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[Let's Read] The Star-Shaman's Song of Planegea: Dungeons & Dragons, Prehistoric Style
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<blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 9255485" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/b3d2lQy.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p> <p style="text-align: center"><strong>Chapter 11: Factions & Threats, Part 1</strong></p><p></p><p>Just as Chapter 10 discussed the world of Planegea, Chapter 11 discusses the more prominent people and individuals within it. Split into two sections of 13 entries each, <strong>Factions</strong> details organizations of all kinds relevant to adventurers, while <strong>Threats</strong> presents various antagonistic forces at work. While the latter category is more or less firmly in the villains and adversaries camp, there are some Factions who can serve this role depending on the campaign and party makeup. What makes Factions different is that all of them can plausibly have typical PC concepts as part of them: for instance, Scavengers Vow is your go-to Thieves’ Guild for roguish PCs, the Worldsingers are a good-aligned secret society heavily made up of Chanters, and the Brother Clans’ prominence in the Great Valley make for great “starting kingdoms.” Most factions provide some commonalities: Beliefs & Behavior which include simple sentences of moral outlooks and thus alignments, Leaders for some important NPCs, Magic & Matter indicating common magical practices, mundane skills, and resources, and Locations indicating strongholds and social gathering spots. I won’t be going into detail on each such commonality, as this is already a long chapter. Instead I will cover each faction in broad terms to try and give you an overall sense of them.</p><p></p><p><strong>The Brother Clans</strong> are three different factions, grouped together but also spoken of individually. As the largest and most powerful clans of the Great Valley, they hold a lot of sway in central Planegea. Many generations ago three gods appeared to a group of travelers, promising them and their families aid in exchange for service. They were Urhosh the Bear, Kho the Ape, and Glelh the Lion, who honored their word and helped them expand their numbers and reach throughout the land. Although the Brother Clans are quite autonomous in terms of leadership at the local level, there are some cultural similarities. Each clan is collectively made up of several thousand people, but at the local level most people live in groups of 10-50 known as “camps.” Camps are hunter-gatherer societies, and camps of the same clan closely interact with each other in webs of alliances and trade. The god of each clan has a hallow and surrounding village known as a hallowcamp, the latter of which are ruled by a respective chieftain and high shaman. Here many chieftains, elders, shamans, and other figures of importance meet to work with and even subtly against each other.</p><p></p><p>The Brother Clans are not closed societies. Outsiders are welcome to join provided they pay allegiance to the patron deity and have skills to contribute to the camp/clan’s survival. One of the major reasons for the three Clans’ ascendance is their domestication of many types of animals; not just dogs, but cats, dinosaurs, horses, and others are common, and naturally each clan has close bonds with the animals of their patron god. What prevents them from being a truly unified power is that each Clan are enemies of the other two. Conflict takes place more at the local level, where there are border raids, spies, and even familial blood feuds. To ensure some level of reconciliation and safety, there are specially marked areas known as sanctuaries which are neutral zones where one cannot be killed as part of a vengeance plot. Additionally, the Brother Clans also have premeditated and ritualistic forms of warfare undertaken during summer, where rules of combat are followed and are primarily used to settle disputes over land, resources, and personal vendettas. Traders are allowed to travel to the lands of other clans provided that they clearly mark themselves as such, and when influential figures of rival clans wish to engage in diplomacy they do so in neutral territory such as Edgegather or Seerfall.*</p><p></p><p>*Given the location of these places on the map, they don’t seem the best places for the three clans to meet barring some unmentioned portals to Nod for rapid transit.</p><p></p><p>In covering the clans individually, we start with the Bear Clan. Like their god Urhosh they place great priority on physical prowess as a virtue, and they practice many games, ceremonies, and other competitions to display feats of athleticism and might. Their other celebrated virtue is organizing large communal feasts, where hunters and gatherers gather as much as they can, and in some cases starve themselves before a planned meal so that they can spend more time eating with others.* When it comes to resources, equipment, and magic they have a surplus of heavy furs and protective wear, beehives which are harvested for honey, abjuration and healing spells learned from dwarven mages, a preference for heavy bludgeoning weapons, and a larger than usual number of half-giants. They’re also one of the few non-giant groups in Planegea who have a prison: the Fortress of Bees is a walled structure holding captives.</p><p></p><p>*This sounds rather unhealthy. Couldn’t people who get full first at the table just talk and converse with others? That still helps the social aspect of feasts. Then again, we have monks who do the same in order to grow more powerful.</p><p></p><p>The Ape Clan prizes cleverness and quick-thinking in both mind and body. Music is an important aspect of the clan, and while ritual drumming is used for soothing their god Kho Many-Arms, other instruments such as flutes are also popular. They are known to make complicated obstacle courses where contestants race against each other to complete various tasks, and such games always draw a crowd of peers.</p><p></p><p>Their devices and personal belongings are some of the most ingenious, ranging from lighter-than-usual objects, easily collapsible items such as foldable chairs and ladders, camouflaged clothing with numerous hidden pockets, and multipurpose gear that combines two or more objects and tools. They also have close alliances with the elves of Nod, making them quite spread out and with a higher than normal number of elves and half-elves among their camps, and are known for casting spells that aid in movement and magic items that can be used by non-mages. In case you couldn’t guess already, the Apes are the artificers/bard/rogues of the Clans, with the Bears the warriors/clerics. The Ape clans are the most nomadic, which combined with their Nod portals mean that they are constantly on the move and have few regular meeting places. The exceptions are places such as Nodhold, a subterranean nexus of dream-portals with a misty grove of olive trees concealing their surface entrances, or the wooden Tower of Hope bordering the Saltwood which is regularly expanded and serves as a multipurpose fortress/home/obstacle course whose continual additions represent an ideal of a brighter future.</p><p></p><p>Finally, the Lion Clan prizes the senses in all its forms, from the creation of beautiful works of art, the prescient ability to see far and predict future events, and even to endure pain and unpleasantness rather than shy away from it. Their works of art tend to be alterations of existing objects or based off of observances in daily life, such as dyed fabrics, figurines in the likenesses of people and creatures, weapons and armor with animal shapes carved into them, and individual expression with personalized assortments of feathered and beaded jewelry and tattoos. They are renowned for their divination and enchantment magic, and their shamans know special combinations of plants and mushrooms that can trigger spiritual journeys and alter or enhance the mind. Through such spells they are famous for predicting important omens such as the weather and migratory patterns. And much like the Bear Clan, the Lions also have a prison of sorts known as Silence Crater, formed from a meteor whose magic causes all sound within to be muted. The clan takes prisoners holding valuable information there, where they are subjected to tortuous magics by the cruelest Lions to reveal their secrets. Saurians are a common kinship, who tend to find common ground with the clan’s ability to endure and see things for the long term.