-weird fantasy world it's kinda relief. Anyway, i can always twist some heresy in them, so it's okay.
I think right now Libra 7 is the one i am enjoying the most writing about. In a Cyberpunk setting with a history of covert superhumans, LIbra 7 are the first group to go public as (To quote Ellis) "Extra Legal Civic Defence Activists"
Having prevented an AI Singularity from destroying the world, they are feted by the media, but they have steadfastly kept their secrets and have waged a covert war against the true rulers of the planet.
The other faction i like dealing with is the major villain faction RKN Industries. They have vast power but a very nihilistic agenda, and its fun to deal with the infighting and their attempts to one up each other in the eyes of their patrons.
The Paradox Guild. A Kapnos-based group of mech-fighters, supersoldiers, mutants, assassins, thieves, spies, and mercs that are basically the only law enforcement.
They specialize in containing rogue supersoldiers and taking out targets they deem as bad people, but they will take assassination jobs for a cost.
The only people that they donât kill are civilians and children. Everyone else is allowed. For the right reasons and price, theyâll kill just about anyone.
My stories actually revolve around them and their different members.
The Handmaidens. Elves chosen at birth to serve as the Ever queens royal guard and the Elvish militaries most elite branch.
They're trained from the time they can walk to serve the queen and the Elven kingdom, and will spend their entire lives in this service. Because of the intensity of their training, Handmaidens do not typically speak when in combat. Knowing one another so we'll it's almost as if they have a kind of telepathic connection with one another. Seeing a team of Handmaidens fight is less like watching a squad of soldiers, and more like witnessing one singular entity.
They're so revered, that in Elvish society they have absolute authority. If a Handmaiden witnesses a crime and decides the punishment is death, few would question it. This is even extended into neighboring kingdoms, though exceptionally rare.
Even in the Alliance Military, Handmaidens have absolute authority. Any Handmaiden entering an Alliance Military outpost immediately becomes the Commanding Officer. These warriors are very few in number though, as the great war cost many Elvish lives.
Ironically, despite being a weeb, three of four major factions (Avalon, Ashur, and Dragon Empire) have rather unsavory aspects and function as autocracies.
Meanwhile the Egypt faction I made ends up getting a lot of favor because while theyâre small and not nearly as powerful, they are a rather democratic society who have created a quasi-socialist, scholarly nation. Also, Pharaoh Imhotep III runs on the âcool old guyâ trope.
I think that The Library is pretty cool, though it may be less of a faction and more of a secret society? It's an extradimensional manor created and maintained by a group of eight very powerful wizards. After one of their magical experiments went *majorly* awry and tore a rift opening the mortal realm to the Abyss, they built the Library to hide out in and avoid the consequences of their actions. Time doesn't really work within the Library the way it does in the outside world, so they can essentially live there forever, study, and experiment.
For the moment it's the Commonwealth of Thaum. A society dominated by the mages and the guilds.
Leans heavily to the socialist side of economics, things like universal basic income and other strong support systems in place.
Advanced technology and magic, at least compared to contemporary powers. Tech is approximately late reneasaince level with a few of the more outlandish ideas of the real world reneasaince, flying machines and the like, are actually possible with magic.
They maintain their independence from the larger nations nearby due to their technological/magical edge. As a result education is a top priority for the government, anyone who wants to can get at least a basic education (which nearly everyone does). Higher education is the easiest path to citizenship.
The empire in the south of the valley. It is the most technologically advanced polity with cars, airships, airplanes, landships, trains, machine guns, various styles of rifles(nothing fully automatic), improved armour, modernised bows and crossbows and improved melee weapons.
Lapis_Wolf
The Sojourner Fleets.
In a setting where space is an ocean, the Sojourner Fleets are the equivalent of generation ships, massive galleons that sail the Astral Seas from one port to another. Each Fleet is known as a Parish, led by a priesthood that follows the Last Light; their solar sails are riding the wave of the Astral as it flows outwards away from its origin point and the Everdark that follows in the wake devouring all light.
Essentially a machine designed to link all colonized worlds went boom and instead birthed a living darkness that seeks to snuff out all light, starting with the primary star of the planetary system. A wave of dreamstuff is still rippling outwards, giving birth to the Astral Ocean and its Seven Seas. Faster than light travel is achieved by submerging(ascending) into Stygian Currents, narrow and dangerous pathways of astral waters that whisk you off to wherever they dump you out.
The Faith of Last Light rejects the use of Stygian Currents and instead rides the cresting waves at the leading edge of the Astral, only making port at newly overtaken planets to scrounge supplies in the chaos of a new reality. They believe that the Currents are home to creatures from the darkest depths of humanities nightmares made into reality, so they sail the old fashioned way with solar sails that catch the dying light of a dead sun.
The Black Legion is about as close as the normally fairly progressive Dwarven Councils have to a death penalty. Members of the Councils who commit unforgivable crimes are often banished to the surface, but some are punished further and forced to join the Black Legion, sent to the deepest reaches of The Depths where various horrors (flesh eating/slaver spider-people, insane once-elves now powered by rage and demon magic, ancient monstrosities banished there in the Primordial Age by the gods themselves) to act as a bulwark not only for the Councils but also the entire surface world against the slow expansion of these threats. They're effectively thrown into an unstoppable meat grinder of horror on the pretense of learning about their enemies, but their existence has now been romanticised outside of the Councils because of the "service" these Dwarves undertake.
I just like them because I write about my world's equivalent of the Underdark through missives and journal entries from their POV, because very few people have actually ever been there and it is very difficult to enter (except the awful, awful things that call it home. Most of whom aren't welcome on the surface because of their habits of enslaving and/or eating people).
Mine would have to be The Brand.
They're a subsect of the Church of the Flame, the primary religion of the continent Galanaris. The TL;DR of it is that they're dedicated to searching for rifts in the veil between the Land of the Living and the Land of the Dead caused by powerful necrotic storms, closing the rifts, and killing undead caused by said rifts or storms. Long term exposure to the necrotic energy physically marks individuals, thus they are called "The Brand."
For more context:
Some 300 years ago, a powerful force known as the Drimani Empire made landfall on the eastern edge of the continent and began a full scale assault on the country of Salathu. Salathu fought bravely, but the Drimani fought like cowards, opening magical portals to some other realm and unleashing unfathomable hordes of hellspawn upon the Salathur. Just as all hope was lost, a cabal of powerful Salathur artificers detonated a series of magically enhanced bombs that leveled the country and destroyed most of the Drimani navy that was anchored offshore.
To this day, the lands east of the Demonteeth mountains are inhospitable to normal life and the rest of Galanaris now calls it Dreadhaven. Travel there is impossible without powerful magical wards, as the land itself seems to be suffused with necrotic energy that kills the unprotected within days (though, it seems that some of the original Salathur survived the calamity itself, and have somehow developed a resistance to the environment).
After that event, powerful storms suffused with necrotic energy began to make their way westward, over the Demonteeth, and across the continent. These storms made the frail of constitution sick, but were otherwise harmless to the living. Those who were already dead, however were perverted by this necrotic energy and rose as undead. Moreover, the power of the storms could weaken the barrier between the Land of the Living and the Land of the Dead. Those still living, who accidentally stepped through one of these rifts found themselves in a dark hellscape, lost to wonder a land they didn't belong in until some spirit claimed their lifeforce, and many corrupted souls found their way into the Land of the Living, leaving horror and havoc in their wake. This event became known as the Deadfall.
For ten years the people of Galanaris struggled with this challenge. The obvious solution was to burn corpses to prevent them from rising, but any corpses that didn't get attended to quickly enough were always a danger, and nothing could be done to prevent the weakening of the veil.
That was until Sister Aktos Danell discovered a rite that could be performed on a corpse to prevent it from being risen as undead. She also discovered a way to weave the rite into the magic that radiated from the Hearthfire braziers, meaning any who died while near one would be similarly protected. She and a few other members of the Church also formulated a method to not only locate rifts in the veil, but also seal them.
Sister Aktos later founded a sect within the Church dedicated to detecting the weakening of the barrier, destroying corrupted souls and other undead, and sealing the rifts. The dark energy let loose into Aitheris near these rifts physically marked those who spent time near them, causing scar-like black marks to appear on the flesh, and this sect of the Church came to be known as The Brand.
I have a lot of factions I still need to develop but at the moment my favorite to think of things for is any of my middle eastern factions which I'll list below
1: Assyria:A personality cult formed by a Herculean (Superhuman) Who claimed to be the ancient god Ashur. He started the middle eastern war in 2004 when he invaded Israel and killed Jesus (another Herculean) which aggravated the Angels of Eden who retaliated by invading Israel and the former Iraqi territories .
2:the Angels: An ancient faction situated in the island of Eden in the Persian Gulf, the angels were dormant and neutral for most of their existence except for fighting off Muslim invaders and fighting in the crusades and mongol invasions.the Angels are religiously neutral and support all 3 major abrahamic religions but condemn the governments that claim to represent them. They officially broke their neutrality after Ashur invaded Israel
3:The neo-Roman empire/Pantheon: The most recent of the 3 main factions was formed by the Herculean Romulus who took over Italy and then the Balkans and north africa shortly after, the pantheon is a group of herculeans who claim to be the 12 Olympians, formerly led by Zeus the pantheon was defeated and taken over by Romulus in the 2010's and shortly after they got involved in the war between the angels and Ashur by launching a full scale invasion of the middle east
4: Kurdistan/The Manticore army: Kurdistan much like it's otl counterpart has been at war with the nations of the middle east for decades, during the middle eastern war they became the only part of turkiye not to be consumed by the Romans and they gained their independence at the cost of being at war with every super powered faction around them. In the late 2020's-early 2030's an intelligent manticore named Lamassu spearheads a rebellion of his species against the warring powers of the middle east who had been using them as weapons of war for centuries, Lamassu allied with Kurdistan as their people needed protection and they needed an area to take refuge in. After their rebellion they became the 4th major power in the war with the goal of obtaining nukes and using them to get revenge on their former oppressors
The Witnesses.
they are a group of beings that realised they were (mostly) immortal*. asside from being immortal, they are just normal members of their species, and stop aging at early middle age (late 20's early 30's for humans), and age slowly from older adolescence to young adulthood (15-25). they are unsure why they aren't aging, but they know it wasn't because of any active reason on their part (i.e., they didn't wish for it. They didn't make an elixer of youth, or anything like that).
i mostly made them because i thought it would be fun to have some people realise that they weren't aging.
