[Gatejammer] Finality: Brainstorming

[virgil]

Since we need factions, here's one of the first ones I came up with, though I'm uncertain on the title.

We're sticking the Flaxen Spire & Poise in District 14, near the Tabloid, which is to be called the Final Dispatch.

[CatharzGodfoot]

So, a hypothetical dying religion or current faction.

The Tetracty (name could use some work)

The Tetracty believe that the Multiverse is an illusion to keep irrational elements out of the Transcendent Eternal. As evidence, they point to the upper planes (where violence and strife exist) and to the lower planes (where evil is rewarded).
To escape this trap, they purify their souls by studying right-minded music and mathematics and related magics which (they believe) come from the Transcendent Eternal. The eat a diet of only soulless things (e.g. non-Plant creature type plants, honey, and milk) to avoid contaminating themselves with lesser souls.
They also study souls, which is why they are in Finality. The most basic teaching is that more pure souls are more difficult to store, and therefore require finer gems to trap. A truly pure soul would be untrappable. Some have noticed that this purity seems to go hand-in-hand with power, and that one of the quickest roads to power is stabbing people in their faces and taking their stuff...

Ambitious Tetractians sometimes arrange 'Transmigrations', where they basically arrange for resurrection, then kill themselves and hope that they don't come back. Such events are attended with great fanfare. The hopeful transmigrators usually come back, but it is occasionally convenient for rival factions when they don't.

All of this study requires time, and the vast majority of Tetractians are of the leisure class. They are not adverse to slave labor, but members often avoid contact with "lesser" souls--so they practice golemancy. For the large part, the Tetracty is not concerned with politics, so their goals basically align with the leisure class as a whole. They do, however, have many taboos and scruples. The Tetracty is notorious for opposing the construction of slaughterhouses and tanneries, theatres, music halls of the 'wrong sort', schools of necromancy, and bean-farms, at least in their own backyards.

[Lokathor]

I think that planar pathways should not necessarily require that planes be near one another "spelljammer-wise" for a planar pathway to exist. It allows the different forms of travel to have advantages over one another simply by making some locations closer or farther from one another depending on how you care to travel. Since they also have distinctions based on things like cargo capacity and public accessibility then you can have places that are relatively close to someone who really wants to go there, but they're just not traveled to very often. That's perfect for adventures.

Also, then the "around the verse in 80 days" adventure becomes the classic "take the train here, then a boat to here, then a plane to here, then a wagon to here..." kind of thing. Always a plus.

[angelfromanotherpin]

The Stream of Sorrow

"The $#!+ must flow."

He Said/She Said: "Can't die with 'em, can't live without 'em."

Placeholder

Cities contain a lot of life, and that produces a lot of waste; or at least a lot of what most people think is waste. In fact, excrement and urine have many valuable uses, if you have the know-how. And since people will actually pay you to take these things away, you can make a whole lot of money. Plus, if they piss you off, you can literally arrange for them to fester in their own shit by simply doing less work, which is a really efficient revenge scheme.

The Stream of Sorrow has a large political base in the waste-product and waste-byproduct industries. From the people who change out the piss-pots, to the people who use the waste to manufacture useful chemicals, to the people who use those chemicals to tan leather, bleach clothing, and fertilize soil. Their primary political position is simply Life, because the more living things their are, the greater the supply and the demand for what they do.

So these guys are anti-undead and anti-golem, but not especially anti-slavery. They are against the death penalty and also against any punishment which prevents procreation, whether castrative or just imprisonment without conjugal visits (although they will totally kill to directly save more lives). They are fanatically anti-abortion.

Gotta go, more later...

[hyzmarca]

The Styx is about the only one iconic enough to be an actual river, due to it's memory loss schtick.

You're thinking of Lethe. Styx is memorable because it's the border to the underworld, and you have to pay the ferryman to cross over when you die.

You're thinking Acheron. The Styx is the river in the middle of the Underworld that all the gods swear on.

I just want to point out: two people in a row just stepped up to explain what the "iconic" nature of the River Styx was, and both of them named the properties of a different magical river (Lethe and Acheron respectively). I would submit that actually the Styx is probably not more iconic than the other rivers of the underworld (although I will grant that it has a cooler name than Oceanus or Alpheus).

