Cruthanarc: The Infected Colonies Part 5

Now that I have established what Cruthanarc is and why Cruthanarc is, I have to get to the nitty-gritty of how and why various armies would be trying to kill each other on the surface of a planet nobody wants to be on. A very basic scenario would simply be a troop carrier or similar ship has an accident, gets shot down, or is otherwise forced to land on the surface. This would then unleash the locals to hunt down and find/destroy all the survivors.

While this does have its appeal, it lacks a larger storyline and limits me to always having to put the Infected Colony army on the table. I would much rather have multiple options for all the combatants. This leads me to imagine that the ship that is shot down over Cruthanarc has in its possession some kind of MacGuffin. For those unfamiliar, a MacGuffin is a plot device first used in film. It usually takes the form of an object that is necessary for the motivation of the characters. The kicker is that the MacGuffin is meaningless and insignificant in every other way.

In other words, it really doesn’t matter what was on the ship that breaks apart into multiple pieces as it hits the atmosphere of Cruthanarc. What matters is that it is important enough to several factions off world to risk contracting an incurable disease in order to retrieve it. The fun part of the creative process, especially one where play is concerned, the real nature of the MacGuffin may very well develop as the campaign to retrieve it progresses.

To begin with, I want to start with five such factions, because five fits neatly into a Wu Xing Diagram. Here are the five contenders and how I understand them in context of my version of the Sirius Sector:

1. Human Imperium: Originally refugees from a war that destroyed their home world, humanity has quickly spread throughout the sector, becoming one of the most powerful political and military factions in the sector.
2. Infected Colonies: A semi-autonomous human colony world that has willingly adopted a ritualized surveillance state in order to monitor an incurable disease that affects everyone who steps on the planet in an attempt to prevent the disease from getting off world. 
3. Robot Legion: The death-knell of the Elven Empire, this non-biological race nonetheless find themselves resource poor because their home worlds suffered a millennia of elvish decadence. 
4. Eternal Dynasty: Once an uplifted slave race created by the elves, what is now called the Eternal Dynasty successfully rose up against their masters; however, infighting allowed the elves to drive them out of the Sirius Sector. They have recently returned to Sirius united by a mysterious dynastic force.
5. Alien Hive: Believed to be the result of another uplifting experiment, the Alien Hive is a collection of genetic misfits all controlled by a single powerful psychic mind. 

Here is how these five fit into the Wu Xing Diagram:

Human Imperium

• Friendly: Humans seem to be unusually susceptible to the influence of the Hive Mind. This trait also gives fuel to the Inquisition's anti-alien agenda.
• Enmity: The Eternal Dynasty has proven to be the greatest obstacle to Imperial hegemony in the Sirius Sector. 

Infected Colonies 

• Friendly: Cruthanarc is dependent upon Imperial help to maintain their self-imposed quarantine.
• Enmity: Given the influence the Hive has on human minds, the more paranoid of the Cruthanarc hierarchy openly wonder if the Alien Hive is the next step in the disease's evolution. 

Robot Legion 

• Friendly: The Legion admires the rigid social controls that Cruthanarc has developed, it makes them predictable and contained. The Infected Colony is also willing to trade with them, since the robots are incapable of contracting the disease.
• Enmity: The Legion deeply mistrusts biologicals because they are seen as unpredictable and chaotic. The Human Imperium is understood  to be the most chaotic and unpredictable biological faction in the Sirius Sector. 

Eternal Dynasty 

• Friendly: The Dynasty cannot help but have pity for the Robot Legion, since both factions rose up against their elven masters.
• Enmity: Cruthanarc is a key military target in the Dynasty's plan to expand into the Sirius Sector. 

Alien Hive 

• Friendly: The mysterious power that now unites the warriors of the Eternal Dynasty takes advantage of their latent empathic abilities. The Alien Hive enjoys the presence of these abilities and yet is not driven by a need to dominate them. 
• Enmity: The Robot Legion is immune to the Hive Mind and is therefore seen as the Hive's greatest threat.  

The Gygax Challenge Part 8

The next step in creating the Town for the Gygax 75 Challenge are the NPCs. Otus suggests five (which nicely fits into a Wu Xing diagram) with what he calls DNA — Distinguishing trait or feature, a Need, and an Agenda or Asset.

