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Rules Reference: Factions

In the shared campaign system, each player character is part of a Faction. These factions are on the scale of major, nationally-support organizations, able to pull in dozens or hundreds of people to contribute to their work.   The player characters are assumed to be significant, active agents for their faction – the main people sent when something dangerous needs to be done. They are supported by their faction financially and socially, giving them access to what they need to do their job.   In this campaign, the factions are space artifice and exploration agencies, run by one of the major nations of Khorvaire, intending to reach outside the planet to the void of Siberyspace, containing the ring, moons, and planet of Eberron, and perhaps beyond it.  

Personal Money and Equipment

  Unlike an adventuring group, a player character in a faction is assumed to have whatever money they need. Do not track an individual’s gold, rations, or ammunition – outside of an exceptional situation, they’re not relevant to the narrative or mechanically interesting.   If a player character wants to purchase an important piece of personal equipment, they can do so between adventures using a requisition check, covered below. Minor purchases during an adventure – cost of rooms, food, or replenishing gear – can be handwaved. Significant costs, such as buying property, bribing a noble or hiring a ship’s crew, can be bought as a faction asset, also covered below.   As a general rule, only track equipment and gear that are important to the character’s capabilities or the story. Anything else that’s needed and reasonable to have, it’s assumed that it’s on hand.  
Should I add a particular mundane item to my sheet?   Sure, nothing stopping you, it's a great reminder! But, if you need something in a pinch, and it makes sense for your character to have it, then you could still have it without it being explicitly written down.   How do I know if I can I afford something?   If it's not on the requisition tables, and you feel like you could afford it? You can probably afford it. If buying it or not is uncertain, or interesting to the story? Make a judgement call based on your faction's Wealth, or roll off against the DM for it.
   

Faction Ratings

  To track what a faction is capable of, three ratings are used – these represent what a faction can and can’t accomplish, usually within a given month.   A ratings is tracked for a faction from a rating of 0 to 5. Increasing a ratings tends to be a major step in building an organization, similar to a character gaining a level.  

Wealth

Wealth tracks how much your faction can buy, hire, or commission. If the difficulty in obtaining something is in affording it, convincing someone to give it to you, or in an ongoing cost, it is limited by Wealth.   Wealth purchases equipment, magic items available on the market, common ship’s weapons, and consumables, hires and trains crew, gives money for bribes, covers lavish lifestyle costs, and gives discretionary spending.  

Knowledge

Knowledge tracks your faction’s ability to research, investigate, and uncover secrets. If the challenge is in knowing how or what to do, revealing something hidden or lost, or finding experts and obscure information, it is limited by Knowledge.   The Knowledge value uncovers new adventure sites, grants bonuses for a particular goal, designs customized magic items and assets, and reveals important narrative plots.  

Production

Production tracks the faction’s capability to build and create, especially with rare or limited materials, magic, or processes. If the difficult part of getting something is in having the resources used to make it, finding facilities or supply, or in finding people who can do the work, it is limited by Production.   Using Production lets the faction build their ships, construct their unique parts and modules, builds unique equipment designs, increases the maximum size and scope of their ships, make repairs, and engage in other major projects.  

Increasing Ratings

Ratings are increased exclusively by running adventures and missions to increase them. An important asset claimed or a narrative beat during a story can be decided to improve the faction’s ratings, as makes sense to the situation. This will usually be an intentional choice to go after something to help the faction, but unexpected opportunities can always show up.    

Faction Assets

  A faction has access to large amounts of wealth and resources, but only some of this is relevant enough to the story being told to bother tracking. Like a character’s inventory, the faction’s assets are a useful list of items, ships, holdings, people, experts, resources, information, and equipment at its disposal – this could be anything from a +1 sword to a moon base.   An asset can refer to anything mechanically or narratively important, and under the faction’s influence or control.   Because of the huge range this can cover, there are no universal rules to handle assets   Assets can be described with the same ratings, and some assets may increase a factions standing while it holds it. For example, a +1 sword can be called a Wealth 2 asset, while a sprawling shipyard may increase Production from 2 to 3.  
What counts as an asset?   If it’s likely to come up again over the campaign - or you want it to - add it to the list, and we'll find a use for it!   What if we find something during an adventure?   If it's something you can personally use, you keep it as usual! If it's say, a hoard of gold, a stash of research, or rare resources, these can be brought back and may have mechanics attached which can improve your assets phase, requisitioning of personal items, or improve the faction's rating.
 