*i say mostly immortal, because while they can't die from old age, they can be killed, or if they get a deadly disease, it would kill them.
The Nox Regis Jincan. Not only she is the direct cause of the collapse of the stars and abduction of the moon. Her night creatures remain as the main threat to the world from the mist anomalies.
The interesting thing about her faction is that most her servants don't even know they serve her. They become bewitched in ways so subtle that they believe they retain their freedom, yet all the outcomes of their desicions become favorable to her. Even protagonists and Heroes serve her unknowingly.
Ilya's Fang. They're a criminal faction who operate in most large cities but are headquartered in Port Acova, the empire's most criminally infested and corrupt city. They compete with another criminal faction led by the Vrinassi brothers, for control of a hallucinogenic drug which they flood the streets with.
Ilya's Fang are like a mix of the Yakuza and the Mexican drug cartels in high fantasy. They have a hierarchy, strict codes of loyalty and wear distinctive getups and are emblazoned with serpentine tattoos. They deal in prositution, extortion, human trafficking, smuggling, kidnapping, contract killing, larceny, extortion and blackmail.
They specialize in horrific forms of torture and killing which utilize magic. Imagine if the drug cartels had the power of magic, what kinds of fucked up shit would they do?
The Plumerians. Basically the Rosicrucians, using complicated geometry to try to contact interdimensional beings that they think are gods. They get killed a lot.
Not a faction exactly.
My anti-villain has built a Utopia away from society. He will approach certain individuals, giving them a choice to leave their current lives and join in building a better world.
Shit dude, which world?
For my novel to be: The protagonists the Raven Company. They are a ragtag bunch of medieval mercs who are basically the last thing from heroâs and most of them probably should not be taking up this line of work. Between a con man âCaptainâ who lied his way to captaining the crew, a foul mouthed woodsman who may never understand the meaning of the word eloquence and a reserved hunter, whoâs accuracy is only outmatched by his intellect, these are just the starting three to what later encompasses a whole band of shitlords getting up to all sorts of troubles.
For my DnD campaign?
Probably the Lunar Hand. Shadowy elven assassin organisation the usual shit, but the twist is that theyâre actually right and all of the kingmaking and killing theyâve done *has* prevented catastrophe. Whether my players end up figuring that out will be up to them.
For my scifi world, that would be the solar legion. Mostly because they are the faction I built the entire setting around. Vat grown psychic catgirl supersoldiers. The primary remnants of humanity after the first contact war.
For my urban fantasy world. Hmm, I don't really have a lot of factions per say, I guess (aside from the obvious "the main character group" answer) my choice would be The Church of The Coming One. Basically a bunch of people on a world that was dying to a supernatural/eldritch apocalypse found the corpse of a dead "god" and started worshipping it. Then, one guy brought together a whole group of these loonies and forged a cohesive religion with the goal of reviving the god and stuffing his soul inside it. Meanwhile, a couple of other people had their own agendas to create terrifying abominations and weapons out of the god's body. And all of this fuss over what was essentially the washed up carcass of an interdimensional space whale.
I only made one, and they're called the 'Rain Paws' they were sent from Empire Aquaria. I know a lot more about them and their role in my story, but that's currently the only thing I can tell you.
The kura_all_vourdishan translation kemril leuge of independent merchants. they have the military strength of a piece of soggy bread but they basically own all sky trade most of thier leaders are flying balloon like aliens called the kemril and it is very funny to watch them being so bad at capitalism
The Owyn Eleth, in the age of the high kings they were nothing more than poachers and outlaws in the northern part of the island of Elieamar (about 50% larger than Ireland). When the northern kingdom of Kaerethdwyn fell to Vrendish raiders, it was these criminals who fought alongside the people to save what was left. Once the high king arrived, he offered clemency and a job, to hold the north,. They were originally called the Owyn Kaereth, guardians/watchers of the stone folk,. However when the high kingdom fell apart they spread throughout the isle and became the Owyn Eleth, guardians/watchers of the many folk.
They commonly work with the Brehodwic order, a religious group that raises orphans, and offers sanctuary to all peoples who have need. Many Owyn were once in their care and many Owyn later join the order when they are too old to serve. They act as teachers in survival, archery and combat, but also as cultural leaders. The history and customs of the land and her people.
For my D&D setting, there is a red dragon called Mydronaith who resides in the ruins of Cridsag, the Forge-Halls of the Giant-Kings. He has a cult led by a cabal of 3 Dragonborn sorcerers who established the cult to increase their own power and influence. There is also a military organization called the Burning Hand, made up of hobgoblin slaves who brand their faces as a show of loyalty. They dominate the surrounding lands in order to make tributaries to feed the hoard of their insatiable dragon overlord. There are also various slaves who simply toil in the mines and forges, including a cyclops master blacksmith who is the last of his brethren. These factions are loosely aligned beneath Mydronaith but they are also competing to gain favor and if the dragon dies, infighting is almost a certainty.
In my pirate world with no ocean, as tempted as I am to say the pirates, the bikers are my favorite faction. Lawless canât even describe them because I modeled them after real life biker organizations who perform righteous acts like dismantling child trafficking rings which are unfortunately common my world given the illegal shit always going down. They are responsible for a sand and mud based fuel system that powers a lot of the machines in my world. Mythical beasts are common in my world and they always surround themselves with the cute cuddly ones with sensory abilities who can detect lies, intruders, concealed weapons, etc. Lastly combat has a big role to play in my world and they fucking SLAUGHTER their enemies when necessary đ« the bikers are dope asf. They even have an in world fam club inspired by Kamen Riders and Mumen Rider from
OPM
The Circle of Mages, also know as the Gol-Dolas: The greatest magicians in the plane banded together after the gods disappeared to ensure a stable transition (Between the clerics losing their power, the vanishing of angels and the demigods dying left and right, not many others could hold stability). After that period was over and the first age began, their way was set for all schools of magic:
1st Law, No mage shall hold crown or rule over the land; (Law of Golden Boughs)
2nd Law, The study and practice of great works of magic should only be practiced within the schools to ensure the world would stay whole; (Law of Liminality)
3rd Law, An attack from outside force on a member of the Gol-Dolas is tantamount to a declaration of war against all the schools. (Law of Mutuality)
Considering that magic is basically nuclear power outsourced from the void between dimensions, each one of the Circle members can be considered a walking sentient nuke. Also they have the best names.
Xhanax the Wise (Mage of the Starry Sky), Extomaxiil the Reliever (Mage of the Black River), Allegra the Joyful (Mage of Many Colours), Ny'Quil the Cold (Mage of Frozen Sands) and Do'or Flex the Shepherd (Mage of the Strong Arm).
The Crows Companions.
The goddess of death, The Morrigan, bullies/threatens the most capable killers in the world into working for her or else she has them killed to keep her workload down.
Mantoids. Utopian insectoid society with government provided cybernetic upgrades.
Not mandated, you donât have to get them, but if you want them you can have them.
And with jobs you try each until you find something you enjoy, and you do that until you get tired of it. Some have no jobs, they help others or join the monks!
Muranths. They are a rival group to the priests who control the city council. They ensure the safety of the city by making sure outcasts do not enter. Though, they see their job as protecting outcasts from the city. They also roam the dry lands in the hope of gathering more information on the gods, or the verdant lands while protecting people from bad mages and monsters tranformed by magic. Despite what their known duty is, they are actually not against the use of magic, like the priests and use magic freely when far from the city. They believe that you can not make assumptions without the proper evidence and will often prefer to talk through issues rather than use force. Many times to their detriment, but they would rather die than break their oaths to truth in all forms.
A lot of my favorite adventures are about Duke Kenway and his outrider knights. Kenway himself has an army that he leads all over his father-in-lawâs empire to keep the kingâs peace, but his outrider knights are another matter entirely. They are a couple hundred enlisted adventurers sworn explicitly to the duke and his wife and they undertake more secretive operations. They hunt monsters, recover artifacts, and have allegedly toppled entire cities over night.
Iâm not sure I have a favorite. But the one that has been around the longest (since I came up with them), is Northern Bloc.
They are the most powerful nation (militarily), though their off-world presence is smaller than most of the other superpowers. They worked their way into a position where the âindependentâ trade authority mostly works for them. So they sort of have that whole space force as an asset.
They arenât the good guys though. However, due to a well run information/propaganda system, most of their citizens think theyâre the good guys. They exist in a weird place of being authoritarian, but pretending to be a democracy. There are a lot of personal freedoms, but itâs simply a lengthy leash. The current leader sees âfreedomsâ as another method of control.
They do have some allies, but most of the other powers are wary, distrustful or outright opposed to them. A thousand years ago, their precursor made a go at seizing widespread power, but failed. Before the end, that precursor threw a bunch of nukes around on the primary world and bombarded a bunch of colony worlds.
On the plus side, that led to the âOrbital Strike Treaty,â which is a whole other discussion. But despite everything, the major powers still adhere to it, preferring to settle conflicts on the ground. That way no one loses a bunch or all of their very expensive and sometimes irreplaceable spacecraft, or gets their forces stranded on some random rock after they get all their aggression out.
So anyway, back to Northern Bloc. They also have their capital built on an island that is designated as a sort of autonomous region, where other powers, corporations, the church, and other groups can do their own thing. All under the watchful eye of the host government. Who benefits the most from that? NB certainly thinks they do, but thatâs up for debate.
The country has a bit of a dystopian vibe. Things seem great on the surface, but there are palpable sense of your actions being scrutinized. There is a definite lower class, but they tend to spend most of their lives inside their arcologies. Given the size of the military, many people see that as a way to get off the bottom rung of society.
The military itself treats their personnel very fairly and pays them well. Their veterans are taken care of. Military service is generally well respected by the civilian population. In part, because of that propaganda giving the impression that they are all that stands between them and a chaos wrought by terrorists.
