Factions#
Ideas for types of societal/group structure that can be used to model new factions.
Secret Societies#
Things to consider with compelling thieves guilds / secret societies.
1. Membership - Identify a need that is not being met. Your group needs something, but it is withheld. Substances / Gold / Political Sway. Once goals are attained, the new goals grow and morph. Member base might change.
2. Organisation - How does a person become a leader among these aggrieved members? What qualifications did they have, how did it shape the group? Is he radical?
3. Goals - What problems does a group have, what do leaders to do address these grievances? Solution might be stepping stone, or all that the leadership understands. Can anyone contribute, no matter how shady?
4. Secrecy - What purpose does secrecy serve the organisation. Afraid of found? Why? What powers are likely to find them, and what will happen then? Don't be nebulous here. Smugglers afraid of one guard captain? Cultists afraid of one religious leader cracking down? Maybe secrecy isn't simple; shadow cabinet. Parallel organisations. They could operate in the open, but choose not to.
5. Tensions - Conflict, resolution, storytelling arise from how each step of the way the group gets further away from the reasons that first created the group. A secret society benefits from the idiosyncratic choices tha tlead to where it is because each offers new avenues for tensions that your party can explore. Maybe the party can unravel the web, and dethrone leaders, or change the organisation.
Examples from Chinese/Russian history:
https://old.reddit.com/r/DnDBehindTheScreen/comments/itjn7p/stranger_than_fiction_ii_thieves_guilds_and_the/
Triads#
Based in local identities within China. Groups of people originating in the same area, but living in a new one. Diaspora.
Poorest people usually. A helping system for people to stay afloat in a new location.
Might work for leaders of both sides of official rule, and offer dirty contracts on behalf of Chinese rulers.
State sponsored organised crime.
Secrecy forced on the organisation.
Unregulated, because all underhand deals.
The people are loyal to the people in the group, not where they live, so are open to a lot.
Tension; serve your people in strange lands, but you are taken over by the rich and powerful who have no reason to support you.
The Literary Society (1911 Revolution)#
Few human rights, emperialism feeding on China.
New group pushing for a revolution and a democratic government.
In the past revolutionary propagandists and organisation tried to recruit military into their plots by pitching directly to recruits. Soldiers generaly could not join revolutionary organisations in a safe way, so they made their own.
Small groups like Literary Society got together tot alk about the revolution and how to recruit new members from within their units.
Goal was to overthrow the Qing dynasty through military conversion, but military has always sided with the throne.
By having multiple tiny barely connected groups it made it untraceable (even to other revolutionary).
Every organisation had the same plan, and it just kind of worked at the end when one group started making bombs, and one detonated.
Secrecy made this possible, but also made they had no idea of what they were doing and who to trust.
Their leader; guy that was going to be executed for being in a revolutionary group, and they just begged him to become their leader.
Secrecy meant they had no friends, didn’t know who to contact, didn’t know who to trust, so they ended up trusting a guy who did not want to be there.
By the time real revolutionary leaders who had been trying to start this revolution for decades showed up, the revolution was full of bandwagoners.
Once it was time to move beyond the small, secret group phase, their organization and beliefs worked against them. They believed, pretty earnestly, that all these people jumping on the bandwagon must be revolutionaries coming from their own secret groups, or at least have been converted to the idea of overthrowing the Emperor. As they found, some of their allies were generally behind overthrowing the throne, but only so they could take it themselves.
The Communist International#
Funded by Lenin; international alliance of Communist parties.
Feared that the communist experiment in the USSR would not last and Russia would be torn apart; they needed friends.
Tried to train, arm, guide other Communist partiet hoping they could turn into Soviet allies.
A lot of revolutionaries saw Marxism as sort of the next step in the evolution of governmen.
Marx was persuasive to people.
Even pragmatic people were concerned about the fate of their backwards nations, were persuaded by the idea of skipping ahead in the evolution of government, to eventually surpass even their better of rival countries.
Membership kind 1: parties looking to ComIntern to be a participating member in a global communist movement without borders.
Membership kind 2: actual ComIntern agents sent into the field to help the parties self-organise.
The agents were under pressure from Soviet leaders to instill a paternalistic view of ComIntern (the others wouldn't work alone).
