Faction

Life’s tough for goblins who try to be good. Many of them turn to the merchant life as peddlers and gypsies, turning their natural eye for trinkets into a shrewd judge of value. Still, they take quite a while to earn the locals’ trust. Enter Gus, a minor half-elf spell-caster who never seemed to find … Continue reading »

Every city attracts a wide variety of religious believers, from the established to the fringe. The Gatekeepers are a canonical example of the latter. Using only heavy white caps as symbols of their fraternity, the Gatekeepers gather at various spots around the city which they’ve identified as “universal nexus points,” or “gates.” According to their … Continue reading »

Deep in the woods live a reclusive race of humanoids. Large and very hairy, they wear no clothes and live simple, peaceful hunter/gatherer lives. But these are not simple creatures. They are as intelligent as any human, and just as capable of speech and thought. They deliberately live “in harmony with nature,” as they put … Continue reading »

Some days, you want a complex, multi-faceted faction. Instead, today we have a classic force of what appear to be bad guys, but you can twist into good guys if desired. Caravans traveling through the region complain of goblins skulking around their camps. They’ve been easy to identify because each goblin wears a black headband. While they … Continue reading »

Normally solitary creatures, weretigers do occasionally mate and form families, though they normally scatter once the litter grows to maturity. Jax and Thessia Ironsky are different. Very much in love with each other, unusually fertile, and free from the territoriality so common in their race, over the years they’ve raised a large family of over … Continue reading »

Time travel is messy, and it always rewrites history. Someone has to keep track of all those changes. And so, the Library of Time serves as a collection of books about history, all history, including the histories that no longer happened. However, a book that tells of an alternate timeline can be a powerful weapon in the wrong person’s hands. The very … Continue reading »

Tolman is a halfling with a sense of justice. An ex-adventurer, he now fashions jewelry in a quiet part of a small city. During his adventuring days, he chafed at the sight of other adventurers leaping to kill every creature they stumbled on, ferocious or docile, and the crude jokes they told about the less “civilized” … Continue reading »

A few years ago, the Shortfoot family of traveling halfling tinkers happened upon a clutch of giant lizard eggs (left behind when a group of adventurers attacked a family of giant lizards and both groups perished). They cared for them, hatched them, and turned them into a small traveling circus, which can be used either as … Continue reading »

Tharren Ironshield really likes cats. Granted, cats are excellent companions underground, hunting vermin and finding warm spots to nap. Several dwarf clans maintain large numbers of cats as companions and vermin control. But something happened about ten years ago that made Tharren obsessed with cats. He was cursed by a jilted lover to become a werecat (same stats as a … Continue reading »

Pity Callahan’s Caravan. Pity, or fear it. Wherever these metal-working merchants go, somebody dies. Callahan’s Caravan of Death is a faction that can be used either as a friendly ally and source of adventure, or as a foe to be fought. It consists of two dozen people (twelve adults and twelve children) spread across nine wagons. They spend the spring … Continue reading »