</p><p></p><p><em>Thoughts:</em> I like how the Brother Clans are all given their own niches, both in terms of cultural flavor but also mapping closely to favored classes and in some cases kinships. This helps communicate to new players what Clans are most appropriate for their ideas: “pick this option if you want to be a big hulking barbarian, pick this option if you want to be a sneaky fey mage, etc.” That being said, the Clans’ relative adversity is my major complaint. Prior chapters painted a picture of a more overtly hostile relationship, such as commonly-held desires to outright destroy each other or that meadow with butterfly-souls, which wouldn’t lend itself well to multi-Clan parties without some interesting backstories or adventure setup. Chapter 11 still keeps the enmities, but has it with a more subtle “Cold War” vibe. The need for sanctuary safe havens, ritualized warfare, and welcoming traders helps make such parties more plausible and organic.</p><p></p><p><strong>The Council of Day</strong> is a secret society of elders and mages from various clans in the Great Valley who seek to unify their peoples against the Giant Empires and other threats. In order to better defend against them, the Council hopes to create a centralized alliance that can fight the giants off as a unified force. To that end they seek to support particular leaders who they believe can accomplish this, prioritizing stable multi-generational governments and strong authoritative personalities. It matters little if said leaders are tyrants who lead by fear or genuinely-loved leaders whose subjects admire them; if they can hold onto power and encourage unity over division, the Council supports them.</p><p></p><p>The Council of Day is arranged into two sections: the ruling Inner Council who coordinate information and execute orders to the Outer Council, who are made up of messengers who ingratiate themselves into advisory capacities throughout the Great Valley. Sending spells are used for long-distance communication, and they also have pendants whose stones can be rearranged to glow as a sort of secret symbol. Instead of having a physical headquarters, they make use of a series of interconnected teleportation-linked rooms, and whose doors can be found in unlikely uninhabited locations.</p><p></p><p><em>Thoughts:</em> The Council of Day rates rather low for me. They are very much power for the sake of it without any explicit ideology beyond “become like the giants in order to defeat them.” One thing I did notice is that their use of pendants with sun motifs is due to respecting the power of the Day-Star and wanting to emulate that as a worthy lesson. The book does present this as more a belief than a fact, as the daily star duels more or less stand in contrast to their unification ethos. It’s for this reason I believe that they’re designed this way on purpose as a character flaw, albeit one with justifiable goals. Something which we see rather regularly among the factions as will be shown later on in this post. But when compared to the other factions or even the Brother Clan’s outlooks, they just feel weak to me.</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/fTuxRIO.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p><strong>Direstaves,</strong> so named for their huge guiding staves to herd animals, are a loose culture of nomadic people in the Dire Grazelands. For unknown reasons the animal life in this region is much larger than their counterparts elsewhere in Planegea, but this hasn’t prevented local clans from finding new and innovative ways to domesticate them. Much like the Brother Clans of the Great Valley, the Direstaves have common cultural values and social structures while being locally divided and autonomous. This last part is even more so as the Direstaves have no great god holding vast territories, and each individual herd is entirely self-governing whose leaders are usually temporarily chosen by majority consensus.</p><p></p><p>Direstaff communities usually live with their herd animals in one of three ways: in “slingcamps” which are oversized hammocks slung along their lengths, “beastbacks” which are huts and platforms with connected rope bridges for the largest of the largest creatures, or “walkalongs” where the people travel on foot with the animals.</p><p></p><p>From aurochs to mammoths to dinosaurs, the Direstaves’ herd beasts are their literal lifelines. Not only do they supply them with food, milk, and all that can be made from their carcasses, their sheer size makes many clans use them as mobile homes. Their culture reflects this, from holidays based on important life cycles of said animals as well as the belief that one should be free to go and live wherever they please. Their most common kinds of spells relate to the care of animals, and for this reason druids and rangers are not only common, they’re socially accepted, and magic has been used to breed supernatural varieties of common animals.</p><p></p><p>Due to their proximity, the Direstaves have a great enmity for the Fire Empire. The giants are keen to raid the Dire Grazelands for slaves and also hunt their herd animals. But the Empire doesn’t intend on an outright conquest and occupation, for they find it easier to let the smaller humanoids do the bulk of the labor in raising and caring for the beasts and taking them when they’re big and juicy enough to eat. Beyond just the fire giants, another common threat are yellow herds, or communities that have “gone wrong” such as falling into dark magic and thus are dangers to those they come across.</p><p></p><p><em>Thoughts:</em> The Direstaves are one of my favorite factions. Larger than life animals and dinosaurs are a mainstay of Prehistoric media, and they make for interesting adventure locations. I mean, who wouldn’t want to have a mobile sauropod home base? Their independent free-spirited nature and emphasis on democratically-chosen leaders is another thing I can see as a strong selling point to players.</p><p></p><p>The tale of <strong>Free Citadel</strong> is something almost everyone in Planegea has heard of, and to many who fear the giants it serves as a shining beacon of hope. The hope that oppressors of all kinds can be overthrown. Its current administration is recent, having taken place within a human lifespan, where slaves of the Stone Empire city of Dakru spent a year organizing a long-term plan to violently overthrow their giant captors. This revolution succeeded in a single day, and once every giant was slain or chased out. The people helped themselves to the many spoils of luxury and artifice once enjoyed by their captors, such as finger rings repurposed into belts. Today the settlement is called Free Citadel, ruled over by the orcish Usurper Queen and her advisors in the Revolutionary Court. While she listens to many, the Queen’s word is final.</p><p></p><p>Due to being technically within the territory of the Stone Empire, Free Citadel doesn’t see many traders beyond some brave souls sailing the Eel River. It’s a high-risk, high-reward job, for the giants had literal vaults of goods beneath the city, many of which have still yet to be open and serve as a ready source of “dungeon crawl” style adventures. Such vaults are also home to a lot of preserved food that could feed a giant community for decades, but this nonrenewable resource is a growing concern for Free Citadel in finding alternatives. Other problems facing the community include fear for when the rest of the Stone Empire will retaliate, as they uncharacteristically have let the city stand for far too long. The Citadel is torn between two factions on whether to use espionage and covert sabotage or overt military conquest. The Usurper Queen favors the former, but a prominent revolutionary known as Takluk the Beheader supports the latter…and should he not get his way soon, he has contemplated a coup. There’s also the fact that the city’s sole remaining giant known as the Prisoner has made himself useful by offering the magic and secrets of his people. Despite being paralyzed from the neck down and thus not much of a threat, there are those among the younger generation who’ve come about sympathizing with him and are contemplating setting him free. And as the Prisoner is Neutral Evil in alignment, he surely hasn’t come about seeing the error of his ways!</p><p></p><p><em>Thoughts:</em> Although it’s quite distinctly un-Stone Age as a PC faction or location, I love the general idea behind Free City of formerly enslaved people finding themselves in a hopeful yet uncertain future. While their lot in life has obviously improved, there are myriad problems and thus adventuring opportunities present in securing their safety and freedom. The fact that the city is sized for Huge inhabitants, whose vaults haven’t been fully explored, and whose wondrous magical items have great power yet are of unknown quality still reflect the fact that the inhabitants are living in a world quite literally not made for them.