• Each in a category is exclusive?
• Factions apply a template of modifiers when they are in charge of a place/resource.

• Legitimacy
• Starting your own factions
• Using authority over others to gain rewards, own faction points, legitimacy
• Factions "owning" other factions?
  • The faction of Bast owns Keket's whorehouse
  • But then the Queen of Mulhorand owns the whorehouse too
  • The faction of the Mulhorandi Pantheon "owns" Bast
• Infamy vs Fame: get better quests and rewards than your Faction rating suggests

Brainstorming:

• The Old Houses date back to the Peace of the Oath.
  • 1 - The richest family in Old Ascadia (think Medicis/Borgias)
    • Power source: wealth, artifice
    • Appearance and style: renaissance Italian meets republic roman
  • 2 - Remnants of the old royal house of Uldenor
    • Theme: dark, brooding (like all things Uldenor)
    • Claim the Kingdom of the Sword by birthright (as if that makes any sense)
    • Many wonder how they have held onto so much influence
    • Power source: shadow
  • 3 - Charming, almost fairytale clan from Dennoth
    • Pretty, witty, seductive
    • Power source: charm (maybe some fey heritage)
    • Theme: artsy, flighty, emotional, melodramatic
  • 4 - Horse lords of old Tirnor, now Obrith frontier
    • Power source: martial, some divine
    • Cavalry tradition, survival, individual accomplishment; did well against the Kurn invasion
    • Many are quite faithful to the values of Oathkeep, both churches; good diplomats to other races
  • 5 - North-south caravaneers turned trade barons.
    • Mixed race, not quite Ahrimid, not quite northern.
    • Power source: exotic trade, information, arcane magic
    • Ultimate businessmen, like much sexier Ferengi
• There are also some factions in the South and West, as you'd expect.
• And of course Elves and Dwarves have theirs.

The guilds! Or rather, higher-tier organizations of many allied guilds.

• 1 - Masons, engineers, builders, toolmakers. Very Masonic. Interested in weird things, especially buried things.
• 2 - Smiths of all things made in smitheries. They like provoking wars; good for business.
• 3 - Scribes, book-binders, inkmakers, and the like. Get along well with wizards. They encourage literacy and knowledge.
• 4 - Artists, performers, bards, etc. Not quite so maligned as in Earth's history, due to the influence of other races. Always demanding higher wages, for fear of strike.
• 5 - Big Agriculture. The Monsanto of Tellandor.

• Order of the Ring: once druids, now amoral, atheist mages based in Saillone
• Circle of Nine: the old druids reformed under Telkior; shades of WoW, and of course Loretan
• The White Tower: morally-aligned mages, mostly KotS, ripped right from Impiltur
• The An-Shareth (Starweavers): once exclusive to elves and dragons; seekers of a mystical truth beyond religion
• The Eternal Brotherhood of Immortal Philosphers: at the top, an exclusive club of immortals, who must never reveal their method for becoming so; below, thousands of aspirants, combing the mystical traditions of West, East, and South for the Secret.

• Archaeologists: titan lore, etc
• Wyrm faction: dragons who want to reestablish contact with the wyrms
• The Rangers: killing monsters for a better tomorrow (elfy)
• The Illumina
• The Listeners
• The Observers: astronomers, scientists, mathematical predictors of future events

All major and otherwise interesting subfactions listed below. There are others not meting those criteria.

• Ordo Valentia: A monastic order that fulfills many administrative duties in Church lands, having inherited them from the secular bureaucracy of the Old Empire. "Monks" in name, these behave like priests in all other religions, directly preaching to masses, hearing confession, and not sequestering themselves from society.
• Brotherhood of St. Kord: A more "true" monastic order, involving deeper vows, with the peculiar tradition of intense martial training in unarmed combat.
• Order of St. Arja: Also known as the "Knights Palatine", this order of holy warriors protects the temples and holy places of the Church, and has been known to conduct crusades.
• Sisters of Tellandor: A monastic order for women only, the Sisters perform the usual duties of cloistered nuns, but the true purpose of the order is to secure those women born with magical talent who might otherwise use it for evil.

All members are members of one and only one subfaction; the subfactions are 1-to-1 with the overall faction.

Other, more situational titles:

• Cardinal (OV)
• Abbot/Abbess (OV)
• Prior/Prioress (OSK, ST)
• Knight Captain, Knight Marshal, Prefect (OSA)

There are a great many specific titles in Obrith, where clergy fulfill many secular roles in addition to spiritual duties, and have largely inherited the titles of the Old Empire. Some of the official titles above (especially for OSA) reflect this legacy; others are more modern terms.