Factions

Organizations in the d20 Modern Roleplaying Game can be benefactors to the heroes, the public face of a secret society, or merely one of the factions at work in the background of a campaign. Whichever option the Gamemaster chooses, this chapter provides enough information to present a basic picture of how the organization works, where it came from, and how it’s structured. In some cases, the entries include a map of what a typical office or base of operations might look like.

Not every organization will fit in every campaign setting, nor need it appear in a setting precisely as it appears here. The GM should create a kind of “organization pantheon,” composed of the groups and factions he most wants to use in his campaign. Knowing that the Crimson Scorpion is engaged in an ongoing war with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who have turned to Unified Technologies for high-tech surveillance equipment—unaware that UT is a puppet of the Nautilus Club, which is trying to gain control of the United States Justice Department—will certainly help shape both the adventures and the attitudes of many GM characters. The more the GM knows about the organizations moving in the background of his campaign, the richer and more engaging the world becomes for the heroes.

Be creative with these organizations, and the plots will practically write themselves. Something else to keep in mind: Just because the heroes sever an important thread in the campaign’s grand global conspiracy, the whole sinister web does not necessarily have to come untangled. There is always someone higher up in the chain to carry the plot forward.

## Reality vs. Spin

Of course, there are no secret masters in the real world. Humankind has always had a hard time believing that bad things happen to good people purely at random; we have concocted elaborate mythologies about global conspiracies that are out to get us. Paranoia is its own reward.

Some of the organizations presented here are based on real groups. Although we’ve taken care to do some research on the FBI, Department of Defense, and other actual organizations, it is done with an eye toward creating believable fiction. Although their histories are based at least partially on fact, the accounts below are not accurate or complete depictions of their real-world counterparts (if any). There is no Corleone crime family outside of the Godfather films. The FBI does not actually have a paranormal investigations department. The Scientologists aren’t really controlled by a rogue faction of grays, and those “messages” people hear when they play vinyl records backward are the result of their own overactive imaginations. However, a campaign world would be a lot more interesting place if those things were true, wouldn’t it?

The trick to any successful conspiracy is for the conspirator’s more suspicious activities—when they’re noticed by the public, anyway—to have a reasonable and rational explanation. This is called “spin doctoring,” and it sugarcoats a bitter truth so that the general public doesn’t realize that, once again, they are being asked to accept yet another lie that they ordinarily wouldn’t believe.

Police brutally beat peaceful protestors at the World Trade Organization summit in Seattle—clearly a case of mistaken identity.

Peacekeeping troops gunned down a village of innocent people in Kosovo—the regrettable result of faulty intelligence.

Five hundred people claim to have witnessed U.S. Air Force jet fighters fire air-to-air missiles at a squadron of flying saucers over the Nevada desert—hallucinations caused by unseasonably high amounts of swamp gas, and light from the planet Venus reflected off smog hanging over Dallas.

The same sort of rationalization can be applied to all the organizations in this chapter. The Central Intelligence Agency has no authority to operate within the boundaries of the United States, so those guys in dark suits and sunglasses must have been from the FBI. There is no global devil-worshiping conspiracy, so those people in the red robes who tried to murder a local girl were plainly just making up their ritual as they went along.

For every illegal, unethical, immoral, or outright evil act that the organization carries out, the GM should have an official explanation ready to go—the players are going to have a great deal of fun sifting through all the lies to get to the truth.

## Splinter Groups and Rogue Agents

Only an organization of one can have complete unity of purpose; as soon as another person enters the picture, the goals and visions become divided. One employee can become a rogue; two employees, a splinter group. When an organization is as well financed as the CIA or the Nautilus Club, one disgruntled employee has access to enough resources to cause big problems. When it is as large as the FBI, the Mafia, or the United Nations, a splinter group of rogues can cause tremendous problems.

Rogue agents and splinter groups are mainstays of thriller fiction. A writer—and, by extension, a Gamemaster—can make an otherwise upright organization into a ruthless villain by creating a splinter group working secretly within the organization, using legitimate resources and personnel to carry out its own agendas. (Conversely, a much less commonly used theme in fiction is a moral and ethical conspiracy within the ranks of an otherwise evil organization.) Worse, a single, highly placed rogue agent could seize command of loyal operatives and order them to take actions they would ordinarily refuse, taking advantage of their implicit trust in their commander.

The organizations presented here represent the base organizations, as opposed to splinter groups. Splinter groups, by their nature, have access to only a fraction of the base group’s resources; requisitioning items to support an internal conspiracy can be tough. (The GM should apply a –5 to –10 penalty on level checks for requisitions made by members of the splinter group.) Similarly, rogue agents and members of splinter groups are not bound by the ideologies of their parent organization; they can have allegiances that run counter to the organization’s usual allegiances. Sometimes, though, the basic allegiance—“U.S. government,” “DOD,” “Mafia”—remains the same, but the overall character is changed by adding a qualifying allegiance, such as “law,” “chaos,” “evil,” or “good.”

## Reading the Organization Entries

Each organization entry includes information on what the organization does, who its key members are, and how the organization interacts with the campaign world. These entries follow roughly the format laid out in Chapter Nine: Campaign Models, in the d20 Modern Roleplaying Game, with some additional information.

### Organization

This text contains a summary of the organization’s goals and capabilities.

Agenda
A brief description of how the organization achieves its goal.
Structure
How the organization appears to the rest of the world.
Symbol
The group’s logo (if the group is organized enough to have one).
Most Common Allegiance(s)
The allegiance(s) an average member has.
Requisition Limit
The organization’s effective Wealth score for purposes of members requisitioning equipment (and any limitations placed on such requisitions).
### Overview

This section describes how the organization came into existence and gives an overview of its hierarchy (Organization Structure) and various facilities (Bases of Operation). This section also discusses what sorts of equipment and funds the organization usually has available (Resources).

### Involving the Heroes

The overview includes a section on how the heroes can be introduced to the organization, either as members or as enemies. If the heroes are members of the organization, this section also discusses the kinds of work they might do for it.

### Using the Organization

This section gives ideas for plot hooks and advice to the Gamemaster on how to include the organization in his campaign.

### Learning About the Organization

Heroes may attempt Knowledge checks, Gather Information checks, and Research checks to learn about organizations. This section explains which Knowledge skills are appropriate for the organization, and gives the level of detail that a character can uncover based on the results for each type of check.

### Members

Lastly, each entry describes a typical member of the organization— at least, the type of member with whom the heroes are likely to interact. The character archetype listed here is someone unique to the organization—someone that differs from the average ordinary archetype. The difference could be as minor as choice of equipment, or it could be as extreme as species.

In most cases, other members of an organization can be represented by ordinary characters (see the Ordinary archetypes found in Chapter Eight: Friends and Foes of the d20 Modern Roleplaying Game).

### List of Factions for Games

* Al-Jambiya (“the Dagger”)
* Crimson Scorpion
* The Cryptonauts
* The Final Church
* Global Network News
* The Green Brigade
* The Hoffmann Institute
* La Gente
* The Nautilus Club
* Neo-Scientologists
* Nova Records
* The Six-Fingered Hand
* Solomon Solutions
* The United Nations Elite Security Force
* U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
* U.S. Department of Defense
* U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
* U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)