</p><p></p><p><strong>Kraia’s Children</strong> are the ideological opposites, and thus enemies, of the Council of Day. Their organization’s founding is more legend than fact, with the mysterious Kraia being more an idea than a person of someone who suffered greatly under the powerful and seeks to avoid anything like this happening again. Kraia’s Children are just barely an organization, being independent groups of people known as families. They come together via common causes and interpretations of Kraia’s example in preventing any one individual or group from attaining societal power over others. Thus they instead promote leaderless societies. But like so many other idealogues there are those who find excuses to bend their own rules in service of the greater end, and usually cells have an appointed leader known as an Eldest who helps coordinate efforts and is in theory supposed to be the servant of the group.</p><p></p><p>We have three example Families briefly described, one for each of the Chaotic alignments: the Chaotic Neutral group is in Edgegather, seeking to keep the city’s status quo as having no leader or unifying force, and all previous attempts by inside and outside powers to do so have met grisly ends. The Chaotic Good group are Families who operate in the Cult Riverlands, acting like mobile adventurers fighting the wicked gods who exploit their worshipers. The Chaotic Evil example is known as the Friendly Family, who intentionally target leaders motivated to help society’s worst off. The Friendly Family don’t use violence, instead relying on enchantment magic, propaganda, and psychological warfare to utterly shatter the hopes of people so that they won’t ever dare to fall for others who they see as falsely promising such noble things in order to seize power.</p><p></p><p><em>Thoughts:</em> Much like the Brother Clans, Kraia’s Children aren’t really one faction so much as a concept, closer in style to an archetype for NPCs like bandits or cultists. Like the Council of Day their underlying ideology is vague, but I find this easier to swallow on account that much like the IRL ideologies that preach such things they can hardly agree on even the basic consensus of their ethos. To say nothing on the subjective interpretations of nigh-mythologized historic figures and the many people seeking to promote their examples through their own personal lenses. The fact that different families of Kraia’s Children can even be antagonistic towards each other feels more like a feature than a bug or design flaw.</p><p></p><p><strong>Scavengers Vow</strong> is an alliance of thieves and other opportunistic and desperate folk who resist being reigned in by the social conventions of their parent societies. Their leader is a mysterious figure known as the Rat King who offers to train inexperienced thieves as new members. In exchange they take a vow of loyalty and regularly pay him Tithes. The Tithes are left in discrete locations to be taken back by Tithe-Gatherers, and while precious few scavengers have personally seen him he has the ability to enforce his rules for those who break them or spurn his graciousness. The book contradicts itself, saying that the organization’s secret language is known as Thieves Cant when earlier in the book it was called the Code. Regardless, the language is a useful uniting factor for the Scavengers Vow in communicating and coordinating with each other.</p><p></p><p>Beyond just training thieves, Scavengers Vow operates black markets where they can provide just about anything to those who know where to find them. They are similarly diverse in magical abilities, drawing from a little bit of everything but rarely having mighty archmages or high-level spells. Beyond paying dues, the group does have another rule of sorts: to not steal from someone who will die if you deprive them of said belongings. The claim is said to be rather practical in that if someone dies then you can’t steal from them again…but given this is a Prehistoric setting where most people are subsistence-level, this is much harder to do. Even something that wouldn’t be food, like a flint knife or some arrows, can be conceivably argued as vital to an individual in avoiding death by violence or starvation. Then again, the next paragraph also talks about how the scavengers are prone to treachery and infighting which is encouraged, for if one “isn’t ready to play dirty, they’re not ready to serve the King.” The fact that the Rat King and other prominent NPCs listed are evil-aligned make this one of the more villainous factions in this chapter.</p><p></p><p><em>Thoughts:</em> The Scavengers Vow are more or less Planegea’s Prehistoric Thieves Guild, marking off that oh-so-common fantasy archetype. While I’m aware this isn’t the only example of anachronistic terms in the book, “King” still strongly associates a feudal medieval concept in my mind and just doesn’t feel right for the setting. I don’t have much else to say about this group, as while it is serving a needed niche and archetype, Scavengers Vow doesn’t feel like it does anything too new or revolutionary upon which to comment.</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/WJrdF0F.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p><strong>Seerfall</strong> is a community in southeastern Planegea, a dwarven structure of carved halls linked by tunnels running around and over an intricate series of waterfalls. This particularly beautiful location has made it prime real estate for shamans and the mystically inclined, drawing people of various gods and belief systems together. Seerfall is a very diverse community due to this, and most inhabitants organize into social groups with a shared ethos or patron deity. The community has three leaders known as the Oracle, Warden, and Arbiter who deal with the day to day administration with followers loyal first and foremost to them. It is one of the most magical settlements in Planegea, and at all times of day a group of shamans are performing sacred ceremonies and rituals, the air thick with rhythmic music and the scents of incense. Many travelers and pilgrims provide gifts to Seerfall in exchange for divine magic and spiritual needs, and through such gifts the community has a rather unique form of self-sufficiency.</p><p></p><p>To the initial observer, Seerfall appears as a quiet, peaceful place. But the myriad religious and philosophical worldviews hides a conflict-ridden cauldron of back-handed, passive-aggressive disagreements and in-group out-group power plays. To help people find better common ground, the Warden arranged mandatory communal meals after midday in the largest hall and adjacent rooms.</p><p></p><p><em>Thoughts:</em> Given the broad concept of regional gods and hallows, Seerfall leaves me cold. It doesn’t feel like it does anything that the former example can’t do besides having a generic settlement of divine casters. The supposed intrigue and conflict can be neat, but we don’t get any explicit examples or ideas which limit its usefulness to me.</p><p></p><p><strong>The Sign of the Hare</strong> is a secret society of spellskins who seek to pool their resources to gain a greater understanding of magic. They view the Black Taboos as things to overcome, and the Hounds of the Blind Heaven keeping society from bettering themselves and Planegea as a whole. Their willful defiance of the world’s most-feared cosmic rules gave them their name, for like rabbits on the run they are ever seeking to elude the predatory Hounds. The Sign has a high attrition rate of members, preventing it from having a stable leadership, with the closest thing to a hierarchy being lucky and longer-lived teachers passing on their secrets to those seeking to learn by example. They are constantly on the move to prevent their identities and works from being too easily traced, and their knowledge is similarly decentralized. The Hares prevent their paintings from being concentrated in any one place lest the Hounds or other dangerous groups find them. Hares typically survive as traveling bands of teachers and apprentices, and their tattooed bodies paradoxically act as advertisements for those seeking the aid of spellskins. Hares are more than willing to use their magical talents in exchange for food and shelter, sometimes temporarily living by the clanfire before moving on.</p><p></p><p>Beyond Lake Littleblood, two other notable centers used by the Sign of the Hare include Delvetomb, a former aberrant vault whose monstrous inhabitants were driven off but whose inner workings and chambers are still being explored, and the Moon-Palace of Takash which was created as a self-sustaining magical home that teleports between born and dying moons. Although it would be a great boon, Takash is long-dead and its spells and invisible servants are beginning to malfunction.