-Username17

Styx's shtick is that you become totally invulnerable if you bathe in it, which isn't exactly something that you can reasonably include in the D&D game, lest everyone put it on their character sheets.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Styx's shtick is that you become totally invulnerable if you bathe in it, which isn't exactly something that you can reasonably include in the D&D game, lest everyone put it on their character sheets.

Based on this discussion, perhaps Styx's shtick should be that it does something different for each person.

[fbmf]

The Styx is about the only one iconic enough to be an actual river, due to it's memory loss schtick.

You're thinking of Lethe. Styx is memorable because it's the border to the underworld, and you have to pay the ferryman to cross over when you die.

You're thinking Acheron. The Styx is the river in the middle of the Underworld that all the gods swear on.

No, he's thinking of the Styx. And Acheron.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charon_%28mythology%29

In Greek mythology, Charon or Kharon (/ˈkɛərɒn/ or /ˈkɛərən/; Greek Χάρων) is the ferryman of Hades who carries souls of the newly deceased across the rivers Styx and Acheron that divided the world of the living from the world of the dead.

Emphasis mine.

Game On,
fbmf

[virgil]

Greek mythos is a pain to keep consistent. Eros is either one of the primordial gods, a brother to Gaia herself, or the child of Aphrodite.

The adjacency requirement for a planar pathway is so we don't necessarily have three different distances to keep track of with the planes, and use them to make planar maps that might mean something. As it stands, two planes can still be adjacent to each other while having two planar pathways of different distances. Imagine a triangle, with a plan on each apex; where one side is a climbing pathway, while the other two are a single river. You can cross directly from A to C if you climb a mountain, or take a two-day cruise by riding a boat from A to B to C; and ignore all of this with a planeshift because each one is adjacent to the other two.

Here's a question: how many factions do we want? Having 20 might be a bit much. I'm a Planescape fanboy, and I have to struggle to remember all 15 of Sigil's.

[Maxus]

Styx's shtick is that you become totally invulnerable if you bathe in it, which isn't exactly something that you can reasonably include in the D&D game, lest everyone put it on their character sheets.

Based on this discussion, perhaps Styx's shtick should be that it does something different for each person.

The Percy Jackson books had a riff on the Styx that I liked.

yeah, you become impervious to harm. And get all kinds of nice boosts to your performance numbers--stronger, faster, more coordinated, better reflexes.

But it's also like fighting on an adrenaline rush so while you're going to win any one-on-one combat you get into, fighting crowds of mooks will wear you out and mean you have to go rest, eat, and sleep way more often than you would otherwise. Chiron mentioned that Achilles took, like, three naps a day if he could help it.

[Lokathor]

The adjacency requirement for a planar pathway is so we don't necessarily have three different distances to keep track of with the planes, and use them to make planar maps that might mean something. As it stands, two planes can still be adjacent to each other while having two planar pathways of different distances. Imagine a triangle, with a plan on each apex; where one side is a climbing pathway, while the other two are a single river. You can cross directly from A to C if you climb a mountain, or take a two-day cruise by riding a boat from A to B to C; and ignore all of this with a planeshift because each one is adjacent to the other two.

Yes, I know what it was there for, but I'm advocating that almost the exact opposite be the case. I think that the planar map for spelljamming should be less like just a node graph and more like an ocean map. That's the "true" locations of different places. Then, your Gatemap is just a node graph, with gates going from place to any other place depending on what the gatebuilders made, and you step through gates to get place to place. Then the planar pathways are their own travel method, and each river or mountain is just a list of what's on that river or on that climb, and if you're at any place on that list then you can go up or down the pathway to get to another place.

[Prak]

So, to serve my own purposes, I'm going to write up a gang cum faction, The Hungry. Finality likely has tons of gangs, rising and falling every day, but one should have risen to prominence and control something.

The Hungry

"This whole town's a pussy, just waiting to be fucked."
He said/she said: "Greed is the natural order of every creature, we're just better at it."

