Factions for City / Overworld Play

• Cities are factions, and factions are cities
• Tie factions to treasure / rewards for the PCs
• Place lairs and camps nearby

In my last post, I talked about generating factions. Here is an example from my home game on how to create a town, relying primarily on factions. To see how it played out, check out the session report.

Many referees use towns as simple ways to rest and re-stock. However, if your players like to roleplay, sneak around, and generally bother NPCs, it can be useful to have something more fleshed-out. Here is how you can create a memorable town in less than fifteen minutes, using perhaps a single sheet of notebook paper.

For context, my players are searching for a magic ring. They’ve been told that someone in the town of Fennburgh can help them, but they’re not sure who.

Step 1 is to write one to four sentences to serve as an introduction to the town.

Fennburgh is a city built on stilts and rafts on the River Grey. They eat frogs and trade with the town of Flume by shipping goods down the river. It is a small and dreary town.

Step 2 is to place some lairs and camps nearby (1-2 hexes away). You can also have wandering monsters like a dragon, giant, or basilisk, that is giving the townspeople trouble. Of course, if you have a central (mega)dungeon, this should be included. The “main” dungeon in my game is near Flume, so Fennburgh does not have one nearby. You may reveal as much or as little about these sites to your players as you wish. You may concoct a rumor table as well to encourage your players to interact with townsfolk.

Near Fennburgh, there are:

• A camp of bandits
• A circle of Necromancers
• A pack of beast-men
• The lair of a great river-snake
• A wandering giant made of carrion

Greymarsh. The house symbol marked 10 is Fennburgh. Lairs and camps surround it.

Step 3 is to select three to four faction circles in or near the town. I pick from these general categories:

• Religious (temples, shrines, cults, & c.)
• Noble or Government (mayors, viscounts, headsmen and gaolers)
• Mundane Guilds (bakers, miners, masons)
• Fantastic Guilds (giant snail-riders, artificers, apothecaries)
• Underworld or Criminal (thieves, gamblers, pit-fighters)
• Magical (wizards, oracles, vampires)
• Military (guards, rangers)

With each circle, generate one or two important NPCs for each. Some “factions” may indeed only be one person. Some may be hundreds.

In Fennburgh, these faction circles are active:

• Noble - Mayor’s office and viscount
• Mayor Adur Codd
• Viscount Salmoneus Bondeville
• Criminal - Den of Thieves
• Led by “Briar” (actually Mayor Codd!)
• Religious - Shrine to Nature Spirits
• Led by vicar Irus
• Fantastic Guild - Xipas’ Panaceatorium (sells potions and salves)
• Xipas (a werewolf)
• Magical - Margie Squatt, the Oracle
• Margie Squatt, exiled medicine woman living on the outskirts of town
• Mundane Guild - Frog-Giggers of the River Grey
• Led by Reggie Squatt, son of Margie Squatt
• Grett and Robb, chaotic apprentices
• Mundane Guild - Riverfront Merchants
• No clear leader or standout NPC (yet)

Step 4: Now that we have our “outside factions” and our “inside factions,” let’s generate motives, obstacles, and plans for each. Occasionally, we will also add a “twist” to a faction - a defining characteristic that makes them a little odd and memorable.

• The BANDITS want to LOOT FENNBURGH but are TURNED AWAY by its natural defences, therefore they are LEADING RAIDING PARTIES. On my calendar, I mark a raid to happen on a random day each month.
• Faction twist: the Bandits are religious zealots
• The NECROMANCERS want to CONTROL THE WANDERING ROT-GIANT but it is TOO POWERFUL, therefore they are KIDNAPPING AND SACRIFICING VIRGINS from Fennburgh to appease it. On my calendar, I mark a virgin disappearance every 13 days.
• The CHIROPTERANTHROCENES (man-bats) want FOOD, but they are WEAK AND OUTNUMBERED, therefore they are UNDER THE AEGIS OF A FERAL VAMPIRE. Chiropteranthrocenes are only active at dawn and dusk.
• SESS, the river-snake wants to EAT, but it is HUNTED by the denizens of fennburgh, therefore it has TRICKED TWO CHAOTIC APPRENTICES TO SACRIFICE CHILDREN TO IT. Every ten days on my calendar, I mark that a child disappears. Grett and Robb are the chaotic apprentices.
• The ROT GIANT wants... ???
• Note that some monsters may be mysterious or mindless. The Rot Giant is brainless.