Asset Phase

  Between each major adventure, time passes (nominally a month) and each faction has a chance to put each of their standings to work. For each one of their three standings, the faction may acquire a new asset. The new asset must be of the same value or lower as the relevant rating. In addition, any number of assets (within reason) two or more levels lower than the faction's rating can be acquired "for free", without expending a choice - these are trivial for the faction to acquire.   An example of assets for each standing and rating are:
Wealth Knowledge Production
0 Hire on green workers, pay for transport, hire a small property holdings, influence common workers, passively cover modest lifestyle costs Run research into known history, creatures, or a particular specialized field. Build basic facilities, common ship equipment, lifeboats, or anything from common wood, stone, and artifice.
1 Hire a typical sailing ship's crew, buy a fine carriage or small house, passively cover wealthy lifestyle costs, gather money to influence a skilled worker. Investigate information in known parts of Eberron and local secrets, create schematics for unique rating 1 ship parts, modify similar existing rating 1 parts to a new design. Build Tiny ship hulls (skiffs, fighters) with standard ship equipment, build a new rating 1 ship component from a design that has been discovered or invented, such as an airtight hull, simple controls, or basic energy sources.
2 Buy a specialised workshop, common fixed weapons such as ballista and mangonel, hire enough crew for a medium ship, gather money to influence a minor noble. Investigate information into Eberron's distant history and niche academic fields, uncover potential missions in distant parts of Eberron, create designs for new rating 2 ship parts, modify similar existing rating 2 parts to a new design. Build Small-sized ship hulls (sloop, schooner), construct a new rating 2 ship component from a known design such as propulsion capable of reaching and maintaining orbit, or basic ship systems.
3 Buy major fixed weapons such as cannons and trebuchet, train a crew up to expert standards, buy a small airship, cover costs of a luxurious lifestyle, gather money to influence a wealthy merchant. Investigate well-hidden information and knowledge known only to a handful of experts, uncover secrets and potential missions in known Siberyspace and the Ring, create unique designs for new rating 3 ship parts, modify similar existing rating 3 parts to a new design. Facilities and resources to build Medium-sized ship hulls (corvette, caravel), construct a new rating 3 ship component from a known design such as ship systems that mimic spellcasting or unique weapons.
4 Buy high-end artifice such as siege staves, maintain enough crew for huge ships, buy a warship or small estate, throw around enough money to impress a minor noble. Research into hidden information known only to extraplanar and supernatural sources, uncover secrets and potential missions in distant moons and unknown areas of Siberyspace, create unique designs for new rating 4 ship parts, modify similar existing rating 4 parts to a new design. Facilities and resources to build Large-sized ship hulls (cruiser, galleon), construct a new rating 4 ship component from a known design such as propulsion fast enough for extreme distance travel.
5 Purchase experimental military weapons, train a crew up to masters in their craft, buy a private island, have enough available money to influence a House Lord or lesser royalty. Uncover information only known to entirely alien or divine sources, reveal potential opportunities in the deep, unknown beyond, create designs for new rating 5 ship parts, modify similar existing rating 5 parts to a new design. Facilities and resources to build Huge-sized ship hulls (battleship, dreadnought), construct a new rating 5 ship component from a known design such as ship systems similar to high-level spells or incredible weapons and engines.
6 Bring to bear the wealth of a small country, covering extreme edge cases and assets more valuable than what is normally achievable. Only reachable under exceptional circumstances. Make breakthroughs that can have effects on the world for generations, covering the extreme edge cases more obscured or difficult than what is normally achievable. Only reachable under exceptional circumstances. Build Gargantuan-sized ship hulls (carrier, flying fortress) or huge projects, covering the extreme edge cases more complex than what is normally achievable. Only reachable under exceptional circumstances.
 
How much can we get between each adventure? One thing from each category! You've got income, researchers and builders, and they can all be put to work each month.   Can we get things from higher tiers than our rating? Maybe with a resource discovered in the world - a dragon's hoard might temporarily boost Wealth, for example. But normally, it's just not possible at scale.   So I can get as much as I want from low tiers? Within reason! If it's two tiers lower, it's trivial for you to make, learn or buy on the side, and you can have a bunch of them without it using up your choice for the month.   Does this include magic items? This is the big-ticket items the faction as a whole is buying - if it's something for personal use, that's a requisition.   So how do we get new ship parts? Wealth buys new weapons and crew, things known in the world already. Research lets you modify existing parts, and design new ones. Production makes more parts, but only ones you've found or invented the designs for.
       

Requisitions

  The faction doesn't just buy things for itself - as their elite agents, the PCs can also request something for themselves each month, making use of some of the resources for their own reasons.   Between each significant adventure, each player character gains one requisition point, loosely representing the savings of their wages, the amount of research time they can request for personal means, and the time and resources they can take from their faction's artisans. These points can be saved up, but generally can't be traded between PCs.   Whenever a PC is at their faction's headquarters or an outpost, they may spend requisition by requesting an item. The base cost is determined by the type of requisition:  
Requisition Type  Point cost
Pack of consumables or mundane item 1
Minor magic item 2
Major magic item 3
Modifying an existing, similar item
Commissioning an item to a custom design +1 
Rarity is 1 tier lower than Wealth rating -1
Rarity is 2+ tiers lower than Wealth rating -2
Rarity is 1 tier higher than Wealth rating x2 
Rarity is 2+ tiers higher than Wealth rating Impossible
  The rarity that can be requested is also then dependent on the faction's Wealth:  
Wealth Requisition Rarity
1 Common magic items, or non-magical items or components up to 600gp
2 Uncommon magic items, or non-magical items or components up to 1200gp
3 Rare magic items, any non-magical items
4 Very Rare magic items
5 Legendary magic item, with the assistance of a resource
  If a target requisition's cost becomes 0, then the item is trivially easy - it's possible to ask for multiple of the same item, within reason, without it consuming a meaningful amount of resources.   Consumable items however have some limitation on how many can be carried at once. This isn't normally reached by adventurers, but when stored too close together, potions break within overfull packs, scroll's magics interfere with each other, and unstable enchantments begin to cancel each other out.

While nearly any amount can be stored at a base, ship's hold or other stable location, no more than 3 single-use consumable items (potions, scrolls, ammunition, etc.) can be carried on a single character at any one time, with ammunition counting at 1/3rd its normal quantity, and not including more stable items tied to class features, such as an alchemist's potions or an arcane archer's arrows.    
Can we requisition any magic item? There will be a limited list based on what's actually able to be made or could be found on the market. Major, character-defining gear or items that'd warp balance, like staves of power or attribute-increasing tomes, might require specific resources from adventures before they can be purchased or crafted.   How many consumables does each requisition get..? Depends on the consumable - can assess at the time. On average, enough to feel impactful though - something like 2 potions, 5 ammunition, or a single spell scroll might be appropriate.

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