The Hungry were originally a set of four rival gangs. A few centuries ago, however, Atonya Agathion, half-pit fiend leader of the Castle Precinct Pits, approached the leaders of the Little Nishrek Eyez, the Shadow Walkers (of District 4), and Dead Boys (District 18), proposing an alliance. The four gangs moved from their respective districts where the controlling factions were beginning to win the fight to wipe them out, and convened in the Adamant District (D.9), a district with no organized criminal presence, just waiting to be exploited, claiming it as Hungry Territory. They sought out the small collections of thieves who worked together for safety, minor pimps with a handful of prostitutes, and dealers with too few customers, and either killed them, ran them out, or absorbed them, and dominated all crime and vice in the district.
With no criminal rivals, they then began a campaign of harassment and racketeering, becoming a sort of insurance for the Metal Workers Guilds' various factories and the foundry. They established brothels, and set up organized drug operations, increasing profit and availability.
Most of their street level members are metal workers who joined on the theory that it's better to be at the right hand of devils than in their path. Others come from Castle Precinct, Little Nishrek, (District 4) and the Dead District, where the Hungry still recruit the classic members of the four original gangs from young fiends, orcs and goblins, intelligent but lazy youths and fresh undead. They offer wealth to those who would not likely find it, community to those who seek it, and a profitable outlet for violent tendencies to those who want it.
Taking control of the Metal Workers' Guild itself was a trivial concern for the Hungry. A mixture of greased palms, gang members in the guild, and terrible "accidents" soon saw one of Atonya's lieutenants, Griznal, formerly leader of the Eyez, seated as the guildmaster.
The Foundry took more work, but a few weeks of plying the Head Foreman with devilweed and sex partners harmful to reputation, and he quickly towed the line. The man should have died at least half a century ago, but is in the peak of youth. Though no one will outright say it, most knowledgeable people in Finality recognize that he has likely extended his life through the use of Royal Blood Jelly.
The Hungry supply him with his now daily dose as part of his buy off, but it's really just another way to control him. He has been informed that should he ever veer from supporting The Hungry, even in the slightest, the deliveries of Royal Blood Honey will stop, and he will die, and the cursed thinuan ring they gave him long ago, disguised as a gift, will trap his soul before being teleported to Atonya's hand, denying him any chance of resurrection.
With control of the guild and the foundry, The Hungry now control all production of metal goods in Finality, which notably includes most weapons and armour. This makes them ridiculously wealthy, even for expansive organized crime, and keeps them well equipped.

Politically, The Hungry are in favour of colonization, as an outgrowth of gang land turf control. They are also, perplexingly, in favour of welfare, which comes out of gangs' tendency to care for their own and brutal justice (for traitors. They advocate legalization of, essentially, everything). Taxes are an odd one. They want taxes lowered, for them. For the district they control, "taxes" are essentially institutionalized protection rackets, and thus set to "whatever we feel like." On slavery... well, there are two schools of thought in The Hungry. Slaves themselves are profitable. They produce valuable goods or services, but comprise little overhead, especially if they're undead or golems. On the other hand, you can't enslave everyone, otherwise there is no one to buy what the slaves produce.

The Hungry's primary chapter house is called "The Legitimate Business-beings' Social Club, which mostly got approved due to equal parts missing the joke and terrible senses of humour. They also hold a number of penthouses and brothels as additional chapter houses, as well as a number of fashionable, if clichely pompous coffee houses and drug dens, the Shadow Walkers' contribution. These chapter houses even pop up outside the Adamant District, wherever the Hungry maintain a covert presence through the names of the original four gangs. It's not uncommon for Atonya to be found at a table of one of Castle Precinct's fashionable bistros, discussing business matters with his lieutenants.

The Hungry are Finality's most proactive faction, given that they are, well, hungry. They hunger for money, people, souls, drugs, and, most of all, control. If Atonya had his way, he would sit in the center of the Castle, as lord of Finality, and the entire multiverse, subjugating all to his whims. As such, they pursue control of ever more districts, and have a number of members hidden in other factions.

[Username17]

The Stream of Sorrow

"The $#!+ must flow."

I like a Terry Pratchett reference as much as the next guy, but I don't see this working. Yes, the sewers of a planar metropolis are super interesting, but you don't have a faction here. You have a business. It's self interested. You might as well start writing up bakeries and shipping companies and calling them factions. This is exactly the problem K was alluding to when he said that associating factions with jobs in the city was a bad idea.

