Silver Raven Factions


Hell's Rebels

Shadow Lodge

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Something that has consistently bothered me about the Silver Ravens as presented in Hell's Rebels is that beyond a lowest common denominator of deposing Barzillai Thrune, they don't seem to have a positive program of social reform. This allows them to be all things to all men both in-universe and out - that is, to cultivate a broad coalition in-universe and to have whatever program the PCs impose upon it at any given table. But the roleplay of such an imposition might be helped if the players had some indication of the interests at play among their allies. This is not only a consideration at the opening of the campaign either; the organization might change as it gains adherents.

Presented here is a brief sketch of the main factions I anticipate developing within a mature rebellion (around Book 4), their programs, the outside organizations to which they orient themselves, and prominent allied NPCs associated with them.

The "Quills" (also known as the "blues"*)
Program: abolition of serfdom and slavery without compensation to former masters; land redistribution to former slaves and serfs; debt relief for former serfs and for small freeholders; revolutionization of Cheliax; municipal autonomy; government by municipal and national councils elected by universal suffrage; abolition of tax farming and tithes; freedom of religion except suppression of Asmodeus, Norgorber, and Zon-Kuthon worship; separation of school from church and state; inclusion in Chelish tariff zone (implies free trade with Cheliax and protectionism vis a vis the rest of the world); alliance with the White Thistles, the Bellflower Network, and the Glorious Reclamation.
Aligned NPC "Unique Allies": Laria Longroad (aligned with the Bellflower Network, opposes compensation to slaveowners), Rexus Victocora (sees little possibility of reclaiming his family's position), Zea (protectionism fosters industry, which means employment), Mialari Docur (she gets a free hand to run her school), Jilia Bainilus (owes her position to popular acclaim), Strea Vestori (sees Asmodeism as primary impediment to tiefling nationhood)
Social bases:** mill owners, workers, sailors, serfs, slaves, students, religious Iomedeans, halflings, tieflings, tengu

The "Talons" (also known as the "golds")
Program: abolition of serfdom and slavery with compensation to former masters; national independence; Ravounel to be constituted as a federation of the baronies and counties; local government by the estates of the baronies and counties; promotion of hitherto suppressed religions; subsidy of church and private education by the state, compulsory education; free trade (implies exclusion from the Chelish tariff zone and redirection of exports to Varisia); alliance with the Court of Coin, the Eagle Knights, the Hellknight Order of the Torrent, and the Gray Maidens.
Aligned NPC "Unique Allies": Octavio Sabinus (aligned with the Hellknight Order of the Torrent), Marquel Aulorian (heir to a county, in spite of everything), Cassius Sargaeta (follows where Marquel goes), Hetamon Haace (state patronage of his cult is too good a deal to pass up), Molly Mayapple (free trade benefits her warehouses and her hostels), Manticce Kaleekki (owes her position to Vyre being a free city, has no incentive to change that), Shensen (see Hetamon), Jackdaw (primarily a Ravounal nationalist), Solemestria (federation protects her people from encroachment better than a centralized realm with local autonomy)
Social bases: landlords and their retinues; merchants and shopkeeps; artisans; clergy of Abadar and Shelyn; religious Abadarans, Calistrians, Shelynites, Sarenites, and Milanites; elves; strix

As I've imagined them, I don't believe either faction gets to implement its full program in the face of 1) the events of the AP and 2) opposition from the other faction. I also think it might be interesting if they were to split into separate political parties going forward from the AP, but the Adventurer's Guide suggests otherwise and I suspect the PF2 setting guide will as well.

* Blue and gold are strongly associated with the revolutions following the end of the Age of Enthronement. See Magnimar, Andoran, Galt, Bachuan. Andoran and Magnimar both use blue, white, and gold for their national colors, and I suspect Ravounel would do the same: the revolutionary colors blue and gold, and white to commemorate the Silver Ravens.
** Excepts those of each group who are loyal to the government, which includes of the listed groups landlords, mill owners, merchants, workers, sailors, and tengu, and almost substantially all of government workers, soldiers, police, la boheme, religious Asmodeans, religious Kuthites, and religious Norgorberites.