Since I plan on using the Wu Xing diagram, I want the five NPCs to be representative of larger groups or ideas. I have already developed four:

• Terran Empire
• Sylvan Sindacate
• Longshoreman’s Guild
• The Church of the Holy Light

That just leaves me one…and I figure that should represent the general interests of the Dwarves and Gnomes. So, onto the NPCs:

Sir Donhall, Lord of Darkport Keep, Imperial Knight of the Brotherhood of the Sword
Noble AC 2 HD 3 AL Lawful
D: Sir Donall is an imposing figure at 6’7” and is a veteran of many battles. He has a star shaped scar where he was hit in the left eye by a laser. Magic healed the eye, but left his face disfigured. Colloquially known as “Star Lord,” no one dares call him that to his face.
N:Sir Donall is short on men. He doesn't have enough soldiers to spare to properly patrol the Wilderness around Darkport. Therefore, he is quite happy to work with adventurers and to tolerate their presence and antics.
A: Sir Donhall sees the growing influence of the Longshoreman's Guild as a threat. He seeks allies and ways to curb their power.

Gwydwyn the Elf, Alchemist of the Syndicate
4th level Elf AC5 HD 4+4* AL Neutral
D: Gwydwyn is the only NPC elf in town. Unlike most of her kin, she shows quite a bit of interest in humans.
N: Gwydwyn is actually a spy. The Syndicate are fearful that the Longshoreman’s Guild might begin to become interested in obtaining more magic. Gwydwyn therefore needs more information about the Guild leadership.
A: As an alchemist, Gwydwyn can offer PCs potions. As I noted in my last post, these come with the caveat that they may not actually work. This is also a means for Gwydwyn to monitor how much the PCs invade elf “territory.” Note: should PCs start to request more powerful potions, she is likely to have the ingredients fail on purpose.

Guild Master Tagta, leader of the Longshoreman’s Guild
Skinwalker Overlord AC 5 HD 4* AL Chaotic
D: Tagta is actually a Skinwalker Overlord. He avoids public appearances whenever possible.
N: As a Skinwalker Overlord, Tagta needs a steady diet of human flesh. Being the Guild Master gives him plenty of access to incoming ships, where he selects crew members that are not likely to be missed.
A: Tagta knows that there is a Winter Witch city underneath the Lake of Black Ice and wants to see it destroyed. He has agents working within the Dungeon and will happily sponsor any adventurers interested in creating havoc in the lake.

Fr. Ganby, Vicar of the Church of the Holy Light
4th level Cleric AC 2 HD 4* AL Lawful
D: On a good day, with  proper posture, Fr. Ganby is five feet tall with a shock of unkempt red hair. Normally, his attire looks wrinkled and out of sorts; however, when leading any kind of service, his garments are immaculate.
N: Fr. Ganby is deeply interested in the ancient history of the area, and not just out of intellectual curiosity. He is aware that there are ancient relics found within the area that grant access to high level magic.
A: Fr. Ganby is secretly in possession of a Staff of Healing, a Scroll with a Cure Disease spell, and a Scroll with Remove Curse. He will only use these items if the need is dire.

Master Smith Maice
4th level Gnome AC 5 HD 4* AL Lawful
D: The golden beard Maice proudly wears is long for woman.
N: Sir Donall is always demanding that Maice and the other Gnomes and Dwarves use their precious time on his soldiers. It is beginning to cut into their profits.
A: Maice is the only source in Darkport that for chain and plate armor, plasma swords, and laser guns. Other weapons might be found on ships coming into Darkport, but the quality will be inferior to what can be procured from Maice.

Here is the Wu Xing diagram for the various factions in Darkport:

 In other words:

• Sir Donall (Empire) is willing to work with the Gwydwyn (Elves) to keep an eye on Tagta (Guild).
• Gwydwyn (Elves) works with Tagta (Guild) to keep tabs on him, but resents Maice (Dwarves & Gnomes) because of her loyalty to Human Civilization.
• Tagta (Guild) works with Maice (Dwarves & Gnomes) to keep his men well equipped but sees Fr. Ganby (Church) as a threat because of his moral influence.
• Maice (Dwarves & Gnomes) likes Fr. Ganby (Church) because he (and the Church) see the value of Dwarves and Gnomes beyond their craft, unlike Sir Donall who often uses his position to prioritize repairing and maintaining his solder's equipment above serving other customers.
• Fr. Ganby (Church) likes to work with Sir Donall (Empire) because it is easier to serve the people when law and order keep the peace; however, he is acutely aware that Gwydwyn is blocking many of his efforts at magical research.

