Warren's Folley

>The 731st Combat Medic Regiment
A faction of dark doctors. They use horrendously twisted and painful methods to heal people, which does keep them alive but often deforms them. They possess the ability to cure normally permanent conditions such as the Dreamcrawlers and can even turn Wisps back into people (provided they haven't been a Wisp for too long), but their methods are tremendously painful, boast a high failure rate, and usually leaves the "cured" ugly of face and resembling the guy that the Count tortured from Berserk. They often ruthlessly experiment on regular people to try and figure out new methods.

This one?

So this is the thread maker and guy who has been telling you all what to roll for. Gonna go to sleep but I'll keep this thread on over night along with the other one. If you want to add something to the setting, you know what to roll. Night yall, I'll try to make a thread tomorrow

I posted the cartography guild and I only said it should be called WISE is because somebody replied asking if it could be called WISE. So yeah, ask the WISE poster if he's ok with it.

Im the one who made the acronym for it, and im down for it being the name of the guild.

So... the magic is based around items and rituals more than spells, if I'm getting it correct.

> 3 more factions to go. As usual 8's decides who's in
Underworld Express (placeholder name): Originally a premium courier organization that made its name by employing the best and brightest and providing its agents with the best equipment money could buy, UE has grown into its own corporate state; the area that once served as its headquarters is now fully controlled by UE, as are several lesser areas. UE has funded many expeditions into unknown areas, and they are often at odds with the Cartographers Guild, as UE tries to keep all of its expedition material secret, partially to maintain a monopoly on the best routes through the underground, and partially to keep any powerful artifacts or arcana hidden from public view. Rumor has it the upper management is controlled by some sort of powerful malevolent entity, although none can agree on what it is or what it is planning.

Seems to be that way, I imagine that diffrent magic users would be using diffremt ranges of items.
(Reroll for the Bell Company of last thead)

Origional WISE concept guy here. I didn't come up with the name, though, so I'll leave that up to a vote. I think it would probably be a good fit for the guild name, but I'd hate to lose my faction.

I was originally thinking of a more exclusionary sect of researchers (stealing inspiration from Brotherhood of Steel), but if it lives on as the cartography guild, I'd be okay with that.

We got a winner, and a neat one at that. Corprate intrigue in the depths.

>Faction: Keepers of the Kilns

An outwardly benevolent faction of craftsmen, the Kilnsmen maintain the art of crafting stones - and the rare metals - into usable forms. They have gained their name from the inexplicable stone kilns with which they artifice. While nobody has a working record of where the first kiln(s?) came from, the Keepers have discovered how to craft new ones. No kiln is the same - some take the form of gigantic stone hammers; some are shields; some are simply large furnace-like structures. Each kiln has its own keeper, an individual drawn to it by some unknown force.

Kilnsmen sometimes find individuals which they will apprentice. These individuals sometimes inherit the kiln of the master and sometimes craft their own; whatever variable decides this is unknown.

Kilnsmen will dedicate their services to others for charity or for pay, depending on the individual. People may gather around a kilnsman who has an immobile kiln and form a settlement or hamlet, or the kilnsman may be a homeless nomad who takes his only possessions with him wherever he goes. One thing is certain: the kilnsmen all know each other upon first sight, and the kilnsmen must continue to craft - everything else varies from Keeper to Keeper.

Acronym here, I place my vote for a seperate faction. Perhaps the R&D were the first down here with Warren himself and the guild followed quickly after, either a competitior that got beaten to the punch, a splinter group that made it big or some other thing.

Same guy here.
The Underworld Courier's do my idea better. I vote WISE as the cartography guild.

Fuck no dude. Your idea is way better than mine, and it is actually your idea, most importantly. Keep WISE as what you intended it to be, I think the Cartographers Guild should be a seperate entity maybe funded by WISE

Awesome! Glad my faction got in. I'm going to be gone for a few hours so you guys all feel free to do whatever you want with the idea in the meantime.

The UER or underground exploration Regiment works closly with the cartogrophy faction in search of mineral deposits and new caverns but they arent to be messed with they have muscle to deal with any creatures or people who mess with their miners

>human and slugman, and that's it
That one fucking user who said only humans ruined all the other choices for everyone else.

There should also be some kind of conflict. Like the new tunnels don't have buildings in them, only barren dirt and minerals. The population is running out of living space, and WISE has offered a large sum to any Cartographer who can find a new section of the cave with buildings in it.

Semi-mutated subspecies of humans would be a good compromise.