Hm. An intriguing idea for brainstorming! Some additional possibilities... perhaps something for the religious coalitions? I can easily see oppression of collaborator religions by a coalition of those particularly hurt by the establishment religions, with the Calistrians not only motivated to take on the Abadarans but religiously compelled, the Shelynites led by a Nidalese survivor, and the Irori Archivists gaining revenge for the death of the Sacred Order and the murder of history itself under the Thrune House. And there's the Milanites... They might not naturally work together well, but they'd have a lot of popular support from the vast number of people harmed directly or indirectly by diabolism, the banking of Abadarans, or the court systems of Asmodeus. This might be a bit darker than you're thinking of.

Program:
Radical goals--Banning of the lawful religions? Perhaps establishment of the chaotic ones on the way to radical freedom of religious belief (but not any religious act)? Or a Rahadoum-inspired nation? An enshrined right of the citizen to rebellion?

Moderate results--Certainly reform of banking and law. Public library with universal access and freedom of the press and personal expression. Comprehensive sex education and birth control. Childhood education with an emphasis on liberating the creativity within. Some sort of adventurer's bill of rights?

Darkest possible result: Or a never-ending orgy of mob justice via the guillotine? The perversion of the freedoms of chaotic religions through compulsory reproduction as the new norm?

Aligned NPCs: Rexus Victocora, Hetamon Haace, Mhelrem Gesteliel, unnamed high priestess of Calistria, Belcara Jarvis (Cayden Cailean worshipper).

Social bases: The artists, the knowledge workers, and the sex workers. Anyone harmed by the bankers and the courts.

Shadow Lodge

roguerouge wrote:
An enshrined right of the citizen to rebellion?

What's the betting that Paizo gives Ravounel the Golden Freedoms in PF2?


Neat stuff! I can't think of much to add off the top of my head, except a possible division within the golds (I mean, obviously both factions can have subfactions, but this leapt out at me): an independent Archduchy or Grand Duchy (and strong central executive power) versus something like an independent oligarchic republic (and weak central executive power). However, this issue would be unlikely to emerge unless there is a noble PC who wants to be the Top Noble and won't settle for Mayor.

Also, wouldn't at least some of the Milanites be in favour of the blue revolutionary agenda?


One thing to consider is how various members of the Silver Ravens teams interact and behave. I'm naming each member of the teams and coming up with classes and areas of expertise for each member. I'm also crafting a basic personality for each member. And yes, it will become far more complex as 42 different people can comprise the eight teams that represent each type of team, not including the Bonus Teams (and the personalities of the bonus teams can be inferred by reading the modules concerning those characters).

It could also help craft such things as actual rivalries between the teams due to their philosophical views and the like - and some teams may end up allying with specific party members as the party itself could have differing views as to how the politics should evolve.

Shadow Lodge

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Uqbarian wrote:
Also, wouldn't at least some of the Milanites be in favour of the blue revolutionary agenda?

Something to keep in mind is that none of what I've called broad "social bases of support" are monolithic blocs, and there will always be exceptions for whatever personal reason.

But don't take what's in the OP as gospel or anything. Roguerogue already pointed out that I screwed up by making the Abadarans and Calistrians at all copacetic. Of course they'd find themselves opposed. Any group in the Calistrians' position would hold a grudge and nobody holds grudges like Calistrians.

Thinking about it some more, I probably took the wrong approach working from a mature rebellion. These kinds of factions would form organically from, as you say, sub-groups.

Fortunately, if we want to get really granular, we can.

So first we have the town-country division. The countryside is fairly straightforward. In Chelish society you have human landlords/aristocrats, human and halfling slaves, human and halfling serfs, human and a very few halfling free peasants, human and halfling free laborers (woodcutters, charcoal burners, stonecutters, miners, keelboaters, and fishers, as well as a few mill hands here and there on the rivers), and human priests. Outside of Chelish society you have national scraps here and there, strix, aquatic elves, and derro living in an entirely natural economy.