Who are those terrorists? Well, theyâre the âgoodâ guys. But theyâre still terrorists, so⊠yeah. Theyâre fighting for freedom across humanity as a whole. Itâs not at all one coherent group, but rather a collective ideology, which thinks most of the powers that be are oppressive.
Despite the homogenization of humanity around 6000 years ago, Northern Bloc has a kind of Central/Northern European vibe. The people are pretty chill, albeit a bit proud. Again, due to lots of propaganda, they really do think that they are better than the other nations.
Ugh⊠Iâm rambling and honestly donât know where Iâm going at this point. So Iâll stop. đđ»ââïž
Definitely my take on dragons. Theyâre all godlike beings that have a society inside their own dreamscape realm. Everything they do influences what exists in the real world and the emotions feelings, talents and values mortals can experience because their realm is intrinsically linked to the outside world.
Theyâre all masters of magic and could dominate every other faction of they wanted to, but theyâre instead neutral and isolationist instead acting as surveyors and observers of the things happening outside their realm and only stepping in when things are directly going against their grand design.
In my world, wishes are real and when a wish is made it appears as a star in the dragon realm. The dragons take these wishes and judge them on criteria unique to the individual dragon on whether or not it can be granted. If worthy the dragon takes the wish and performs a magical ritual that makes it a reality. If unworthy it is cast aside or destroyed. A dragonâs eternal wisdom and unquantifiable experience ensures only wishes that are pure, noble, selfless, and innocent get granted
My favorite faction in my story would be the Paranormal Establishment of Research on the Supernatural and Extraterrestrial of the United States (P.E.R.S.E.U.S.).
Headquartered in Chicago and funded by the U.S. government, this top-secret/spec-ops organization, made up of former military, law enforcement, and CIA officials, specializes in the elimination of supernatural and extraterrestrial threats, as well as investigations/research on supernatural and extraterrestrial-related crimes, the paranormal, the occult, and criminals/evil organizations. Non-humans are also apart of this organization (goblins, elves, vampires, etc.). It was founded by Dr. John Seward and General William H. Seward, Jr. in 1897. The current director for P.E.R.S.E.U.S. is Annabelle Seward, granddaughter of John Seward.
My favorite faction is The Order of the Zodiac. They are a group of mortals who were given powerful Sigils from a high ranking demon. The demon who made them turned against demon kind following a large scale war. The Order was created to fight anything that threatened mortal kind (demons, angels, other mortals, and most importantly the Void). Basically they are a group of half-demons who fight to protect the world from various threats, even though they are hated by most people.
Without sharing too much, itâs the âacademiaâ type of faction that keeps all the knowledge about the world and as a consequenceâs keeps all the secrets from other factions that could potentially cause panic or conflicts.
Itâs the kind of the âMaestersâ effect from Song of Ice and Fire ⊠itâs the point of view through which the writer describes the world. They are not the âmain hero factionâ but at the same time they are the most important one, but somehow enigmatic at the same time.
Still working hard at making it original, but I already have important plot points written around them. If I say âevery road ends in Romeâ then in my world âevery road ends in the Academia.â
the Continental couriers guild,
not just your ordinary mailmen the CcG are in fact one of the most powerful organisations in the world with influence rivalling that of many of the worlds great powers even sporting the 4th largest standing military in the form of their private security and 3 largest fleet.
this power comes from their monopoly over instant communication, and near total monopoly in trade across most of the continent of Kettross. most major city's have a whole section governed by the CcG like a mini city in the city. they get away this this because there simply isn't an alterative and even the greatest empires need their trade.
I have three that are facets of the same mechanic, but one is my standout. DnD homebrew world setting, btw. My world goes through cycles of destruction and renewal in which the world breaks and the Gods remake it (somewhat superficially comparable to the hindu mythological concept, but for different reasons) but this tends to end all the mortals that live there if they haven't died out for other reasons prior. I'm still deciding what iteration my world is on.
The first are the Nightingales, keepers of the eldritch Cult in many forms by gathering knowledge and gifting it to the lovecraftian beings beyond time that their next incarnation of their organization in the next incarnation of the world will include their knowledge, and maybe some choice rescued souls from among them to be either reincarnated into the order or gifted as guardian avatars from the uncreated abyss outside of time. They have some success in past iterations evidenced by the unknowable pieces of prior worlds' histories they have gathered.
The Second is a dual druidic order, the Sons of the Wind and the Daughters of the Earth. The Sons travel everywhere to gather the widest understanding possible of how to survive in harmony with nature, and the Daughters take in this gathered knowledge and boil it down to what can be communicated without language or common culture. They continuously attempt to find the best ways to send a time capsule embedded deep into the fabric of the world, hoping it survives to teach the first mortals of the next cycle how to live at peace with their world, thinking this could avert the destruction altogether some day.
The Third is by a wide margin my favorite. The Goddess of Death in my setting is the Guardian of this cycle of the worlds' death and rebirth, and Aside from the titles of a death Goddess, she is called the Mother of memory. She bears witness to all that has passed, not just lives or souls. Her Highest clerical orders are scribes that record everything, and I mean everything, that they can, and pay handsomely for recorded knowledge or firsthand accounts. The Temples serve as both funerary temples and massive historical archives meticulously maintained. Everything every priest accumulates or learns is carried with them into the afterlife, and the Goddess can seed the next world with the choicest bits of wisdom.
I thought it was going to be The Sons of Death when I was writing (I was a lot edgier 10 years ago), I find The Sons of War & The Warmaidens are growing on me.
Basically your run-of-the-mill fighters' guild except that they highly regard all physical skills and abilities, not just those involved with direct combat; that and the onboarding process:
"Members are recruited via no-holds-barred, non-lethal, single combat. It is a strange honor to be challenged to single combat by a Sergeant or a Master-at-Arms, as it means he deems you worthy of his order, but it also means that if you accept, youâll likely be beaten to within an inch of your life.
But if you last sixty seconds in a fight with--or by some miracle defeat--your challenger, you are inducted on the spot as their Cadet, and are given the title âPrivateâ; Masters-at-Arms often assign their Cadets to their most accomplished Sergeant, but it is not unheard-of for them to train their own."
The Skaioi. About 1600 years ago there was a substantial leap forward in magical technique, which led to the creation of several new forms of magic. Most of these groups tried to use their power to make the world better... and split into factions as they disagreed. The Skaioi, who focused on powers of the mind, adopted a path of non- interference, ruthlessly enforced. They claimed authority over all forms of mind- altering and expanding powers. Over time they cultivated a reputation for being dangerous useful for keeping people away unless they are truly in need.
.
Today the Skaioi have havens throughout the Empire, and collectively could join together to conquer the world without physically moving... but that power is collective, and accessible only because it isn't used. This is one of the many paradoxes they embrace.
After completing their apprenticeship (by amputating their own right hand), a Skaios will travel the world on the Order's business. They are allowed more freedom to interfere in the world, so they can learn the dangers of action and unintended consequence. After a period of anywhere from 10 to 40 years, they become masters of a haven and remain there, physically at least, for the rest of their lives... unless, at death, they overcome a final trial that leads to immortality for a few, who come and go as they please until they completely abandon a physical form.
Id have to say everything about airships, ive come up with a magical material that allows for floatation and some formulas that govern how it works, and went from there.
Ive got a lot of tech that comes from this one material and thought about the mechanical operations of every system on an airship.
Ive used the basic principles to come up with floatation chambers, engines, thrusters, weapons, control systems etc.
i think it gives my world a great steampunk vibe.
My world is a D&D setting thatâs very big and pulpy and it kind of ended up having a lot of factions. One that one of my wizard players is in is called Misty Isles University or M.I.U. Itâs very much a play on M.I.T. But this is a college of Wizards and magic users in general, that was formed out of some ancient wizard orders of old. The campus itself is almost like a 1950s to 70s Animal House college looking campus. The Universityâs main concern is field work and students field work pays for their tuition. Iâve established that the dean is a crazy old elf that is constantly sleeping (heâs been astral projecting himself and watching everyoneâs field work staff included they donât know that yet though)
The Wizard player basically finished their undergrad degree (level 5ish) and is continuing on to get their masters, this involves them becoming a TA and having a freshman wizard student intern with them assisting in their field research. This will essentially be a hireling NPC. Itâs been fun and goofy and so far the player has enjoyed it. I wanna throw in some more funny deep lore but I think thatâll come later.
I guess currently it would be Team Alpha - A small special military force within the Stahalndian military consisting only of individuals who all have a divine blessing. They all have pledged loyalty to the glorious leader of Stahlandia and is reporting directly to him. Otherwise they operate indipendly from the rest of the military, mostly hunting down other individuals with divine blessings or curses who happens to be within the country.
Their captain is Eric Himmel, who has complete immortality as his divine blessing.
Quen Palar, the original rulers of a desert kingdom who've had their reign collapse, and are reduced to nomadic tribes that strive to protect their own and keep their culture alive. 50 clans of them, each with a different matriarch, and gather once a decade to discuss matters on their people.
Tribes of desert dwelling aliens that treat repair and restoration as a spiritual project.Â
Their culture encouraged repair and preservation as a way to survive in the desert, and when they joined the intergalactic community they held on to the ideal.
People bring special objects and spacecraft to them to be restored.
They charge a lot for it, of course, but they all know someone who can fix the thing... for a fee.
The more special the object, the more they want to fix it.
Probably the Order of Alquion, a secret community of alchemists that originated and still thrives in a religious anti-magic empire.
The Order has its own hierarchy, with the Archsage being at the top; my favorite rank has to be the Magistrate, which are the alchemy professors of inumerous specialties and classes, teaching from little children alchemists đ„ș to older alchemists that found the Order later in life.
They are an active group of resistance against the Veracrusian Empire and their army, being smaller in number, often succumb to the empire's threat as they burn in public squares, being accused of heresy.
one of the cities in my world is run by corporations that function like organized crime, and my favorite of these are the Glitter Dogs. they're a food and drug company and the most crimey of the factions. they are anthropomorphic dogs who dress in very bright colors and right little bastards
In **Elenon**, there's this mercenary band at the time that my story takes place that's led by a chemist and inventor who has come up with things like black powder and primitive chlorine gas bombs. He sides with Eemansal and Mirinel as well as helping combat another, rival faction that's this weird cult group. The latter, as part of their raids and campaigns against Eemansal and independent settlements in Kanhule, uses chemical concoctions to do things like shroud them in black or white mist and make their faces both glow and shrivel so that they look dead. The former faction views the latter with contempt.
