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1. WHAT ARE FACTIONS AND FACTION RATINGS?
In the city of Tyr, the political situation is very fragile. With the Sorcerer-King Kalak's murder, no one can assert control. Slaves have officially been freed, but many powerful merchant houses still keep them, and they are too afraid to assert that freedom. Kalak's chief Templar, Tithian, has been crowned King, but he does not wield the power of Kalak, and so his grip is shaky.
In such a situation, it is easy for heroes (and villains) to tip the balance of power - sometimes without meaning to!
Your PC will have a rating with each major faction from zero to... well, anything. This represents how much the faction trusts you, and your reputation within it (and to other factions).
2. WHAT FACTIONS ARE THERE?
To start, there are only two factions powerful enough to be relevant.
TEMPLARS (TYR): The Templars are the old priesthood of Kalak (some of whom still draw mystic power from him... causing those who celebrate his death to be wary), now under the command of King Tithian. They seek to impose order on Tyr, preferably a return to the hierarchy of the old days where they wielded near-absolute power over nobles, merchants, freemen, and slaves alike. Many Templars are evil, but some just prefer order to anarchy.
The faction rating is with the Templars of Tyr - just because you rank highly among them does not mean you are respected in any other city. As the campaign progresses, we may make available faction ratings with other cities' templars.
VEILED ALLIANCE: The Veiled Alliance is a secret society of Preservers - arcane magic users who master the discipline of drawing arcane power without defiling the land. They believe that Athas can be regenerated through the wise use of arcane magic, and seek to stamp out defiling (alas, practiced by many Templars) and return Preserving magic to prominence. Many believe that general freedom is a necessary part of this goal, while others believe that Athas needs a benevolent dictatorship of Preservers to undo the effects of the Sorcerer-Kings' rule.
There are other power groups in the city, but right now the nobles, merchants, and freed slaves are too fractious to count as a faction in their own right. Of course, an enterprising PC might work to change that...
3. HOW DO I GET/CHANGE A FACTION RATING?
If you create a character with the Templar or Veiled Alliance character theme, you automatically start with a rating of 1 with that faction. Even if your backstory is that you are a Templar from another city, you live in Tyr now, and you are assumed to have made some contact with your brethren (remember that the faction rating is about how they see you - you can still hate them, if you like). Otherwise, all new characters have ratings of zero with all factions.
If we introduce any new factions, existing characters will start with a zero rating with those factions unless we say otherwise.
Your faction rating will usually change as a result of completing quests or otherwise acting for or against a faction in the game world. Quests announced here on the boards or in play that could change your faction rating will be noted as such by the DM. And if some action arises in play that could change your faction rating, the DM will warn you in advance.
Though the factions are opposed, raising the rating with one does not *necessarily* lower the rating with the other. But it often will - most quests will end up being something like +1 Templars/-1 Veiled Alliance.
Most quests, of course, will not affect your faction rating at all!
Oh, and though it's unrealistic, for simplicity's sake the assumption is that factions are effectively omniscient - that is, we're not going to worry about *how* the Templars found out you shanked that informant way out in the desert and left him for the gith. Word gets around.
4. HOW DOES MY FACTION RATING AFFECT ME?
The effects of faction ratings are often at the margins. The major impact is that some quests might only be given to trusted agents of the Templars or the Alliance, and so require a certain minimum faction rating to "get in." And if your faction rating with either faction is very high (or very low - a highly negative rating would mean you are infamous, hated, and feared by that faction), it may affect how some NPCs treat you (most NPCs won't care).
The intent is to give players who like this sort of thing something to invest in, not to penalize players who don't. If your PC is just a sellsword who couldn't care less about politics, your faction rating is likely to fluctuate randomly around zero, and 99% of the time, it won't affect you in the least. Merchants always need mercenaries, player-organized expeditions to ruins have no buy-in, and even the most ideological Alliance revolutionary will look the other way most of the time if your aim is true and your risk tolerance high.
For players, you can react to other PCs' faction ratings however you like, so long as you respect the cardinal rule of not killing other people's fun. If someone is showing up to a game that you're going to play your zealous Socerer-King-Pact Templar Warlock in, and play a freed slave with Alliance sympathies, either talk to him or her beforehand and work out an understanding, or enjoy good-natured bickering and sniping at the table but assume that somehow you've decided to work together *just this once.*
Unless it's a PVP scenario, in which case, yeah, rip their eyes out. If you can.