A Faction is more than just a civic institution that desires things which are good for that institution. It's a philosophical and political movement whose message and resources allow it to take over one or more civic institutions and whose driving goals interest it doing so.

The sewers are a dungeon complex under the city that has hidden entrances in every precinct. It is generally considered inhospitable, but there are a number of people (wererats, filth demons) and monsters (otyughs, alligators) for whom it is the preferred environment and they can live there as rent paying citizens, integral portions of the waste management system, or pests. It is designed to conceal what goes on in it, and the people who live next to it are actually totally OK with that. Whoever runs the sewers can automatically be used as a source of employment for the PCs (when someone else is doing something sketchy in the sewers), or as an antagonist group (when they are the ones doing something sketchy in the sewers). The sewers can be used for smuggling, spying, trespassing, escaping the police, or any covert villainy you care to imagine from growing drugs to sacrifices to dark gods to building up your own secret zombie army. Depending on waste management tech levels, sewage treatment could produce vital reagents for industries such as tanning, alchemy, candles, and paint. The sewage system is almost certainly sending huge volumes of high mass, low value, untaxed shipments to podunk agricultural worlds and it would be trivial for people to escape the city or smuggle high value goods to other worlds with or without the knowledge of the sanitation workers or their bosses.

But none of that makes a faction. Any or all of those things could be happening without anyone being in charge of the sewers at all.

The question to ask is not "what does the sewer maintenance company want?" because that's uninteresting. It's derivable from self interest. They want more creatures in the city pooping up to the limit that they would have to upgrade infrastructure, in which case they don't want more creatures pooping until they have to do the infrastructure upgrades anyway for other reasons. They want there to be enough zombies and golems in town that they don't have to pay a premium for zombie and golem labor and shit-needing industries have enough golems and zombies to stay capitalized. But they don't want so many zombies and golems in the city that it dilutes the pooping population. And so on for all the other things. They want people to eat street food, but they don't want to deal with packaging that dams up the sewers, and no one fucking cares.

The question to ask is "What faction had the messaging and resources necessary to take over sewer operations, and an overarching goal that made that seem like a good idea?"

So you could have a bunch of Vecna cultists who wanted control of the sewer because it let them spy on things and collect secrets and stuff, and they have a deal about how they are willing to get as dirty as need be to get the secrets and the power. Or you could have a bunch of wererats who regard the sewers as the better part of the city anyhow and have a tirade about how the surface folks are all suckers waiting to be fleeced. Or whatever. But the key fact is that the Faction >> Job. Factions are broad organizations that players can be members of and/or oppose and the factions own civic institutions. If the players rise up in rank with the faction, they can gain control over one or more of the civic institutions the faction owns as a perk.

-Username17

[Ancient History]

John Ostrander actually addressed the sewer issue in one of the Grimjack comics - he made it a religious guild who found purpose in cleansing the city of physical and religious pollutants, taking care of supernatural contagions as well as waste. That said, they were more like an independent part of city government and infrastructure rather than a political player in city politics.

[Whipstitch]

The question to ask is "What faction had the messaging and resources necessary to take over sewer operations, and an overarching goal that made that seem like a good idea?"

Exactly, you really have to work backwards on this sort of thing. You'd be better served tagging a faction with a name like the Delver's League, a political block made up primarily of races that consider a nice subterranean lair to be primo real estate and therefore have a drastically different vision about what to do with the Y axis than everyone else does.

[virgil]

Here are two ideas for a faction that controls the sewer system, that I can think of. Looking at it, I should be able to use both and replace the sewer with something else for the opposing faction.

Scales of the Serpent
* Vecna cult
* Authoritarian and pro-censorship, believe information/artifacts need to be reviewed for safety
* Control sewage & Inspector General's Office

Muse of Belphegor
* Controls Sewage Treatment, Tanning Vats, Wizard's Guild
* Promotes progress/automation through golems/enchantments to lower workload of sentients
* Strong welfare, anti-privitation, promotes crass indulgence

Of course, if you think there's a better option for an evocative faction to exert influence over the sewer, I'm all ears.