Running the First Session with Only One Dungeon

Yesterday, I waxed poetic about how I run the first session of a sandbox campaign. In it I posited several site-based adventures in order to facilitate player choice; however, this is not always possible. Sometimes I have only had the opportunity to work on one dungeon, or there is a serious desire to run a particular module. Player choice and the use of rumors seems to be severely limited, but it doesn’t have to be.

If I really only have one adventure that I can/want to use, I will approach player choice from the “why are we going” rather than the “where are we going” perspective. To give this meat, I will map out at least five factions that have interest in what goes on at the adventure site. I plug these factions into the Wu XIng diagram:

Each faction is given a goal and a reason why they like to work with the faction they like and why they are working against the faction that is their enemy. This quick and dirty system easily sets up a complex web of relationships that enrich the campaign.

Once this diagram is set up and understood, I make rumors to connect the players to each of the factions. Since each faction has a specific goal when it comes to the site based adventure and those goals are at odds with other factions, it gives real weight to player choice when it comes to why they are going on the adventure.

So, as an example, let’s pretend that I have to run the first session of a campaign in short order and I won’t have time to create anything elaborate in terms of adventure sites. Let’s also pretend that the one adventure I do have prepared is the one I produced in the post How I Homebrew a Dungeon.

Since I am in a pinch, I will fall back on familiar territory when it comes to my starting village: I’ll pull out my copy of T1:The Village of Hommlet and extrapolate from there. First, I will leaf through and find five significant NPCs that represent larger powers or ideas:

1. Elmo the 4th level ranger is an agent of the Viscount of Verbobonc
2. The Canon Terjon the 6th level cleric is the priest of the Church of St. Cuthbert
3. Jaroo Ashstaff the 7th level druid is an agent of the Druids of Gnarley Wood and a follower of the Old Ways
4. Burne the 8th level magic-user and Rufus the 6th level fighter the semi-retired adventurers
5. Rannos Davi the 10th level thief and his partner Grmag the 7th level assassin are agents of the Temple of Elemental Evil

Now to translate these concepts into my campaign:

• Elmo represents the political aspect of a Christian/pseudo-Christian power that is vying for influence in the area.
• Terjon represents the religious aspect of the same Christian/pseudo-Christian power that is vying for influence in the area.
• Jaroo represents the religious and possibly political aspect of the native population of the area the Christian/pseudo- Christian power is trying to influence
• Burne and Rufus represent the local interests of the village
• Rannos and Grmag represent a secret society that is interested in re-awakening an ancient power

For purposes of keeping things simple I’ll label the five with the following monikers:

The Kingdom
The Church
The Old Way
The Village
The Cult

Now to plug these into a Wu Xing Diagram to see the relationships these factions have with each other:

• The Kingdom likes to work with The Old Way in order to secure political stability, but are opposed to the Cult because it is a destabilizing force.
• The Church likes to work with the Kingdom because they share the same religious values, but opposes the Old Way because their values and religious views clash.
• The Old Way likes to work with the Cult because the enemy of my enemy is a friend, but opposes the stability of the Village because it represents the encroaching power and influence of both the Kingdom and the Church.
• The Cult likes to work with the Village because the desire for safety is easily manipulated to their cause and they oppose the Church because it is the direct antithesis of the Cult.
• The Village likes to work with the Church because of how it cares for the sick and needy (especially in a crisis), but opposes the Kingdom because it challenges the autonomy the Village has earned through years of hard work and sacrifice.

See what I mean about interesting relationships?

So what could these five factions want from the dungeon? The dungeon offers three basic motivators:

1. The Kobolds
2. The Medusa
3. Treasure

Plugging these into the five factions could look like this:

• The Kingdom wants to investigate any rumors of ancient political powers in order to destroy them (Medusa)
• The Church has been taking in a number of refugees from various raids by the kobolds. They need supplies to help them and seek an end to the trouble (Kobolds/Treasure)
• The Old Way knows the story of the Medusa because it is part of their mythology. They want to find her but are reluctant to free her. Thus, they would want to find the keys to the prison, just in case (Medusa/Treasure)
• The Cult wants to investigate the rumors of ancient political powers to see if they can awaken them (Medusa)
• The Village wants the kobolds taken care of because they have been raiding in the area (Kobolds)

All of these goals point in exactly the same direction (the dungeon), but have varying reasons why the players would choose to go adventuring there. I would introduce each of the five factions through the NPCs found in T1:Village of Hommlet and reveal everyone's goal in terms of the dungeon. It would then be up to the players to determine the “why.” Which faction(s) will they support?

