Faction System

The construction of New Eilinore has brought the attention of multiple groups of interest to the coastal swamps, swarming the newly built cities with their agents. Players can join these groups as a way to flesh out their characters, as well as gaining new custom features.

Most factions are divided up into 5 tiers, a base tier gained when you join the faction, and at each further tier is gained for every 40 reputation invested in a faction. Factions normally have a prerequisite to join, except during character creation, where you can simply declare yourself to have met the conditions. A player may not be part of more than 2 factions below rank 5 at a time, and must declare all public factions they are invested in when signing up for sessions. Players are aware of public faction affiliations.

Some factions are deemed “Conspiracies” these follow all normal faction rules, but players may choose not to announce their affiliation with them during session signups, instead only listing their public factions or the Freelancer “faction”.

**NOTE: While these factions are important, their individual mechanics are not yet finished. Until an announcement is made publicly, players are all considered Freelancers, and receive benefits as such. When the announcement is made, players can join a faction or conspiracy, ignoring the usual prerequisites.**

## Reputation

### Gaining Reputation

Players earn reputation on sessions, representing a nebulous network of favors, fame, and clout that their actions have earned them. Though this reward varies based on their actions on session, secretive ones may earn less than loud favors, at least when performed without relevance to your primary faction.

### Spending Reputation

Reputation can be spent in the following ways:

* **Faction Advancement**: No faction is truly meritocratic, trading on favors just as much as true skill. Advancing to the next rank in your faction costs 40 Reputation.
* **Resurrection**: For those with no friends or family willing or able to fork over the cost of a resurrection, a faction you're on good terms with can foot the bill. If you are a member of a faction, or have a friendly relationship with a faction you can pay 25 Reputation to bring your character back as per the *resurrection* spell.
* **True Resurrection**: Even for those with loved ones willing to see them brought back, magic of this level is usually out of reach. Institutions, however, have many more strings they can pull. If you are a member of a faction, or have a friendly relationship with a faction you can pay 40 Reputation to bring your character back as per the *true resurrection* spell.
* **Superior Training**: Trading stories with other adventurers is a time honored way to make connections and learn new tricks of the trade. You can spend 40 reputation, or 30 if you're a freelancer, to gain a Bonus Feat.
* **Preparedness**: Scaring up rumors before a big job can give you a little extra edge. You can spend 15 reputation, or 10 if you're a freelancer, to gain a bonus feat. You must declare this bonus feat upon purchasing it, and it fades after the next session you participate in or the next time you spend 7 days of downtime, whichever comes first.
* **Mystic Liaison**: Finding artisans willing and able to craft magical items is a truly grating task in an isolated like New Eilinore. Trading on favors owed, a broker will handle it for you instead. You can pay 5 reputation, plus the gold cost of the item, to purchase any one magical item.

### Freelancers

Players who lack a public faction or are only part of one conspiracy may declare themselves “Freelancers”, Freelancers are not bound by a code of conduct as most faction adventurers are, and they gain an additional 20% gold and experience point reward for each session, due to their lacking guild fees and public associations with a given group.

## Lumoran Factions

### Sentinela Academy

The first thing the Portabrian mercenary army did when arriving in New Eilinore was paint the town with gold while carousing for a full day and a half. The second thing they did was purchase a building to operate their newest dueling school out of. The Sentinela Academy is the pride of Portabria, having trained dozens of famous adventurers, and hundreds if not thousands of incredibly skilled mercenary soldiers. They were the most enthusiastic adopters of the Cambiane system technology, with the crafting of one's own cambiane being an important step to graduating and becoming a sentinel. The academy was paid a king's ransom by Mistyvale to send a class of their best and brightest, along with more than a dozen instructors, to assist in the defense of the new colony. The Academy intends for their storied institution to be worth every penny.

### Ironholme Armed Forces

The Ironholme Armed Forces is largely considered the laughing stock of the continent. With half their number being composed of shellshock ridden veterans of the revolution, and the other half being wild-eyed youths barely older than children who glorify war and treat Emperor Audemaur as nothing short of a messiah. They bear the brunt of the human cost of New Eilinore's defense, and resent being stationed alongside the Portabrian mercenaries that Mistyvale sent instead of proper soldiers. Their only goal in the region is making sure that this joint venture with Mistyvale succeeds to keep tensions between the two nations from boiling over.

### The Royal Magic Academy

The last to board the ships of the second fleet, and the first ones off. The scholarly dispatch from the Valean Royal Magic Academy of Mistyvale shipped out from Spindleborne to study every aspect of the New World down to its smallest detail. Having only been established two decades ago, despite being lauded by the nobility of Mistyvale as the second coming of the great Elven age of magic, the Academy has little prestige outside of Mistyvale especially when compared to an institution like the Sentinela Academy. In fact, the Academy has been an annoyance to practically every other organization in the New World. From flagrantly disregarding the Amber Hunt's environmental protection guidelines, to wasting the time of entire squads of soldiers and mercenaries with idiotic wilderness hikes, there is hardly a group they haven't managed to infuriate. The population of New Eilinore mostly thinks of them as foolish, spoiled nobles with perhaps a dozen competent scholars among their number.