</p><p></p><p>But while they may have noble goals, their willing breaking of Black Taboos has caused more than a few to view spellskins to view other kinds of restrictions with the same disdain, including delving into dark magic. Such Hares are vilified by their own, and a breakaway faction known as the Recusance is detailed in the Threats section.</p><p></p><p><em>Thoughts:</em> I like the Sign of the Hare’s existence, as it shows that there are people in Planegea rebelling against the cosmic mandate of the Black Taboos rather than passively accepting them. In other settings such things would be regarded as immutable and irresistible, but I’m glad to see that the author is willing to provide ways to strain against such bindings.</p><p></p><p><strong>Venomguard</strong> is an alliance of monster hunters headquartered in Edgegather. Originally formed out of necessity to fight and drive back monsters that came out of the Venom Abyss via the local Unfall, the Venomguard’s purpose has broadened into becoming Planegea’s most famous band of monster hunters. They only seek out the best of the best, recruiting hunters who already have a reputation who are then gathered into larger groups who travel the land and take back trophies of their kills to the Lodge in Edgegather. The Venomguard’s leadership is cyclical, granted every midwinter to whichever group has the most impressive trophies. This tradition has caused otherwise cooperative hunters to become competitive, less willing to share their techniques in hopes of not being shown up by rivals. This manifests in a generational gap, as newer members are more driven by the idealistic purpose of the monster hunter in defending people and are thus most likely to share advice. Meanwhile, the most veteran monster hunters are tight-lipped, and regrettably inter-organization conflict has occurred between hunting parties eyeing the same trophy.</p><p></p><p>The Venomguard Lodge in Edgegather is their headquarters, but their use of chattercrests (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caviramus" target="_blank">caviramus</a> dinosaurs) who can mimic detailed speech lets them carry out long-distance non-magical communication with each other much like messenger pigeons. The Lodge also has a magical portal that can transport hunters to the farthest reaches of Planegea via a literal leap of faith off the cliffs into the jungle below.</p><p></p><p><em>Thoughts:</em> This is a very attractive faction for PCs to join, as going around the world to hunt and fight mighty prehistoric beasts is likely one of the stronger pulls for Planegea. The competition for trophies and leadership is a good means of providing sources of internal conflict beyond the external threats of monsters, too.</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/x2I87Mv.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p><strong>The Whale Clan</strong> is the largest clan of the seas of southern Planegea, centered around the archipelago of Scattersea. They worship the whale Mala Long-Song, and primarily live in nomadic assemblies of boats led by female authority figures. Every year they gather at the Hallow of Mala where their goddess rises to the surface to communicate with worshipers. Their culture encourages curiosity and continual learning about the world, often taught from childhood in the form of fables that involve “holding respect in one hand and questions in the other.” Popular recurring characters include Old Yesterday and Young Tomorrow living on a boat named Today, frequently asking and answering each other’s questions about life and the world.</p><p></p><p>The clan’s boats take on a variety of types, such as canoes, catamarans, rafts, barges, and even entire villages floating on the waves. They do build settlements on the shores of islands, but these aren’t permanent dwellings, instead setting sail for another and letting the old one be discovered by another group in a cyclical process. While this helps encourage them to take good care of such villages for future people who may come to them, there have been cases where raiders and other people of ill intent have used them as bases.</p><p></p><p>As a clan their people have a higher than usual amount of sorcerers, and rare among gods Mala tolerates druids among her number. As “the whale does not concern herself with barnacles,” the goddess is confident enough in her power to not be so depleted by their castings.</p><p></p><p>The clan of such a powerful goddess is bound to have enemies. Scattersea is far from a safe place, home to raiders known as sharksails as well as various undersea civilizations who can be friend or foe with as much variation in intent as Great Valley kinships. And there is of course the Sea Empire, where it is said in one of the clan’s three potential creation stories they were escaped slaves blessed by Mala to survive them and other dangers.</p><p></p><p><em>Thoughts:</em> This is another section I don’t have any strong feelings about one way or the other. The Whale Clan feels built for those seeking more maritime campaigns as the Great Valley is pretty solidly landlocked.</p><p></p><p><strong>Worldsingers</strong> are a hopeful good-aligned organization founded by the halfling chanter named Enkio. He viewed his magic as a gift, and used it where he could to uplift and heal. But he soon learned that there were those in the world who sought to silence his good works, so he chose to be quiet but not silent. He subtly taught other chanters of his example in his travels, eventually forming the Worldsingers. While they act as typical traveling do-gooder adventurers, Enkio has a grander ambition: to topple the Giant Empires, viewing them as the greatest source of suffering, and the Worldsingers follow suit in finding ways to sabotage their governments and work closely with Free Citadel. But their leader suddenly disappeared one day, leaving their leadership in the hands of his son (also named Enikio) and Yug’zesh and Tempo, who are a dragonborn and godspawn respectively.</p><p></p><p>The Worldsingers’ headquarters is an unassuming floating barge in Bitewater holding a hut, which when one goes inside finds themselves in a much larger floating hall of magically massive proportions. It holds typical high-magic things such as a great clanfire whose form and color changes to surrounding songs and stories, summoned spirit servants, and comfy guest rooms with windows looking into the underwater terrain beneath Bitewater. But its most valuable feature is a secret chamber of a magic clay map of Planegea, the most accurate and detailed known, that actively tracks Worldsingers on it along with points of light and darkness representing areas where hope or oppression are particularly strong.</p><p></p><p><em>Thoughts:</em> Secret society, general do-gooder heroes, a strong focus on bardic magic, inevitable comparisons with the Harpers are going to be made <a href="https://gnomestew.com/the-star-shamans-song-of-planegea-review/" target="_blank">as this Gnome Stew review once did.</a> And it’s for this reason I don’t like them as much as the other factions, for they feel too straightforward and simple. The other factions with similar noble goals are rife with tension of some kind or another, internal or external. For example, Free Citadel is divided on how to handle the Stone Empire and hasn’t yet fully mastered the secrets of their claimed home, the Venomguard does a valuable service in hunting dangerous creatures but is increasingly finding themselves at each other’s throats, the doctrine of Kraia can be used for great good as well as horrific evil, and the Sign of the Hare knowingly lives on a hair’s edge all the time and is at risk of seeing their own number violate more taboos than just the Black Taboos. As for the Worldsingers, their source of internal conflict is Enikio Jr. struggling with selfish desires to abandon his position to find his father. Which is an understandable one, but comparatively feels lacking in punch as they have two other NPCs who can stand up next in line.</p><p></p><p><strong>Thoughts So Far:</strong> While thirteen factions may feel a bit much for a Prehistoric Fantasy setting, they all help serve a unique niche within the world and provide PCs with many worthy groups to join…and some to oppose. You have a nice diversity in choice, ranging from morally neutral cultures and homelands, smaller organizations with explicit goals, and the right amount of shades of gray for enough of them that they can plausibly take on allied or enemy roles in a variety of campaigns.