By: Nick Stefanski
In past articles, we’ve looked at the planes and gods in the D&D multiverse and their public domain origins. Many of these ideas were cobbled together in the early years of the game from various real world mythologies, religions, and even literary sources. In early D&D, the planes were not places your characters were likely to go, nor were they likely to interact with deities; rather, these parts of the game were the backstory, the explanation behind particular monsters you could fight and spells you could wield, flavor text to add depth to the world but not really part of its mechanics.
This changed drastically with Planescape, an AD&D setting meant to make the outer planes accessible for low level characters. Deities were known as “Powers,” the movers and shakers behind the planes. In this way, Planescape wove together a lot of the accumulated lore from older settings and editions, but it also added new aspects like the city of Sigil, the Lady of Pain, and of course the factions.
David “Zeb” Cook, the main designer of the Planescape setting, has described the factions as “philosophers with clubs.” Since the outer planes run on belief, both in Powers and in the ethics and morality that make up the alignment system, it makes sense that groups organized around belief would be dominant. From a design perspective, factions gave a way for players to find a sense of belonging in the setting. Though it would quickly take on a character of its own as something undeniably “D&D,” part of the impetus behind the Planescape setting was to create a product to compete with a new crop of story-driven ttrpgs that emerged in the 1990s, particularly ‘Vampire: the Masquerade’ and its fellow World of Darkness games. The factions themselves were an answer to the clans of that game, a way for players to define characters not just by race and class but also by a belief system tied into the setting. Within the world of the game, the factions also played an integral part in the running and governing of the city of Sigil, Planescape’s home base between the various outer planes.
When asked about the inspiration for the factions, Zeb said that “They are all the bad philosophy ideas that we used to argue about in college after a few too many beers. The kind of debate where you know just enough about the philosophy to get yourself in trouble, but by damn you’re going to defend it just for the sake of arguing.” The setting itself drew from experimental literature and music, as well as “lots of Philosophy 101, just enough to be dangerous.”[1] To my knowledge, Zeb has never given a complete breakdown of the particular inspirations behind each faction, but Wikipedia’s article on the factions is a good starting point. It is, indeed, a kind of philosophy 101 course, with representatives of everything from ancient Sophists, Stoics, and Epicureans to modern anarchists, existentialists, and social darwinists.
In a setting fueled by belief, there’s nothing to stop one from taking any philosophy, whether a historical movement or one conceived from whole cloth, and expanding it to its extreme to create a suitable faction. However, as a framing device, I like to lean on the concept of the Axial Age; first proposed by the philosopher Karl Jaspers, it refers to a period in history when much of the foundation for modern philosophy and belief systems coalesced in Asia and Europe. Historians are divided as to whether the Axial Age is useful for explaining these changes, but it still works as a nice container for several dynamic periods where different philosophies vied for power. Most familiar to those in Philosophy 101, there is the flourishing of learning in Greece, particularly Athens, around the time of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, which can also be followed through history into the Roman period with groups like the Epicureans, Stoics, and Neoplatonists. Close to the same time, China had its Hundred Schools of Thought where the war between rival kingdoms was accompanied by rival social and political theories leading to the development of lasting movements such as Confucianism and Taoism. Meanwhile, in India, the new religions Buddhism and Jainism developed while in the Near East, figures like Zoroaster and Isaiah furthered universalizing religions. Although the conception of the Axial Age has particular pockets of development, there were also examples of global interplay between them such as the Buddhist influence on Chinese philosophy or the exchanges between Greek and Indian philosophy within the empire of Alexander the Great.
Mining from the Axial Age is a good way to find philosophies that fit with D&D’s usually pseudo-historical fantasy aesthetic, but you don’t need to feel limited by it. You can mine from any period of philosophical debate, from the Islamic Goldman Age to the Italian Renaissance. Modern philosophers may seem more out of place (to be honest, I always felt this way about Planescspe’s anarchists anyhow), but in this case, it can be useful to look at antecedents. For instance, when I wanted to make an alternative for the Bleak Cabal’s quasi-existentialist worldview, I remembered that the arch-Existentialist Friedreich Nietzche was influenced by, among other things, Buddhist thought and the Pre-Socratic philosophers who he described as “Dionysian Pessimists,” which seemed like a good enough faction name for me. This also easily suggested an opposite faction of what Nietzsche called “Appolonian Optimists,” a faction based on Socratic reason and in line with the Guvners or the Harmonium. I also knew I wanted a faction in line with the anarchists but also the Xaositects, so I focused more on looking for real world philosophies in line with the latter. For these, the ancient Cynics, especially as represented by Diogenes, were the most interesting to me. I wanted to follow my established naming convention, and a little research revealed that Herakles was often cited by Cynic philosophers, but these veered more into Stoicism than what I wanted to convey. Finally, I settled on Prometheus Pyrkaeus, or Prometheus the Fire-kindler, who bridged some of the gap between ancient Cynics and modern anarchism to create the completely invented faction of Pyrkaen Cynics.
The important thing about factions in an RPG game, as we discussed with deities, is to have enough of them so that there is a balance of power that the Player Characters can influence. Two is not enough; it easily gets into good vs evil or law vs chaos dynamics, and generally only one “right” option for the party to choose. Sigil’s 15 original (or 12 ascendant in the 5e remake) is good for a campaign setting, as are the 10 from the Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica, but these are probably more than most groups will really engage with in a typical campaign. The Player’s Handbook presents five factions in the Sword Coast region, and this is a more manageable number. For my own one shot, I decided three was enough.
The point of factions is also that they are in opposition to each other. This does not even need to be outright warfare; each faction in Planescape has a few natural allies and at least one bitter foe, but they are forced to cooperate in some situations, so most conflict is of a more political (or at least covert) nature. Even amongst factions that are not hostile, there should be some key differences in their outlook that can cause conflict, otherwise, why are they separate factions? For instance, among the Sword Coast factions, the Harpers, Lords’ Alliance, and Order of the Gauntlet can all more or less accommodate a Lawful Good outlook, but they have different priorities that can put their members at odds. Even the Zhentarim have been watered down from hardcore evil so that the balance of power between the factions can be flexible and avoid having the same battle lines every time.
Finally, to make a faction feel real, I would suggest following the Planescape route and giving them a concrete role beyond their specific philosophies. Belief is key in the planes, but a function gives them a presence in the world. This makes it easier to slot them into adventures in a believable way. If putting philosophers in charge of city administration seems unbelievable, I would present the history of the Mohists. Though the philosophy has not lasted like its rivals, it was as prominent as Confucianism and Taoism during China’s Warring States period. In addition to pacifism and utilitarianism, Mohists prized analytical thinking and studied logic and mathematics. This in turn made them the most skilled experts in the skill of creating defensive works for cities, and this practical application facilitated the philosophy’s spread during a time of civil war. If errant siege engineer philosophers can exist in the real world, who can tell what sort of strange skills your factions could pick up in the fantastic realm of the planes?
[1] https://www.theweem.com/2010/09/qa-with-david-zeb-cook-2001/
About the Author
Nick Stefanski has been playing RPGs since the 90s and publishing them since 2020. You can find his bestselling works on DMsGuild and DriveThruRPG, or hear about new releases on his site khyberia.com. He’s also on most of the socials as @TzarFenix
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