In the city of Tyr, the political situation is very fragile. With the Sorcerer-King Kalak's murder, no one can assert control. Slaves have officially been freed, but many powerful merchant houses still keep them, and they are too afraid to assert that freedom. Kalak's chief Templar, Tithian, has been crowned King, but he does not wield the power of Kalak, and so his grip is shaky.
In such a situation, it is easy for heroes (and villains) to tip the balance of power - sometimes without meaning to!
Your PC will have a rating with each major faction from zero to... well, anything. This represents how much the faction trusts you, and your reputation within it (and to other factions).
2. WHAT FACTIONS ARE THERE?
To start, there are only two factions powerful enough to be relevant.
TEMPLARS (TYR): The Templars are the old priesthood of Kalak (some of whom still draw mystic power from him... causing those who celebrate his death to be wary), now under the command of King Tithian. They seek to impose order on Tyr, preferably a return to the hierarchy of the old days where they wielded near-absolute power over nobles, merchants, freemen, and slaves alike. Many Templars are evil, but some just prefer order to anarchy.
The faction rating is with the Templars of Tyr - just because you rank highly among them does not mean you are respected in any other city. As the campaign progresses, we may make available faction ratings with other cities' templars.
VEILED ALLIANCE: The Veiled Alliance is a secret society of Preservers - arcane magic users who master the discipline of drawing arcane power without defiling the land. They believe that Athas can be regenerated through the wise use of arcane magic, and seek to stamp out defiling (alas, practiced by many Templars) and return Preserving magic to prominence. Many believe that general freedom is a necessary part of this goal, while others believe that Athas needs a benevolent dictatorship of Preservers to undo the effects of the Sorcerer-Kings' rule.
There are other power groups in the city, but right now the nobles, merchants, and freed slaves are too fractious to count as a faction in their own right. Of course, an enterprising PC might work to change that...
3. HOW DO I GET/CHANGE A FACTION RATING?
If you create a character with the Templar or Veiled Alliance character theme, you automatically start with a rating of 1 with that faction. Even if your backstory is that you are a Templar from another city, you live in Tyr now, and you are assumed to have made some contact with your brethren (remember that the faction rating is about how they see you - you can still hate them, if you like). Otherwise, all new characters have ratings of zero with all factions.
If we introduce any new factions, existing characters will start with a zero rating with those factions unless we say otherwise.
Your faction rating will usually change as a result of completing quests or otherwise acting for or against a faction in the game world. Quests announced here on the boards or in play that could change your faction rating will be noted as such by the DM. And if some action arises in play that could change your faction rating, the DM will warn you in advance.
Though the factions are opposed, raising the rating with one does not *necessarily* lower the rating with the other. But it often will - most quests will end up being something like +1 Templars/-1 Veiled Alliance.
Most quests, of course, will not affect your faction rating at all!
Oh, and though it's unrealistic, for simplicity's sake the assumption is that factions are effectively omniscient - that is, we're not going to worry about *how* the Templars found out you shanked that informant way out in the desert and left him for the gith. Word gets around.
4. HOW DOES MY FACTION RATING AFFECT ME?
The effects of faction ratings are often at the margins. The major impact is that some quests might only be given to trusted agents of the Templars or the Alliance, and so require a certain minimum faction rating to "get in." And if your faction rating with either faction is very high (or very low - a highly negative rating would mean you are infamous, hated, and feared by that faction), it may affect how some NPCs treat you (most NPCs won't care).
The intent is to give players who like this sort of thing something to invest in, not to penalize players who don't. If your PC is just a sellsword who couldn't care less about politics, your faction rating is likely to fluctuate randomly around zero, and 99% of the time, it won't affect you in the least. Merchants always need mercenaries, player-organized expeditions to ruins have no buy-in, and even the most ideological Alliance revolutionary will look the other way most of the time if your aim is true and your risk tolerance high.
For players, you can react to other PCs' faction ratings however you like, so long as you respect the cardinal rule of not killing other people's fun. If someone is showing up to a game that you're going to play your zealous Socerer-King-Pact Templar Warlock in, and play a freed slave with Alliance sympathies, either talk to him or her beforehand and work out an understanding, or enjoy good-natured bickering and sniping at the table but assume that somehow you've decided to work together *just this once.*
Unless it's a PVP scenario, in which case, yeah, rip their eyes out. If you can.