[Prak]

So, apparently my gang faction was either decent enough to not deserve any specific shooting down, or so terrible as to be not worthy of it...

[virgil]

To be fair, apparently neither was the White Spider

In actual critique, I take it the primary demographic remains blue-collar and those with criminal backgrounds? Has the faction consolidated enough to have its own momentum, or is Atonya (some long-lived or immortal, apparently) a keystone that would result in the faction breaking down if he's ever killed?

The Tetracty feels both too simple and not proactive enough to be a proper faction; I mean, they explicitly don't care about politics, and they frequently indulge in killing themselves with the hope of not coming back. They're not nuanced enough to be a faction on the decline, but as a social club or dying religion, they might work well enough.

[Username17]

So, apparently my gang faction was either decent enough to not deserve any specific shooting down, or so terrible as to be not worthy of it...

Well, you started with a Scarface quote, which is solid. Other than that, you don't really seem to have a philosophy or a recruitment pitch. Like, at all. These guys are an organized crime ring that does protection rackets and is has a controlling interest in the steel workers unions. Also they are violent. So I'm guessing that they are basically 1970s era Mafia? The Scarface references seem to lean in that direction.

But like with the Sewage discussion, there has to be more to a faction than just a job and a list of perceived self interest. Why did they target steel workers for infiltration? And why do the steel workers work for them? What did the steel workers offer that fed the Hungry's goals, and what about the Hungry's platforms appealed to the Steel Workers? As you have it written up now, it appears that the only reason they went after The Foundry was just because it happened to be within walking distance. And there's really no reason even implied as to why the Foremen joined up instead of some other faction or just paying off a police contractor.

-Username17

[K]

How are you supposed to have a party if everyone is in a faction?

I mean, in games likes Vampire you just sort of ignore the fact that people are supposed to be in clans because the world is terrible and everyone thinks that you belong to them regardless of your feelings on the matter. It's just a plot hook to create conflict because the game is all about telling the establishment to fvck off and so the game needs four different kinds of establishment to vary the telling off (Clan, sire, mortal world, vampire society).

But honestly, DnD doesn't work at all with inter-party conflict.

Second, who wants to rise up his faction's hierarchy to control an Aquaduct? Unless that particular public works project grants magic powers, becoming the official in charge of city property is just like getting a particularly boring day job.

So you can't have PCs in a faction. It's got to be background stuff that sets up stories and city events, so they can just be contradictory or bad for adventuring.

[Korgan0]

The idea is that factions have sufficiently large remits that being in charge of the Aqueduct actually means having to manage all the people who live in the area, along with taking care of any threats to the aqueduct, especially other factions. You're not organizing maintenance schedules, you're dealing with renegade water elementals, spies from other factions, restive workers, and so on. Furthermore, there are enough people managing the aqueduct in the area around it, and factions are sufficiently powerful, that it's really not that different from being in charge of a small town with an attendant castle.

As regards PC's being members of factions, the idea is that PC's are either affiliated with factions sufficiently loosely that the faction is really more of a place to sleep and hang out than more of an employer, or PC's are all members of the same faction and work as troubleshooters or whatever.

[Ancient History]

Ideally, factions should not be like the colors of ancient Rome or modern political parties. They should be professional and social organizations or brotherhoods, the type of thing where people gain political power because of their numbers of effective monopoly of a given trade or resource, and/or where the members help provide for each other (as was common in fraternal organizations before social security and insurance was a thing). Sure you'll have some Freemasons, corrupt union bosses, and even deep rivalries between groups, but it should be possible for two low- to mid-level people in different organizations to sit down and have a beer together without starting a fight.

[Prak]

Some factions would actually benefit the players, especially at the top. If you're in charge of the Armoury, you have a giant cache of weapons to plunder at your whim. If you're in charge of the Foundry and the Metal Worker's Guild, pretty similar, except that even if you're just a low level member, you probably get a discount on you metal weapons and armour. If you're in one of the higher levels of the Harmonium, you probably have significantly fewer legal worries.

[Prak]

Ok, so that entry is now roughly twice as long, and should work at least somewhat better.

