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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 8767330" data-attributes="member: 6785785">So I looked at my mind-map and some of the notes I made before beginning play, and here's a bit of a summary.PC Related Factions and NPCsSo during character creation, each player receives and/or chooses Factions and NPCs they're to which they're connected. For example, our Knight PC needed to choose his order (Knightly orders in Spire are more like biker gangs than the ideal chivalrous brotherhood) and each is pledged to a pub. So the player created "The Order of the Wolf and Hound". I created an NPC head of the order and made her a Bond of the Knight (a Bond being an actual mechanical thing in the game, with a rating that indicates the strength of the relationship). Character creation also dictates that the Knight choose a Squire as another Bond, and must decide if the Squire is optimistic or pessimistic. The player created Nathan, an optimistic and bright-eyed Squire. We played this (doomed) kid as an overeager intern, willing to do anything that was asked of him. Also, once we began play and the PCs made their way to the district of Red Row (a district we decided they grew up in, but had been away from for many years during their Durance, or period of indentured service to the high-elves) the Knight used his ability to declare that he knew a Pub in the area where he knew the owner. So we created the Lone Wolf Inn & Pub, owned by Jenkins, a former member of The Order of the Wolf and Hound. This became their base of operations in the area. The other PCs had similar Bonds that needed to be chosen, and some Factions that went along with them. Additionally, the PCs are all members of a clandestine resistance organization called the Ministry of Our Hidden Misstress, and they have a contact in that organization. So even before we got to anything I prepared as GM, we already had about four relevant Factions and about a dozen NPCs. All of these served as resources for the players to bring to bear during play. Setting/GM Factions and NPCsThe setting itself has many Factions suggested in the book. Many of these are related to the functions of the city.... the City Watch and the Solar Guard and the Paladins are all related to the keeping of order, for example, though each has a bit of a different niche; the City Watch is like beat cops and are most often drow, the Solar Guard is like the religious Inquisition of the high elves, and the Paladins are the enforcers that hunt down heretics and dissidents. I had one Paladin in mind as a possible foil for the PCs, so I named her, and gave her some details, and jotted down some other names as possible members of each Faction, but was not committed to any of them. Then the district of Red Row is a crime riddled location, with three major criminal organizations in a kind of delicate detente. I liked this idea as it seemed ripe for exploitation and disruption by the PCs, so I ran with it. Each of those Factions had a handful of NPCs to go along with it. In addition to these three criminal Factions, there were about four to six related Factions. Most of these were suggested by the books, but they suited things so well I felt no need to alter them. I gave one Faction a bit more specificity, but otherwise ran them largely as presented. All told I think that at the start of play, we had about 12 Factions in play to some extent, and probably about 25 NPCs, though many of them at this point were loosely sketched at most. Probably about 15 or so that would be immediately relevant to play. The amount of prep this consisted of was maybe a couple hours' worth of work. I did spend some time reading the book, and if we counted that, then it would go up, for sure. But aside from reading, all I did was jot down some ideas on a page, consider them, and then put them all into the mind-map, which as I said was my primary reference during play. Spire NPCs do have stat blocks, but they also provide a whole bunch of generic blocks like "City Watch Guard" or "Retroengineer" that I just cut and pasted these onto two or three pages so I had them at hand instead of having to flip through the book during play. So my mind-map, three pages of stat blocks, and the map were all I used during play.</blockquote>

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