Content warning: body horror, abuse of power, eugenics, religious persecution.
In preparation for a game of UVG, I’ve found it necessary to fill out the Rainbowlands and the folks and factions that might be stomping around doing good, weird, and horrible things. I gave the cast of players free reign over their starting location, and since they selected the east coast of the Circle Sea near the Oranje territories, that means they could head in any cardinal direction before eventually heading out west proper.
So, to give them the player agency that I’ve come to love in the OSR NSR thinking adventure game tradition, I’ve begun harvesting faction titles and fragments from Luka’s recently released UVG 2E Glossary on Patreon. I’ve supplemented them with my own interpretations and also added my own additional factions that either feel tangentially connected to existing ones or just needed to be there for my own taste.
Please feel free to use these in anything you’d like. I’ll update these with more from the parent list as I round out the remaining factions.
Daemon-benders believe that a body is just a temporary host and inconvenience imposed on a pocket of universe-source until it’s cured and matured enough to reintegrate back into the ether. They view elemental-daemon-bending as the proper way to teach, cure, and mature one’s own ka. They encourage strengthening your ha so long as it is balanced with swift muscular decay when your ka is ready to return to source.
Opposed by every major cult of the Dead God, misunderstood by the Hexads, hunted by the Grand Companies, and deified by any Safranje wanderers.
Fundamentalists cast out from the Purple University. Like all Bluelanders, they cherish rot and decay. However, their placement on the faculty of the Purple University came with severe restrictions from the recently appointed Deacon of Indigo Enforcement. The rest of the faculty constantly tried to censor their fundamentalist pillars by appearing at their “voluntary”, “consensual” rot-infection services. Over time, the censorship and harassment bred vitriolic resentment in their clergy, and in one grand gesture, they showed the Purple University a display of the Rotting God like no other. . . for which they were immediately banished to the marshes of the Blue Lands. There, they currently slog about, meditating and wandering the swamp, waiting for a sign from the Rotting God to lead them to their next home.
The followers of Her Forlorn Flesh dedicate themselves to the removal of flesh over the course of one’s life, treating the removal with cure-all numbing agents to be administered regularly. Biomantic supplementation and augmentation are used when the “purified one” does not respond to the numbing effects of the serums.
The followers bury the bones of their dead in extravagant mausoleums, as they believe The Dead God honors the arrangement of one’s bones when someone crosses the River Stixxe into their domain. This can often lead to cliquish and petty decoration competitions, similar to the bake-off’s in the Violet City or the Hell’s Kitchen Gladiatori matches of the Emerald City.
The Mantles’ decadent decay rites demand that they offer up vials of their marrow every 11 years in an elaborate 11-week skelomantic extraction meditation donation. They hope that the gradual removal of this core element of their ha will take with it chunks of their ka, paving their way to the other side of the Source. There is only one chapel near the grasslands where this may be performed. It rests underneath a Fast Star and the aforementioned ritual is only performed by the eldest Mantle, until their own final donation is performed and their mantle is passed to the next hierophant.
A tenant of Their Tetral Teeth seeks the Dead God’s blessings by removing a tooth from their mouth yearly. The tenant then replaces it with a scavenged tooth from the world, each new tooth a reflection of the lessons they have learned that year from the Dead God. There are many dissenting opinions on how many teeth one should remove and replace before offering one’s jaw to the ever growing Enamel Tetrahedron. There are even more dissenting claims over whether the process should continue once a tenant has exhausted their own teeth. Only the most devout Templars have achieved multi-row top and bottom jaw arrays, much to the chagrin of their more conservative attendants.
The Dean of Indigo Enforcement hails from the Purple University. A hypocritical relic Bluelander, he idolizes color accuracy, the reflection of each primary colors ideals in the hue, saturation, and luminance of any Landers’ skin, clothing, and paraphernalia. He eschews acknowledging the more nuanced hues of the Rainbowlanders, despite his appointment to lead a progressive place of learning. His Indigo Inspectors often inject ideas into more subtle-hued individuals, hoping they will align more purely with their “correct” placements.
The Dean holds much power, and many of his mechanisms of control rely heavily on the stability of the first primary hues. Any threat to those pillars would ruin his control of the coastal provinces.
A recently perfected family tree of engineer-mystics. Carefully curated by the Grand Companies and deployed selectively to their most lucrative endeavors. After achieving mentat level mental faculties, they’ve been infected with an incurable listless boredom that has left too much time for degenerate hobbies and interests. Rumors of the elven curse ripple around them wherever they go. Not unwarranted either, since the current Kompany Engineers’ tenure has exceeded the lifetimes of the past three Kompany CEO’s.
A single emerald jewel bound by stuckforce floats above their head at all times, signaling to all the Kompany’s protection and ever watchful eyes. Their own irises sparkle with a deep green, swallowing whole any hint of a pupil in the murky jeweled depths.