And now our in-city factions:

• Mayor CODD wants to MAINTAIN the status quo, but the MURDERS AND DISAPPEARANCES are making the townsfolk paranoid, therefore he will REWARD the PCs for any help.
• Mayor Codd is secretly the leader of the THIEVES’ DEN
• Salmoneus Bondeville wants to HUNT the feral Vampire that leads the Chiropteranthrocenes, but is TIED TO HIS DUTIES AS A VISCOUNT, therefore he STUDIES VAMPIRES IN SECRET in his study.
• Salmoneus Bondeville is secretly of a heretic religion, but is Lawful despite his crabby demeanor.
• The DEN OF THIEVES want to STEAL Xipas’ goblet, but the townsfolk are on HIGH ALERT, therefore they are WAITING until things cool down. When the murders and disappearances are in a lull, Xipas’ goblet will be stolen.
• The DEN OF THIEVES’ mysterious leader, “Briar,” is actually Mayor CODD.
• The SHRINE wants more members, but SALMONEUS is taxing them too heavily, therefore Vicar IRUS is FOMENTING UNREST towards the viscount.
• XIPAS wants to SELL HIS POTIONS, but he TURNS into a Werewolf at the end of each month, therefore he KEEPS HIS LYCANTHROPY A SECRET.
• Xipas was cast out of the Moon Druids for his affliction, and knows where the ring is.
• MARGIE SQUATT wants to RE-ENTER the town of Fennburgh, but was EXILED by SALMONEUS for practising witchcraft, therefore she will HELP the PCs if they PLEAD HER CASE.
• The FROG-GIGGERS want to SERVE THE TOWN, but sometimes GAME IS SCARCE, therefore, they WORSHIP Opo-Palua, the frog spirit.
• Reggie will be grateful if his mother is let back into the town
• Two CHAOTIC apprentices, GRETT and ROBB, are kidnapping children to sacrifice to SESS, the River-Snake, in return for its favor.
• The RIVER-FRONT MERCHANTS want to TRADE WITH FLUME, but BANDITS attack them from the banks, therefore they have SHUT DOWN TRADE on the river until the bandits are destroyed. 

Step 5 is to make a quick map for lairs and camps and mark their location on your hex-map. I have made a map for SESS’ lair, the lair of the necromancers, the caves of the Chiropteranthrocenes, and the bandits’ camp. These maps can be small and loosely keyed; I will flesh them out more as it becomes more apparent where the PCs are headed.

Quick lairs, can be fleshed out later.

Step 6 is to generate some treasure and tie it to the intrigue. Most treasure is mundane, but there are some artefacts the players will hear about. Notably:

• The leader of the BANDITS has a MAGIC SWORD, and his general has MAGIC GAUNTLETS
• The NECROMANCERS have SPELLBOOKS, WANDS, and SCROLLS
• MARGIE can make FABULOUS POTIONS
• The FROG-GIGGERS can synthesize POISONS from the frogs

 As your players choose to help some factions and hinder others, they will find themselves making friends and enemies organically, and you should reward or punish them as you see fit. In my home game, my players caught the apprentices and extinguished the bandit camp, for which they were rewarded with some vials of frog poison and free transportation down the river when they desire, respectively. They also looted the bandit camp for gold, and took the magic sword and bracers from them. Now they have their sights set on the Moon Druids to the north.

I know this seems like a lot of work, but it really took me only a few minutes to jot down. I take laconic notes that I can understand, but I have expanded and elaborated upon them for the purposes of demonstration. This has taken up a single sheet of notebook paper in my DM binder. Also, these are more notes than I started with. I had added to the document throughout three or four sessions of play. For your first session, no more than two or three inner-city factions and one or two outside factions are necessary. I hope you use these in your games, and enjoy them.

Behold, Fennburgh. These are all the notes I have on it.

Certain names changed for simplicity's sake.