</p><p></p><p>I have noticed that more than a few factions have rules and ideals their members don’t often live up to, are based on an in-universe misunderstanding, or vague enough that they feel more like guidelines. I should note that this is not a criticism, as people IRL are frequently hypocritical both individually and as a society. In my opinion this actually makes several factions feel more realistic, for perfect individuals are boring and flaws help strengthen stories.</p><p></p><p><strong>Join us next time as we finish up the rest of this chapter in Part 2, Threats!</strong></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Libertad, post: 9255485, member: 6750502"] [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/b3d2lQy.png[/img] [b]Chapter 11: Factions & Threats, Part 1[/b][/center] Just as Chapter 10 discussed the world of Planegea, Chapter 11 discusses the more prominent people and individuals within it. Split into two sections of 13 entries each, [b]Factions[/b] details organizations of all kinds relevant to adventurers, while [b]Threats[/b] presents various antagonistic forces at work. While the latter category is more or less firmly in the villains and adversaries camp, there are some Factions who can serve this role depending on the campaign and party makeup. What makes Factions different is that all of them can plausibly have typical PC concepts as part of them: for instance, Scavengers Vow is your go-to Thieves’ Guild for roguish PCs, the Worldsingers are a good-aligned secret society heavily made up of Chanters, and the Brother Clans’ prominence in the Great Valley make for great “starting kingdoms.” Most factions provide some commonalities: Beliefs & Behavior which include simple sentences of moral outlooks and thus alignments, Leaders for some important NPCs, Magic & Matter indicating common magical practices, mundane skills, and resources, and Locations indicating strongholds and social gathering spots. I won’t be going into detail on each such commonality, as this is already a long chapter. Instead I will cover each faction in broad terms to try and give you an overall sense of them. [b]The Brother Clans[/b] are three different factions, grouped together but also spoken of individually. As the largest and most powerful clans of the Great Valley, they hold a lot of sway in central Planegea. Many generations ago three gods appeared to a group of travelers, promising them and their families aid in exchange for service. They were Urhosh the Bear, Kho the Ape, and Glelh the Lion, who honored their word and helped them expand their numbers and reach throughout the land. Although the Brother Clans are quite autonomous in terms of leadership at the local level, there are some cultural similarities. Each clan is collectively made up of several thousand people, but at the local level most people live in groups of 10-50 known as “camps.” Camps are hunter-gatherer societies, and camps of the same clan closely interact with each other in webs of alliances and trade. The god of each clan has a hallow and surrounding village known as a hallowcamp, the latter of which are ruled by a respective chieftain and high shaman. Here many chieftains, elders, shamans, and other figures of importance meet to work with and even subtly against each other. The Brother Clans are not closed societies. Outsiders are welcome to join provided they pay allegiance to the patron deity and have skills to contribute to the camp/clan’s survival. One of the major reasons for the three Clans’ ascendance is their domestication of many types of animals; not just dogs, but cats, dinosaurs, horses, and others are common, and naturally each clan has close bonds with the animals of their patron god. What prevents them from being a truly unified power is that each Clan are enemies of the other two. Conflict takes place more at the local level, where there are border raids, spies, and even familial blood feuds. To ensure some level of reconciliation and safety, there are specially marked areas known as sanctuaries which are neutral zones where one cannot be killed as part of a vengeance plot. Additionally, the Brother Clans also have premeditated and ritualistic forms of warfare undertaken during summer, where rules of combat are followed and are primarily used to settle disputes over land, resources, and personal vendettas. Traders are allowed to travel to the lands of other clans provided that they clearly mark themselves as such, and when influential figures of rival clans wish to engage in diplomacy they do so in neutral territory such as Edgegather or Seerfall.* *Given the location of these places on the map, they don’t seem the best places for the three clans to meet barring some unmentioned portals to Nod for rapid transit. In covering the clans individually, we start with the Bear Clan. Like their god Urhosh they place great priority on physical prowess as a virtue, and they practice many games, ceremonies, and other competitions to display feats of athleticism and might. Their other celebrated virtue is organizing large communal feasts, where hunters and gatherers gather as much as they can, and in some cases starve themselves before a planned meal so that they can spend more time eating with others.* When it comes to resources, equipment, and magic they have a surplus of heavy furs and protective wear, beehives which are harvested for honey, abjuration and healing spells learned from dwarven mages, a preference for heavy bludgeoning weapons, and a larger than usual number of half-giants. They’re also one of the few non-giant groups in Planegea who have a prison: the Fortress of Bees is a walled structure holding captives. *This sounds rather unhealthy. Couldn’t people who get full first at the table just talk and converse with others? That still helps the social aspect of feasts. Then again, we have monks who do the same in order to grow more powerful. The Ape Clan prizes cleverness and quick-thinking in both mind and body. Music is an important aspect of the clan, and while ritual drumming is used for soothing their god Kho Many-Arms, other instruments such as flutes are also popular. They are known to make complicated obstacle courses where contestants race against each other to complete various tasks, and such games always draw a crowd of peers. Their devices and personal belongings are some of the most ingenious, ranging from lighter-than-usual objects, easily collapsible items such as foldable chairs and ladders, camouflaged clothing with numerous hidden pockets, and multipurpose gear that combines two or more objects and tools. They also have close alliances with the elves of Nod, making them quite spread out and with a higher than normal number of elves and half-elves among their camps, and are known for casting spells that aid in movement and magic items that can be used by non-mages. In case you couldn’t guess already, the Apes are the artificers/bard/rogues of the Clans, with the Bears the warriors/clerics. The Ape clans are the most nomadic, which combined with their Nod portals mean that they are constantly on the move and have few regular meeting places. The exceptions are places such as Nodhold, a subterranean nexus of dream-portals with a misty grove of olive trees concealing their surface entrances, or the wooden Tower of Hope bordering the Saltwood which is regularly expanded and serves as a multipurpose fortress/home/obstacle course whose continual additions represent an ideal of a brighter future. Finally, the Lion Clan prizes the senses in all its forms, from the creation of beautiful works of art, the prescient ability to see far and predict future events, and even to endure pain and unpleasantness rather than shy away from it. Their works of art tend to be alterations of existing objects or based off of observances in daily life, such as dyed fabrics, figurines in the likenesses of people and creatures, weapons and armor with animal shapes carved into them, and individual expression with personalized assortments of feathered and beaded jewelry and tattoos. They are renowned for their divination and enchantment magic, and their shamans know special combinations of plants and mushrooms that can trigger spiritual journeys and alter or enhance the mind. Through such spells they are famous for predicting important omens such as the weather and migratory patterns. And much like the Bear Clan, the Lions also have a prison of sorts known as Silence Crater, formed from a meteor whose magic causes all sound within to be muted. The clan takes prisoners holding valuable information there, where they are subjected to tortuous magics by the cruelest Lions to reveal their secrets. Saurians are a common kinship, who tend to find common ground with the clan’s ability to endure and see things for the long term. [i]Thoughts:[/i] I like how the Brother Clans are all given their own niches, both in terms