The parties wanted to be equal members, but the soviets wanted affiliants. Agents stood in the middle.
Tension played out in these conflicting goals. Some agents pressured to be heavy handed, leading to fractures.
Tension played out in structure; agents assumed they'd be in charge even in countries they did not know. They knew theory (via Lenin/Marx directly even), but not practice (Quote from Mao).
Mao could reach the average Chinese person through exeperience in revolution; how to fight mountain battles, plant and contact undercover agents. Stuff not covered by the Communist Manifesto.
Secrecy; they were a giant boogeyman. Outside agenst coming in and starting a revolution? Set the stage for a later cold war.
Stalin disbanded ComIntern before that.
Secrecy was about what they were up to. Even the agents themselves did not understand where things were going.
Backfired. Parties also felt a lack of cohesive movement from ComIntern.
Parties couldn't trust advice and leadership when decisions were shrouded in mystery.
Parties were not part of the decision making process, and they were not sure who were benefitting.
Pirates#
Cartel / Mafia#
Cause people to be indebted to you and force them to work for you. Geas?
Not state sponsored. But organised crime. TODO: why not cracked down on?
Cults#
Stranger than Fiction IV: What Even Are Cults#
The five characteristics are: godlike leader(s), flexible beliefs, reinvention of the self, isolation of believers, and elite membership.
- leader - ranging from prophets, literal manifestations - infallible + essential. in face of setbacks / self-contradictions, they must show it was part of their vision (couldn't reveal until they were ready). Allowed misfortune to test their followers. Never wrong. Key to reaching the goals of the organisation.
Q; do they do this cynically, fully aware of what they are doing and manipulating it, or do they believe in it themselves? What myth or legend has made their charisma? In the world of D&D, what powers towards deification can they actually gain or use for the purpose? How much does the cult serve only the leader, and if a lot how is this justified?
- flexibility - secret of the world / humanities place in it. changeable, but cultists won't see the dissidence. The purpose at the end is the most important thing.
Q: what is the core, unchangeable belief at the center of the cult? What actions can they take to get there? Why is it persuasive, what does it offer them? How can it adapt whenever proven wrong? What is the leader's role in redefining the cult's beliefs? Can it survive without the leader?
- reinvention - asked of all people. Skin in the game. Causes a tight-knit community. Different from team-building in that it has to be powered by a belief that it's happening for a reason, and they are becoming a more advanced type of person for having gone through it.
Q: what are the rituals they use to reinvent themselves? What are they trying to attain? How do senior members initiate the new ones? Are there additional levels of reinvention beyond the first? What does a reinvented cultist look like or act like? Should they literally gain some powers?
- isolation - beliefs/reinvention can only work through isolation from the rest of the world. Could sequester away or take extreme villainous measures to keep the world away even as they live within it.
Q: How does the cult keep information from outside from getting in? What are the punishments for letting information in? How do they interact with the world when they must be out in it? How does the cult isolate people from their friends and family?
- elite - not just for the gullible. appeal to particularly smart / capable people because they appear to be a special group not everyone can be a part of. requirements prevent entry for some, makes other feel as part of an elite group. This feeling reinforces the previous characteristics. Complimentary to the feeling that they will get elite rewards for their sacrifice.
Q: why do cultists see themselves as unique and special when they are part of this organization? What prerequisites are there to membership? What do they have to do to prove that they deserve membership? How are various levels distinguished from each other within the cult? What do they gain, what secret knowledge is dispensed with membership, what boon is granted?
Cult Examples#
from same post or comments therein.
Heaven's Gate#
Suicide cult in 1997. Haley's comet tail == alien ship hiding. Suicide to beam them up.
Leader. Marshall Applewhite + Bonnie Nettles. Mixed sci-fi, bible, occult into a Christian God who was real, and alien. Read into Book of Revelations, and made alien spin. Leaders claimed they were gods. Jesus/God were incorporeal and could take over bodies.
Flexibility. Recruited widely, avoided anyone who might recongize them. One leader died of cancer, so a God died? No they changed their beliefs. She clearly couldn't die, so only her vessel died.