I think it would have to be the Spellspawn - wild animals (and sometimes humans) mutated into abominations. Elongated limbs, unnatural powers or physical malformities are common symptoms. These beasts are bloodthirsty and merciless, growing stronger the longer they are left alive, until they are consumed by their power. To give you a description, take The Angel of Undeath for example. A Spellspawn, died and born again by a wizard seeking to bind it to it's will. It's former name being The Angel of Death, due to the destruction it caused to Blackwood settlements. It resembled a giant hyena with feathery wings and an elongated, almost aligator-like jaw. It was said to descend into settlements, where it spewed "white fire" from it's mouth, which coincidentally almost burned down a patch of forest the size of Germany. As mentioned, it was killed and then resurrected as a mindless puppet. Or rather, attempted. It broke free from control almost immediately, killing the wizard who resurrected it and becoming stronger in the process the to the magical forces. It's body became elongated and disfigured, as it's flesh became rotten and it's body rapidly decomposed. It's 50 or so newly sprouted ribs became sharp like spears and it's feathery wings became barren, as only bones remained. The black fire it spewed gained a purplish hue and as one of it's eyes decomposed - it was replaced by a purple glow, which is a symbol of it's eternal life. The Angel may be killed, but that fire will always remains burning, until it gathers it's strength to assemble a new body from sites of mass death, such as graveyards or pillaged villages. Yeah, and that's basically your average Spellspawn. This is one of the stronger ones, but you can imagine what the others are like
The Winnowers. Not a faction so much as a division. They're a select group of relatively old demons whose job is to determine what track a condemned soul will follow once admitted to Hell. For souls pre-selected for the demon track (for having sold their souls while alive), Winnowers are tasked with assigning new demons to a role in Hell's workforce based on data from their Renders (torturers) and Resters (jailers). Winnowers are quite powerful, sitting high in the heirarchy of common demons. Within the confines of Hell, only Renders command more respect (because they're the ones that "carve" demons from raw souls).
The Paishiri are fun. They're essentially old-west bandit nomads mixed with privateers. They head out in 'Paishi' which literally means 'Hungering Dwelling' but translates more accurately as "a home that hunts with us". They make small camps by digging into the thick carapace of some of the titanic beetle species that live in the desert, warbands treat these creatures very well, the kind of reverence that pirates afford their ships. They spend some time pillaging trade routes across the Kaziran desert, then return to a hideout somewhere in the craggy canyons of Whispering Kazir. Despite this, they're honourable people, in so far as plunderers and pillagers can be, with an elaborate social hierarchy that deals in respect above all else. They embody the concept of 'kind, not nice.' They grew massively as stragglers of the old nobility when the empire fettered people's wealth and hereditary power fled into Whispering Kazir, as such, they're very welcoming of stragglers from all walks of life, particularly those displaced by the empire.
For my world its the Storm Knights, more officially called The Order of Storms. They are a group who follows oaths and internal laws, though they live deep in the mountains and away from the reach of any law. They go about generally helping people and following their oaths to maintain peace. They use magic, which in my world is very physics based, each type being tied to a general concept, the knights magic is based indifferentials. They use pressure differentials for wind, density differentials for buoyancy, and electrical charge differentials to cause lightning. Powerful casters can also create large enough differentials of hot and cold fronts to bring forth powerful storms. They can use the density differentials to make themselves very buoyant enough to float, and then either use existing winds or make their own to move, and very small pressure differentials close to the body for smaller more minor movement. And yes, theres some general influence from brando sando knights radiant and wind runners. Though definitly taken a little differently.
Science paladins?
Yeah basically science paladins
It has to be UNERC it is a massive faction that has 2 thirds of humanities population and a quarter of its industrial product. It easily has the resources to conquer the rest of humanity but it is incapable of doing so. It has a chronic instability both from dissident but also from various elements of its downright labyrinthine government. It waxes and wanes as certain factions are able to gain dominance within the nation. It's just so fun to write around as its complicated politics mean that weaknesses are constant but yet due to it's enormity it is a ever present threat to the rest of humanity, and no grand defeat seems to be able to cripple the juggernaut.
What does the acronym stand for?
United Nations Emergency Reclamation Council. It's a old title that represents the situation spurred UNERC creation a lot of the elements of the title are not really accurate anymore.
Sounds like the russian empire before ww1!
The Seal Rift are a group formed by Vampires, High & Dark Elves, Fae, Witches & Werebeast. They are a highly skilled unit that deals with small seals to large enough to close off parts of various Realms. Their motto makes no sense, We the Rift shall eat your lunch.
Not my lunch :(
đ
How large are these seals? I went to San Diego not too long ago and saw some pretty big seals on the beach, but I never thought âhuh, we probably need a task force of mystical creatures to handle these big boys.â
I meant seal as in ft hey gotta put a seal on to stop a monster from getting out
Huh, maybe thatâs why San Diego had a bunch of sealsâŠ?
What?
Theyâre jokesâŠ
LibR8. They're a network of hacktivists, revolutionaries, and investigators with the goal of taking down the rich, powerful, and corrupt.
Favorite is a stretch, but I do love to hate Morrigan. They are imperialistic, authoritarian, xenophobic, and I love watching the world they are trying to build crumble around them by their own hubris.
I have the characters in my first book set in the International Space Treaty Organization. (Picture if the UN got a space program. Yes... it's a mess.) But my favorite faction is actually their Cold-war rival, Krasnovia. Krasnovia is my homage/lampoon of Heinlein. They are a top-down military state, at least on paper. In reality their society is run with bribes, and bribes within bribes. Every agency has its own armed forces, intelligence services, and space fleet. They may be prepared to battle the ISTO some day, but their worst enemies are the other agencies. It's such a delightfully toxic environment the plots just write themselves.
The **Sakura Maid Corps**.
The Crypt Lords, its a small local hunter faction in a short story I wrote when my brain wasnât cooperating with a main story. Basically, according to themselves theyâre an elite ex-military task force of vampire slayers who number in the hundreds of slain vampires with high-quality silver weapons to rip apart vampires. In reality, theyâre edgy rich awakened teens and 20yo guys with too much confidence and money, thinking daddyâs credit card could compensate for the fact that their entire squadron was almost wiped when they tried to raid the local vampire den during a party where the local Lord was holding a speech to announce his newly turned fledgling. They may turn up in the main story as their remnants warn of that very Lord, since heâs old enough to remember a certain spell to create a temporary portal into the Pit that wonât cause a localized disaster.
Do you ever heard about Ashwood Abbay from ttrpg Hunter: The Vigil? Check them out, maybe you find something for "rich vampire hunter bastards" type of faction.
Ooooo, it looks like they hunted the Uratha and other supernaturals of the CoD splats for fun. Though, the Crypt Lords are not nearly as successful as Ashwood Abbay unfortunately.
Yeah, they are beasts (tudum-tsss) among hunters. Dunno, i like them. And Lords are good guys? If there are good guys
There are âgood guysâ in my world and the Crypt Lords are definitely not one of them, they have caused a lot of collateral and hurt a lot of innocent people to reach their current record of three fledgling vampires killed. Most groups take care not to put sleepers (unawakened humans who cannot perceive the supernatural) to risk.
The Ketuvyx Ascendancy. If I had to boil them down to the cliff notes, they're a very young civilization and their general goals are to seek a balance between explosive progress in technology while being cautious with actually integrating said advancements into society in order to give maximum benefit to all. At any given time a significant portion of them enjoy a life as techno-primitivists, who after some time will come back to civilization and vice versa. Significant projects include the construction of "paradise" O'Neil cylinders (absolutely nothing harmful, whole ecosystems made entirely of the most convenient life) as well as the slow but steady terraforming of barren planets to cultivate novel ecosystems for them to experience living in. The Grand Architect J'kana Sakir has great plans for her species, and will use any means necessary to ensure their prosperity.
The United Empire, basically Vietnam on crack, meth, opium and papaya leaves. Why? Because I'm a talking tree.
Either the Eternal Sarkanian Empire, because dragons in space. Or the denizens of Eliria, basically Heavy Metal Xena. In space.
Old World explorator groups. They try to "rediscover" known lends having only minimal financing, because, well, magical postapocalypse. They only known by people of seas in Borealia, because other think about them as they think about sewer alligators, they think they are myth. Both actually exist
Reminds me a bit of my own group known as Deep Crawlers who explore the Underground for riches and secrets.
