Many years ago, GreyKnight created the “Keith Davies Blog Post Generator“, mostly to poke good-natured fun at me, but I admit I laughed… and I sometimes feel the urge to validate that post.
The first table is ‘Subject Matter’, and two of the entries are ‘Revisit an old post and completely change everything’ and ‘Random tables (see Appendix A for the Random Random Tables Table)’.
Recent posts have looked at developing factions within the pantheon, and I had the thought ‘what if I randomly assigned domains to factions?’ That is, assign weights to domains and see what comes out.
Sometimes when I get to thinking about a topic my brain won’t shut up and I can’t sleep. This idea has kept me awake for a couple nights now, and the best way I’ve found to exorcise things like this is to try it and see.
See table ‘Did everything work out as expected?’, which has entries of ‘Yes’, ‘No’, ‘No, and I’m okay with that’, and ‘No, and that’s awesome!’
I’m going to do a scientifically weak thing and introduce several variables at once.
- I will roll 3d20 and 2d12. Each value shown on a d20 will add 1 to the matching face site, each value shown on a d12 will add 1 to the matching point site. If the same value is rolled more than once, either they will accumulate, or I’ll reroll both. Or perhaps I’ll add them both and roll another die. These will identify positively-associated domains
- I will roll 2d20 and 1d12. Each value shown will reduce the value of the matching site. These will identify negatively-associated domains. If I roll two negatives they will add together, but if I roll a negative where I already have a positive I will reroll the negative. (
Generating six factions gives me the table below.
| Deity | Face/Point | Opposite | Alignment | F1 | F2 | F3 | F4 | F5 | F6 | Primary Domain | Secondary Domains |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unnamed | 1 | 20 | NE | -1 | 2 | Protection | Fire, Water, Evil | ||||
| Unnamed | 2 | 19 | CN | -1 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Liberation | Magic, Chaos, Darkness | |
| Unnamed | 3 | 18 | LN | 1 | -1 | 2 | -1 | Destruction | Fire, Law, Death | ||
| Unnamed | 4 | 17 | N | 1 | 1 | 2 | -2 | Artifice | Earth, Air, Darkness | ||
| Unnamed | 5 | 16 | N | 1 | 2 | 1 | Plant | Water, Earth, Magic | |||
| Unnamed | 6 | 15 | LG | 2 | 1 | -2 | Healing | Law, Air, Good | |||
| Unnamed | 7 | 14 | N | 1 | 1 | 3 | -1 | Strength | Fire, Water, Sun | ||
| Unnamed | 8 | 13 | CG | 1 | -3 | 1 | -1 | -1 | Trickery | Death, Chaos, Good | |
| Unnamed | 9 | 12 | LE | 3 | 1 | -1 | 2 | -1 | Madness | Evil, Law, Air | |
| Unnamed | 10 | 11 | CN | 1 | 2 | 1 | -2 | -1 | Weather | Sun, Death, Chaos | |
| Unnamed | 11 | 10 | NE | -3 | -1 | -1 | 1 | Community | Evil, Earth, Air | ||
| Unnamed | 12 | 9 | CN | 1 | -2 | 2 | Repose | Sun, Magic, Chaos | |||
| Unnamed | 13 | 8 | NE | -1 | 4 | Knowledge | Water, Evil, Earth | ||||
| Unnamed | 14 | 7 | NG | 3 | 1 | 1 | Nobility | Air, Good, Darkness | |||
| Unnamed | 15 | 6 | N | 1 | 1 | 2 | -1 | 2 | Glory | Water, Sun, Magic | |
| Unnamed | 16 | 5 | LG | 1 | 1 | -1 | -1 | Charm | Law, Death, Good | ||
| Unnamed | 17 | 4 | N | -1 | 3 | 1 | 2 | -1 | Luck | Fire, Sun, Death | |
| Unnamed | 18 | 3 | N | -1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | Travel | Earth, Magic, Darkness | ||
| Unnamed | 19 | 2 | LE | -1 | -1 | 2 | War | Fire, Evil, Law | |||
| Unnamed | 20 | 1 | CG | -1 | 2 | 1 | Rune | Chaos, Good, Darkness | |||
| Unnamed | A | L | N | -1 | 1 | 1 | -1 | 3 | 1 | Fire | Protection, Destruction, Strength, Luck, War |
| Unnamed | B | K | N | 2 | 3 | -1 | 1 | 1 | Water | Protection, Plant, Strength, Knowledge, Glory | |
| Unnamed | C | J | NE | -1 | -1 | -2 | 1 | 3 | Evil | Protection, Madness, Community, Knowledge, War | |
| Unnamed | D | I | N | -1 | 4 | 1 | -1 | Sun | Strength, Weather, Repose, Glory, Luck | ||
| Unnamed | E | H | LN | 3 | -1 | 1 | Law | Destruction, Healing, Madness, Charm, War | |||
| Unnamed | F | G | N | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | -2 | Death | Destruction, Trickery, Weather, Charm, Luck | |
| Unnamed | G | F | N | -1 | -1 | -1 | 1 | Earth | Artifice, Plant, Community, Knowledge, Travel | ||
| Unnamed | H | E | N | 2 | 1 | 3 | Magic | Liberation, Plant, Repose, Glory, Travel | |||
| Unnamed | I | D | N | 2 | 2 | -1 | 1 | 1 | -1 | Air | Artifice, Healing, Madness, Community, Nobility |
| Unnamed | J | C | CN | -2 | 2 | -1 | Chaos | Liberation, Trickery, Weather, Repose, Rune | |||
| Unnamed | K | B | NG | 1 | -2 | Good | Healing, Trickery, Nobility, Charm, Rune | ||||
| Unnamed | L | A | N | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | -1 | Darkness | Liberation, Artifice, Nobility, Travel, Rune |
Wow. This is way more densely populated with weights than the previous version. What does it mean, though?