of cultural flavor but also mapping closely to favored classes and in some cases kinships. This helps communicate to new players what Clans are most appropriate for their ideas: “pick this option if you want to be a big hulking barbarian, pick this option if you want to be a sneaky fey mage, etc.” That being said, the Clans’ relative adversity is my major complaint. Prior chapters painted a picture of a more overtly hostile relationship, such as commonly-held desires to outright destroy each other or that meadow with butterfly-souls, which wouldn’t lend itself well to multi-Clan parties without some interesting backstories or adventure setup. Chapter 11 still keeps the enmities, but has it with a more subtle “Cold War” vibe. The need for sanctuary safe havens, ritualized warfare, and welcoming traders helps make such parties more plausible and organic. [b]The Council of Day[/b] is a secret society of elders and mages from various clans in the Great Valley who seek to unify their peoples against the Giant Empires and other threats. In order to better defend against them, the Council hopes to create a centralized alliance that can fight the giants off as a unified force. To that end they seek to support particular leaders who they believe can accomplish this, prioritizing stable multi-generational governments and strong authoritative personalities. It matters little if said leaders are tyrants who lead by fear or genuinely-loved leaders whose subjects admire them; if they can hold onto power and encourage unity over division, the Council supports them. The Council of Day is arranged into two sections: the ruling Inner Council who coordinate information and execute orders to the Outer Council, who are made up of messengers who ingratiate themselves into advisory capacities throughout the Great Valley. Sending spells are used for long-distance communication, and they also have pendants whose stones can be rearranged to glow as a sort of secret symbol. Instead of having a physical headquarters, they make use of a series of interconnected teleportation-linked rooms, and whose doors can be found in unlikely uninhabited locations. [i]Thoughts:[/i] The Council of Day rates rather low for me. They are very much power for the sake of it without any explicit ideology beyond “become like the giants in order to defeat them.” One thing I did notice is that their use of pendants with sun motifs is due to respecting the power of the Day-Star and wanting to emulate that as a worthy lesson. The book does present this as more a belief than a fact, as the daily star duels more or less stand in contrast to their unification ethos. It’s for this reason I believe that they’re designed this way on purpose as a character flaw, albeit one with justifiable goals. Something which we see rather regularly among the factions as will be shown later on in this post. But when compared to the other factions or even the Brother Clan’s outlooks, they just feel weak to me. [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/fTuxRIO.png[/img][/center] [b]Direstaves,[/b] so named for their huge guiding staves to herd animals, are a loose culture of nomadic people in the Dire Grazelands. For unknown reasons the animal life in this region is much larger than their counterparts elsewhere in Planegea, but this hasn’t prevented local clans from finding new and innovative ways to domesticate them. Much like the Brother Clans of the Great Valley, the Direstaves have common cultural values and social structures while being locally divided and autonomous. This last part is even more so as the Direstaves have no great god holding vast territories, and each individual herd is entirely self-governing whose leaders are usually temporarily chosen by majority consensus. Direstaff communities usually live with their herd animals in one of three ways: in “slingcamps” which are oversized hammocks slung along their lengths, “beastbacks” which are huts and platforms with connected rope bridges for the largest of the largest creatures, or “walkalongs” where the people travel on foot with the animals. From aurochs to mammoths to dinosaurs, the Direstaves’ herd beasts are their literal lifelines. Not only do they supply them with food, milk, and all that can be made from their carcasses, their sheer size makes many clans use them as mobile homes. Their culture reflects this, from holidays based on important life cycles of said animals as well as the belief that one should be free to go and live wherever they please. Their most common kinds of spells relate to the care of animals, and for this reason druids and rangers are not only common, they’re socially accepted, and magic has been used to breed supernatural varieties of common animals. Due to their proximity, the Direstaves have a great enmity for the Fire Empire. The giants are keen to raid the Dire Grazelands for slaves and also hunt their herd animals. But the Empire doesn’t intend on an outright conquest and occupation, for they find it easier to let the smaller humanoids do the bulk of the labor in raising and caring for the beasts and taking them when they’re big and juicy enough to eat. Beyond just the fire giants, another common threat are yellow herds, or communities that have “gone wrong” such as falling into dark magic and thus are dangers to those they come across. [i]Thoughts:[/i] The Direstaves are one of my favorite factions. Larger than life animals and dinosaurs are a mainstay of Prehistoric media, and they make for interesting adventure locations. I mean, who wouldn’t want to have a mobile sauropod home base? Their independent free-spirited nature and emphasis on democratically-chosen leaders is another thing I can see as a strong selling point to players. The tale of [b]Free Citadel[/b] is something almost everyone in Planegea has heard of, and to many who fear the giants it serves as a shining beacon of hope. The hope that oppressors of all kinds can be overthrown. Its current administration is recent, having taken place within a human lifespan, where slaves of the Stone Empire city of Dakru spent a year organizing a long-term plan to violently overthrow their giant captors. This revolution succeeded in a single day, and once every giant was slain or chased out. The people helped themselves to the many spoils of luxury and artifice once enjoyed by their captors, such as finger rings repurposed into belts. Today the settlement is called Free Citadel, ruled over by the orcish Usurper Queen and her advisors in the Revolutionary Court. While she listens to many, the Queen’s word is final. Due to being technically within the territory of the Stone Empire, Free Citadel doesn’t see many traders beyond some brave souls sailing the Eel River. It’s a high-risk, high-reward job, for the giants had literal vaults of goods beneath the city, many of which have still yet to be open and serve as a ready source of “dungeon crawl” style adventures. Such vaults are also home to a lot of preserved food that could feed a giant community for decades, but this nonrenewable resource is a growing concern for Free Citadel in finding alternatives. Other problems facing the community include fear for when the rest of the Stone Empire will retaliate, as they uncharacteristically have let the city stand for far too long. The Citadel is torn between two factions on whether to use espionage and covert sabotage or overt military conquest. The Usurper Queen favors the former, but a prominent revolutionary known as Takluk the Beheader supports the latter…and should he not get his way soon, he has contemplated a coup. There’s also the fact that the city’s sole remaining giant known as the Prisoner has made himself useful by offering the magic and secrets of his people. Despite being paralyzed from the neck down and thus not much of a threat, there are those among the younger generation who’ve come about sympathizing with him and are contemplating setting him free. And as the Prisoner is Neutral Evil in alignment, he surely hasn’t come about seeing the error of his ways! [i]Thoughts:[/i] Although it’s quite distinctly un-Stone Age as a PC faction or location, I love the general idea behind Free City of formerly enslaved people finding themselves in a hopeful yet uncertain future. While their lot in life has obviously improved, there are myriad problems and thus adventuring opportunities present in securing their safety and freedom. The fact that the city is sized for Huge inhabitants, whose vaults haven’t been fully explored, and whose wondrous magical items have great power yet are of unknown quality still reflect the fact that the inhabitants are living in a world quite literally not made for them. [b]Kraia’s Children[/b] are the ideological opposites, and thus enemies, of the Council of Day. Their