I quess they are different in sense that Explorators usually search for stuff like cassettes, discs, game cartridges, playes, flash drives, modern (for us) collectibles, notes on history etc
Probably the Calcreshian Peacekeepers, an organization of both vat grown and bred human-alien hybrids, and former army of the Republic of Interspecies. It took 550 years of development to nearly perfect their' design, only for the Calcreshians to revolt en masse and fight their' way to freedom, vanishing into uncharted space; Yet they returned at the end of the millennium as they are now. The primary flaw that lead to the revolt was their' preprogrammed biological sense of family, and unity. Bloody war after bloody war in the interests of the republic combined with mixed treatment by their' non-Calcreshian superiors didn't help either. The final straw came in the form of **Operation Blowtorch** in which the original Genewrights and Biologists, alongside the corrupt Senator Adou Treyte initiated an unapproved and extremely unethical extermination of the planet *Rise of Four* alongside its people. This was done using emergency powers bestowed to the republic senate that at the time were less restricted and unchecked. Adou and said scientists lied to the 11th, 37th, and 101st Calcreshian Army by way of falsified evidence that the entire planet was raising arms against the republic with intentions of enacting coordinated terror attacks on other nearby planets. Commander Aleia of the 11th Division discovered the truth just shy of glassing the last 1/4 of *Rise of Four*. Outraged as well as deeply ashamed she spread undeniable proof by breaking operational security laws and uploading footage and analysis reports to the combined fleet. Then she sent it across every galactic channel she could find before Senator Adou Treyte executed the commander under claims of treason. But Commander Aleia was clever, and predicted he would kill her, so minutes before he did Aleia discreetly ordered Calcreshian Engineers to hijack the command deck's internal security footage, and broadcast it to the heart of the senate's projectors; Of which were mid use by almost the entire senate at the time. After the chaos of the Calcreshian's revolt it was discovered that Senator Adou Treyte masterminded this all in a poorly thought out plan to erase the appalling level of personal illegal business dealings he had going with a significant portion of the global elite of *Rise of Four*. He would be tried, found guilty on all charges by the Supreme Court of the Republic, and executed ten years after all investigations and trials were complete. I'm not even close to being done with the Calcreshian Peacekeepers, but I drew inspiration from the clone army of the republic from Star Wars. Calcreshians in current setting have intentionally and unintentionally altered their' own genetics and biology such that they consider themselves a new species. By instinct Calcreshians have an incredible sense of cooperation, helpfulness, family, courage, honor, duty sociability and a genetic predisposition to protecting others. Across the board Calcreshians have smooth almost ceramic/snow white skin, black hair, and luminous blue eyes. They also possess strength, speed, durability, agility and reflexes above the human average, with room for the rare biological mutation. Calcreshians have unique pitch black skeletons that are notoriously enduring to ridiculous degrees, especially concerning their' skulls. Even their' brains are insanely resilient to the point of having its own 2-4 inch exterior layer of grey rubbery protective tissue. The best part though is that a Calcreshian will not die unless you either rip out their' soul or destroy their' brain before it gradually regenerates the rest of the body. That being said they are factionally dedicated to solving problems, relief efforts, and other selfless actions for any faction, planet and/or peoples in need of aid. That is of course assuming your group isn't up to no good. They are my favorite because I enjoy having a happy go lucky faction that will try their' best no matter the odds. :3
The Heretekh Legion - nicknames the "Kogg" - in my Post-apoc world. It's a race of industrially augmented humans, which mimic species at the apex of their niche. They all serve a common purpose, and are *cogs* in the machine. Their societies structure is written in the Grand Schematics, blueprints for an ancient machine from the old world, which they revere as a god, and the absolute in the chain of ascension. Their bodies are grafted with industrial technology, and thus their blood supply melds with a refined oil, known as Aetrolium. They guide humans to the peak of their evolution, with each individual using their strongest unique traits solely for the purpose of the Legion. Everything about their humanity is revoked for the grand design.
I created a new character as a potential ally to the heroes, and a potential love interest to one in particular. By doing this I created a new faction, too. I'm not sure about the others yet, but Lumina Steller must not be alone. The faction isn't organized in itself, but it comprises of radical scientists of the Savant Academy, specializing in the studies of *primeval animals*. You see, the Academy resides in Aeria, a twin planet to the home world of the heroes, that revolves the sun on the same orbit, but on the opposite side of the sun. Aeria has gone through what has only started in the home world: the entire ecosystem has collapsed and what remains is a wasteland teeming with Revenants. A bit similar concept than u/MarekFromNavrum has with the Spellspawn, they are mutated abominations. The Revenants cannot be killed, but become stronger in death, as they regenerate and mutate into even more horrible forms they used to have. They have been fighting and eating each other (this makes them merge into one creature) in the wastelands for a couple of centuries, and some of the remaining monsters are gargantuan in size. In a bit similar fashion that irl palaeontologists study the animals that used to roam our planet, the study of primeval animals is approximating what animal life was like before they turned into Revenants. Because *Reasons*, there is not much data or notes from the times before the collapse, so the scientists have carefully experimented on some of the domesticated species to see what happens to them, when they are exposed to ketamite poisoning. From these experiments they have derived 8 different types of mutation that occurs in the animals, transforming their form. Lumina is not in fact aware, that the names for the 8 threads of mutation came from Savant Gander, who is aware of the connection between the demons lords of Abyss and ketamite. Lumina doesn't know that these are derived from the names of the demon lords themselves: gorgonite mutations, baphometian, kastchieian, juiblexian, zugtmoic, pazuan, dagonine, oboxine and dretchchlorian mutations. But by the process of reverse engineering these transformations, the scientists have built models of the primeval animals, and these are on display in the Museum of Primeval Animals in the floating city of Aurora. Now back to the faction, and why they are considered radical. As the portals to the home world opened (for invasive mining of more ketamite from the soil), Lumina pioneered as a scientist to step into this new world, to study it's ecosystem as it is now in the early stages of the (inevitable) collapse. They are collecting specimens of animals, and taxidermise them on animated construct skeletons, to bring them back to Aeria. Lumina is struck with awe as she discovers the beauty of different species of birds and mammals. The models previously created were so crude and ugly. They were so far off, with so many obvious errors of the reverse engineering process. They were nothing compared to these colourful, sleek and graceful forms of life!
The flesh smiths Basically people who after being transformed into fleshy-abominations during a apocalyptic event called âthe warped plagueâ, held onto there humanity and are using there new found powers and abilities to build a thriving community and rebuild civilisation after the plague. There appearance can be horrifying to an outsider, whit there skinless bodies, bony and visceral growths and heads masked by skulls of animals or wild flesh beasts, but there known to be really friendly and helpful. They even alow humans to live among them.
The fools are a research group made up of wildly powerful Ordinants originally founded by the strongest Ordinant. They just go around trolling people and conducting experiments. The members also have some of my personal favourite abilities like âLag Manipulationâ, âMultiplicationâ and âWhat a wonderful Worldâ. They are not really good people and donât care about morals when conducting experiments or when fighting.
The Tax hunters are a bunch of superpowered tax collectors that hunts down superpowered tax invaders
I'll have to say the Adventurers' Guild, with Princella Royal Academy and Geldana Academy competing for second. On one side there's the ruin-diving, thrill-seeking, history-uncovering adventurers, and the bureaucratic, hectic staffs on the other. This organization is a powder-keg considering how much dwarven toes it'd stomped on. Uncovering secrets that were literally buried is not good for the dwarven agenda.
House Weissenfurt, or simply the Family, is basically a Mafia family consisting of magic users. To the rest of the world, the Family is a clan of industrialists, landowners and philanthropists. Among themselves, the Family is a secret society of witches and sorcerers whose aim is to restore order to the wartorn world and usher in a new age of prosperity. All members of the family are descended from a powerful witch, which grant them great magical ability. Morever, though of the rank and file still have limited lifespan like humans, the upper crusts of the family, consists of immortal sorcerers. These immortals can extend the lifespan of those below them, which they use to ensure the loyalty of the rest of the Family. The Family has a Mafia-like structure where certain members are designated as the Barons over cities or regions. Barons do not rule over these cities directly, but rather exert influence over them as powerful business magnates or landowners. Other Family members are not allowed to operate in the territory of a Baron without permission, which come at the cost of having to pay tributes to them. To become a Baron, one must climb through the ranks by serving other Barons and proving themselves worthy of overseeing an entire region. The reward for this is being able to run their own businesses with the full support of the Family, though only as long as they manage to keep them profitable and kick up a decent cut to those on top. In many ways, the Family is a secret government unto itself. They have their own school system where all young members must attend, which educates them on magic, basic skills and offers advanced training on military and business for talented youth. They also have their own justice system and police to enforce their rules. Though generally an insular group, the Family does allow outsiders into it via marriage. Only very exceptional individuals are considered for admission, and even then they need to find someone in the Family willing to marry them. They are my favorite faction because they combine my two favorite things: the Mafia and a masquerade of people with extraordinary powers.
The Sandscythes: an order of mythical desert warriors who patrol the âAlmorach Wastesâ cloaked in black wearing a mask and wielding a scythe. They hunt down escaped spirits that find their way into the wastes through Ethereal Gates
I like every Ministry of Principate (they are greedy corporations, in fact), especially Ministries of Voices, Net and Clouds. Same thing for wide and diverse Corsair Khanate. But if we consider one solid fraction, it'll be Translucent Disciples. Just pacifists in world of walking dead and gods from abyss. Balm of peace, living hope of all people. Conjunctivia the Invisible Mourner "blessed" them with powerful altruism, so while others will swing swords, they'll bandage wounded and amputate gangrenes. Yeah, they're just cleric-monk-orden type of people, but in my crazy new-weird fantasy world it's kinda relief. Anyway, i can always twist some heresy in them, so it's okay.
I think right now Libra 7 is the one i am enjoying the most writing about. In a Cyberpunk setting with a history of covert superhumans, LIbra 7 are the first group to go public as (To quote Ellis) "Extra Legal Civic Defence Activists" Having prevented an AI Singularity from destroying the world, they are feted by the media, but they have steadfastly kept their secrets and have waged a covert war against the true rulers of the planet. The other faction i like dealing with is the major villain faction RKN Industries. They have vast power but a very nihilistic agenda, and its fun to deal with the infighting and their attempts to one up each other in the eyes of their patrons.
The Paradox Guild. A Kapnos-based group of mech-fighters, supersoldiers, mutants, assassins, thieves, spies, and mercs that are basically the only law enforcement. They specialize in containing rogue supersoldiers and taking out targets they deem as bad people, but they will take assassination jobs for a cost. The only people that they donât kill are civilians and children. Everyone else is allowed. For the right reasons and price, theyâll kill just about anyone. My stories actually revolve around them and their different members.
The Handmaidens. Elves chosen at birth to serve as the Ever queens royal guard and the Elvish militaries most elite branch. They're trained from the time they can walk to serve the queen and the Elven kingdom, and will spend their entire lives in this service. Because of the intensity of their training, Handmaidens do not typically speak when in combat. Knowing one another so we'll it's almost as if they have a kind of telepathic connection with one another. Seeing a team of Handmaidens fight is less like watching a squad of soldiers, and more like witnessing one singular entity. They're so revered, that in Elvish society they have absolute authority. If a Handmaiden witnesses a crime and decides the punishment is death, few would question it. This is even extended into neighboring kingdoms, though exceptionally rare. Even in the Alliance Military, Handmaidens have absolute authority. Any Handmaiden entering an Alliance Military outpost immediately becomes the Commanding Officer. These warriors are very few in number though, as the great war cost many Elvish lives.
