NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rune" data-source="post: 6090514" data-attributes="member: 67">You mean, something like a "streamlined sandbox?" <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />In my longish (8ish year?) campaign, pretty much every NPC the PCs have met (or haven't) is their own faction!  Quite a few of them have been friendly to the PCs at one time or another, but always with their own motivations.Examples:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The White Waker (an undead BBEG), whom the party has never really met (or have they?).  Whatever's wrong in the world, they're pretty sure this entity is behind it.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Darkguard (a religious order split from the City of Skirmish's military, though still claiming to fall within the state religion of the Church of Rotdoc).  These guys have always been bad news for the party.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Matt (a scout for the darkguard's non-religious military arm--his buddy, Locke, got killed).  Matt fought the party, but lived to tell about it--although he lost his leg in the process.  When the cleric got that leg restored, he became an occasional ally.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Cedric (a fighter with a code of honor).  Early in the campaign, Cedric was under the mistaken impression that the party was guilty of destroying a town and sought to hunt them down.  The paladin won him over with diplomatic reasoning and he became a staunch ally to their long-term goals.  Later, they (that is, the second generation party) cut his head off at his own request, but that's another story, entirely...</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Celest (the fallen paladin).  She gave her holy rapier to the paladin.  Also, the party burned her town of exiles down.  And overran it with spiders.  But then they found a new home for the townsfolk, so everything was all right.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Elven Army.  That home for the exiles?  Adjunct to the paladin's home-town of Dewhollow.  In the xenophobic, isolationalist elven lands.  Fortunately, the party was able to avoid bloodshed when the army came to run them out by challenging the (elderly) elven captain to an honorable duel.  Which, of course, he lost.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Claire (the devout Cleric of Rotdoc).  Petulant, irrational, dogmatic and downright frustrating, she's been the party's bane from the very early days of the campaign.  And yet, although she is sometimes more charge than ally, she is steadfastly loyal, even after being excommunicated (and, ultimately, executed) by her Church because of the PCs.  And, now, they're trying set her up to become Pope (yes, that means she's alive again), now that the Dopplegangers are being rooted out.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Dopplegangers in the Church of Rotdoc.  Who to trust?  How high up does the infiltration go, anyway?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The White Champion ("Paladin" of legend).  A smite-happy champion of the Church of Rotdoc who does not seem to follow any other code, nor even Church direction.  The PCs have always viewed him as a useful--but potentially dangerous--tool.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Spider God.  One of the PCs (the most villainous one) made a very distasteful deal with this collective entity.  Bad news all around.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Collector (a barbed devil), a collector of creatures.  Getting through his lair required some difficult decisions to be made.  Because, really, corruption is a devil's game, isn't it?  The PCs ended up handing him off to the cleric's god, so they don't really know what happened to him after that.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Crone (is it woman or a man?).  Assumed to be an ancient elf (that, is, until s/he died and turned into the Cronetree) and generally a dispenser of information (in a frustrating, rhyming, riddling, way).  The players have known her for almost the entire campaign, and haven't even begun to fathom the depths of her agenda.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Beatrice (the half-orc Waterheart monk). The yin part of the half-orc monk's training.  Peace-loving and wise.  Also raised the half-orc children rescued from the Undead Eater in the Cyst at the Temple of the Burning Fist (one of whom is now a PC).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Khan (the half-orc ex-Burning Fist/drunken master monk).  The yang part of the half-orc monk's training.  Temperamental and rash.  Last seen as a spirit in the Well of Souls.</li> </ul>I could go on and on.  There oh so many.  I think the reason I have so many different factions, as it were, is because I never throw NPCs away when their immediate use to the plot is over.  They just keep coming back!</blockquote>

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