Reinvention Everyone asked to chaing themselves to attain the next evolutionary level; rid themselves of pitiful human traits (gender, personality, possessions, etc), then when time comes, they would be taken by aliens to ascend. Required to reinvent themselves to get the reward at the end.
Isolation Obvious from ^. Nomadic people to follow leaders, gave away everything. Became more and more reclusive later. Rented a compound for everyone, shut out from the outside world.
Elites Ascetic life not easy, had to prove themselves. People expected to fail.
attracted smart, capable people because it told them sure you’re smart and capable, but that’s just the start.
People like feeling not just smart, but like they are holders of secret knowledge. There’s something about knowing the world’s secrets better than the common man that is enticing and seductive. A cult plays into this by giving that feeling to them; more importantly, it makes them work for it. A religion puts its beliefs up front (generally) for people to see, but a cult gates that knowledge off and releases it slowly to believers to make them feel special, different, chosen.
=> Membership not illogical. Preys on psychological exploints. Faceless cultists are faceless by choice, not because you need a villainous mob, but because they gave them up in service of a greater power that knows they are special, gives them secret knowledge, and treats them like an elite + chosen group, who deserves the rewards at the end.
Aleph#
aka Aum Shinrikyo aka. Aum. Responsible for 1995 Tokyo sarin gas attack. Ex-yoga study group.
Leader. Shoko Ashara. Spiritual guru preaching a more pure and original Buddhism, refering to Buddha's secret teachings. Stole some bits of Christinity, claiming he alone could take on the sins of the world to redeem people. Claimed to be Christ in 1992. Sold his own bathwater. Made a brainwave device to transmit Ashara's thoughts and personhood into people. Executed in 2018.
Flexibility. Predicted various doomsdays, recalculated when they didn't happen, leader execution hasn't killed the cult. Rituals and foundation of community == real power of the group. Beliefs change to fit uneditable facts.
Reinvention. Give all belongings to the cult, give up their lives to join. Goal is to literally clone the leader (through indoctrination + brainwashing + brainwave devices). By becoming Ashara they reach the secrets of Buddha which Ashara 'knew'.
Elites. Ashara argued the world was going to end (nuclear winter / ww3). With faith in Ashara believers could be saved, and with enough believers, the fate of the world reversed. Makes people feel special when everyone is normally in this cutthroat capitalist 60+ hour workweek Japan.
Karma is not direct, it’s a universal system of waves that we are creating, reverberating throughout infinite time and reincarnations. Everyone is connected, every event is just the waves of karma shifting our fate and balancing the karmic debt from thousands of lifetimes of ripples.
believed: their devoted group could change the world through the power of their karma. By following their leader, living lives of good karma, and serving this one shining light that promised to fix the infinite pattern controlling all fate, they could suck away all the bad in the world and prevent these karmic waves from destroying everything.
Isolation. Cults can overcome doubts when beliefs are reinvented, making people believe they are elite and unique, and by isolating members from outside influences; a self-reinforcing bubble (screening out contradicting info). But isolation was also to protect them.
these people saw themselves as the last hope for mankind, the calm center of the storm trying to spread that calmness against the encroaching waves. Part of what made them a cohesive community and made them commit was because they thought the world would push back on them. They had to fight against bad karma. And remember, karma is not individual, it is a universal pattern that links every person together, not a direct action/reaction dyad. The people that resisted Aleph did so as part of this universal system of bad karma shaking the pattern. Aleph’s little pocket of good was under attack by the system, almost like Agents taking over individuals in the Matrix. And Aleph was under attack. They were sued for fraud and kidnapping by parents whose kids joined the cult and faced numerous legal battles about all sorts of other, very legitimate, complaints of illegality.
violence: So how does a yoga, self-help group become terrorists with biological weapons? Because they saw themselves as an isolated bastion trying to save the system from itself, they viewed their attackers not as people but as expressions of that system, and because the fate of the universe hung on them and them alone. It might have seemed like just some lawsuits to outsiders and the resulting attacks as absolutely inordinate retaliation, but on the inside this was a defensive war for the future of the world.
=> easy to quickly grow violent, won't be seen as retribution/violence, but rather necessary evil in defense against those already attacking us.
Mao Zedong#
Started small. The Cultural Revolution was as much an attempt to recapture the magic of his first cult, as it was a totally new expression of his cult.