Of course, this choice is consequential due to the fact that various factions will now see the PCs as allies or enemies. Due to the larger goals of each faction, this will feed into further adventures.

As a final thought, this whole exercise in creating factions is certainly not limited to sessions that only have one adventure site. I tend to use them in most, if not all, of my campaigns; however, when it comes to empowering players when I only have one adventure site on offer, the Wu Xing diagram is one of my favorite tools.

A Wu Xing Diagram

Yesterday, I posted about using a Wu Xing diagram to map out relationships between factions in a campaign world. Here is the actual diagram that I described:

Using this, it can be fairly easy to start putting together a political plot and conflict that is the main background noise of a campaign.

It starts with the Green Clan and their hatred of the Gold Clan and the Fire Faction in general. To get at them, they have convinced members of the Red Clan to secretly break ranks. The diagram shows that the break-away members of the Red Clan harbor enmity towards their fellow member of the Fire Faction, the Brass Clan.

A simple way to explain this is that the Brass Clan has married off one of their daughters to the head of the Red Clan, who is impotent and has no heirs. The Green Clan has exploited the anxiety within the Red Clan to place blame on the Brass Clan as a whole.

Thus, members of the Red Clan are secretly working out ways to get their revenge on the Brass Clan. To do so, they are exploiting the Silver Clan’s hatred of the Blue Clan to obtain items necessary to exact their revenge. They are also misdirecting the Blue Clan’s friendliness toward the Brass Clan in order to accomplish their goals.

In the meantime, the Copper Clan has begun to suspect the Red Clan’s plans, but have so far been unable to convince the Silver Clan of the danger. They have thus resorted to working with the White Clan through their fellow Acid Faction member the Black Clan. The plan is to sow distrust between the Bronze and Blue Clans in order to disrupt the workings of the Red Clan.

See how wonderfully complex this all gets in short order?

As an aside, I plan to have the Fire Faction territory at or near the border regions of the Empire. In other words, they are the ones that are in charge of the campaign world’s version of the Great Wall. As both the Fire Clan and the Brass Clan begin to be ripped apart by the various political plotting began by the Green Clan, the defense at the Great Wall will weaken. This, of course, opens up the possibility of a major outside threat getting into the Empire and creating havoc.

World Building Using Wu Xing

When I am building a new campaign world, I especially like to create factions in sets of five. This allows me to plug factions into a Wu Xing diagram which indicates which factions are enemies and which factions are allies. What is particularly fascinating about this model is that enmity and friendship really only go one direction. This creates a wonderfully complex set of relationships. It also is really easy to use.

To demonstrate how useful this is, take a look at how I have plugged in the Ten Clans from my last post, where I posited a campaign world based on using only four of the twelve available 5e classes:

The Poison Faction is friendly with the Lightening Faction and has enmity toward the Fire Faction:

• The Green Clan specifically likes the Bronze Clan and hates the Gold Clan
• The Green Clan has also convinced elements of the Red Clan to betray the Fire Faction. This traitorous element specifically likes the Blue Clan and hates the Brass Clan

The Lightening Faction is friendly with the Fire Faction and has enmity toward the Acid Faction:

• The Bronze Clan specifically likes the Gold Clan and hates the Black Clan
• The Blue Clan specifically likes the Brass Clan and hates the Copper Clan

The Fire Faction is friendly with the Acid Faction and has enmity toward the Cold Faction:

• The Gold Clan specifically likes the Black Clan and hates the White Clan
• The Brass Clan specifically likes the Copper Clan and hates the Silver Clan

The Acid Faction is friendly with the Cold Faction and has enmity toward the Poison Faction:

• The Blue Clan specifically likes the White Clan and hates the Green Clan
• The Copper Clan specifically likes the Silver Clan and hates the Red Clan

The Cold Faction is friendly with the Poison Faction and has enmity toward the Lightening Faction:

• The White Clan specifically likes the Green Clan and hates the Bronze Clan
• The Silver Clan specifically likes the Red Clan and hates the Blue Clan

By simply plugging in these factions into the Wu Xing model, all kinds of interesting relationships and conflicts arise. This becomes especially useful when planning a campaign full of political intrigue.

And because I love doing it, here is some heraldry for the Ten Clans: