The Labyrinth Worldbook by Kobold Press is a source book for Tales of the Valiant or any DnD 5e variant. This is my review of chapter 3: Factions of the Labyrinth.
First, let's talk about the Loxodon in the room. When Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica was released for 5th edition D&D, it accidentally introduced an alternative to the alignment system. The 10 guilds of Ravnica don't just provide occupations and allegiances, they formed a system of ethics for the world of Ravnica. It's not just an ideal, though, it's got tangible rewards. As you do things in alignment with your guild, you gain renown within your guild. As you go up in renown, you get resources you can use in your adventures. Eventually, you climb in ranking within your guild, earning recognition from even your guild leaders.
This was, I realised as I read the book, the very codification that Planescape had always needed for its factions. Because I equate the Labyrinth Worldbook with Planescape, I'd secretly hoped that the factions of the Labyrinth would be as codified as the guilds of Ravnica. I had no reason to believe they would be, and to be fair the Labyrinth has gods (unlike Ravnica) and doesn't relegate them to mere "powers" the way Planescape did, so there's no reason to replace alignment with guilds. Still, I'd hoped that the factions of the Labyrinth would be as central to the game as the factions and guilds of Planescape and Ravnica, but they are not.
This chapter really is "just" a collection of factions. They're interesting factions, and I look forward to using them, but I guess I'm coming to the realisation that Ravnica is the one setting that gets guilds exactly right, and that the Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica is a truly outstanding D&D sourcebook that probably won't ever get the recognition it deserved.
There are major factions and minor factions in the Labyrinth, and there's plenty of room for you to add more as you see fit. There are no mechanics around the factions. They exist as influences in the Labyrinth, and as possible allies or enemies of player characters. They're useful constructs to have, because a faction isn't a kingdom. They're not bound by region, but by philosophy. It's always believable for there to be a fanatic, from one faction or another, where ever you're adventuring.
There are 4 major heroic factions.
Often called the Concordans, this faction ensures that reality continues to exist by battling the efforts of the servants of the Void.
Common classes drawn to this faction include clerics of Sabateus or Solana, paladins, and wizards.
As their name suggests, they are the holders of portal keys. They forge not only keys for the Labyrinth gateways, but also portal seals that can lock a gateway closed, and world keys that can retune a gateway so that it leads to a different destination. Their Citadel of the Keys is a prominent feature of the Smithy.
Common classes within the Keepers of the Keys include mechanists, fighters, rogues, and wizards.
The original walkers of the planes, the Elders seek to plant new worlds and to foster the lifecycle of existing worlds.
Common classes of the Elders include druids, rangers, bards, and sorcerers.
Dreamers are mostly about freedom. There's no unified goal of this faction aside from having the personal liberty and self-awareness to pursue their dreams. Cartokk, the Dreaming God, is a god of visions and enlightenment, and his followers are interested in understanding the rhythms of the natural world and the harmony of the stars. The Dreamers believe that if enough people dream of worlds without the Void, then the Void will be defeated.
Common classes of Dreamers include bards, barbarians, monks, rogues, and warlocks.
There are 4 major villainous factions, assuming you take all Void cults as a single faction. They are not, but if you've encountered one nihilistic death cult, you've basically encountered them all. You can create your own as needed, and there's even a Void Cult Name table you can roll on.
A clerical faction dedicated to the dark Void gods, their goal is to empower the Void gods so that the Void gods empower them so that they may help the Void gods bring about the Irrevocable Apocalypse. As I said, if you've encountered one death cult you've basically encountered them all.
Also not actually a faction. This "faction" is a catch-all for all the hellish entities that roam the Labyrinth. They are obsessed with power, control, and maintaining the hierarchy of the Hells as a tool to rule the multiverse.
I assume that "infernals" refer literally to devils and not abyssal demons, nor daemons. Incidentally, there's no information about the relationship between devils and demons and daemons in the Labyrinth. From Kobold Press bestiaries, we know that demons are chaotic evil while devils are lawful evil, but the Labyrinth Worldbook doesn't specify whether they co-exist, or have separate spheres of Hell, or whether they're locked in an eternal battle, or what. Maybe this information is in a separate source book that I either haven't read or haven't read recently enough to recall.
A faction lead by 2 undead brothers, Domitos the Lich King and Visimar the King of Death Knights. They have 2 goals: Destroy the goddess Solana, and destroy all life across the worlds of the Labyrinth.
The Labyrinth Worldbook says this is a "void faction" but I don't see the connection to the Void, and in fact I wonder whether it might be an error. The Void is the obvious most efficient way to accomplish both faction goals. That the faction has goals other than help the Void erase reality suggests to me that the Brothers would prefer to continue to exist in a lifeless wasteland than for everything to cease to exist.
Either way, this is one of the most interesting factions to me because of its specificity. No other faction singles out a specific goddess as a sworn enemy, and that gives this faction a lot of personality.
Devoted to the serpent-wyrm that gnaws at the roots of Yggdrasil the World Tree, this factions wants to bring about the apocalypse by spreading mayhem and death across the Labyrinth. I think I detect the subtext that this faction tends to be surreptitious and deceptive. They definitely regularly seek to turn the local populace against one another, and probably get bolder the stronger their influence gets within a region. They have temples and shrines, and I can imagine that they claim to be doing good in the world, in a secret attempt to cause social decay from within.
In addition to the major factions, there are groups that travel the Labyrinth and gain a reputation for good or ill. They're listed in this chapter:
Factions are a natural part of being sentient. You have some ideas, you find some other sentient beings with the same ideas, and you hang out together. It's what we all do. Or we don't, and then people lump us in to the Factionless faction, and we're no longer factionless.
In gaming, factions are a useful excuse for plot elements to matter. Players align with one faction and adopts its goals, and so they're opposed by an enemy faction. It's quick and easy conflict without the need for a complicated backstory. The bar for factions is pretty low, really. Invent a name, declare that it's the faction in favour or in opposition to the plot, and you're ready for adventure. This chapter provides 8 factions to that end. What's most significant is the focus on the Void, and each faction's relation to it, because that's a central conflict in the Labyrinth setting.
Conveniently, each faction has profiles of characters and locations important to it, a list of NPC types and monsters from Kobold Press bestiaries associated with it, and a table of adventure hooks. You can easily invent your own factions, or borrow the guilds from Ravnica, or import the ones you know from another setting, or whatever. There's a lot in this chapter, and it's all optional, and it's a great setup for that extra dimension of social intrigue and influence so important to a good long-running campaign.