Interestingly not divine, yet still the most deified of them all.
Charisma + mythical heroism in a leader can make the cult feel special and an embattled minority, even when it's the clear, dominant, oppressive majority.
Flexibility. Every believer replaceable. Peng Dehuai who worked with him for years, was later publicly ridiculed, accused of being deep-capitalist plant, and had his history purged, after he posted a letter slightly criticising the Great Leap Forward (which caused a huge famine). Ditto for Liu Shaoqi, despite 20 years of service. Everything he did was later portrayed as a great deception and betrayal of Mao.
Reinvention. Rectification process. Read Mao/other approved tests, commented, and criticized themselves in front of smaller groups. Repeat until it felt sufficiently sincere. The resulting movement went on to rule China for 40 years. Mao decided the first 20 made them soft => Cultural Revolution to replace the group. Similar blueprint of criticizing. Reinvention of the self a proxy for reinvention (revolution) of China. Members formed party. Saw rectification as a prerequisite to save country from imperialism. Saw themselves as the only hope for global communism against traitorous capitalists. Memorized the Little Red Book.
Isolation. By taking over the country. Controlling the media. Though at the beginning, outside of harms way, and while the country struggled with wars, they recruited. This later expanded, but the isolation of the rectification was psychological. Universally created their own groups and attacked the rest of society.
Elites. Despite it being for the masses, it only recruited a percentage, based on merit (or connections) to become part of a ruling class. Levels of prestige. Need to work. Need rectification. Super nationalists. Even when fighting other Chinese in both revolutions, they felt they were saving China and the world. The "vanguard of revolutionary change".
Leader. Mao had been correct before, built up rebellion before, and got away (with great difficulty). Hero of the battle-scared group. Legendary survival. Only grew in populariy after. Became an idol. His every word was the truth. When Mao’s followers attacked their elders, they saw themselves as the embattled few saving the world when they were, in fact, already in total control. They believed Mao when he told them otherwise, regardless of the evidence in front of their eyes.
Mao’s biggest departure from the cults we looked at earlier is that he made all of this happen to a population of a billion, not the forty of Heaven’s Gate or even the (alleged) tens of thousands once in Aleph. A billion. The most populous country in the world. And yet all the tactics that seemed to serve a small, dedicated group like a religious cult worked here. In a country they controlled, they still felt isolated. In an elite group of specially picked members, they still felt special and unique. In a place that had already been reinvented as a Communist nation once, they still had to do it again. And in a land of a billion, nobody was able to point out the absurdities in how beliefs changed so wildly.
Comments#
Unlike in real life. Cults can be right.
Gods might permit cults with an extreme read on their teachings.
Psychological comment#
Cults do not operate though elitism. It may appear that way on the surface, but in actuality a lot of cults operate to entice the open minded. In psychology, Openness is a trait that people have and cults look for two traits among people to latch onto: People with high agreeability, and people with high openness, bonus points for people who are high in conscientiousness and by extent judgmental personalities.
The reasons why cults seek these personality types out isn't a conscious thing, there isn't a mastermind controlling the cult in the real world, instead, these personality types seek the new way of thinking coupled with the community.
Isolation is not necessarily intentional.
this is the community wanting to stay a community. Cults, as in all members, do not like it when members leave, the fantasy of the cult, the community that protects them and transforms them to be more than what they are. So that thing that causes conflict within the community is an enemy. This is where Agreeability rears it's ugly side, like mama bear, she will rip you apart if you touch her cubs. No doubt you have met a person with high agreeability who will be kind and nurturing, but will be outright hostile to threats to their sensibilities. This is cult like behavior and it's how cults maintain themselves.
Flexibility also due to community over belief.
The belief is a vehicle, and if that belief is wrong then the community is shaken. This is why you will see cults attack criticism, it's not because they're disrupting their master plan, it's because you're threatening their perceived safety and unity.
Innocense potential:
Cult members are not evil, not even the leader (most times) They are more like adults who want to be children, they're sad and lost in the world and want to return to a safe place where mom and dad are at the wheel, driving the car with them in the back of the car. But as Jet Black said, there is nothing more pure and cruel as a child.
Comparisons#
Other organisations that fit this bill;
- QAnon via Q