Maybe slug people, lizard people, rat people [etc.] with normal humans being either new or 'pure'.

And with the 8 get it looks like we have a potential plot hook and ongoing world conflict.

Darn, what's the policy on rerolls? Not allowed?

Rerolls are almost encouraged. I like them, it means the more resolve something gets, the more support or votes it gets.

Just spitballing here:

WISE is the futher development of Warren's origional expidition, and is a large central system of research and development. The Underworld Express is a quickly rising faction which threatens WISE, and the Cartography Guild is their response to it, which acts as a separate subgroup.

Rerolling for last threads Whisp worshiping commune

Seconding

Well, with that in mind, I'll do one self-reroll again!

Rolling for dubs
Monster:
Grim Hunter
Grim Hunters are predominantly evil individuals who got lost in the labyrinths.
To avoid madness, as a last act of will they made a pact with the dark gods to hunt every living creature they come across and tribute it for their glory in exchange with the magical heightening of the senses and life draining powers.
To successfully become a grim hunter, an individual has to cleanly cut off his own head as a rite of passage to darkness. If the rite is successfull, he will keep being sentient and the head will act as a catalyst for his soul.
Grim hunters are terrible opponents as they are monsters completely void of compassion that need to have their head destroyed to be completely removed from existence.

How about this as an idea?

Fat Men, people who eat too much unpurified meat become corpulent and massive. They have a constant hunger. The hunger is not so great that they would consume another man, but Fat Men have an irrational fear of starvation and consume things greedily. Stat wise they'd have increased strength and durability, but their duress rapidly gets worse if they haven't eaten recently and are slower than normal.

Just a summary of suggestions that have not been picked up yet:

Medical regiment - twisted old army medics
Fallen Noble House of misterious wealth
Ravagers - basic insane tribal humans
Radiant March - religious crusaders
Cabal Institute - university research conglomerate
WISE - surface R&D gone rogue
Bell Merchant guild
Blight fungus worshippers
Shadowy crime family
Kiln-Keepers
Kangaroo Court exterminators
Whisp-worshipping sacrificial cult

And probably some others that I missed

Dubs confirmed. Does that count for anything?
Are retroactive edits a thing? Human variants sounds like a good idea.

I dig it, and it's solidly rooted in our existing lore.

Reroll for the Noble house, Bell and Radiant March

Lets try for more than just scalies and furries
We already have mushroom worshipers. What about Fungus people?

Thanks dude. Here's another suggestion for a faction:

The Numerators

An order of mathematicians who meticulously calculate taxes, food reserves, population, and all other important statistics of the people and record it. They keep the Warrens operating at very high efficiency due to their skill with numbers preventing much waste, though they don't record much data from the outer regions (as they reside in the better-off areas) and usually do not realize the plight of many people.

If literally Fat People can be a race, why not Fungi?

So, for suggested 'races' we have:
>Pure humans
>Slug people
>Fat-Men
>Beast-traits
>Mushroom men

I'll pick this up in the morning and see if it has any support.

Last reroll of the night for
Radiant March
Noble House
Whisp Ville

Ill give it my support.

Reroll for Radiant March

Gonna keep dumping faction ideas

The Cave Runners

A group of people who serve as couriers, using enchanted boots to make them run rapidly. They have very dangerous lives, as they often have to run through dangerous areas infested with enemies to deliver messages between settlements. Even the ones who aren't squashed or killed don't stay normal for long as the enchanted boots steadily drain them into skeletons. They have an incredible fear of Wisps as the running leaves them exhausted, and are known to viciously attack any Wisps they see, regardless of how exhausted they are.

Reroll for Nobles and Medics, we need to move ontp other topics. Perhaps we should incorperate a policy where if we go long enough without a selection of something, an idea with several near misses can take the spot. Yay or nay?

Yes, I think WISE and the medics and nobles should just be accepted.
I think there's already a similar faction

Yeah, so far from what ive seen of the last thread and this one, the Medics and the Nobles we're the runners up with 4 or so near gets each. I say we mark them down as the included factions and move onto some locations around the city and in the maze. 8s get.

Wow, people liked my shameless insert of Unit 731 into the setting?

I'm surprised.

Rolling for The Dead Brigade. In my mind it's a sort of nihilistic mercenary corps, maybe with a religious undertone. Sort of an edgelord version of the Doomguard from Forgotten Realms. Dunno if undead are in or not, but it wouldn't be a poor fit for their puppetmasters or whatever to be undead or similar.

