Possible factions and cultures/races (looking for suggestions)

[Jallorn]

So I'm working on a campaign setting that is (mostly) secretly controlled by Vampires behind the scenes, like V:tM. I'm using 3.5, and the players are mortals, so it's set in a more medieval time period (haven't decided where exactly tech falls between early middle ages and early rennasaince).

However, I've decided that the world is controlled, even outside of Vampire influence (who, as a society, really don't care too much about mortals save that they don't discover the Vampires), by old powerful factions that do their best to prevent new factions from arising.

Among the factions I've decided upon are the Thieves' Guild (not really a guild in the usual way, it's really a criminal organization like the Mafia. Primarily funded by racketeering, they also manage black markets, fences, fixers, and the like.), governments (obviously), and churches (one of which will be the PC's employers in their first adventure).

I've also decided that while Humans will be the primary people of the campaign, they won't be the primary people of the world, and all other races will come from other parts of the world with very distinct cultures. Humans are going to be pretty European in culture. Other cultures I've got are Norse Elves (aka Elven Vikings), and Orcs with a Caste System based on the Indian/Hindu Caste System (haven't decided what the rest of their culture will be like yet). I also want to include a nation that employs mindless undead as cheap labor and disposable troops (but actively hate intelligent undead and so are the only people outside Vampiric influence), but I don't know what race I want to use, or if I want to base them off of any real world culture (which I've found is a good shortcut I'm willing to use (see Orcs and Elves)).

So I'm looking for suggestions of good factions, (the more detailed the better) possible cultures along with an assosciated race, and race suggestions for my necromantic culture.

TLDR: Making a setting with a secret. Setting is controlled by powerful, old factions, need faction and culture ideas.

Edit: Oh, for relevance, this is a Gray and Gray morality setting, so the Necromancer Culture isn't evil. Because there is no EVIL. Nor is there GOOD. Just people.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

The Necromantic group could be based off of the Byzantium Empire after Rome fell. It's sort of a vestigial state, not as powerful as it once was, and pining for old glory. They use undead as cheap labor because after a terrible plague most of the population was dead, and so to keep their power the leadership delved into the necromantic arts. At first they supported intelligent undead as these were invaluable advisers and reminders of the old ways. What better way to remember Emperor Thulius than to mount him in the throne room besides a few other ancient rulers?

Then suppose the Vampires didn't like the competition and...fixed events to collapse into a civil war. The empire was forced to destroy their own history and intelligent undead, making them at once desiring of a connection to their past and actively hating it. Nice little complex society with a little hypocrisy thrown in.

I'd go with Dwarves for the Byzantium Necromancers. Perhaps they're highly legal minded and obsessed with bureaucracy? Perhaps they're staunch traditionalists? Or you could make them Gnomes or Halflings (or all three) and have them need undead human and elf slaves to reach the highest shelves.

[Jallorn]

I think I like that idea. I'm throwing in a touch of a new golden age though. Part of the point is that Necromancy is seen as evil, but because a system properly set up for it is cheaper than a similar slave system, it provides an enormous economical benefit and frees larger than normal portions of the population to more intellectual pursuits.

Although, a Russian vibe could work too. Russian steretypes I know of have a very, "life sucks so you gotta be stronger and make what you can of it," view that's pragmatic enough to work with the necromancy aspect.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Although, a Russian vibe could work too. Russian steretypes I know of have a very, "life sucks so you gotta be stronger and make what you can of it," view that's pragmatic enough to work with the necromancy aspect.

There's also the old view of Russia as the Third Rome due to a marriage between one of the Tsars and the last Byzantine Princess just before her father and the empire fell. So it's hardly a stretch to combine a little of A and a little of B. Or a little of B and a little of R. Or a little of B and a little of P...whatever.

[Strawberries]

When I was in high school, I always liked the Etruscan society. Strong emphasis on family ties, a decent emphasis on funeral rites. I don't know why, but the thought of Etruscan goblins makes me laugh.

[roguemetal]

Without the establishment of 'Guilds' so to speak, and given a post-medieval/pre-age of exploration scenario, factions are going to relate to individual families of power/benefactors holding some organization/s, (each of which will want their hands in the market by some means) government facilities, (law, education, military), hidden societies (religious, outcast groups, high class secret society), merchants and patrons of the arts.

Each major 'vampire' I assume will be in political/courtly competition with one another, providing you an entirely separate division of factions with their own motives at the back end. From the common view, there is merely 3-5 (relative to the number of major vampire families/splits in the faction that exists) of every form of organization for whatever reason.

Since vampires are the backing for the organizations, it would be hard to suggest anything without knowing their intentions, as they would have had years and years of planning to set up an ideal system for themselves. Basically each organization should have two parts, a specific function in relation to the vampires, and a service for the public.