(I really wish I’d kept the actual dice rolls… I know I had a few doubles in here. I can probably work them out, but honestly I’m awfully sleepy (see “has kept me awake for a couple nights now” above) and tonight, I won’t bother.
If I take a score of 3 or higher as ‘leader of the faction’, 2 as ‘member of the faction, and 1 as ‘friend of the faction’, and any negative number as ‘enemy of the faction’ (of lesser or greater degree) I see the following deities in each group.
| Faction | Leaders (3+) | Members (2) | Friend (1) | Neutral (0) | Dislike (-1) | Enemy (-2) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Faction 1 | Madness, Law | Healing, Water, Air | Destruction, Plant, Strength, Trickery, Weather, Glory, Charm, Death, Good | Protection, Liberation, Artifice, Repose, Knowledge, Nobility, Travel, Rune, Magic, Chaos, Darkness | Luck, War, Fire, Evil, Sun, Earth | Community |
| Faction 2 | Nobility, Luck, Sun | Weather, Air | Artifice, Healing, Strength, Madness, Glory, Fire, Death, Darkness | Protection, Destruction, Plant, Repose, Knowledge, Charm, Travel, War, Water, Law, Magic, Good | Liberation, Community, Rune, Evil, Earth | Trickery, Chaos |
| Faction 3 | Liberation, Strength, Water | Plant, Glory, Rune, Magic, Chaos | Repose, Fire, Sun, Darkness | Protection, Destruction, Artifice, Trickery, Weather, Knowledge, Nobility, Charm, Luck, Death, Good | Madness, Community, Travel, War, Law, Earth, Air | Healing, Evil |
| Faction 4 | Liberation, Darkness | Madness | Artifice, Plant, Trickery, Weather, Nobility, Charm, Luck, Travel, Rune, Evil, Death, Earth, Magic, Air | Healing, Community, War, Law, Chaos, Good | Protection, Destruction, Strength, Knowledge, Glory, Fire, Water, Sun | Repose |
| Faction 5 | Fire | Protection, Destruction, Artifice, Luck, Darkness | Liberation, Community, Nobility, Travel, Water, Death, Air | Plant, Healing, Strength, Repose, Knowledge, Glory, War, Run, Evil, Sun, Law, Earth, Magic | Trickery, Madness, Charm, Chaos | Weather, Good |
| Faction 6 | Knowledge, Evil, Magic | Liberation, Repose, Glory, Travel, War | Fire, Water, Law | Protection, Plant, Healing, Strength, Madness, Community, Nobility, Rune, Sun, Earth, Chaos, Good | Destruction, Trickery, Weather, Charm, Luck, Air, Darkness | Artifice, Death |
There is a whole lot going on here. My factional landscape is much more complex than my previous run.
- Factions have different numbers of leaders and members.
- There are deities who are members and even leaders of multiple factions.
- I suspect but have not confirmed there are deities with mixed relationships (i.e. allies within one faction, but one might be a member of a faction that has the other as disliked or an enemy… will have to confirm tomorrow).
I think I like this. The previous faction calculations were simpler to apply and the provide some usable results. This is a little more work (lots more when trying to demonstrate the process and the results) but I feel like the extra complexity will be beneficial.
An idea to explore tomorrow. The first cut looks promising.
One thing I did notice, though, is that I can see value is separating ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ weights. That is, allow a single domain to have both positive and negative weight in a faction, and in the relationship. These can represent conflicted connections. Regarding domain weighting, a domain with both positive and negative weight might mean members of the faction have strong but conflicting opinions of the domain. Ditto for a deity with a mixed weighting, or it might be specific to the domains chosen: a deity with (4, -1) weighting might indicate a strong voice in the faction with some problematic connections: “that deity can be a big help and brings a lot of what we need, but that Evil domain… can we actually trust this deity to not betray us?”
LOL you know you have made it when you have your own blog post generator :D
The Multicolored Diary