The towns are more complex. Here just about everyone other than the high aristocrats' servants is free, but racial/ethnic patchworking starts to become evident. You find urban landlords, mostly human (I imagine the Jarvises technically own much of Argo Isle, or at least have reversionary rights); human merchants; human mill owners (there's overlap and intermarriage between these, the landlords, and the merchants); human and elven intellectuals and teachers; mostly-human priests (Zhol is an exception here, but she's a foreigner); human soldiers, police, and government workers; human, halfling, and tengu sailors; human and a few dwarven, halfling, and tiefling artisans; small shopkeeps of all races; servants, typically human and halfling; human, halfling, and tiefling mill hands; the structurally unemployed and sometime criminal (disproportionately tiefling and tengu); and the motley bohemians and prostitutes. Here we have a developing, if embryonic, manufacturing economy. Headcanon is that Ravounel's industry got kickstarted by the demands of the Chelish market, faced a period of persecution where it was locked out of that market and sustained itself on the domestic market, and was only recently included in the Chelish tariff area again, but that's just headcanon.

So, who are the Silver Ravens? The PCs can be anyone, so set them aside. We're left with an initial leadership of Rexus, a noble with no property, and Laria, an ex-slave and current shopkeep; both have radical, levelling politics. You also have the Fushi Sisters in the mix from very early on; they are criminals of some unspecified but probably petty type on the run from their ex-confederates in Riddleport, and are not presented as political. It isn't quite true, but let's assume that a group of five isn't large enough to have factions. At this point, the main unifying factor is the personal relationship between and more-or-less aligned politics of Rexus and Laria, and whatever goodwill the tengu have toward them. So much for the leadership. The Silver Ravens can also start out with as many as 6 supporters, gained from silencing the anarchists and Chelish imperialists at the Aria Park protest. Presumably, the supporters come from one or more of the remaining factions: Ravounal nationalists, free-traders (the book calls them "economic conservatives," but this is a misnomer; these laissez-faire types would be liberals), and democrats, which probably means some form of Jacobin since social democracy hasn't been invented yet. So at the outset the tenor is set: the politics of this group will be for social leveling, for political freedom, for laissez-faire, against established churches, and for local autonomy or potentially national independence. Standard radical liberalism.

Several events in Book 1 give you supporters, and where they come from matters. Freeing Forvian Crowe and his men gives you supporters presumably from Old Kintargo; and exterminating the tooth fairies and disbanding the Red Jills both give large numbers of tiefling supporters from Redroof. The event at Clenchjaw's mentions that it can cost the SRs supporters, which means that it has some in Yolubilis Harbor as well. So essentially the SRs are assumed to have support in the poorer districts, which referring back to the breakdown above, basically means among the sailors, laborers, and sometime unemployed. This changes the complexion of the group in the following ways. Workers will want restrictions on the working day and safety inspections, both of which go against laissez-faire. Tieflings and tengu will both have communal demands. Both will probably push even further on the questions of political freedom and social leveling. So at this point you have the old radical core of Rexus and Laria with a multiracial but disproportionately human and slightly higher-class (artisan, shopkeep, student) backing, a multiracial but still disproportionately human and halfling group of workers with Forvian as a leader, a tiefling group headed by Zea, and a tengu group headed by Korva. These groups all share basically similar values, but are divided somewhat by interest. At this point, the main disagreements are over 1) laissez-faire, where the tieflings, tengu, and workers bloc up to roll it back, and 2) communalism, where the petty-bourgeois and the workers bloc up against the tieflings and tengu. The workers are the kingmaker at this point.

