Widdershins Wanderings

Cairn 2e Setting Generation Example Part 2: Factions!

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My apologies for the long delay. Flu puts a damper on one's productivity.

Last time, we looked at the beginning stages of the Setting Creation rules for the upcoming 2nd edition of Cairn. The version that exists at the moment of me writing this post, anyway. If you didn't read the last post, start there because this post won't make a lot of sense without that context.

Now then, if you look at the map above you will see that I went ahead and named all of my Details based on the results I went over in the previous post. I rather shamelessly hinted that the best was yet to come, and that is because I had already rolled most of what is going to be covered on this post: Factions.

Step 1: Types, Resources, and Agendas

You start by rolling on the Faction Types, Faction Resources, and Faction Agendas tables for each Detail that is a Settlement. For me, these settlements are the Town at 1 and the Stronghold at 11.

Interesting enough, it actually tells you to generate one or more additional Factions at a Lair or Ruin later on in the process. I was a bit surprised by this, but in hindsight I see the wisdom: You can easily bite off more than you can chew with the number of Factions you generate, and by fully creating your Factions that are based in Settlements it can help you make a more informed decision about how many more to add. I must confess, I actually rolled all of my Types first (except for the Lair/Ruin Faction), then all of the Resources, then all of the Agendas. I found that this helped each of the main Factions crystalize in my mind. but I'll present each Faction's results grouped together to spare you the tedium of a blow-by-blow account.

Redpaw Camp Faction #1

Two Factions for a single Settlement? Well, you may recall that I got Factionally Divided as the Settlement Feature for this Town. That implies that there is more than one Faction at this location, though it isn't directly stated in the results. Should it be? I'd say comment below, but this blog doesn't have that functionality. So tell Yochai over on the Cairn Discord or on The Cauldron Forum.

Anyway, here is the first Faction.

Pretty interesting, right? So this group want to change the status quo in some way, are really sneaky, but are apparently focused on destruction. For the curious, I rolled two Resources for this Faction because revolutionaries are underdogs. This group actually makes a lot of sense given that I proposed all of the Ruins in the North of the map are from an invasion. Just wait though, it gets better.

Redpaw Camp Faction #2

Here's our second Faction. I want to preface this by once again saying that I did not fudge any of these rolls.

Yes, this Faction is perfect for my purposes. The invading army is still here! I rolled three Resources for this Faction because once I realized they were an occupying force I figured they must have advantages that let them maintain that situation. That is exactly what they ended up with: Information means that they have spies and such, which pairs well with the Subterfuge of the first Faction. I am envisioning this constant game of cat-and-mouse between them. Property makes sense if they have direct control of the area, and Renown implies a fearsome reputation that they certainly would have had ample opportunity to earn. The Revenge result gave me pause, since it is the exact result I got for the first Faction. However, on reflection, it makes a certain kind of sense in a cycle of violence sort of way. The first Faction wants Revenge and uses incredibly brutal means to obtain it, and now the second Faction is perhaps more invested in returning the favor instead of their original purpose.

Editorial Note: the Foreign Faction Type no longer exists. However, we could have easily produced the same Faction with the Military or Criminal result, and would have simply had to have gotten clever with the other possibilities.

Strigine Watch Faction

My mysterious Stronghold Faction that is difficult to get to and seemingly left everyone else in the Province to their fate.

First off, Military seems appropriate given that it is a Stronghold. The Resources are a bit hard to parse, though. How can a fortress full of soldiers have Anonymity? Plus, if they had such a huge Population, why didn't they take on the Foreign Faction? It's also a head-scratcher as to why they would have any Renown among anyone in the Province. The Agenda might seem like it would make things even worse, but it actually gave me my solution. This Stronghold is really close to a forest where trees can move. Presumably a more magical and dangerous part of the landscape than the rest of the province. It's not this group's job to worry about the status quo of people, they are worried about the forest.

Even with this process partially complete, we have ended up with two Factions that are clearly opposed to one another and a third Faction that will presumably interfere depending on how the others act. Plus, we haven't even met the fourth, and arguably most interesting, Faction. Now then, let's complete the process and see how this all shakes out.

Step 2: Obstacles and Seneschals

Technically, creating Obstacles and Seneschals are two different steps, but I'll combine them for the purposes of sections. It is also because when I first started this process the rules for Obstacles had not yet been finalized. Obstacles are exactly what they sound like: the thing that prevents a Faction from easily accomplishing their Agenda. Seneschals, on the other hand, are sort of the Face of a Faction. They aren't the leader, just the person that an adventuring party is likely to interact with. So let's look at what happens when we add those two things to the mix, shall we?

Redpaw Camp Faction #1 (Lynx-Hearts)

So I've added an Obstacle and Seneschal and fleshed out my Resources and Agenda. This is a very easy Faction to understand. They are the underdog. They were beaten once, they are vastly outnumbered, but they won't give up. They may have started out with the purpose of driving the invaders out, over time the act of revenge has eclipsed any thoughts of how to actually force the occupying force out. Their Obstacle, of course, is that they must never be discovered. They are too outnumbered to put up any sort of fight in a straight contest of arms. Their Seneschal is Alina Dawn-Sworn, who I decided is one of the few to survive the act that made the Forsaken Temple, well, forsaken. She is intelligent, well-educated, and (perhaps most importantly) diplomatic enough to deal well with outsiders.

Redpaw Camp Faction #2 (Band of the Iron Talon)

Yes, they are basically Vikings. Vikings who came because they wanted something, haven't gotten it yet, but have been bloodied by the Revolutionary Faction that now they're going to be extra nasty about the whole business. This is where having a detailed Setting is really handy, because it gives us locations to hang ideas on. Let's say that the Toxic Mine we rolled in our first post produced really quality iron ore, but conditions in the mine got so bad that the local inhabitants abandoned it. That did not sit right with our Foreign Faction, though, who invaded, sacked several settlements, and are now exploiting the locals by forcing them into the mines despite the risks.

This has proven slow work, and workers keep sickening, and so the eyes of the invaders have turned South to The Lunate Forest, where unspoiled wilderness is said to hold wonders from when goddesses walked the world. Though the potential rewards are great, they must tread carefully. To despoil The Lunate Forest would invite the wraith of the Strigine Watch.

Strigine Watch Faction (Boreal Sentinels)

The Boreal Sentinels are your typical aloof Druid/Ranger Faction that likely cares about flora and fauna more than they do people. They will resist any incursions into the Lunate Forest, but lately they have issues with small parties managing to invade the sanctity of the forest while evading detection. They do not yet know that some of their junior members have been lured into the employ of the Band of the Iron Talon, who has been trading gold and goods in exchange for information involving secret paths and patrol routes. Their efforts are (publicly) directed by The Ebon Owl, whose audience can be sought at the Strigine Watch.

Step Three: Lair/Ruin Factions

I decided before even rolling this Faction that I wouldn't need more than one additional group for this setting. The three I already had seemed more than adequate for tension within the Province, and I didn't want to muddy the waters with too many other groups to have to keep track of. I am glad I rolled this one, however, because it proved the biggest (and yet most rewarding) challenge of them all. Here's what I started with:

Weird, right? So there's this weird Arcane organization that is holed up in the Forsaken Temple. They are mysterious and sneaky, want to make a ton of money, but have another Faction vying for some of the same resources. These results are really different from anything I have rolled up to this point, and to be honest they stumped me for a bit. However, the creative constraints really helped force me to think outside of the box.

So, the Golden Sickle, as I call them, are a small group of arcanists who seized the opportunity when the Temple to the Goddess of the Sun was sacked (Forsaken Temple) to move in and pilfer magical trade secrets. They've managed to uncover the spellbooks and relics necessary to keeping the farmland's unusual harvests coming, but not the birthrates of the domesticated animals. They secretly maintain their base of operations out of the Forsaken Temple, which they use illusion magic on to discourage visitors.

All trade between the freeholders in the area and the Redpaw Camp to the South is done through their intermediaries. They charge absurd prices, and anyone who tries to double-cross them has found their grain shipments putrid and weevil-invested (this is an illusion). They will sell to anyone willing to meet their price, and are always looking for other resources to exploit for economic advantage.

Conclusion

Overall, I can't help but conclude that this whole process has been a roaring success. The rules actually end with a host of questions to help you flesh out further details, but interestingly a lot of what they prompt you to consider already came up earlier in the process for me.

To briefly recap, I was able to quickly generate a Pointcrawl map of a Province, establish Terrain and Details, populate with Factions, and define the Agendas of said Factions. From here, I could very easily continue to flesh out whole rosters of NPCs aligned to various Factions, build location-based adventures (who doesn't want to raid the Forsaken Temple and have to contend with bat-shit crazy Illusion spells?), and build a regional random encounter table (or three).

I'm not sure every aspect of my setting meets the conceptual density threshold , but it is all pretty eminently gameable and would provide plenty of world for me and 3-5 friends to explore.

Can we really ask for more?

#cairn #setting #skunkworks