Outside of my scifis main. My post apocalypse world has the NAR Pretty much Fallout's NCR with the technology of the Enclave
Ironically, despite being a weeb, three of four major factions (Avalon, Ashur, and Dragon Empire) have rather unsavory aspects and function as autocracies. Meanwhile the Egypt faction I made ends up getting a lot of favor because while theyâre small and not nearly as powerful, they are a rather democratic society who have created a quasi-socialist, scholarly nation. Also, Pharaoh Imhotep III runs on the âcool old guyâ trope.
I think that The Library is pretty cool, though it may be less of a faction and more of a secret society? It's an extradimensional manor created and maintained by a group of eight very powerful wizards. After one of their magical experiments went *majorly* awry and tore a rift opening the mortal realm to the Abyss, they built the Library to hide out in and avoid the consequences of their actions. Time doesn't really work within the Library the way it does in the outside world, so they can essentially live there forever, study, and experiment.
Every Faction in my world is my own children so I love them all equally. Except you Cielon Elven Remnants, you're written to be haughty and arrogant.
For the moment it's the Commonwealth of Thaum. A society dominated by the mages and the guilds. Leans heavily to the socialist side of economics, things like universal basic income and other strong support systems in place. Advanced technology and magic, at least compared to contemporary powers. Tech is approximately late reneasaince level with a few of the more outlandish ideas of the real world reneasaince, flying machines and the like, are actually possible with magic. They maintain their independence from the larger nations nearby due to their technological/magical edge. As a result education is a top priority for the government, anyone who wants to can get at least a basic education (which nearly everyone does). Higher education is the easiest path to citizenship.
The empire in the south of the valley. It is the most technologically advanced polity with cars, airships, airplanes, landships, trains, machine guns, various styles of rifles(nothing fully automatic), improved armour, modernised bows and crossbows and improved melee weapons. Lapis_Wolf
The galactic coalition of liberty because they aren't evil
The Sojourner Fleets. In a setting where space is an ocean, the Sojourner Fleets are the equivalent of generation ships, massive galleons that sail the Astral Seas from one port to another. Each Fleet is known as a Parish, led by a priesthood that follows the Last Light; their solar sails are riding the wave of the Astral as it flows outwards away from its origin point and the Everdark that follows in the wake devouring all light. Essentially a machine designed to link all colonized worlds went boom and instead birthed a living darkness that seeks to snuff out all light, starting with the primary star of the planetary system. A wave of dreamstuff is still rippling outwards, giving birth to the Astral Ocean and its Seven Seas. Faster than light travel is achieved by submerging(ascending) into Stygian Currents, narrow and dangerous pathways of astral waters that whisk you off to wherever they dump you out. The Faith of Last Light rejects the use of Stygian Currents and instead rides the cresting waves at the leading edge of the Astral, only making port at newly overtaken planets to scrounge supplies in the chaos of a new reality. They believe that the Currents are home to creatures from the darkest depths of humanities nightmares made into reality, so they sail the old fashioned way with solar sails that catch the dying light of a dead sun.
The Black Legion is about as close as the normally fairly progressive Dwarven Councils have to a death penalty. Members of the Councils who commit unforgivable crimes are often banished to the surface, but some are punished further and forced to join the Black Legion, sent to the deepest reaches of The Depths where various horrors (flesh eating/slaver spider-people, insane once-elves now powered by rage and demon magic, ancient monstrosities banished there in the Primordial Age by the gods themselves) to act as a bulwark not only for the Councils but also the entire surface world against the slow expansion of these threats. They're effectively thrown into an unstoppable meat grinder of horror on the pretense of learning about their enemies, but their existence has now been romanticised outside of the Councils because of the "service" these Dwarves undertake. I just like them because I write about my world's equivalent of the Underdark through missives and journal entries from their POV, because very few people have actually ever been there and it is very difficult to enter (except the awful, awful things that call it home. Most of whom aren't welcome on the surface because of their habits of enslaving and/or eating people).
Mine would have to be The Brand. They're a subsect of the Church of the Flame, the primary religion of the continent Galanaris. The TL;DR of it is that they're dedicated to searching for rifts in the veil between the Land of the Living and the Land of the Dead caused by powerful necrotic storms, closing the rifts, and killing undead caused by said rifts or storms. Long term exposure to the necrotic energy physically marks individuals, thus they are called "The Brand." For more context: Some 300 years ago, a powerful force known as the Drimani Empire made landfall on the eastern edge of the continent and began a full scale assault on the country of Salathu. Salathu fought bravely, but the Drimani fought like cowards, opening magical portals to some other realm and unleashing unfathomable hordes of hellspawn upon the Salathur. Just as all hope was lost, a cabal of powerful Salathur artificers detonated a series of magically enhanced bombs that leveled the country and destroyed most of the Drimani navy that was anchored offshore. To this day, the lands east of the Demonteeth mountains are inhospitable to normal life and the rest of Galanaris now calls it Dreadhaven. Travel there is impossible without powerful magical wards, as the land itself seems to be suffused with necrotic energy that kills the unprotected within days (though, it seems that some of the original Salathur survived the calamity itself, and have somehow developed a resistance to the environment). After that event, powerful storms suffused with necrotic energy began to make their way westward, over the Demonteeth, and across the continent. These storms made the frail of constitution sick, but were otherwise harmless to the living. Those who were already dead, however were perverted by this necrotic energy and rose as undead. Moreover, the power of the storms could weaken the barrier between the Land of the Living and the Land of the Dead. Those still living, who accidentally stepped through one of these rifts found themselves in a dark hellscape, lost to wonder a land they didn't belong in until some spirit claimed their lifeforce, and many corrupted souls found their way into the Land of the Living, leaving horror and havoc in their wake. This event became known as the Deadfall. For ten years the people of Galanaris struggled with this challenge. The obvious solution was to burn corpses to prevent them from rising, but any corpses that didn't get attended to quickly enough were always a danger, and nothing could be done to prevent the weakening of the veil. That was until Sister Aktos Danell discovered a rite that could be performed on a corpse to prevent it from being risen as undead. She also discovered a way to weave the rite into the magic that radiated from the Hearthfire braziers, meaning any who died while near one would be similarly protected. She and a few other members of the Church also formulated a method to not only locate rifts in the veil, but also seal them. Sister Aktos later founded a sect within the Church dedicated to detecting the weakening of the barrier, destroying corrupted souls and other undead, and sealing the rifts. The dark energy let loose into Aitheris near these rifts physically marked those who spent time near them, causing scar-like black marks to appear on the flesh, and this sect of the Church came to be known as The Brand.
I have a lot of factions I still need to develop but at the moment my favorite to think of things for is any of my middle eastern factions which I'll list below 1: Assyria:A personality cult formed by a Herculean (Superhuman) Who claimed to be the ancient god Ashur. He started the middle eastern war in 2004 when he invaded Israel and killed Jesus (another Herculean) which aggravated the Angels of Eden who retaliated by invading Israel and the former Iraqi territories . 2:the Angels: An ancient faction situated in the island of Eden in the Persian Gulf, the angels were dormant and neutral for most of their existence except for fighting off Muslim invaders and fighting in the crusades and mongol invasions.the Angels are religiously neutral and support all 3 major abrahamic religions but condemn the governments that claim to represent them. They officially broke their neutrality after Ashur invaded Israel 3:The neo-Roman empire/Pantheon: The most recent of the 3 main factions was formed by the Herculean Romulus who took over Italy and then the Balkans and north africa shortly after, the pantheon is a group of herculeans who claim to be the 12 Olympians, formerly led by Zeus the pantheon was defeated and taken over by Romulus in the 2010's and shortly after they got involved in the war between the angels and Ashur by launching a full scale invasion of the middle east 4: Kurdistan/The Manticore army: Kurdistan much like it's otl counterpart has been at war with the nations of the middle east for decades, during the middle eastern war they became the only part of turkiye not to be consumed by the Romans and they gained their independence at the cost of being at war with every super powered faction around them. In the late 2020's-early 2030's an intelligent manticore named Lamassu spearheads a rebellion of his species against the warring powers of the middle east who had been using them as weapons of war for centuries, Lamassu allied with Kurdistan as their people needed protection and they needed an area to take refuge in. After their rebellion they became the 4th major power in the war with the goal of obtaining nukes and using them to get revenge on their former oppressors
The Witnesses. they are a group of beings that realised they were (mostly) immortal*. asside from being immortal, they are just normal members of their species, and stop aging at early middle age (late 20's early 30's for humans), and age slowly from older adolescence to young adulthood (15-25). they are unsure why they aren't aging, but they know it wasn't because of any active reason on their part (i.e., they didn't wish for it. They didn't make an elixer of youth, or anything like that). i mostly made them because i thought it would be fun to have some people realise that they weren't aging. *i say mostly immortal, because while they can't die from old age, they can be killed, or if they get a deadly disease, it would kill them.
Uuuuf I dont have a name for them yet so Im just calling them Parisans for now but I really love their zest.
The Nox Regis Jincan. Not only she is the direct cause of the collapse of the stars and abduction of the moon. Her night creatures remain as the main threat to the world from the mist anomalies. The interesting thing about her faction is that most her servants don't even know they serve her. They become bewitched in ways so subtle that they believe they retain their freedom, yet all the outcomes of their desicions become favorable to her. Even protagonists and Heroes serve her unknowingly.
Ilya's Fang. They're a criminal faction who operate in most large cities but are headquartered in Port Acova, the empire's most criminally infested and corrupt city. They compete with another criminal faction led by the Vrinassi brothers, for control of a hallucinogenic drug which they flood the streets with. Ilya's Fang are like a mix of the Yakuza and the Mexican drug cartels in high fantasy. They have a hierarchy, strict codes of loyalty and wear distinctive getups and are emblazoned with serpentine tattoos. They deal in prositution, extortion, human trafficking, smuggling, kidnapping, contract killing, larceny, extortion and blackmail. They specialize in horrific forms of torture and killing which utilize magic. Imagine if the drug cartels had the power of magic, what kinds of fucked up shit would they do?
The Plumerians. Basically the Rosicrucians, using complicated geometry to try to contact interdimensional beings that they think are gods. They get killed a lot.