Re-rolling my Numerator idea.

I was more partial to the Radiant March(reroll) myself but yours is a workable idea. Some old army regiment sets up shop for whatever reasons, probably locking horns with the established powers and poses itself as a force for healing and good while really just being a front for understanding the many maladies and afflictions down in the maze. Its workable and creates tension between the Cartography Guild, WISE, The Ministry and now the Regiment and House Clarion i believe they were called. Other factions can probably be picked for minor factions and roles but so far we have the primary players down here.

Nice get, but also, need to branch out on the math angle. A bunch of statisticians will be one-dimensional (see Num3ers). Now, turn that into a power struggle between the forces of the Grand High Algebraist and the Analysts, and that's some high adventure.

I think the classes announced so far were a bet advanced and probably shouldn't be basic level classes. The warlocks who use rituals to grant powers with some side effects and possible musketeers are more basic.

I think it's trying to imply basic level classes don't last long out in the caves.

rolling for a race thats just the thumbs from spy kids

they became that way for being too greedy and stealing?

Once a race of men, they were cursed when their High Priest fumbled a ceremonial chalice, releasing the divine-tainted liquid which would spawn the mushroom men, dooming the Folley. To this day, being called "all thumbs" is a dire insult.

Alright, well im going to bed. Hopefully some good suggestions for locations crop pu over night. See you guys later.

A skilled shot adept with a blade could be just as effective as an enchanted juggernaut

>Blind Barony

>A vicious and depraved noble of old descended into bloodlust and sacrifice. Some claim the Blind Baron is a vampire, some claim he is a ghoul, and others claim that it is simply the title that each generation of rulers takes to instill fear in others. The truth? Some combination thereof - the first Blind Baron was naught but a man, twisted beyond recognition by blood rituals and cruelty. The current Blind Baron, whether it is the same man or not, is rarely seen.

>The Blind Baron, and his Barony, are called as such because the Baron mandates that no light not naturally occurring within the caverns be lit. Those whom serve the Blind Baron are gifted with preternatural senses in the dark; many think that the Baron himself can see in the dark better than a man could in bright light. Those found guilty of breaking this law have their eyes gouged out.

>Emissaries or agents of the Barony go out into the world with their eyes covered by leather or cloth strips. They trade strange artefacts and rare parts of creatures for necessities forged in flame. Despite being ominous and oppressive in their own lands, the Barony's people are not overtly hostile.

I agree that they did seem a little specific, which could be annoying. Say, what if you wanted to be a wizard or warrior who didn't draw their power from the Blight or Enchantments, respectively? It feels a little limiting

Here's an idea for a faction.

Cult of the Feast.

Cultists who believe that the Hunger is in fact a god imprisoned in the city. Mercifully, they don't feed people to the Hunger. Instead, they study ways to free what they believe is a god from its hunger, freeing not just a god but also the countless souls trapped in the Hunger. Possibly the inventors of the spell that can temporarily halt the Hunger.

> The Feast sates the Hunger.
> The Fires keep the Feast.
> The Family tends the Fires.
> The Hunger will be free.
> The Feast is eternal.

What if instead of hard classes, our current three were more like perks/feat. A close quarters fighter might take Wandering Warrior for some powerful buffs, but doesn't have to. A mage could dabble with the Blight, but doesn't have to. If we had a few big feats like this, plus a bunch of smaller ones, you could probably just make a class from two or three feats.

The further you go into the cave, the more nonsensical the environment gets. Eventually it becomes an M.C. Escher reality defying thing. This is because in the distant past, a cosmic beyond from beyond reality tried to enter this reality but got stuck in the subspace hole. The inhabitants of the city either fled or were driven insane and died. It is said that the half of the Eldritch being that came into our world is still stuck there in the center of the city although no one has really gotten there yet and made it out sane (or alive).

Also I'll add that many great magicians buried the city underground to stop the unspeakable horrors from escaping and over time people forgot about the Buried City. That is until the king of the realm sent you and the other unlucky death row prisoners to map it out.

The world outside the Buried City is very much like your average fantasy world with demons and a hero and all that generic stuff, but no one knows about the terrible secret buried beneath their feet and that the player characters are the ones fighting the true horrors.

Rerolling.

While I like the idea that the caves get progressively more fucked the farther you get from Warren's Gate, I don't think it should ever completely break with reality.

Can someone give a quick recap of the horrors?

Reroll these two

Reroll.