Once Book 2 starts rolling around, the SRs get a steady stream of supporters from citizens opposed to excruciations. The excruciations are performed at the border of Jarvis End and Temple Hill, in the sight of merchants (including farmers from outside the city come to market) and shoppers. So you get the introduction of rural people for the first time, and with them real considerations about land reform. You start hearing about land redistribution for the first time, but also about compensation for freed serfs and slaves (because rural people have different interests as much as urban people, folks!). People concerned about farm produce also bolster support for free trade with the outside world, and thus for independence from Cheliax (because it would mean an independent tariff policy). The SRs do continue to gain story-assumed supporters from Old Kintargo (I'm referring to the rescuing the twins event), and they fill the same role they did in the last book. But the big problem children are Octavio and his followers, and Cassius and his followers. Basically because they come with their own followers, and [para-]military followers at that. Cassius is a slaveowner, and would want compensation for his property. What's more, he has at his beck and call the influential Poison Pen of Kintargo, who is heir to vast wealth. Those two are going to oppose emancipation without compensation, as well as land redistribution without compensation - and possibly full stop. Octavio has been dispossessed like Rexus, but unlike Rexus, has a shot at getting his property back, so he'll probably oppose land reform on principle too.

So now that I think about it, it's actually at this point, and not in Book 4, where you see the development of what I've called the "Blue" and "Gold" factions, with the major political divide over 1) compensation for emancipation and 2) land reform. What's more, the question of land reform goes hand in hand with the question of local government. Land redistribution enables both centralization in a national government and municipal/communal autonomy, while keeping the baronies together encourages traditional (that is, Estates-based) local government and federation of these large territories. Finally, Marquel Aulorian (and thus his faction) is determinedly independentist, if only in reaction to Auxis's toadyism. The Golds also want to export agricultural commodities (I'm including salt and fish among these), which means they want lower tariffs than Cheliax is able to provide - this also pushes them to argue for independence. The Blues want to drive down unemployment and thus want to protect industry; high Chelish tariffs and access to the vast Chelish market for textiles do that job, and this plus growing factionalism pushes them to argue 1) against independence and 2) for the linking up with revolutionary movements within Cheliax (Laria, of course, already has ties to the Bellflower Network - so much so that she is grouped with them and not the SRs in the Adventurer's Guide). The organized cult of Milani (the other banned religions are less organized, and the non-banned religions don't join up so early or so easily) steps into this situation and probably plays the kingmaker role in exchange for favors like their goddess being made a patron of the group. The interests of the cult of Milani probably become linked with the communal concerns of the tieflings and/or Redroof citizens at some point.

The Golds basically go from strength to strength throughout book 3, which introduces the Acisazi and their isolationism which lends itself to support of federalism, and which has the SRs court the nobles for support - this, by the way, is the engine of supporters that missions were in Book 1 and excruciation opponents were in Book 2. And given the numbers now needed to climb rebellion ranks, this will be the most massive injection of supporters yet, decisively tipping the balance of power.

The nobles would of course have the same interests as Marquel, only moreso since their interests have actually been realized. The only way for the Blues to keep up would be to broaden their base of support among the rural poor - slaves, serfs, peasants. That means taking the opportunity whenever they're traveling overland to propagandize for land reform and agitate for uprisings in the countryside. Book 3 also introduces more longstanding groups, in Mialari's school and in Vyre, that don't fit neatly into the two camps. They may gravitate toward one or the other, play them off against one another like the Milanites do, or form a third faction or more. At this time the non-banned religions might start leaning toward the SRs too. The abortive Ruby Massacre and the subsequent kickoff of the civil war is probably a blessing in disguise for the SRs, as it puts more pressing concerns ahead of what looks quite like a looming split. It not only provides the SRs with a threat to respond to, but also two popular and unifying figureheads in the persons of Jilia and Shensen. The organization can fight out Book 4 as a unified whole.

The questions of the constitution (federal or unitary), independence, and attendant land reform, however, will dominate books 5 and 6, and to a great degree these will be decided by circumstances rather than politics - and in contradictory and tense ways. The constitution of Ravounel from five geographically-defined regions tells for federation rather than unitarism, but the negotiated settlement with Cheliax does not amount to independence.


Looks like a good analysis to me!

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