In my defence, I actually haven't taken in a lot of organized crime drama. I drew primarily from what I know of the background to Saints Row. The Scarface quote I actually know from a Lonely Island Boys song (though I did know from what it comes). I've been meaning to watch more of this stuff, I just haven't gotten around to it.

I'll probably outline the gangs a bit more, but later.

[hyzmarca]

Evocative Sewer Worker Faction?

Lets see.

The Society of Arts and Beauty


A long time ago in a plane far away a wizard developed a spell called Awaken Ooze and used it to produce a slave-race of Gelatinous Cubes called the Shogi. The Shogi eventually rebelled against their master and some of the survivors of that ill-fated conflict made their way to Finality.

The Shogi, being living waste disposals, quickly fell into the one occupation at which they excelled and gained control of Finality's sewer system, as they could do it more quickly and cheaper than any other group in the city. Initially, this led to conflicts, occasionally violent, with the Junker Guild, which controlled all forms of waste management at the time. Eventually an agreement was made allowing the Shogi to control the biological waste management while the Junkers handled the much more lucrative scrap market (though there is some confusion over the proper dispensation of biohazardeous scrap, such as used hypodermic needles).

The Shogi leveraged their newfound economic power to create an organization dedicated to their true passion, art. The Society of Arts and Beauty was initially just a minor charity for supporting promising young artists who might otherwise by unable to ply their trades. Since its inception, however, it has grown into a full fraction with members from every walk of life.

Their control of the sewers is a rather huge lever, politically, but one they can only use sparingly due to the potential consequences. A simple labor strike would soon have the entire city up to its knees in its own shit, but that's the nuclear option.

Bullet Points

Political Platform

Education: The Society supports compulsory public education up to the secondary level and subsidized post-secondary education.

Arts: The Society supports public subsidization of the arts.

Copyright: The Society is opposed to long copyright terms and strongly believes that the collective artistic heritage of the Planes belongs to everyone. They are not opposed to short copyright terms, however, seeing them as a necessary evil.

Crime and Punishment: The Society supports the Death Penalty for serious crimes.

Magical Medical Experimentation/Necromancy: The Society believes in the sanctity of life and opposes magic that violates that sanctity. It wishes to places strong controls on spells that create life, create unlife, modify a creature, or grant sapience. It has nothing against the spontaneously-created free-willed undead and some of its most angsty artists are vampires.



Dirty Secrets
Smuggling: Shipments of fertilizer and waste-derived reagents often obtain contraband. The society looks the other way so long as its palms are suitable greased.

Body Disposal for Hire:If you've just murdered someone and need to get rid of the evidence quick, there are members of the Society who will help you for a steep price.

Murder of Political Rivals: Sometimes the Society's opponents go missing. Not often. But often enough.

External Threats

The Junker' Guild: Despite their agreement, the Junkers are still sore about the sewer takeover. Violence is rare, but it does happen.

[Insert Law Enforcement Faction Here]: The Society's smuggling operation has not gone entirely unnoticed.

The Bard Guild: The Society's support of unlicensed distribution of player piano scrolls and other forms of copyright violation have earned the ire of the Bard Guild. It hasn't reached the level of violence yet, but there have been several pitched legal battles.

Leader

The Leader of the Society is a 20 foot tall Awakened Gelatenous Cube with an intelligence score of 25 and the voice of Kelsey Grammer. He also has Druid levels for some reason.
He's extremely intelligent and erudite. He loves the arts, always attends new plays on their first night, never uses simple words when larger ones are available, donates large sums of money to the university scholarship fund, and has personally consumed 27 of his political rivals whole and alive. There's not any evidence of that last bit, of course.

[Prak]

Ok, Gelatinous Kelsey Grammer is the best part of that, Hyz. The rest makes little to no sense... Gelatinous cubes have pretty much no sensory organs with which to enjoy art. At best, they could have an artistic aesthetic based on perfumes and vibration.

...which disturbingly speaks to them being drawn to caberets, actually.

I do think whoever controls the sewers should employ gelatinous cubes, though, unless we work out a reference to Prattchet that works better, because with a gelatinous cube you can just sit it under an aggregate pipe and switch it out when it starts filling up. I don't know how much shit you can stack in a 10'cube, but it's probably a lot.