How do I create and track factions?

Factions are organizations, guilds, governments, and groups that shape your campaign world. SwiftPrep helps you track their goals, methods, members, and relationships to other factions, creating a dynamic political landscape for your players to navigate.

Creating a Faction

1. Click Factions in the sidebar
2. Click Create Faction
3. Enter a name (required)
4. Fill in additional fields as needed
5. Click Save

Faction Fields

Basic Information

Goals and Methods

Resources and Power

Secrets

Structure

Relationships

Organization

Faction Types

Influence Levels

Influence level affects what the faction can do:

• Local factions have limited reach but intimate knowledge
• Global factions have vast resources but are slow to act locally

Goals Drive Everything

A faction's goals determine its behavior. When you need to know what a faction does, ask: "How does this advance their goals?"

Goal Types

Conflicting Goals

The most interesting factions have goals that conflict with themselves or with party allies:

• The Thieves Guild wants stability (good for business) but also profits from chaos
• The Church wants to help people but also wants to suppress heresy
• The Crown wants prosperity but also wants control

Methods Matter

Two factions with the same goal might use completely different methods:

Goal: Protect the city

• The City Watch uses patrols, arrests, and trials
• The Vigilantes use violence, intimidation, and fear
• The Information Broker uses secrets, leverage, and manipulation

Methods create moral complexity and help distinguish factions.

Faction Relationships

Types of Inter-Faction Relationships

Creating Faction Webs

Connect factions to each other:

1. Open a faction
2. Add relationships to other factions
3. Note the nature of the relationship

This creates a political web your players can navigate.

Dynamic Relationships

Faction relationships should change:

• Player actions shift alliances
• Events create new conflicts
• Old enemies find common cause
• Former allies betray each other

Update relationships as your campaign evolves.

Linking Members

Adding NPCs to Factions

From the NPC:

1. Open the NPC
2. In Faction affiliations, add the faction
3. Note their role if relevant

From the faction:

1. Open the faction
2. In Notable members, add NPCs
3. Consider adding relationship descriptions

Benefits of Linking

• See all members when viewing a faction
• See all factions when viewing an NPC
• Understand who the party is really dealing with
• Track double agents and secret affiliations

Tips for Better Factions

Give Every Faction a Face

Abstract organizations are hard to care about. Give each faction:

• A leader the party can interact with
• A representative they encounter regularly
• A memorable location (headquarters, hangout, temple)

The Thieves Guild becomes interesting when it is "Fingers" the information broker at The Rusty Anchor.

Create Faction Conflicts

Factions should want things that conflict with other factions:

• The Merchants Guild wants low tariffs; the Crown wants revenue
• The Church wants to destroy the cult; the cult wants to survive
• The Thieves Guild wants the Watch corrupt; the new Watch Captain wants reform

Conflict creates drama. The party gets pulled into taking sides.

Let Factions React

When the party does something significant, ask: "How do the factions react?"

• The party helps the Watch - Thieves Guild notices
• The party offends the noble - House politics shift
• The party finds the artifact - Multiple factions want it

Factions that react feel alive.

Use Secrets Strategically

Every faction should have at least one secret:

• True leadership (the merchant is a front for the assassin)
• Hidden agenda (the charity is recruiting cultists)
• Internal conflict (the second-in-command wants to take over)

Secrets create revelations and betrayals.

Example: Creating a Faction

Name: The Hollow Circle

Type: Religious (cult)

Influence level: Regional

Description: A secret society convinced that a great darkness is coming and that only controlled sacrifice can avert it. They operate in the shadows, recruiting from the desperate and the idealistic.

Goals:

• Complete the Ritual of Binding before the Darkness arrives
• Protect the innocent (especially children) from the coming calamity
• Convert or eliminate those who would stop them

Methods:

• Operate through legitimate fronts (charities, businesses)
• Recruit through hope and despair, offer purpose to the lost
• Sacrifice the "guilty" to protect the "innocent" (they decide who is who)
• Eliminate threats quietly, no witnesses, no evidence

Values: The greater good justifies terrible means. Sacrifice is noble. The coming darkness is real.

Taboos: Harming children. Pointless cruelty. Drawing attention.

Resources:

• Wealthy patron funding (Lord Castellan Varen)
• Network of safe houses across the region
• Ancient texts describing the Ritual
• Several members with political influence

Strengths: Secrecy, true believers willing to die, influential patron

Weaknesses: Small numbers, reliance on prophecy, internal doubt about methods

Secrets:

• Their predictions about the darkness have been accurate
• Lord Varen believes one of the player characters is prophesied
• Some members are having doubts about the "sacrifice the guilty" approach

Internal conflicts: Hardliners vs. moderates on who counts as "guilty"

Leader: Lord Castellan Varen (linked)

Headquarters: The Sanctuary (hidden temple beneath Varen's estate)

Notable members:

• Lord Castellan Varen (patron, true believer)
• Sister Mercy (recruiter, runs the orphanage front)
• The Confessor (enforcer, handles "problems")

Allied factions: None openly

Enemy factions: The Church of the Dawn (if they knew)

Tags: cult, villain, arc-2, secret

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