I like the idea of spooky eldritch shit, but I think it has to be, in some way, mappable for our cartographers. Sections that constantly shift is a novelty, if the entire maze constantly changes our setting is boring and makes no sense.

Maybe that's how the Cartographers select their members. Maybe they're born with a very limited sort of precognition or "wayfinding" or whatever, like a baby version of a navigator in Dune.

The outside world is probably more mundane. We only have humans (and their cave-changed decendants), and magic only exists as rituals from deep within the Folly. The fact that people are compelled to explore this place implies that the surface is somewhat boring by comparison.

The caves/maze gets more twisted (in more than one way) the further you go, but the main issue is the insanity that exploration of the Folly brings, not the geography itself. Cartographers are brave (or desperate) explorers who hope themselves able to resist falling into madness or being consumed by the horrors within.

Either that, or the surface is a shithole so awful that it makes a life in the Folly seem worth it in relation.

Horror idea. The Servitors. Autonomous and seemingly without a will of their own, these enigmatic automatons tend to Warren's Folley and takes good and gentle care of the buildings. Unlike all of the other horrors, the Servitors are docile and will not attack unless you provoke them by attacking them or purposefully harming the structure. If there's sufficient damage inflicted to the city in a short span of time, all Servitors within proximity will fly into a berserker rage and begin attacking everyone and everything within range in an effort to stop the vandalization, calming down only when they're certain that all threats to the city are taken care of. Corpse Giant duels are certain to incite Servitor Berserk.

Rolling for combining the Medics with the Radiant march.
This would leave us with:
>Underworld Express
>WISE
>The cartographers guild
>Radiant March (which functions more like the Medical Corps after a while)
>House Clarion

I think the guild should be a subgroup under WISE, and that we should add one more faction which embraces the weird shit of the underground.

Rerolling Dead Brigade for the weird one.

Rerolling.

Why should there BE a surface at all?

I thought we agreed that the PCs are death row criminals being forced to map the Buried City in exchange for a pardon should they survive.

Let's get some locations, cities, villages, and unique areas. We'll try for 6 places, confirmed by 8's.

How about a horror with blood that, if it gets in contact with someone's skin, digs through the skin and makes their flesh incubate tiny "fleshlings" that will viciously dig out after one minute?

If it's a few drops of blood, the pain from the spawning is bad but no worse than being stabbed with a dagger. If it's a rain of blood, it will make the victim want to die if they don't receive treatment against the incubation immediately.

A library that keeps track (or at least attempts to) of the weird supernatural bullshit and abominations that lurk the Buried City. It also keeps a stash of books recovered from the Buried City, but it's generally a terrible idea to read these books.

Damn, off by one. Rerolling.

Are you serious. Rerolling.

Gloomfungus Village, an underground village that produce and harvest edible glowing fungi for cave wanderers, especially Cartographers. The fungi has an unusual property that helps regenerate people from wounds. Eating too much of the fungi in one day will cause physical mutations however, with local Old Man Conrad (also known as "Shroom Addict") being proof ot hat.

The Shanties
A massive sprawl of shoddy, twisted wooden structures. Signs are abound of former inhabitants but no one could possibly actually live this far from Warrens Gate, could they?

The Stygian Lake and Its Forsaken Fleet. One of the layers of the maze is occupiednby a huge, dark lake. As one looks into the water they could swwar that their reflections is just a little bit slow. The lake is filled with the remains of other vessels but how they got down here is anyones guess. They all seem to belong to some kingom that no on has ever heard of before.

Sounds badass, does anyone have a link to the last thread? This sounds worthy of archival.

The Titan's Demesne. It is nothing more than a massive wasteland of ruined buildings scattered across it, heavy chunks littering the streets and roof tops. It wasn't always like this, and only became a wasteland when four Corpse Giants engaged in combat with each other.

Here you go

The Tower of the Grey symphomy
One of the first few permenant landmarks outside the settled region of Warrens Folly. A large, building of between 50-80 stories. This tower has seen a great deal of history involving the Cartogriphers and bears the scars of the battles between our damned adventurers and the Horrors below. As one enters the building they can hear the distant sound of music above, they feel compelled to go up the tower to find the origin. No one has yet ever gotten to the top, both due to mounting resistance from the towers denizens and from the fact that the tower seems to gain and lose floors at random. Thia obviously makes exploration difficult.

Neat, reroll.

Rerolling with some extra flavor.

>The victorious Corpse Giant has, as a result of the assimilation, become a super giant
>It's thus named the Corpse Titan, master of its Demesne

Reroll for Shanty town.