In the near future, after I patch together the continuity between the journal that I'm working on, and the roleplaying I've been doing on the server, I plan on creating a faction. It's going to be a faction that will be utilizing these guys both physically and thematically, and it's going to be a faction that exists purely for the sake of eliminating and destroying whole civilizations and planets. Yes, yes, it sounds particularly trite, and in most cases, it is. But I've been thinking deeply about this, and I've been meaning to put it into play properly, and so I appeal to you guys to judge whether or not this is a good idea. This is... Inferno "Some people just want to watch the world burn." Hierarchy: As much as it appeals to the pursuit of chaos and disarray, internally, this faction is meant to be as close-knit and as steel-tight as possible. Here is a chart that clearly demonstrates how the distribution of power is created, and how loyalty will be retained the higher up you go: The higher you go, the more power you attain, but the lower you are, the more you're paid. The primary motivator to continue loyalty isn't out the desire to earn a bigger paycheck; it's to attain the benefits given with the higher stature that you're in, which in turn ensures loyalty within the faction. What's the point of getting more money out of things when you're secured in a position that not only gets you what you want and need already, but also is more inclined to help you so long as you do what you're supposed to do? That is the core principle of Inferno; rewarding loyalty with power and comfort which in turn brings benefit to the institution itself. We're one big family when it comes to making sure everyone else is dead. Here are the 8 levels of Inferno: 1. Leader/Second-In-Command: The folks in charge, both of them play different parts that work on each other. Second-In-Command oversees the current galipolitical climate, the morale of troops, the decisions going on, and manages it. The Leader is the one who plans the direction, what to do next, and makes the big decisions. The Leader is also in charge of the Inferno Trust; we'll get into that later. 2. Oversight Council: A council of 32 members meets up every month with the Leader and the Second in order to discuss raids, politics, actions, wars, etc. They are paid next to nothing, but are extremely protected, and extremely valuable. Attendance is mandatory; every year, they are given 3 opportunities to not attend with a proper excuse. If they miss 2 meetings and don't provide a proper excuse, or have used all 3 opportunities only to miss another meeting, their mind is promptly wiped and they are dumped at the nearest planet. 3. Doom Lords: Wearing the Glitch regalia of the same name, the Doom Lords are a collection of not only the strongest, but also the smartest warriors the Inferno has to offer. They plan their raids either individually or in groups, scoping for proper vantage points, the finer details of military strategy, mapping out where and when to strike with such precision that it would make the hairs on your back crawl in horror. And then, when the kill is planned, it is always tradition for the Doom Lord(s) who planned the raid to lead the troops to battle on the front, ready to burn whatever planet stands before them to the ground. 4. Dread Lords: The backbone of the Inferno militia. They are the ones that command their troops and receive the orders from the Doom Lords about where and when to strike. Powerful warriors, and always ready for battle. 5. Conspirators: The leaders of a squadron of men. They receive the orders from the Dread Lords and act accordingly. They are also known for being assigned an Oversight Council Member to report to after each raid, in order to document the success or failure, and whether or not the morale is high or low. 6. Eye Guards/Normal Militia: The fist of the Inferno. These are the everyday joes that fight for the destruction of everything as we know it to be. Truly, they are the most noble of them all. 7. Cultists: They are the background noise that keeps people from going insane. Engineers, medics, spies, repairmen, weapons manufacturing: They do it all. They're also the most paid members of the force; however, they have no benefits whatsoever. Not even dental. Hey, if you're getting paid that much to work, you better damn well get your own! Or, climb the ranks... 8. Initiate: This rank is not paid for, nor does it go through benefits. This is the rank given to those who are curious as to the lifestyle of those within the Inferno; think of it as a "bring your son or daughter to destroy the universe day" kind of deal. They try it out, hear testimonials from people, and if they like it, great! If not, be on your merry way. Money: Yes, you get paid to be a proper wage in this, ICly. No "let's squabble over what we have looted", no fussing over who gets what split of the raid. You get paid, and ya get paid proper, and because of how the money is distributed, entry-level folks get paid a generous amount, to incentivize joining. The basic premise of gaining money is: Attack planet, destroy civilization(s) on planet, loot everything, and bring it back to the Inferno Faction Trust, which is a Trust maintained by the Leader (stated prior) who then distributes those gains to everyone with a proper wage. Troops report with the money to the unloading site, deposit all (they will be checked if they're trying to hide some away for themselves, which is super dumb since you're getting paid in the first place?) the pixels in, calculate the profits, and then manage it so that everyone gets their due. In the event that the faction is low on money, the gears will change and the Inferno will temporarily go into mining to recuperate any losses. One of the qualms you might be thinking is "this is pretty good, but how are we gonna keep track of who gets paid or who doesn't?" And that's a very good question. The answer is; I'm not going to. Payment happens on a bi-weekly basis here in the Inferno under a given salary; I really, really don't think that roleplaying payment should be a thing. Can it be mentioned, with someone going "hey guys got paid time to hit the barrrr"? Totally. Does it have to pegged down to such a detail where I