### South Seas Trading Guild

Established almost immediately after the first reports from the First Fleet returned, the South Seas Trading Guild arrived with the rest of the second fleet to exploit the resources and untapped markets of the New World for massive profit. Most consider them little better than well-dressed pirates and brigands, using a series of absurdly one sided treaties and agreements to gain a near total monopoly over trade into and out of New Eilinore. While the company has a public face in the merchant Sir Evan Stanner, it is unknown who he answers too. Whoever this individual is, its clear they aren't afraid of getting the companies hands dirty, as its an open secret they're involved in smuggling illicit goods and have been making connections with local slavers.

### Amber Hunt

Founded by elves a decade before the Calamity as a simple hunting lodge, the Amber Hunt has evolved into the largest exploratory society in the Old World in the centuries since its founding. Three of the four surviving founders were Human sympathizers, defecting to their side in the revolution that swiftly followed. Training a generation of scouts and explorers to dig through the rubble of elven civilization for any edge in the resulting war, they then quietly retired to spend their lives with their families. Following the defeat of the Elven Empire, the Amber Hunt turned towards more scholarly pursuits primarily archeology, anthropology, and wilderness protection. These are the goals that drive them in the New World, as they were the first point of contact between the Old World and New World through the Whittenmire Expedition.

## Woultèan Factions

### The Gold Leaf Trading Organization

The social morays of Eth'lean society left little chance for men to advance materially and socially. A restriction which the open road happily removes for those willing to face its dangers. Founded some four centuries ago when the sky was still swallowed by the darkness, The Gold Leaf and its founder Mundih Aibia deal in everything from slaves, to luxuries, to the basic necessities of freight and food. Their view on Lumoran colonists is... less than charitable, at best viewing them as easy marks willing to purchase any old junk and at worst as potential product to sell to the noblewomen of the jungle.

### The Eth'lean Lodges

A sharp contrast to the Lumoran idea of the Elven Lodges, the Eth'lean lodges are honor bound warrior houses dedicated to the service of a noble family or organization. In addition to the heraldry of the family or group they serve, they also choose a deity as their patron.

### The Iron Wing Collective

Starting out as a way for solidified Thriae from many hives to share information about the lands they've explored and the beasts they've hunted, the Iron Wing has expanded into a massive adventuring company that accepts members from all the races of Woultèa.

### Garvak's Horde

Operating out of the Monastary of Vogh Nozgrigh, the Horde rides under the banner of the warlord Garvak. They're the closest Orcish Monastary to New Eilinore and have maintained amicable relations since the landing of the first fleet after an incident involving a former warrior and an Amber Scout's shotgun.

### The Tower

Located far to the south the Tower is the central organization around which all of Yuukian society moves. They are the keepers of knowledge both current and lost, maintaining a massive library and research division that studies magic and all the ways it interacts with and permeates the world.

## Conspiracies

### The Greyshrouds

Where civilization goes, criminals inevitably follow. Following the trail of money left in the wake of nobles too distant to have a hope of inheriting, members of the foremost thieves' guild in Lumora had managed to infiltrate almost every level of the First Fleet. Far more than simple legbreakers and gangsters, the Greyshrouds exploit a network of informants and spies that allow them to swiftly capitalize on any gap in the law. They value extreme discretion above all else, and attempting to discover the identity of a member is offense enough to see you blacklisted from purchasing their services or joining their ranks for life.

### The Vinitarum

Since the rule of House Aesor began, the court spymasters have been by their side to protect the interests of the realm and her nobility. Each Vinatari reports directly to the Court Spymaster, and as spymasters come and go the exact makeup and priorities of the organization have greatly differed. They carry no mark identifying them as members, and have little in the way of rules to follow other than the parameters of their mission, be it diplomatic or hostile. They were deployed to New Eilinore in lieu of military force, another part of the grand power play between the two would-be superpowers, foisting the human cost of defending such a vulnerable settlement onto other nations and allowing Mistyvale to have a near unprecedented headstart in information warfare.

### The Servants of the Shadow Queen

An organization based out of Mistyvale regularly clashing against the Vinitarum and the Church of Wine and Wheat. The Servants of the Shadow Queen are devotees of Lorelei Lavender, the Lich Queen of Mistyvale, whose primary goal is to recover the heart of their centuries dead mistress from the church. They followed the Saint of the Black Box, Aldabert Kairos, to the New World when they tracked him onto the Second Fleet ship where he was travelling undercover to the New World.