Galen's Gamble: Factions, Faction Cards, and Resources

~ A Frostgrave Module WIP ~

Factions

Prince Galen Ebon'mere's Contingent of Elves

• Desires and will pay full buying price for Grimoires. Also pays handsomely in retaliation for cultists ears as the Cultist have been found harvesting those from fresh Elven Corpses. 
• Attacks the closest player’s warband holding 3 or more Cultist Cards. Elvenkind have excellent eyesight and will engage enemies from across the battlefield.
• Defeating an Elf is worth 5xp. In a game in which Elvenkind is killed by a player AND an Elven Soldier remains on the board at the end of the game, then that player is required to take a Cultist Card.
• A player is considered respected by the elves when he holds 5 or more Elven cards. He then that point on draws only from the respected pile until such time as he is no longer respected.
• Elven Soldiers are attempting to occupy a hostile city and have been order to work in pairs. If you see only one Elven soldier chance are you likely have not spotted its escort generally working within earshot. Should you attack an Elven Soldier and only one is visible on the table then another is spawned behind one member of your warband selected at random. 

The Cult of the Undying

• Desires and pays full buy price for Scrolls, Potions, and average selling price for Grimoires. Will pay small amount for Soulstones. The Cult is on the look out for Elven Ears to as regents to fuel some of their darker magics.  
• Attacks the closest player’s warband holding 4 or more Elven Cards within LoS and 20 inches.
• Defeating a cultist is worth 10xp. Defeating demons or undead figures yields an additional 5xp.
• Cultists cast spells and are always played by your opponent when they are being targeted.
• A player is considered respected when he hands in 10 Soulstones to a member of the cult. Once respected he will never lose respect. The cult honors power first and foremost. Cultist will often elect to attack even a respected wizard if they hold 4 or more Elven Cards.

Burning Grog Orcs 

• Desires and pays full buy cost for Potions with diversity bonus. Will pay handsomely for Soulstones to free their imprisoned brethren. 
• Attacks the closest player’s warband holding 5 or more other faction cards. If warband member is over 10 inches away the Orc will just stop and watch them closely. If they come closer the Orc will sound a hunting horn and then attack. Then a pair of Orcs will enter a random edge of the board.
• Defeating an Orc is worth 10xp. In a game in which an Orcish figure is killed by a player AND an Orc remains on the board at the end of the game that player is required to take one Elven AND one Cultist card.
• The Burning Grog Orcs will likely never respect wizards given their background and circumstances during this chaotic period.

Factions Cards

Faction cards in two varieties; Neutral and Respected, they offer a DM free narrative element to the game. There are Neutral decks for all three factions and only respected decks for the Elves and Cultists. As you kill NPC of certain factions you will be assumed as in the camp of another faction as per the detailed bullet points above. Holding a certain number of these cards gives you your progress in the reputation system and many of these cards give you missions to complete in the city. Some of the Respected cards and a few of the Neutral cards give you access to new spells or equipment.  I hope to detail a series of examples for you in future posts. 

Faction Resources

Minor Resources; Smaller token items you can use for barter to cycle faction cards to gain a more desirable mission card. These include Wine Skins for the on duty Elves, Reagents for the Orcs, and Elven Ears for the Cultists. A single supply of Reagents and Wine Skins can be purchases ahead of time and take up an item slot. Elven Ears may only be harvested from corpses of Dead Elves they also take up an item slot but can like the rest mentioned here can be stacked up in the same slot.

Major Resources; May only be handed in by means of faction card mission criteria. These include Cultist Ears, Potions, Scrolls, Soulstones, and Grimoires. These mission criteria are the opportunities mentioned on the faction details above where you will be able to sell certain items for full purchase price.

Upon your first match in the campaign you find wanted posters listing a bounty for the collection of Cultist Ears warranted by one Prince Galen Ebon'mere. Cultist Ears will yield you an Elven Card when handed into any Elven Soldier. 

Well that is all for this week. Next week look for details on the new spells to be added to the game.