literally have to give you guys proper voxels? No! You make the experience, the faction is specifically for that; supply your own money this way, roleplay it out yourself, and just keep track of it, if you even have to. The specifics don't matter as long as you get the general gist of it. Now, if you go "wow okay lemme just inject myself with millions of voxels because of this", this is not the place for that either. This isn't an excuse to go OP with money; it's an explanation as to why you have a viable amount of money from a place where you are participating in. Nothing more, nothing less. If you can't grasp what I feel is a particularly simple concept, or if you abuse it, I won't hesitate to kick you right out. Purpose: The main agenda of the Inferno is to destroy the universe, one planet at a time. Some planets are avoided for political reasons, or simply because we're outgunned. There are side agendas. - The Eye Guards are scattered across the galaxy, and we go out of our way to recruit them so we can unite their forces and have proper numbers on our side. - The Oversight Council along with the Leader and his Second are aware of The Truth: The motivation as to how and why we, Inferno, want to destroy the universe, and the philosophy behind it. - Community Outreach. We provide a niche to those who don't fit in. Hey, stop it. Stop laughing. Events: The proper IC excuse as to why none of the planets that are listed here on the forums are targeted is because of political reasons or otherwise. This is not a faction that is meant to encourage grief; this is a faction that exists to provide a truly direct antagonistic force, a solid villain that people can motivate their characters to fight against. There are various kinds of events planned: - Planet raids: A planet with nothing built by any user whatsoever is targeted. Everyone suits up, gets bombs, and we destroy the living be-jesus out of it. Any cities, structures, villages: Dead! Wiped from existence. Truly a solid exercise of the faction in action. Hey, that rhymes. - Generic attacks: The beauty of having known NPC mobs such as Eye Guards and Cultists to be part of the design of a faction means that I don't have to rely on people to stage any generic attacks on a given planet or location. I will be speaking with a friend who knows how to spawn these kinds of mobs in-game, will personally learn how to spawn them, and then bring that knowledge onto the table to stage impromptu attacks anyone can participate in physically without any fuss. They all die, you show off your characters, everyone wins! - Specified attacks: Similar to another idea here in a thread; people genuinely in the faction fight people RP style. Usual rules apply, no one really has to die, and I'd be down to talk to some folks to plan out events together in given planets properly. And... that's it. Haven't planned costumes yet, but I'll get to that soon enough. As for who the Leader is... he remains a secret, for not. Thanks for reading all this!
on paper this sounds fine, but then it turns into one of the groups that was trying to survive, but couldn't due to inactivity from it's members. not saying you couldn't do it, just saying it will be hard and not really worthwhile
I figured, that's why I included the possibility as putting in NPCs as placeholders, which not only builds on the lore for some of the things in-game while not tampering with it (all added lore is purely external), but still keeps the group relevant while not exactly having to rely on people in the event of a deficit involving members.
NPCs don't usually go beyond decoration, since they're weak compared to the average weapon a user has. But hostile NPCs, especially Eye Guards in particular, are a different take, especially in large numbers to fight. This is also disregarding the ability to give NPCs customized speed, damage, weapons, and outfits. The first two are simple to modify; the latter, not so much, but I can personally attest to not only witnessing it being done, but also fighting one: It's about as horrifying and intense as you could imagine fighting a hostile NPC who is much more stronger and faster than you. Even without modified NPCs, spawned NPCs scale with the tier of the planet they're spawned on. Given the additional damage of an Eye Sword, and a good amount of numbers combined with some supplied Cultists, and you have a very serious, genuine threat that can be played out properly that people can have fun with. This would entail taking staged raids and counter-attacks to Sector X planets.
Not really big, personally, on falling back on NPCs as a solid foundation. Even if they are taken a little more seriously than every other NPC on the server. That said, I do think that this is a rather neat idea. There are, of course, player factions that have been made based on existing lore or factions, so far. However, this is the first time I've seen anyone take a specific interest in this group. On that note, I do hope you can actually manage to succeed with this, PC wise. It would be cool to see.
I really like what you've set up, and the way it's all worked out looks fantastic. The only thing that I personally have a problem with, though, is the "Evil faction for the sake of being evil". It just makes little sense to me to have a faction that was only made to destroy other factions. Perhaps if the organization was a race of aliens which fed off of the worlds, then sure, but in my opinion, Evil for the sake of Evil just makes for bad roleplay. I know people often make factions to have a common antagonist, but generally there are a few problems: A good villain is someone you can relate to. The "villain" that is done best is really just someone who has a different, or warped perspective. When you have people who are clearly evil, and no way to argue otherwise, they aren't nearly as fun. With a server this size, having a common enemy is hectic. With this many people, two sides just isn't enough. Sure, there are all these other factions, but they're all performing in their best interests for themselves, so none of them are "evil". So in the situation of an "Evil" organization, they'd probably all work together, although possibly in conflicting ways, but it would separate in two sides. Anyways, that's my rant.
