This chapter starts the GM-focused part of the book. The factions presented here are the “other half” of all the plots hinted at in the character themes - they’re what the themes are hooking into. This chapter will contain a lot of information players won’t know at the start of the campaign.

There are five major factions operating in the Neverwinter region during this campaign:

  • New Neverwinter: Dagult Neverember and his mercenary army, who want to become the legitimate rulers of the city.

  • Abolethic Sovereignity: A sect from this aberrant empire is experimenting with a pocket of the Spellplague beneath the city with the eventual goal of using it to control the sleeping primordial Maegera.

  • A cult of Asmodeus worshipers, also known as Ashmadai, is plotting to take over the region for themselves but is in for a whole bunch of nasty surprises.

  • The Thayans want to create an undead army and possibly complete their genocidal plans from thirty years ago.

  • The Netherese want to repair the flying island of Xinlenal and use it as the center of their new empire.

Aside from these, there are many other smaller factions centered around either the city of Neverwinter, like the rebel remnants, or around the Neverwinter Wood, like the Uthgardt or the angry eladrin of Ilyianbruen.

Each major faction gets their own section consisting of:

  • A general overview of who they are.

  • A detailed explanation of their goals. This includes text boxes with Theme Tie-Ins that could lead the faction to interact with the PCs or vice-versa. Some are obvious, others less so.

  • A summary of their relationship to other major factions.

  • A discussion of what encounters against them look like, complete with statistics for their important figures and any new monsters that might make up their rank-and-file.

As the introduction says, everybody’s levels are calibrated to fit in a Heroic-tier campaign, and none of the plots and goals detailed here are set in stone. Some of the faction descriptions include text boxes musing about alternate setups, or what happens if the faction’s plots are seriously derailed.

The minor factions get less space for themselves, but they still get some and we’ll be looking at all of them in the order they appear on the book.

Each major faction is going to be split into two posts here. The first will look at their general description, goals, relationships, PC tie-ins and my impressions of them. The second will deal with the Encounters section of their writeup, which tends to be pretty long and often includes new monster stat blocks.