The Farrow Faction
I had a wargaming phase earlier in my nerdom, even before Corvus Belli’s Infinity, where I played Warmachine. Warmachine was made by ex-Games Workshop employees who wanted to make a bold promise: to never make a unit obsolete. GW had a history with new editions or rules sets of making units you spent money to buy and time to assemble and paint no longer playable. As sure as they had well meaning intentions, Warmachine didn’t mind if a new release made previous models obselete from a competitive point of view, but hey, at least you can still play with your war dolls on the table.
Privateer Press, the company who made Warmachine, had a pretty rich history of lore for their game. I mean, most of it is what a GM does for their game worlds: beg, borrow, steal, dip, dodge and dive. The Old Witch, a character for the Russian-styled faction, was a direct analog to Baba Yaga as an example. I liked how generic the lore was, as it was easy to slot into many games if I needed to quickly come up with an NPC. As a part of parallel design, the campaign setting of Eberron for Dungeons and Dragons can be used pretty much interchangeably with Warmachine regarding the factions.
Privateer Press decided to make an additional product line called Iron Kingdoms for when you want to use the Warmachine setting as part of your RPG game. They created their own RPG but with the ease of play with 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons, Iron Kingdoms is great for when you want to scratch that unholy itch of Steam-, Diesel- and Teslapunk.
Another product line, called Hordes, was a wargame that was compatible with Warmachine but instead of using machines to do war, you used beasts. When I was having a fit of madness, I was considering the Farrow as a purchase for Hordes. If you are unfamiliar with the sickness of wargames, it requires you to continually make new purchases to justify the existence of your previous purchases. With the Farrow, I could have some Boar Boys. Luckily, I was saved from such a poor decision by instead spending too much money on Infinity instead.
Tragic Backstory Complete
Running a West Marches Hexcrawl, I knew I wanted as many unique factions as possible. I bought the Iron Kingdoms 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons campaign setting and its books from Privateer Press. In it, I saw that between all of the Challenge Ratings, I could easily make the Farrow into a Faction for my players to interact with, such as the Easy Encounter listed.
Farrow fill the niche that Orcs used to. Tolkien made them out to be a violent, brutal species that was bought wholesale with Gygax’s development of Dungeons and Dragons. As time went on and the game evolved from a wargamer’s niche to a theatre kid hobby, the more discerning folks wanted to be able to explore different perspectives. Naturally, ‘why not full Orcs’ became a hot button question and they also became playable.
With players playing Orcs, they probably started to realize that the ‘noble savage’ archetype is pretty gross. If you look at newer campaign settings developed for Dungeons and Dragons, you can see far more nuance and difference in how Orcs are portrayed. Anything developed from a pastiche tends to get a life of its own, becoming wholly unique and different. One glance at a Quentin Tarantino movie should give you more than enough of an example, as he scours for shots by others but assembles something new with their combination like some kind of film Frankenstein.
When it comes to a Faction, there are five tables I need to build. Four of those are for Encounters at various difficulties; such as, Easy, Medium, Hard and Deadly. The final is a treasure chart. When the players encounter a Faction, I roll for Attitude and Treasure. An exception to the Attitude roll is some Factions are innately hostile and always attack; such as the maraudering Gnolls. With the Attitude, the players are given an opportunity to avoid conflict if they wish or try to find out what a Faction wishes for with clever roleplay. At first, my Faction charts were just for Hard and Deadly as Hexcrawl Encounters should use up more resources as they are far more spaced out than when a stocked dungeon.
Lessons from Usage
I learned to make the Easy and Medium because then I can simply have a Faction listed. That way I don’t need to make new charts with each dungeon. I can have a dungeon have a list for a Faction and I flip to them if they come up. This has led to my dungeons going from six to eight pages to three to four. Ensuring you spend as little time as possible on each dungeon is important as outlined in my praise for One Page Dungeon Contest, as you have no idea when or if your players will meander their way to that dungeon. Worse case scenario, they decide to befriend what you thought would be the primary antagonist.
For the astute, you may have noticed that there are only 5 options. The easy solution is to roll a d10 and pick one. The more interesting and therefore difficult is to have a 6 on a d6 lead to a special encounter. Usually, that would be an NPC or possibly an enounter that is far more difficult.
Onto the e-begging, if you own Privateer Press’ Borderlands and Beyond, Borderland Survival Guide and the Monsternomicon, you can easily add the Boar Boys as a readymade Faction to your Hexcrawl. I’ve made a two-page PDF which includes: Random Encounter Charts for parties of levels 3 to 10 for Easy, Medium, Hard and Deadly Encounters; a Treasure Chart; citation of the locations of Farrow; and additional rules for Harvesting and Morale for Privateer Press’ Iron Kingdom’s Farrow on my Patreon.
I know money can be tight, so I’ve made an inexpensive PDF available in the Shop if you’d like to avoid reoccuring charges through Patreon.
If you like what I do here, you can give just the tip at my Ko-Fi.
