Heroic Organizations

When a group of characters founds a domain, the players choose one of the eight organization types described in this section. Each organization features three specializations that the players also choose from, creating a wide range of possibilities for the heroes’ domain. Though this section is primarily for player characters, and is written to speak to the players, a GM can also use the domains presented in this section to create enemy and NPC realms.

Intrigue

Conflict between domains is called intrigue, and serves as the backdrop to the warfare battles that can play out between the heroes and the villains. The characters can use their organization’s skills outside of intrigue, making use of Diplomacy to forge alliances, Espionage to gather intelligence, and so forth. But once the heroes decide it’s time to act and stop the villain (or once the villain decides to stop the heroes), the GM announces that intrigue has begun as its own special phase of the game.
Intrigue occurs between two domains—by default, the heroes’ organization and the villain’s enemy realm. NPC realms might also be involved, but they don’t act on their own during intrigue. Rather, they lend aid to one side or the other.
Intrigue is divided up into domain turns, during which the players and the GM make use of the domain features and special actions available to them. Intrigue ends once both sides have completed all their domain turns, at which point the GM will set up a final showdown between domains— involving combat between the characters and their enemies, a climactic battle between the armies of powerful domains, or both!

Domain Powers

Domain powers represent the new features that a domain’s officers earn as a result of the research and training they do with their agents. The officers of a thieves’ guild work and train with their bravos and apprentice thieves, and as a result, become better at what they themselves do. Likewise, the stewards of a druid circle spend time between adventures studying, tending to nature, and training their acolytes, and so gain greater insight into the summoning of nature spirits.
Each type of domain—both heroic organizations and NPC realms—grants a number of unique domain powers, whose mechanics are broken out in the domain type description. But all domain powers rely on the use of a shared resource—a pool of power dice.

Power Dice

Each officer in a domain—player characters and the villain and lieutenants of an opposed domain alike— gets one power die, with the die type determined by the domain’s size (see above). Any officer can choose to roll their power die immediately after they roll initiative at the start of any combat (no action required). Once a power die is rolled, it cannot be rolled again until the officer who rolled it finishes an extended rest. (An extended rest is defined in Strongholds & Followers as 1 week of study and training spent at the stronghold of the officer’s domain. The GM might use this as a guideline, or set some other parameters for what an extended rest means in the campaign.)
Each domain power allows the officers in the player characters’ organization to use some or all of the dice in their shared pool to produce crazy new effects in combat. At the same time, the officers of a villainous realm will use their own domain powers and power dice to fuel their domain’s push for victory over the characters. Any power dice that aren’t used are removed from a domain’s pool at the end of the combat in which they were rolled.
For example, Anna, Lars, Grace, and Tom are playing the officers in a thieves’ guild (one of the options for an underworld syndicate organization; see page 61). They’re just starting out, so each of their characters has a d4 power die. In a fight against a local enemy thieves’ guild (an NPC realm) known as the Clock, Lars waits until initiative is determined, and decides to roll his power die, getting a 3. He adds this to the empty pool on the party sheet.
Following suit, the other officers, including officers of the Clock, all decide to roll their power dice. Anna rolls a 4, Tom a 1, and Grace another 4, all of which are added to their pool. The heroes’ pool now has four dice in it: a 1, a 3, and two 4s. Whichever hero acts first can take any or all of those dice out of the pool, depending on which domain power they intend to use.
Rolling power dice together in the same combat provides a potential benefit by increasing the number of dice in the pool, and increased chances of high rolls. But some players might want to not roll their power dice, so as to save them for another upcoming combat. Likewise, the GM might decide to not roll power dice even when the players are, if they think their villainous officers will face the characters again before everyone has time to take an extended rest.
Decrementing- When a player or GM activates a domain power, the rules for that power sometimes instruct them to decrement the power die, usually at the end of each turn of the character who used the power. Decrementing the power die means to decrease the number on the die by 1. When a power die showing a 1 is decremented, the die is spent and the power activated with that die is no longer in effect.

From MCDM’s Kingdoms and Warfare

Resources

The wealth of a domain is measured as Resources, though this defense represents more than just money. Resources includes whatever a domain values and collects, whether gold, knowledge, secrets, or things more esoteric. When a domain’s Resources is high, it directly affects the gear of that domain’s units, granting them improved power or damage. Poor Resources affects morale. Troops that haven’t been fed or whose armor and weapons are in dire need of repair become agitated.

Level	Effect	Description
3	Booming	During the first round of battle, each of this domain’s artillery units that inflicts casualties inflicts 1 extra casualty.
2	Abundant	Each of this domain’s cavalry units has advantage on Power tests until the end of the first round of battle.
1	Surplus	Each of this domain’s infantry units has advantage on Power tests until the end of the first round of battle.
0	Normal	No Effect
-1	Low	Each of this domain’s artillery units has disadvantage on Morale and Command tests until the end of the first round of battle.
-2	Poor	Each of this domain’s cavalry and aerial units has disadvantage on Morale and Com- mand tests until the end of the first round of battle.
-3	Bankrupt	Each of the domain’s infantry units has disadvantage on Morale and Command tests until the end of the first round of battle.

Titles

Each organization grants its officers access to five titles that are distinct to each type of organization. Each character claims a different title within an organization, with that title granting new features and proficiencies. A character can have more than one title, but they can benefit from only one at a time, switching titles during a long rest. If a party includes more than five player characters, the GM can allow specific titles in an organization to be duplicated or allow a character to take a title from a different type of organization.
Most organizations’ titles are designed to support playing an organization whose officers are all of the same class, by giving those officers a wider range of features. For example, in a normal game, a party consisting of all rogues will deal formidable damage and be very stealthy indeed! At the same time, though, the lack of a tank and a healer makes such a group more fragile and less versatile than a typical group of adventurers. But in a thieves’ guild organization whose officers are all rogues, titles help shore up these deficiencies.
As an optional rule, the GM might consider allowing titles only when the players create a single-class party. This isn’t a strict requirement, but players and GMs should all be aware that some titles might become overpowered if stacked with similar benefits from class features or feats.