VDonnut Valley

Sprinkling Region with Conflicts and Adventures

Last time I made a post about turning a hexcrawl into a pointcrawl to make a region https://vdonnutvalley.bearblog.dev/take-a-hexcrawl-and-set-it-free/. This time I wanted to share with you some of my process of making this region into adventure sandbox.

The main solo adventure is based on "a king from faraway land gives you money to do stuff for him" so we know that one of major players here should be the king - whether i's true or not will come out at the end of this exercise. King of Targay is a first faction to consider. Although I like how https://elmc.at/ does factions I doubt I'd be able to do so much work for so fleeting reward. So I'll work around Mausritter faction assumptions.

Mausritter factions - each has a bunch of relevant resources (add 1 to faction roll or subtract it from enemy roll). Whenever faction completes a goal they receive additional resource. Each goal has a bunch of progress dots to tick based on character help and faction roll. This should be all I need for now.

Daroah the King of Targay

Resources:

Goals:

So the king is focused on making himself richer and securing his rule. No interest in magic, no interest in improvement or culture. Also the Goals are somewhat related to quests that could be given to adventurers. Maybe mess with their morals too.

What else could there be in this region? At the moment I can easily see three other factions - Rebellion, Northern Wardens and Yellow Guild. Rebellion is obvious - people are against the rule of power hungry dictator. I pointed to the Old Mine as a possible reason - maybe the work became dangerous at some point, some Mythical (Underworld) problem, undead, horror infestation, legendary beast or just a disease striking miners. Workers united and rebelled, king didn't want to let it happen and only fueled the conflict. Mine is closed because on one hand people don't want to work there, on the other those who did (and were proficient) are doing rebellion thing.

Rebellion

Resources:

Goals:

I imagine Rebellion being on a losing side - they have less resources and harder to accomplish goals. They are also less rooted in the structure of power so it makes sense. Generally I think accomplishing any of their goals would make them heavy weight but anything accomplished against them would reduce them to minimal danger. On the tip of the blade.

Another faction I thought about are Yellow Guild - occult "church", state-aligned mystics in robes, "Jedi?" XD Considering we have two-three mystical points (Wizard Tower, Sanctuary, potentially Old Mine) it gives it some weight. Since guild is aligned with the king they may work together to secure the mine and explore the tower? Maybe that is the case - mages don't care about it, they want to do something else, which is why they founded Sanctuary and let the king take care of those other things. I'm not sure what though.

Yellow Guild

Resources:

Goals ?

Northern Wardens seem to be rather inept too. They are technically separate military force whose goal is to protect kingdom from northern neighbours and are "knights with oaths" (nights with oats) but do they have like distinct goal? I doubt that. Without external force - like being bribed by said neighbours or being swayed by rebels - they are more of an asset or resource than faction at this point.

What about northern kingdoms, are they a faction here? I don't think so. I imagine the regional adventures as more of an internal struggle than working against external force. But there is a point I forgot that is ideal here.

IMG_20240918_095732

Okay, who inhabits these secret caves? What if it is someone from the mystical side, who could be antagonistic towards Jedi? Let's call them Sith for the moment. Okay, now let's not do that, I divorced myself from Star Wars even before Disney bought it so I have no stakes here. But there is a tale as old as time about factions beings infiltrated by their enemies - or even enemies coming from within. And since whole setting is revolving around idea of gods leaving the world and undead becoming a problem maybe that is the case - Necromancer Sect. They inhabit the caves, they work within the Guild to recruit new members and grow in power, they also want to explore the Wizard Tower. Who knows, maybe they also come from a mage who went to Old Mine and came back so broken and afraid of what is there they changed their worldview on magic.

Necromancer Sect

Resources:

Goals:

So the Sect wants to get their hands on possibly powerful artifacts of wizard tower, clear their caves so they have secret hideouts as well as base of operations and spoil wards set by the guild which should allow them to perform their magicks to full extent. What about the Guild in this case? Maybe the higher members - similar to some short yet powerful green goblin with poor grammar - want to leave the status quo while the other - called maybe Quiggon - feel the Sects growing influence and want to fight it (sorry, couldn't help myself). What if Yellow Guild, similarly to Northern Wardens, is just a resource, an asset, and real factions are the Sect and that part of the Guild that fights the Sect? And ones who control the Guild can use it to influence the blissfully unaware King?

Sulphuric Order

Resources:

Goals:

Okay, seem legit. On one hand Order is better situated within the realm, hence more resources, but also has slightly tougher goals to achieve. From this we can extrapolate the whole diagram of conflicts and influences. We have square of Law - King and Rebellion fighting over Wardens and Populace - as well as triangle of Magic - Sect nad Order fighting over Guild and by extension King himself.

IMG_20240918_102522

When characters encounter guild member I can roll whether it is passive, Order or Sect. King will ask them to do one of the missions - probably not against the rebellion until he is assured of their trust. Order will try to sway them by painting Sect as undead raising baddies. Sect will try to persuade by claiming Order is in favour of whatever gossip says adventurers hate.

That's cool, we're ready to disturb this and let it fall like house of cards.

#worldbuilding