Some good marriages of functions will be accumulation of wealth and religion, suppression of information and law enforcement, gathering of artifacts/goods and taxation, eyes on the public and merchants, etc.

Beyond the vampire factions, I can't say I'd have any ideas until I know what won't be repetitive.

[awa]

I second dwarfes you could have them with massive factories belching out smoke as they operate 24 hours a day by there undead minnions.

dwarven necromancers just seems right to be today

[Jallorn]

Without the establishment of 'Guilds' so to speak, and given a post-medieval/pre-age of exploration scenario, factions are going to relate to individual families of power/benefactors holding some organization/s, (each of which will want their hands in the market by some means) government facilities, (law, education, military), hidden societies (religious, outcast groups, high class secret society), merchants and patrons of the arts.

Each major 'vampire' I assume will be in political/courtly competition with one another, providing you an entirely separate division of factions with their own motives at the back end. From the common view, there is merely 3-5 (relative to the number of major vampire families/splits in the faction that exists) of every form of organization for whatever reason.

Since vampires are the backing for the organizations, it would be hard to suggest anything without knowing their intentions, as they would have had years and years of planning to set up an ideal system for themselves. Basically each organization should have two parts, a specific function in relation to the vampires, and a service for the public.

Some good marriages of functions will be accumulation of wealth and religion, suppression of information and law enforcement, gathering of artifacts/goods and taxation, eyes on the public and merchants, etc.

Beyond the vampire factions, I can't say I'd have any ideas until I know what won't be repetitive.

Ah, some points I should mention: Vampires are in control, but have only been so for a few hundred years, so there are older factions that, while under Vampire control, influence is a better word, weren't created by them. Similarly, not all factions are controlled by vampires, but they're still all equally desiring of maintaining their power and wealth. Honestly, Vampires don't create all that much. They mostly hijack what exists and twist it to their needs. They're at the top, so all they concern themselves with is holding onto that position, they coudn't care less about progress. Although this is somewhat less true with younger vampires. The younger the vampire, the more active he is in shaping the world around him. This has to do with stagnancy, being only recently undead, and the evolution of thought of modern people compared to past ages when people were more passive.

[Savannah]

Etruscan goblins

Ooh! Do that!

[Jallorn]

I'm afraid that I know very little about the Etruscans, and the Wikipedia pages aren't giving me a strong image of them, let along one that inspires much interest. Care to help out with that?

[roguemetal]

The vampires sit at the top of the hierarchy but don't necessarily have their hands in politics? And the older factions are older but less powerful? I guess that's sort of like a monarch influencing the puppeteer of another monarch, but otherwise letting the puppeteer do its thing...

I guess it implies that the factions the vampires influence also have something to hide, or they would be exposed long ago. I also suppose most of these factions must be small if they're powerful, since the bulk of any population is it's workers, unless the size of these populations are greater than those listed, and simply modeled after them culturally.

Am I getting this right?

I can easily start listing factions, but please do let me know what sort of story you are going for. Right now it seems to be conspiracy based with a lot of deception and cults competing with one another. Much of it will employ horror tactics and social skills over exploration. Very much World of Darkness style, as you mentioned in the first post, but I am also assuming your world building is converging around a specific story. Without knowing that story, I'm just guessing at the scale of power each faction should employ.

For example, I could offer you the organization The Luck of Coin.
A Dwarven faction that places itself at the bottom of all societies in order to beg for coins. These urban dwarves literally feed off the energy of generosity that come from the coins they collect, in order to counter-balance their own greed. The coins are often brought together in secluded locations that aren't normally found unless one follows a dwarf, as their craftwork skills hide the entrances to their courtyards in the most inconspicuous of spots. There, erected high, are statues of coins which breed misfortune for those who stumble across them. But those who freely give away their money, enough to join this organization, find their luck changed for the better, though their greed grows strong. Coins, after they have been touched by the hands of the Deep Ones, are redistributed into the hands of the populace. And those who hold the Coins of the Deep, will have their fate be subtly influenced by the Deep Ones will. In many places one may recognize the members of the Luck of Coin by a coin which seems to have no face.

It seems right theme-wise, but I don't know if it would ever work in the direction of your story. Or that it might be too powerful. Or weak. Or too much fantasy, not enough politics.

[Strawberries]

I'm afraid that I know very little about the Etruscans, and the Wikipedia pages aren't giving me a strong image of them, let along one that inspires much interest. Care to help out with that?

Aww...I would if I could, but I'm basing everything on my memories from high school (remember, I'm an old lady, high school for me was 15 years ago), and the references I can dig out from the Internet are in Italian...