I agree with you; evil for the sake of evil is boring, but trust me when I say this isn't a faction that's being evil for the sake of being evil. There is a much deeper and more warped influence at work that stems back to the Leader, who I will be preparing a proper back-story to. This is why I've mostly been planning out the organization and what it does more than the plot behind how this organization will first form, since it's genuinely not going to come out of the blue; by having the organization and it's purpose fully outlined and how the mechanism works out of the way, I don't have to worry about it when I'm forming it during the exposition that I'll be preparing that will illustrate the chain of events that will lead up to the delivery of this faction. This is particularly why I stated at the very beginning that the possibility of creating this faction will be done so after I've connected the experiences within the journal I'm making (which will be very relevant to this soon) with the roleplaying experiences I've been having here. This is also why I added The Truth in the bullet points for purpose; there actually is a reason why all this senseless destruction is being performed that is beyond "for evil's sake", but it's a secret hidden away within the elites of the organization itself. For all intents and purposes, I don't want to reveal that purpose just yet until I do all the things I want to put in place to establish the context of this organization, to which it will all make sense soon. In short, it's not going to be a faction that's going to come out of the blue and say "lol we have infinty army forces surrender ur base 2 us". It's going to be something that will grow naturally, aided with the help of NPCs, that will bring about that helm with a hidden motivation as to why. The hesitance of using NPCs is understandable. This is why their usage will be reserved mostly for lower rankings like Cultists and Regular Militia/Eye Guards, with their explanation covered by how they naturally spawn all over the galaxy, which is that they are recruited from wherever they are; this is on purpose to keep the additional lore I'm making external, so that if anyone does see an Eye Guard or a Cultist spawn, they don't have to forcibly assume they're with the Inferno, and are just the usual Cultist/Eye Guard that spawns in places. This way, it encourages people to take higher positions instead of feeling obligated to climb up the ranks unless they really want to be a solider. I may cut down the size of the Oversight Council from 32 to 16, or maybe 8, just for the sake of simplifying the size. As for going through with making this, I'm somewhat hesitant. Beyond you, Tang, and Taco, everyone else has sorta just went 'no' on the poll and not really explained why. People seem to be picking up steam with the idea and liking it now, but there's still an overwhelming negative response, to which I don't blame them. I'll probably revisit this concept once I've fleshed out the journal I'm working on enough to reach to this point along with the other things I have in mind that would set the stage to possibly introduce these folks. I appreciate your support, though!
I feel dumb for not noticing the poll. Honestly, now that you've explained there IS lore behind it, I'm all for it. I know you still said their was lore behind it but my brain forgets to process things fully sometimes. Anyways, I love the setup.
As with any antagonistic faction, I advise when you recruit you instill a good sense of responsibility in your members. Make sure you have plenty of stuff to do in terms of interactivity with members of the faction outside of combat, it will help promote players willing to stick it out. This is one of those things where practice comes over paper. I always find mysterious greater secret meanings to be suspect.
Naturally! I'll be putting down some ground rules to operate with so that people don't use the platform as an excuse to go killing everyone ever, still formulating them as we speak. Quite honestly, the secret greater meaning won't be so secret OOCly once I've substantiated it through the journal I'm doing along with other things. As for activities outside of combat, I do have some plans. Despite the faction's malevolence towards everyone else, they do try to keep it's members tight-knit and sustain high morale, so they have a bunch of things to keep it up. The other things I have in my mind for alternatives to combat are reconnaissance; documenting locations known to have a presence of Eye Guards or cultists, and then establishing a small base there, then reporting back with the coordinates to it so it can remain documented. They'd then post it on the faction sub-forum where it is archived. Another would be suggesting planets to destroy, discussing the politics between factions and planets, any newly built ship models for use, posting news on events and discussing their ramifications for ourselves, it goes on and on. It's very likely that a world base will be made as the HQ of Inferno, and it will essentially be a city onto itself, complete with living quarters, bars, shops, etc. This is not the first time I've made a planetary city build, and with people recruited, they can help build within the psuedo-city as well. An incredibly ridiculous one I thought of was having a building sectioned off for intense weekend parties where people can dance all night long, kept private and used only by those within the faction. It'd be called Disco Inferno.
If you are looking for help setting up event set pieces, or wanting to tie this stuff into other player characters down the road, let me know. I'd like to see what you do with it before committing time myself.
