[Here's the second part to Saturday's blog post]
The hunter-gatherers:
The Hawk-Eyes. To live you need to eat and drink, a very simple fact. As
Auspar is stuck in a caldera, the farm lands are outside of the city limits.
All produce gathered is transported by carts to the edge of the city, and
hoisted up and down spires, across bridges and zip lines until it has reached
its intended destination. The transports of something like this is highly influential
on the general transport of the city. You need to decide how goods are moved
generally, if Auspar was a flatter city, transport would be more logically done
by cart or hand rather than pulleys and
hooks. There will always be goods being moved in the background of your
narrative, and drawing upon them, even for a description can help immerse your
players in your world. The Hawk-Eyes as I've stated were influenced by the T.V.
show. They are the poster children of the city, they are celebrities of the
city, and adored not for their wealth or their popularity (although that has
come with the position they are in) it is their skill and prowess at hunting,
and brining back now only exotic creatures, and ones that could feed a good
portion of the city, but also hunting down anyone outside of the city that
would threaten the city in some way, be it either a thief, a mad Aeon priest,
or a group of bandits. They, in my mind, all have a gladiator style name, not
their real one but one that embodies their abilities and skills. The only
reason I did this was purely for narrative effect, you should know how your
society gets its food, and possibly what they eat as that influences their
prosperity levels, as well as their numbers and their skills.
The criminal: The Silver Palm Syndicate. The Silver Palm are
a little like the thieves guild of The Elder Scrolls series. They are an
organised society but are comprised of many factions, rather than one leader.
This makes their activities more diverse and open to external influence to
change a shift in power if the PCs or I decided. They also function as antithetical
to the entire city. Auspar is, in all respects ,trapped in its own obsession of
image. From entertainment, to the tallest spire, to wearing the right clothes
for a particular floor, to keeping up with the latest trends inside and outside
the home. Image is the moral currency of Auspar, while the Silver Palm use
their coins. These plain and mundane objects allow the user, within reason
anything that the Silver Palm can offer. Of course, these are exchanged for
actions and not responses. Anyone could have a Silver Palm coin stashed away
for a troublesome time but the vast majority of the Silver Palm could never
leave the Foundations. To make them a little more interesting, I decided for
them have a contract with House Ethis, to transport any and all goods they want
out of the city as one of my players were not keen on that house due to their
history. If my PCs had investigated it at the start of the campaign, it would
have given the narrative whole different spin. There will always be an
underworld to a society but it is reactive and not as simple as just breaking
the law.
The mercantile: The Metricious. PC's need to buy and sell
their gear, a simple fact. This goes for your NPCs and background fodder. Of
course the system for this could be trading of equal value, or to a
disadvantage to one party, and exchange of services for goods or simple
currency. This also may have an impact on how your society perceives wealth, as
possibly either materialistic, spiritual or in some cases having a Scrooge
McDuck style vault. Your merchants can be as one dimensional as you like but
their forms of trading will be influential. In Auspar there are about eleven
floors dedicated the Merchant class, a new social category for the city only, owing
to its location and inaccurate law keeping attracting vast amounts of traders.
This has probably been influenced by my love for the Great Gatsby and English
history, where old money from the aristocracy (the families of Ethis, Lyathra
and Narrkonis) and new money, acquired within that person's generation. I
wanted to shake a the preconceived notion that a kingdom was ruled by its
oldest and most powerful families, in comparison the Metricious, the old
families in Auspar are outnumbered, and possibly out resourced. They however
also serve a second function, as all of the others do. They provide a black
market for Numenera, as well as knowledge.
The string pullers: The Whisper Network. Although
technically in this campaign not an individual faction they are representative
of the idea that there is always someone who controls the flow of the city. By
bribery, blackmail or a deft hand or careful whisper the network has
infiltrated all of Auspar Society and in doing so has access to pretty much all
the information in the city, it only needs to be accessed by the right people.
This in your campaign could be a traitor in the party, a dark force on the
horizon, or perhaps even your party trying to change things without causing a
fight. Your 'villain' or 'Big Bad' (and I hate to using those terms) may also
have access to this kind of influence if they are less included to
displays/threats of power or strength
The next blog will be on the narrative elements of the
factions, those derived to create a story, rather than a cohesive and plausible
setting.
GM: Think about how your factions are related to the
environment they are in. Even if you aren't in a city some of these can still
apply. Could you introduce a new group into your game that the party wouldn't
expect but would work in the context of your game? Where do your own groupings
lay. How does your society measure status, wealth, knowledge and power? How
does a grain of wheat go from the field, to the table to be eaten? Can your
NPCs have more than one side to them?
PCs: How much do you really know about the world your
interacting with? Who can you really trust? Who's the most rich (not in money),
who would more likely get into an exclusive venue, who could sell your most
secret of secrets? Try to see the society as a maze you have yet to explore, of
course there is a right path to get out, but finding the dead ends may be even
more entertaining for you and for your GM.
/Drew @proftesla
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