I remember that women were more valued and had more privileges than in Greece or in Rome (that's why I liked them ). As I said, they were a society with a strong emphasis on familiar ties... bear with the stream-of-consciousness style, I'm brainstorming here. So, export that concept to goblins and you get, basically, let's see... a very destructured power structure (I'm thinking each family could be an autarchy), and an equalitarian society very protective of children. Add a strong cult of the dead, just because you can (and because the Etruscans had it )

Incidentally, in your setting, the 'each family as an autarchy' business would mean that their society as a whole would be less subject to external influences. Oooh, the last hope for freedom may lay in the hands of the goblins... for how I see it, that has potential.

It' s midnight here. If the above didn't make sense, don't blame me.

[Jallorn]

Let's start over.

This world grew organically, with cultures arising in reaction to other cultures and whatnot. A few hundred years ago, Vampires took their current political form: a secret organization at the top of the mortal Hierarchy, but generally as puppeteers rather than leaders. They hold this place so that they can keep their existence a secret all while preying upon mortals, and enjoying their wealth an power somewhat decadently.

Vampires are not behind every action that takes place in the setting, they're just the parasitical monsters that rule it. Each faction has goals and desires that make sense for it's mortal members, and the Vampires use those goals to their own ends as well. The world is, however, a bit stagnant in it's factional choices. It is rare for a new faction to arise, and rarer still for them to get any real power for a long long time, even if they can survive.

The world is a dark, dangerous world, even for those at the top, and most people at the top live to get more power/wealth/security, and the most common methods almost always involve someone else losing power/wealth/security.

Also, magic is a scarym dangerous thing that's only understood by a very small number of people, and only used by a small number of those people. The only reason normal mortals are still alive is because the monsters of any real number don't mind them existing, or actively want them to stay alive.

So the factions that exist, while a few might employ a little low level magic, their origins are all devoid of magic, and so none of them function around it.

And I never said old factions are weaker.

Finally: everything is seperated into factions. The apparent stuff, like governments and cities and the economy, and the secret stuff, like the vampires and other monsters, and secret organizations like the church's vampire hunters, are all divided into factions. The campaign focuses on the big ones because the few small ones just don't have any influence.

As for my style as a DM, I create a world that is as organic and realistic as I can make it, choose some major players to be in conflict (usually in opposition to each other), and throw the players in. As people who help shape the world, their actions affect the world, and I just try and have everything flow organically from the actions of both the PCs and the plot-centric NPCs.

Also, mortals deal mostly in obvious ploy, and even their secret organizations are no where near as secret as the monsters'. The point of this game is that the PCs are thrust into a secret world facing monsters far more powerful than them, while they have few allies due to the secrecy of the world.

[roguemetal]

Aha. I had thought faction and cultural organization synonymous, but I see you mean it more in the original spirit of the term. So what you are looking for in a faction is beliefs, societal values, and the people that fall under it? In that sense I suppose the races themselves would be the factions is your idea? Unless there is progress in the society to the point of accepting each race under the same faction hood. I can imagine some factions that grew from primitive value systems might have something like this. Aborigines who might have become subject to progress unwillingly, be that through power of church or environmental changes and eventually became what they are now... but that's neither here nor there. You want the big stuff.

So, religions in your world...

Religions usually worship one of three things:
Something known to be powerful
Something basic to all life
Something they don't understand

With vampires and undead in your world, we basically need to include a faction that believes in undeath being great, formed from some idea that death is not the end, or that the body traps the spirit. In that means, people would have originally burned the dead, until such time that dead could be brought back, and could offer their spirit as servants in some semi-saintly manner.

With the sun in almost every religion and understood as the source of life, it's kind of obligatory to have one that is at least loosely tied to it. And with the sky seen as the source of the sun, I'd suspect prayer to be directed upwards. Perhaps stars are seen as individual beings of power, and much of the religion is related to astrology, and an understanding of the sky. Weather predictions might be a part of this.

I'd then propose merging these concepts, into a faction that believes in ancestral worship of light sources, that each being is born under a star. (not constellation) The faction requires a great deal of scientific exploration to continue its' goals of defining the bodies that create the world, and as such service craftsmen and scholars more than the average man. Faith comes from proof, rather than being blind, as progress will often be coveted for a display of power. The faction might have their hands in the better facilities for producing glassworks and ironworks for their instruments, and in institutions of learning for their human resources. They probably see religions that teach morals or subsist mostly on rallying blind faith as opposing their cause.

Hierarchy would need to be strict to prevent loss of funding. While not necessarily a public organization(though its church and ideals would be) I imagine it is an empirical system non-exclusive to any peoples, to ensure funding increases. At the same time racism and right of birth may prevent rising in power within the faction. Height of a person may actually influence their position in the faction, as they would be closer to what watches from above.

Rituals would probably involve light of some source, be that fire (ideal) or via some semi-magical source. Undead, not needing light, might be called something like "those who surpass the sun". The organization probably wouldn't care much about marital lines, but might care about people of exceeding intelligence or height producing children. Maybe polygamy is suggested or enforced for these ideal people.