organization’s founding is more legend than fact, with the mysterious Kraia being more an idea than a person of someone who suffered greatly under the powerful and seeks to avoid anything like this happening again. Kraia’s Children are just barely an organization, being independent groups of people known as families. They come together via common causes and interpretations of Kraia’s example in preventing any one individual or group from attaining societal power over others. Thus they instead promote leaderless societies. But like so many other idealogues there are those who find excuses to bend their own rules in service of the greater end, and usually cells have an appointed leader known as an Eldest who helps coordinate efforts and is in theory supposed to be the servant of the group. We have three example Families briefly described, one for each of the Chaotic alignments: the Chaotic Neutral group is in Edgegather, seeking to keep the city’s status quo as having no leader or unifying force, and all previous attempts by inside and outside powers to do so have met grisly ends. The Chaotic Good group are Families who operate in the Cult Riverlands, acting like mobile adventurers fighting the wicked gods who exploit their worshipers. The Chaotic Evil example is known as the Friendly Family, who intentionally target leaders motivated to help society’s worst off. The Friendly Family don’t use violence, instead relying on enchantment magic, propaganda, and psychological warfare to utterly shatter the hopes of people so that they won’t ever dare to fall for others who they see as falsely promising such noble things in order to seize power. [i]Thoughts:[/i] Much like the Brother Clans, Kraia’s Children aren’t really one faction so much as a concept, closer in style to an archetype for NPCs like bandits or cultists. Like the Council of Day their underlying ideology is vague, but I find this easier to swallow on account that much like the IRL ideologies that preach such things they can hardly agree on even the basic consensus of their ethos. To say nothing on the subjective interpretations of nigh-mythologized historic figures and the many people seeking to promote their examples through their own personal lenses. The fact that different families of Kraia’s Children can even be antagonistic towards each other feels more like a feature than a bug or design flaw. [b]Scavengers Vow[/b] is an alliance of thieves and other opportunistic and desperate folk who resist being reigned in by the social conventions of their parent societies. Their leader is a mysterious figure known as the Rat King who offers to train inexperienced thieves as new members. In exchange they take a vow of loyalty and regularly pay him Tithes. The Tithes are left in discrete locations to be taken back by Tithe-Gatherers, and while precious few scavengers have personally seen him he has the ability to enforce his rules for those who break them or spurn his graciousness. The book contradicts itself, saying that the organization’s secret language is known as Thieves Cant when earlier in the book it was called the Code. Regardless, the language is a useful uniting factor for the Scavengers Vow in communicating and coordinating with each other. Beyond just training thieves, Scavengers Vow operates black markets where they can provide just about anything to those who know where to find them. They are similarly diverse in magical abilities, drawing from a little bit of everything but rarely having mighty archmages or high-level spells. Beyond paying dues, the group does have another rule of sorts: to not steal from someone who will die if you deprive them of said belongings. The claim is said to be rather practical in that if someone dies then you can’t steal from them again…but given this is a Prehistoric setting where most people are subsistence-level, this is much harder to do. Even something that wouldn’t be food, like a flint knife or some arrows, can be conceivably argued as vital to an individual in avoiding death by violence or starvation. Then again, the next paragraph also talks about how the scavengers are prone to treachery and infighting which is encouraged, for if one “isn’t ready to play dirty, they’re not ready to serve the King.” The fact that the Rat King and other prominent NPCs listed are evil-aligned make this one of the more villainous factions in this chapter. [i]Thoughts:[/i] The Scavengers Vow are more or less Planegea’s Prehistoric Thieves Guild, marking off that oh-so-common fantasy archetype. While I’m aware this isn’t the only example of anachronistic terms in the book, “King” still strongly associates a feudal medieval concept in my mind and just doesn’t feel right for the setting. I don’t have much else to say about this group, as while it is serving a needed niche and archetype, Scavengers Vow doesn’t feel like it does anything too new or revolutionary upon which to comment. [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/WJrdF0F.png[/img][/center] [b]Seerfall[/b] is a community in southeastern Planegea, a dwarven structure of carved halls linked by tunnels running around and over an intricate series of waterfalls. This particularly beautiful location has made it prime real estate for shamans and the mystically inclined, drawing people of various gods and belief systems together. Seerfall is a very diverse community due to this, and most inhabitants organize into social groups with a shared ethos or patron deity. The community has three leaders known as the Oracle, Warden, and Arbiter who deal with the day to day administration with followers loyal first and foremost to them. It is one of the most magical settlements in Planegea, and at all times of day a group of shamans are performing sacred ceremonies and rituals, the air thick with rhythmic music and the scents of incense. Many travelers and pilgrims provide gifts to Seerfall in exchange for divine magic and spiritual needs, and through such gifts the community has a rather unique form of self-sufficiency. To the initial observer, Seerfall appears as a quiet, peaceful place. But the myriad religious and philosophical worldviews hides a conflict-ridden cauldron of back-handed, passive-aggressive disagreements and in-group out-group power plays. To help people find better common ground, the Warden arranged mandatory communal meals after midday in the largest hall and adjacent rooms. [i]Thoughts:[/i] Given the broad concept of regional gods and hallows, Seerfall leaves me cold. It doesn’t feel like it does anything that the former example can’t do besides having a generic settlement of divine casters. The supposed intrigue and conflict can be neat, but we don’t get any explicit examples or ideas which limit its usefulness to me. [b]The Sign of the Hare[/b] is a secret society of spellskins who seek to pool their resources to gain a greater understanding of magic. They view the Black Taboos as things to overcome, and the Hounds of the Blind Heaven keeping society from bettering themselves and Planegea as a whole. Their willful defiance of the world’s most-feared cosmic rules gave them their name, for like rabbits on the run they are ever seeking to elude the predatory Hounds. The Sign has a high attrition rate of members, preventing it from having a stable leadership, with the closest thing to a hierarchy being lucky and longer-lived teachers passing on their secrets to those seeking to learn by example. They are constantly on the move to prevent their identities and works from being too easily traced, and their knowledge is similarly decentralized. The Hares prevent their paintings from being concentrated in any one place lest the Hounds or other dangerous groups find them. Hares typically survive as traveling bands of teachers and apprentices, and their tattooed bodies paradoxically act as advertisements for those seeking the aid of spellskins. Hares are more than willing to use their magical talents in exchange for food and shelter, sometimes temporarily living by the clanfire before moving on. Beyond Lake Littleblood, two other notable centers used by the Sign of the Hare include Delvetomb, a former aberrant vault whose monstrous inhabitants were driven off but whose inner workings and chambers are still being explored, and the Moon-Palace of Takash which was created as a self-sustaining magical home that teleports between born and dying moons. Although it would be a great boon, Takash is long-dead and its spells and invisible servants are beginning to malfunction. But while they may have noble goals, their willing breaking of Black Taboos has caused more than a few to view spellskins to view other kinds of restrictions with the same disdain, including delving into dark magic. Such Hares are vilified by their own, and a