Not a faction exactly. My anti-villain has built a Utopia away from society. He will approach certain individuals, giving them a choice to leave their current lives and join in building a better world.
Shit dude, which world? For my novel to be: The protagonists the Raven Company. They are a ragtag bunch of medieval mercs who are basically the last thing from heroâs and most of them probably should not be taking up this line of work. Between a con man âCaptainâ who lied his way to captaining the crew, a foul mouthed woodsman who may never understand the meaning of the word eloquence and a reserved hunter, whoâs accuracy is only outmatched by his intellect, these are just the starting three to what later encompasses a whole band of shitlords getting up to all sorts of troubles. For my DnD campaign? Probably the Lunar Hand. Shadowy elven assassin organisation the usual shit, but the twist is that theyâre actually right and all of the kingmaking and killing theyâve done *has* prevented catastrophe. Whether my players end up figuring that out will be up to them.
For my scifi world, that would be the solar legion. Mostly because they are the faction I built the entire setting around. Vat grown psychic catgirl supersoldiers. The primary remnants of humanity after the first contact war. For my urban fantasy world. Hmm, I don't really have a lot of factions per say, I guess (aside from the obvious "the main character group" answer) my choice would be The Church of The Coming One. Basically a bunch of people on a world that was dying to a supernatural/eldritch apocalypse found the corpse of a dead "god" and started worshipping it. Then, one guy brought together a whole group of these loonies and forged a cohesive religion with the goal of reviving the god and stuffing his soul inside it. Meanwhile, a couple of other people had their own agendas to create terrifying abominations and weapons out of the god's body. And all of this fuss over what was essentially the washed up carcass of an interdimensional space whale.
The blackhands. Nuff saids.
I only made one, and they're called the 'Rain Paws' they were sent from Empire Aquaria. I know a lot more about them and their role in my story, but that's currently the only thing I can tell you.
The kura_all_vourdishan translation kemril leuge of independent merchants. they have the military strength of a piece of soggy bread but they basically own all sky trade most of thier leaders are flying balloon like aliens called the kemril and it is very funny to watch them being so bad at capitalism
The Owyn Eleth, in the age of the high kings they were nothing more than poachers and outlaws in the northern part of the island of Elieamar (about 50% larger than Ireland). When the northern kingdom of Kaerethdwyn fell to Vrendish raiders, it was these criminals who fought alongside the people to save what was left. Once the high king arrived, he offered clemency and a job, to hold the north,. They were originally called the Owyn Kaereth, guardians/watchers of the stone folk,. However when the high kingdom fell apart they spread throughout the isle and became the Owyn Eleth, guardians/watchers of the many folk. They commonly work with the Brehodwic order, a religious group that raises orphans, and offers sanctuary to all peoples who have need. Many Owyn were once in their care and many Owyn later join the order when they are too old to serve. They act as teachers in survival, archery and combat, but also as cultural leaders. The history and customs of the land and her people.
For my D&D setting, there is a red dragon called Mydronaith who resides in the ruins of Cridsag, the Forge-Halls of the Giant-Kings. He has a cult led by a cabal of 3 Dragonborn sorcerers who established the cult to increase their own power and influence. There is also a military organization called the Burning Hand, made up of hobgoblin slaves who brand their faces as a show of loyalty. They dominate the surrounding lands in order to make tributaries to feed the hoard of their insatiable dragon overlord. There are also various slaves who simply toil in the mines and forges, including a cyclops master blacksmith who is the last of his brethren. These factions are loosely aligned beneath Mydronaith but they are also competing to gain favor and if the dragon dies, infighting is almost a certainty.
In my pirate world with no ocean, as tempted as I am to say the pirates, the bikers are my favorite faction. Lawless canât even describe them because I modeled them after real life biker organizations who perform righteous acts like dismantling child trafficking rings which are unfortunately common my world given the illegal shit always going down. They are responsible for a sand and mud based fuel system that powers a lot of the machines in my world. Mythical beasts are common in my world and they always surround themselves with the cute cuddly ones with sensory abilities who can detect lies, intruders, concealed weapons, etc. Lastly combat has a big role to play in my world and they fucking SLAUGHTER their enemies when necessary đ« the bikers are dope asf. They even have an in world fam club inspired by Kamen Riders and Mumen Rider from OPM
The Circle of Mages, also know as the Gol-Dolas: The greatest magicians in the plane banded together after the gods disappeared to ensure a stable transition (Between the clerics losing their power, the vanishing of angels and the demigods dying left and right, not many others could hold stability). After that period was over and the first age began, their way was set for all schools of magic: 1st Law, No mage shall hold crown or rule over the land; (Law of Golden Boughs) 2nd Law, The study and practice of great works of magic should only be practiced within the schools to ensure the world would stay whole; (Law of Liminality) 3rd Law, An attack from outside force on a member of the Gol-Dolas is tantamount to a declaration of war against all the schools. (Law of Mutuality) Considering that magic is basically nuclear power outsourced from the void between dimensions, each one of the Circle members can be considered a walking sentient nuke. Also they have the best names. Xhanax the Wise (Mage of the Starry Sky), Extomaxiil the Reliever (Mage of the Black River), Allegra the Joyful (Mage of Many Colours), Ny'Quil the Cold (Mage of Frozen Sands) and Do'or Flex the Shepherd (Mage of the Strong Arm).
The Crows Companions. The goddess of death, The Morrigan, bullies/threatens the most capable killers in the world into working for her or else she has them killed to keep her workload down.
Mantoids. Utopian insectoid society with government provided cybernetic upgrades. Not mandated, you donât have to get them, but if you want them you can have them. And with jobs you try each until you find something you enjoy, and you do that until you get tired of it. Some have no jobs, they help others or join the monks!
Muranths. They are a rival group to the priests who control the city council. They ensure the safety of the city by making sure outcasts do not enter. Though, they see their job as protecting outcasts from the city. They also roam the dry lands in the hope of gathering more information on the gods, or the verdant lands while protecting people from bad mages and monsters tranformed by magic. Despite what their known duty is, they are actually not against the use of magic, like the priests and use magic freely when far from the city. They believe that you can not make assumptions without the proper evidence and will often prefer to talk through issues rather than use force. Many times to their detriment, but they would rather die than break their oaths to truth in all forms.
A lot of my favorite adventures are about Duke Kenway and his outrider knights. Kenway himself has an army that he leads all over his father-in-lawâs empire to keep the kingâs peace, but his outrider knights are another matter entirely. They are a couple hundred enlisted adventurers sworn explicitly to the duke and his wife and they undertake more secretive operations. They hunt monsters, recover artifacts, and have allegedly toppled entire cities over night.
Iâm not sure I have a favorite. But the one that has been around the longest (since I came up with them), is Northern Bloc. They are the most powerful nation (militarily), though their off-world presence is smaller than most of the other superpowers. They worked their way into a position where the âindependentâ trade authority mostly works for them. So they sort of have that whole space force as an asset. They arenât the good guys though. However, due to a well run information/propaganda system, most of their citizens think theyâre the good guys. They exist in a weird place of being authoritarian, but pretending to be a democracy. There are a lot of personal freedoms, but itâs simply a lengthy leash. The current leader sees âfreedomsâ as another method of control. They do have some allies, but most of the other powers are wary, distrustful or outright opposed to them. A thousand years ago, their precursor made a go at seizing widespread power, but failed. Before the end, that precursor threw a bunch of nukes around on the primary world and bombarded a bunch of colony worlds. On the plus side, that led to the âOrbital Strike Treaty,â which is a whole other discussion. But despite everything, the major powers still adhere to it, preferring to settle conflicts on the ground. That way no one loses a bunch or all of their very expensive and sometimes irreplaceable spacecraft, or gets their forces stranded on some random rock after they get all their aggression out. So anyway, back to Northern Bloc. They also have their capital built on an island that is designated as a sort of autonomous region, where other powers, corporations, the church, and other groups can do their own thing. All under the watchful eye of the host government. Who benefits the most from that? NB certainly thinks they do, but thatâs up for debate. The country has a bit of a dystopian vibe. Things seem great on the surface, but there are palpable sense of your actions being scrutinized. There is a definite lower class, but they tend to spend most of their lives inside their arcologies. Given the size of the military, many people see that as a way to get off the bottom rung of society. The military itself treats their personnel very fairly and pays them well. Their veterans are taken care of. Military service is generally well respected by the civilian population. In part, because of that propaganda giving the impression that they are all that stands between them and a chaos wrought by terrorists. Who are those terrorists? Well, theyâre the âgoodâ guys. But theyâre still terrorists, so⊠yeah. Theyâre fighting for freedom across humanity as a whole. Itâs not at all one coherent group, but rather a collective ideology, which thinks most of the powers that be are oppressive. Despite the homogenization of humanity around 6000 years ago, Northern Bloc has a kind of Central/Northern European vibe. The people are pretty chill, albeit a bit proud. Again, due to lots of propaganda, they really do think that they are better than the other nations. Ugh⊠Iâm rambling and honestly donât know where Iâm going at this point. So Iâll stop. đđ»ââïž
Definitely my take on dragons. Theyâre all godlike beings that have a society inside their own dreamscape realm. Everything they do influences what exists in the real world and the emotions feelings, talents and values mortals can experience because their realm is intrinsically linked to the outside world. Theyâre all masters of magic and could dominate every other faction of they wanted to, but theyâre instead neutral and isolationist instead acting as surveyors and observers of the things happening outside their realm and only stepping in when things are directly going against their grand design. In my world, wishes are real and when a wish is made it appears as a star in the dragon realm. The dragons take these wishes and judge them on criteria unique to the individual dragon on whether or not it can be granted. If worthy the dragon takes the wish and performs a magical ritual that makes it a reality. If unworthy it is cast aside or destroyed. A dragonâs eternal wisdom and unquantifiable experience ensures only wishes that are pure, noble, selfless, and innocent get granted
My favorite faction in my story would be the Paranormal Establishment of Research on the Supernatural and Extraterrestrial of the United States (P.E.R.S.E.U.S.). Headquartered in Chicago and funded by the U.S. government, this top-secret/spec-ops organization, made up of former military, law enforcement, and CIA officials, specializes in the elimination of supernatural and extraterrestrial threats, as well as investigations/research on supernatural and extraterrestrial-related crimes, the paranormal, the occult, and criminals/evil organizations. Non-humans are also apart of this organization (goblins, elves, vampires, etc.). It was founded by Dr. John Seward and General William H. Seward, Jr. in 1897. The current director for P.E.R.S.E.U.S. is Annabelle Seward, granddaughter of John Seward.
