Factions
Factions on Crossroads
Factions on Crossroads exist to bring life to the setting and serve as foundational components to immerse players in the world. Factions in Season 2: The Lost Hills are populated by players and managed by assigned members of the DM team to bring a rich, storytelling experience to all who engage with them, whether it is for slice of life interactions or a greater storyline.
Factions function largely as populations for hubs. They represent rank-and-file commoners, adventurers, and business owners, rather than local governmental authority. Faction players are going to live in the city/hub and populate it as the hub clan, and help to make the hub feel alive and promote story from within. In Season 2, the goal is to shift the onus of factions from being the authority for a hub to being immersive roleplay elements as residents of a hub.
Faction members can be residents, business owners, artisans, and more; think of your everyday locals, with their own personal stories to tell, rather than the faction being the anchor to the character’s story.
Faction Structure
Faction Leaders
3 Named NPCs portrayed by the DM team that represent upper-leadership and additional supporting NPCs on a need-by-need basis that fill miscellaneous roles.Faction Representatives
Three players for each faction, serving as liaisons between players and staff, handling day-to-day matters as in-character community figures or trusted citizens of the leadership.General Membership & Citizens
Average players, their ranking, and their purpose.Subgroups
Narrative organizations that are player-led and organized.Faction Leaders & DMNPCs
These NPCs are assigned to and acted by DMs, whose purpose is to lead the faction; they are not personal characters, and thus, serve a greater purpose within the overall story of the server. Actions taken against these NPCs (such as seeking to kill them) will need to proceed with permission and collaboration from the DM team.The burden of the faction's ‘hard choices’ and story direction is on the DM team through the use of these NPC characters. They are scripted NPCs with dialogue options present in their respective hubs when they are not actively being played, and may be played by more than one DM.
The responsible DMs will also coordinate with Faction Representatives to help distribute story hooks and information to keep the hubs vibrant and the story moving.
The DMs assigned to factions are three at minimum, forming a small team that dispenses story hooks for the whole region and engages with the other factions to foster storylines and incentivize in-character player conflict.
Faction Representatives (Players)
This role is subject to Pillars of the Community rules. A faction representative is primarily an out-of-character player position, while still maintaining a minor in-character leadership position.These players are seen as in-character community figures to help organize as trusted figures of the leadership, but they are not the ruling party or character of the faction/hub. Out of character, they work as a liaison between players and the DMs. Faction officers are a line of communication to DM interaction and serve to help maintain quality and promote story within the hub.
These players assist faction DMs and Moderators to reinforce server standards and encourage rules-based behavior, as well as cultivate a healthy roleplay environment, which includes healthy conflict. Faction representatives minimize toxicity and help maintain a positive environment by example rather than enforcement.
Faction Representatives work to spread narrative hooks to other players, including those outside of a faction.
They will help to keep hubs alive and lively. This includes helping to organize traders and crafters inside of hubs, as the hope is that these are locations most people can go for trade and roleplay.
Due to the amount of time invested and standards needed to be upheld, Faction Representatives will receive the password early at restarts.
General Membership (Citizens)
Barring in-character ranking structures, which are established by players in-character, all members of a faction are otherwise equal in an out-of-character sense. Organization is otherwise an in-character structure established by the players, detailed below in subgroups.Subgroups
A subgroup is a narrative grouping with a generalized theme. For example, a collection of wizards in Leilon, a goblinoid warband in Southkrypt, or a gaggle of ragtag mercenaries for Phandalin. These organizations offer general themes for players to join, and can have their own structures. This allows for large hubs to have diverse options for roleplay and participation, without limiting hubs to their own overarching themes.A faction can have multiple subgroups within, such as guilds, adventuring parties, city community organizations, and so on.
Subgroups within a faction should work cooperatively with faction officers and DMNPCs at least on an out-of-character level to ensure story cohesion and the spread of hooks.
No subgroup should actively work from within to destabilize the hub. While we want to encourage subterfuge RP, that should come from organic RP outside of the hub structure and proceed through organic infiltration.
If you are interested in applying for a Faction Lead position, we encourage you to look at the whitelist ticket channel where it shows which positions are currently open.*/