breakaway faction known as the Recusance is detailed in the Threats section. [i]Thoughts:[/i] I like the Sign of the Hare’s existence, as it shows that there are people in Planegea rebelling against the cosmic mandate of the Black Taboos rather than passively accepting them. In other settings such things would be regarded as immutable and irresistible, but I’m glad to see that the author is willing to provide ways to strain against such bindings. [b]Venomguard[/b] is an alliance of monster hunters headquartered in Edgegather. Originally formed out of necessity to fight and drive back monsters that came out of the Venom Abyss via the local Unfall, the Venomguard’s purpose has broadened into becoming Planegea’s most famous band of monster hunters. They only seek out the best of the best, recruiting hunters who already have a reputation who are then gathered into larger groups who travel the land and take back trophies of their kills to the Lodge in Edgegather. The Venomguard’s leadership is cyclical, granted every midwinter to whichever group has the most impressive trophies. This tradition has caused otherwise cooperative hunters to become competitive, less willing to share their techniques in hopes of not being shown up by rivals. This manifests in a generational gap, as newer members are more driven by the idealistic purpose of the monster hunter in defending people and are thus most likely to share advice. Meanwhile, the most veteran monster hunters are tight-lipped, and regrettably inter-organization conflict has occurred between hunting parties eyeing the same trophy. The Venomguard Lodge in Edgegather is their headquarters, but their use of chattercrests ([url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caviramus]caviramus[/url] dinosaurs) who can mimic detailed speech lets them carry out long-distance non-magical communication with each other much like messenger pigeons. The Lodge also has a magical portal that can transport hunters to the farthest reaches of Planegea via a literal leap of faith off the cliffs into the jungle below. [i]Thoughts:[/i] This is a very attractive faction for PCs to join, as going around the world to hunt and fight mighty prehistoric beasts is likely one of the stronger pulls for Planegea. The competition for trophies and leadership is a good means of providing sources of internal conflict beyond the external threats of monsters, too. [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/x2I87Mv.png[/img][/center] [b]The Whale Clan[/b] is the largest clan of the seas of southern Planegea, centered around the archipelago of Scattersea. They worship the whale Mala Long-Song, and primarily live in nomadic assemblies of boats led by female authority figures. Every year they gather at the Hallow of Mala where their goddess rises to the surface to communicate with worshipers. Their culture encourages curiosity and continual learning about the world, often taught from childhood in the form of fables that involve “holding respect in one hand and questions in the other.” Popular recurring characters include Old Yesterday and Young Tomorrow living on a boat named Today, frequently asking and answering each other’s questions about life and the world. The clan’s boats take on a variety of types, such as canoes, catamarans, rafts, barges, and even entire villages floating on the waves. They do build settlements on the shores of islands, but these aren’t permanent dwellings, instead setting sail for another and letting the old one be discovered by another group in a cyclical process. While this helps encourage them to take good care of such villages for future people who may come to them, there have been cases where raiders and other people of ill intent have used them as bases. As a clan their people have a higher than usual amount of sorcerers, and rare among gods Mala tolerates druids among her number. As “the whale does not concern herself with barnacles,” the goddess is confident enough in her power to not be so depleted by their castings. The clan of such a powerful goddess is bound to have enemies. Scattersea is far from a safe place, home to raiders known as sharksails as well as various undersea civilizations who can be friend or foe with as much variation in intent as Great Valley kinships. And there is of course the Sea Empire, where it is said in one of the clan’s three potential creation stories they were escaped slaves blessed by Mala to survive them and other dangers. [i]Thoughts:[/i] This is another section I don’t have any strong feelings about one way or the other. The Whale Clan feels built for those seeking more maritime campaigns as the Great Valley is pretty solidly landlocked. [b]Worldsingers[/b] are a hopeful good-aligned organization founded by the halfling chanter named Enkio. He viewed his magic as a gift, and used it where he could to uplift and heal. But he soon learned that there were those in the world who sought to silence his good works, so he chose to be quiet but not silent. He subtly taught other chanters of his example in his travels, eventually forming the Worldsingers. While they act as typical traveling do-gooder adventurers, Enkio has a grander ambition: to topple the Giant Empires, viewing them as the greatest source of suffering, and the Worldsingers follow suit in finding ways to sabotage their governments and work closely with Free Citadel. But their leader suddenly disappeared one day, leaving their leadership in the hands of his son (also named Enikio) and Yug’zesh and Tempo, who are a dragonborn and godspawn respectively. The Worldsingers’ headquarters is an unassuming floating barge in Bitewater holding a hut, which when one goes inside finds themselves in a much larger floating hall of magically massive proportions. It holds typical high-magic things such as a great clanfire whose form and color changes to surrounding songs and stories, summoned spirit servants, and comfy guest rooms with windows looking into the underwater terrain beneath Bitewater. But its most valuable feature is a secret chamber of a magic clay map of Planegea, the most accurate and detailed known, that actively tracks Worldsingers on it along with points of light and darkness representing areas where hope or oppression are particularly strong. [i]Thoughts:[/i] Secret society, general do-gooder heroes, a strong focus on bardic magic, inevitable comparisons with the Harpers are going to be made [url=https://gnomestew.com/the-star-shamans-song-of-planegea-review/]as this Gnome Stew review once did.[/url] And it’s for this reason I don’t like them as much as the other factions, for they feel too straightforward and simple. The other factions with similar noble goals are rife with tension of some kind or another, internal or external. For example, Free Citadel is divided on how to handle the Stone Empire and hasn’t yet fully mastered the secrets of their claimed home, the Venomguard does a valuable service in hunting dangerous creatures but is increasingly finding themselves at each other’s throats, the doctrine of Kraia can be used for great good as well as horrific evil, and the Sign of the Hare knowingly lives on a hair’s edge all the time and is at risk of seeing their own number violate more taboos than just the Black Taboos. As for the Worldsingers, their source of internal conflict is Enikio Jr. struggling with selfish desires to abandon his position to find his father. Which is an understandable one, but comparatively feels lacking in punch as they have two other NPCs who can stand up next in line. [b]Thoughts So Far:[/b] While thirteen factions may feel a bit much for a Prehistoric Fantasy setting, they all help serve a unique niche within the world and provide PCs with many worthy groups to join…and some to oppose. You have a nice diversity in choice, ranging from morally neutral cultures and homelands, smaller organizations with explicit goals, and the right amount of shades of gray for enough of them that they can plausibly take on allied or enemy roles in a variety of campaigns. I have noticed that more than a few factions have rules and ideals their members don’t often live up to, are based on an in-universe misunderstanding, or vague enough that they feel more like guidelines. I should note that this is not a criticism, as people IRL are frequently hypocritical both individually and as a society. In my opinion this actually makes several factions feel more realistic, for perfect individuals are boring and flaws help strengthen stories. [b]Join us next time as we finish up the rest of this chapter in Part 2, Threats![/b] [/QUOTE]
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[Let's Read] The Star-Shaman's Song of Planegea: Dungeons & Dragons, Prehistoric Style
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