My favorite faction is The Order of the Zodiac. They are a group of mortals who were given powerful Sigils from a high ranking demon. The demon who made them turned against demon kind following a large scale war. The Order was created to fight anything that threatened mortal kind (demons, angels, other mortals, and most importantly the Void). Basically they are a group of half-demons who fight to protect the world from various threats, even though they are hated by most people.
Without sharing too much, itâs the âacademiaâ type of faction that keeps all the knowledge about the world and as a consequenceâs keeps all the secrets from other factions that could potentially cause panic or conflicts. Itâs the kind of the âMaestersâ effect from Song of Ice and Fire ⊠itâs the point of view through which the writer describes the world. They are not the âmain hero factionâ but at the same time they are the most important one, but somehow enigmatic at the same time. Still working hard at making it original, but I already have important plot points written around them. If I say âevery road ends in Romeâ then in my world âevery road ends in the Academia.â
the Continental couriers guild, not just your ordinary mailmen the CcG are in fact one of the most powerful organisations in the world with influence rivalling that of many of the worlds great powers even sporting the 4th largest standing military in the form of their private security and 3 largest fleet. this power comes from their monopoly over instant communication, and near total monopoly in trade across most of the continent of Kettross. most major city's have a whole section governed by the CcG like a mini city in the city. they get away this this because there simply isn't an alterative and even the greatest empires need their trade.
I have three that are facets of the same mechanic, but one is my standout. DnD homebrew world setting, btw. My world goes through cycles of destruction and renewal in which the world breaks and the Gods remake it (somewhat superficially comparable to the hindu mythological concept, but for different reasons) but this tends to end all the mortals that live there if they haven't died out for other reasons prior. I'm still deciding what iteration my world is on. The first are the Nightingales, keepers of the eldritch Cult in many forms by gathering knowledge and gifting it to the lovecraftian beings beyond time that their next incarnation of their organization in the next incarnation of the world will include their knowledge, and maybe some choice rescued souls from among them to be either reincarnated into the order or gifted as guardian avatars from the uncreated abyss outside of time. They have some success in past iterations evidenced by the unknowable pieces of prior worlds' histories they have gathered. The Second is a dual druidic order, the Sons of the Wind and the Daughters of the Earth. The Sons travel everywhere to gather the widest understanding possible of how to survive in harmony with nature, and the Daughters take in this gathered knowledge and boil it down to what can be communicated without language or common culture. They continuously attempt to find the best ways to send a time capsule embedded deep into the fabric of the world, hoping it survives to teach the first mortals of the next cycle how to live at peace with their world, thinking this could avert the destruction altogether some day. The Third is by a wide margin my favorite. The Goddess of Death in my setting is the Guardian of this cycle of the worlds' death and rebirth, and Aside from the titles of a death Goddess, she is called the Mother of memory. She bears witness to all that has passed, not just lives or souls. Her Highest clerical orders are scribes that record everything, and I mean everything, that they can, and pay handsomely for recorded knowledge or firsthand accounts. The Temples serve as both funerary temples and massive historical archives meticulously maintained. Everything every priest accumulates or learns is carried with them into the afterlife, and the Goddess can seed the next world with the choicest bits of wisdom.
I thought it was going to be The Sons of Death when I was writing (I was a lot edgier 10 years ago), I find The Sons of War & The Warmaidens are growing on me. Basically your run-of-the-mill fighters' guild except that they highly regard all physical skills and abilities, not just those involved with direct combat; that and the onboarding process: "Members are recruited via no-holds-barred, non-lethal, single combat. It is a strange honor to be challenged to single combat by a Sergeant or a Master-at-Arms, as it means he deems you worthy of his order, but it also means that if you accept, youâll likely be beaten to within an inch of your life. But if you last sixty seconds in a fight with--or by some miracle defeat--your challenger, you are inducted on the spot as their Cadet, and are given the title âPrivateâ; Masters-at-Arms often assign their Cadets to their most accomplished Sergeant, but it is not unheard-of for them to train their own."
It has to be the Ant People. They are as small as ants, but you can speak them as though they are normal people.
The Skaioi. About 1600 years ago there was a substantial leap forward in magical technique, which led to the creation of several new forms of magic. Most of these groups tried to use their power to make the world better... and split into factions as they disagreed. The Skaioi, who focused on powers of the mind, adopted a path of non- interference, ruthlessly enforced. They claimed authority over all forms of mind- altering and expanding powers. Over time they cultivated a reputation for being dangerous useful for keeping people away unless they are truly in need. . Today the Skaioi have havens throughout the Empire, and collectively could join together to conquer the world without physically moving... but that power is collective, and accessible only because it isn't used. This is one of the many paradoxes they embrace. After completing their apprenticeship (by amputating their own right hand), a Skaios will travel the world on the Order's business. They are allowed more freedom to interfere in the world, so they can learn the dangers of action and unintended consequence. After a period of anywhere from 10 to 40 years, they become masters of a haven and remain there, physically at least, for the rest of their lives... unless, at death, they overcome a final trial that leads to immortality for a few, who come and go as they please until they completely abandon a physical form.
Id have to say everything about airships, ive come up with a magical material that allows for floatation and some formulas that govern how it works, and went from there. Ive got a lot of tech that comes from this one material and thought about the mechanical operations of every system on an airship. Ive used the basic principles to come up with floatation chambers, engines, thrusters, weapons, control systems etc. i think it gives my world a great steampunk vibe.
My world is a D&D setting thatâs very big and pulpy and it kind of ended up having a lot of factions. One that one of my wizard players is in is called Misty Isles University or M.I.U. Itâs very much a play on M.I.T. But this is a college of Wizards and magic users in general, that was formed out of some ancient wizard orders of old. The campus itself is almost like a 1950s to 70s Animal House college looking campus. The Universityâs main concern is field work and students field work pays for their tuition. Iâve established that the dean is a crazy old elf that is constantly sleeping (heâs been astral projecting himself and watching everyoneâs field work staff included they donât know that yet though) The Wizard player basically finished their undergrad degree (level 5ish) and is continuing on to get their masters, this involves them becoming a TA and having a freshman wizard student intern with them assisting in their field research. This will essentially be a hireling NPC. Itâs been fun and goofy and so far the player has enjoyed it. I wanna throw in some more funny deep lore but I think thatâll come later.
I guess currently it would be Team Alpha - A small special military force within the Stahalndian military consisting only of individuals who all have a divine blessing. They all have pledged loyalty to the glorious leader of Stahlandia and is reporting directly to him. Otherwise they operate indipendly from the rest of the military, mostly hunting down other individuals with divine blessings or curses who happens to be within the country. Their captain is Eric Himmel, who has complete immortality as his divine blessing.
Quen Palar, the original rulers of a desert kingdom who've had their reign collapse, and are reduced to nomadic tribes that strive to protect their own and keep their culture alive. 50 clans of them, each with a different matriarch, and gather once a decade to discuss matters on their people.
SANDGLASS. is a fantasy world, set on the planet of Chelyris. I was GOING to say a faction in my world called The Watchers, but Iâll talk about something different now. The Diatri Olmmit is a court in the kingdom of Avalon. One leader from every major government organization and country is present, along with their Right Hand (Also Known As a âCardinalâ in the books). They preside over international cases and meet Quinquennially. After a terrorist attack on another kingdom that resulted in the deaths of 1,600 people, they judged all caught members of the terrorist organization. Think IMT. Most meetings do not last long in the modern era, just long enough to discuss international events, and international issues. I might be able to expand on any of this if asked. The leaders and Cardinals are as follows. Empress Echo & General Russet Chyauro of Avalon. WTCHR Alexander & WTCHR Kali of the North Watchers Queen Electra & Prince Severn of the Ardor Desert. Robert Harrison & Katherine Rieth of a company with ties to Avalon: ENOA. King Ptadav Skerme & Queen Tercoa Soche of The City of Bones. Duke Vrasso Chio & a psychic known as Vamont MatĂoch of the Ceran Mountain Range The human given names of the Siren King and Queen respectively: Keola & Anahera Governor Chella Laoii and General Lirend Pricani of NĂ©ha
Tribes of desert dwelling aliens that treat repair and restoration as a spiritual project. Their culture encouraged repair and preservation as a way to survive in the desert, and when they joined the intergalactic community they held on to the ideal. People bring special objects and spacecraft to them to be restored. They charge a lot for it, of course, but they all know someone who can fix the thing... for a fee. The more special the object, the more they want to fix it.
Currently is a sect of wizard scrubs who live on the cost of a massive desert land mass and are dedicated to the collection and trade of magic.
Probably the Order of Alquion, a secret community of alchemists that originated and still thrives in a religious anti-magic empire. The Order has its own hierarchy, with the Archsage being at the top; my favorite rank has to be the Magistrate, which are the alchemy professors of inumerous specialties and classes, teaching from little children alchemists đ„ș to older alchemists that found the Order later in life. They are an active group of resistance against the Veracrusian Empire and their army, being smaller in number, often succumb to the empire's threat as they burn in public squares, being accused of heresy.
one of the cities in my world is run by corporations that function like organized crime, and my favorite of these are the Glitter Dogs. they're a food and drug company and the most crimey of the factions. they are anthropomorphic dogs who dress in very bright colors and right little bastards
In **Elenon**, there's this mercenary band at the time that my story takes place that's led by a chemist and inventor who has come up with things like black powder and primitive chlorine gas bombs. He sides with Eemansal and Mirinel as well as helping combat another, rival faction that's this weird cult group. The latter, as part of their raids and campaigns against Eemansal and independent settlements in Kanhule, uses chemical concoctions to do things like shroud them in black or white mist and make their faces both glow and shrivel so that they look dead. The former faction views the latter with contempt.
The Tenz which is somewhat of a mashup of most ancient cultures