Is this more what you're looking for?

[Grimsage Matt]

Out in the land of the Mongols, you could have the Trolls. Firce, ferious raider, warriors and nomads, soon to be united under a Khan that will shake the world to it's foundations.


People of Brutal honor, and nearly unkillable, the http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=270.0 basic troll and war troll would fit a theme of barbarian conqurers very well. After all, we all know what the mongols did under Ghengis.

[Jallorn]

Aha. I had thought faction and cultural organization synonymous, but I see you mean it more in the original spirit of the term. So what you are looking for in a faction is beliefs, societal values, and the people that fall under it? In that sense I suppose the races themselves would be the factions is your idea? Unless there is progress in the society to the point of accepting each race under the same faction hood. I can imagine some factions that grew from primitive value systems might have something like this. Aborigines who might have become subject to progress unwillingly, be that through power of church or environmental changes and eventually became what they are now... but that's neither here nor there. You want the big stuff.

So, religions in your world...

Religions usually worship one of three things:
Something known to be powerful
Something basic to all life
Something they don't understand

With vampires and undead in your world, we basically need to include a faction that believes in undeath being great, formed from some idea that death is not the end, or that the body traps the spirit. In that means, people would have originally burned the dead, until such time that dead could be brought back, and could offer their spirit as servants in some semi-saintly manner.

With the sun in almost every religion and understood as the source of life, it's kind of obligatory to have one that is at least loosely tied to it. And with the sky seen as the source of the sun, I'd suspect prayer to be directed upwards. Perhaps stars are seen as individual beings of power, and much of the religion is related to astrology, and an understanding of the sky. Weather predictions might be a part of this.

I'd then propose merging these concepts, into a faction that believes in ancestral worship of light sources, that each being is born under a star. (not constellation) The faction requires a great deal of scientific exploration to continue its' goals of defining the bodies that create the world, and as such service craftsmen and scholars more than the average man. Faith comes from proof, rather than being blind, as progress will often be coveted for a display of power. The faction might have their hands in the better facilities for producing glassworks and ironworks for their instruments, and in institutions of learning for their human resources. They probably see religions that teach morals or subsist mostly on rallying blind faith as opposing their cause.

Hierarchy would need to be strict to prevent loss of funding. While not necessarily a public organization(though its church and ideals would be) I imagine it is an empirical system non-exclusive to any peoples, to ensure funding increases. At the same time racism and right of birth may prevent rising in power within the faction. Height of a person may actually influence their position in the faction, as they would be closer to what watches from above.

Rituals would probably involve light of some source, be that fire (ideal) or via some semi-magical source. Undead, not needing light, might be called something like "those who surpass the sun". The organization probably wouldn't care much about marital lines, but might care about people of exceeding intelligence or height producing children. Maybe polygamy is suggested or enforced for these ideal people.

Is this more what you're looking for?

This is definitely very useful and valuable, although I'm also going to want some factions that aren't just the cultures. For example, a mercenary troupe with connections across several neighboring countries that operates in all of them simultaneously, but for the right price could bring their entire operation to bear on the side of one country or another. Or a merchant's guild that is slowly choking out the influence of the nobility within their country.

As for this idea, I think I'll combine it with the Etruscans and create two or three groups based around religious seperations, though they still unite against other people before they fight over their sects. I'm thinking one that still cremates their dead and inters the ashes inside necropoli, where they somehow become Crypt Wardens, one that has fallen under the influence of vampires, and one other I haven't determined yet. Actually, they probably all use necropoli, except for the vampires it's just where they live. Of course, the argument with the vampire faction would be that they claim undead is the perfect end result, their Vampire ancestors are still a secret.

Update: the Etruscan Star Worshippers are going to be a redesign of the Raptorans, and they will additionally be split into two subspecies. The primary dominant one will be the birdlike daytime one, while the slightly second class group will be more batlike and nocturnal. They will also fill the third religious faction as they don't worship the sun as the greatest of stars, but merely one of many. They will not be the vampire controlled faction.

[Jallorn]

So I've got a choice that could benefit from input. Since Raptorans don't get flight until they hit 5 hit dice, and most NPCs are around level 2 or 3, most Raptorans would therefore only be able to glide. I could handwave this and have a seperation of fluff and crunch, or I could build their society around gliders rather than fliers, with Raptorans who can fly being almost all heroes and kings.

Either way, what are some fundamental differences their society would have because of their wings? What would their economy likely be based on? I'm thinking of giving them most of the mountain range as their territory and a little other parts, so merchants seem likely (they can cross the mountains more easily than other races), at least for the birdlike ones. Of course, they're a nation of allied city-states, rather than an empire or anything.