Major factions — The powers beyond the neighbours

Status: design direction agreed in principle; detailed mechanics and names proposed, September 22, 2026. Nothing in this document is implemented by this update. The user establishes three major powers alongside cautious neutral Neighbour Houses. The living-world design remains the primary entry point. Numerical territory, resource and combat tuning require later geography and simulation trials.

The shape of the world

All three major powers use engine scripts and bounded conventional game AI. Mage quests are authored state machines, undead forces follow explicit resource rules, and royal succession follows persisted dynasty rules; none requires a language-model agent. Any optional model-written flavor is non-authoritative and subject to the disabled-by-default, globally capped model spending policy. The complete experience must work with zero inference calls.

Neutral houses make the inhabited world approachable through careful trade and local relationships. Major factions give it distant mysteries, dangerous frontiers and conflicts large enough to bring human communities together. They exist before players encounter them and maintain their own histories; they are not enemies spawned around a player's level.

The ice mages remain a mystery even to successful trading partners. The Lich King creates a struggle against accumulating undeath. The horde creates struggles over land, resources, royal ambition and succession. None automatically allies with humans against another; their contact, hostilities and agreements follow observed interests and the same persistent world.

The Veiled Concord — ice mages at both poles

Territory and identity

Treat the northern and southern domains as two seats of one faction with a common identity, border law and recognition ledger. Each has its own stores, garrisons and supply network. Shared credentials do not move goods or soldiers between poles. Their extent follows actual polar geography: frozen coasts, islands, inland ice, narrow approaches and warded sea passages. Avoid filling the ocean with fictitious settlements to create a neat coloured band.

Their silhouette is distant citadels, half-buried observatories, aurora-lit wards and silent patrols. North and south may have different architectural details, but their underlying purpose is unknown. Rumours can contradict each other. The design does not confirm that they are benevolent guardians, preparing an invasion or containing a hidden danger. Quest completion reveals fragments, never an authoritative explanation of their final intentions.

The border is a serious boundary

Uninvited travelers meet marked exclusion zones, impersonal warnings and evidence of overwhelming local strength. Route previews warn when a known path crosses a forbidden boundary and offer an alternative. Discovery of a previously unknown warning boundary pauses a civilian journey before entry for a decision; it does not reveal the whole domain. A player can deliberately invade, but should understand that a small expedition or normal village army will probably be destroyed.

If an intruder persists, nearby sentinels and mage forces intercept with fierce force. This is defense of existing territory, distinct from declaring a siege against a human settlement outside it. Defensive pursuit ends at a defined withdrawal boundary unless a separate campaign is authorized. The Concord does not send a punitive world-spanning army after an accidental traveler.

Its strength comes from large established forces, layered fortifications and powerful local frost wards. Wards have physical anchors, energy stores, recharge limits, range and recorded effects. Ice magic can slow movement, impede siege equipment and protect defenders; no ability silently deletes an army outside ordinary combat resolution. Attackers may study and disable anchors, but this is a later coalition-scale undertaking, not an early leveling activity. Overwhelming does not mean infinite reinforcements or invulnerability.

Long paths to recognition

At first, there is no ordinary dialogue, trade, envoy service or access to a mage city. Quest leads come from old inscriptions, recovered records, neutral scholars and unattended boundary markers. These one-way instructions and proof deposits are the only early access mechanism; they do not grant commerce or a diplomatic audience. Completing the full recognition chain unlocks the first direct interaction.

Proposed chain: The Long Winter, twelve substantive milestones grouped into four chapters. It should take multiple journeys and play sessions, rather than twelve repeated deliveries or a mandatory login streak.

The completed chain grants Recognized petitioner, not a faction alliance. A second long chain, The Sealed Compact, involves negotiated deliveries, expeditions and demonstrated compliance; only its completion grants Licensed trader. Later optional chains can grant specific escorted corridors or access to a specialist. A license identifies permitted goods, ports, party and duration. Rare frost materials or ward craft are possible trade rewards, with real stock and limited availability; licensing does not promise unlimited magic or disclose inner lands.

Quest objectives come from a persistent authored story graph with authoritative world-event evidence. Artifact custody, construction, escort and defense requirements must be verifiable. Destroyed or exhausted objectives have authored alternative branches or a paused state explaining what recovery requires. A single unique object cannot permanently lock every other player out, and delivering one item cannot pay out repeatedly. Difficulty can involve meaningful logistical effort without requiring the player to stay online through a real-time vigil.

Bind recognition to the participating family/organization and its recorded representatives. A new human member does not automatically inherit private access; succession can preserve institutional progress while requiring the successor's accreditation. Cooperative quests record named participants and contributions. Theft, gifts or a trading proxy cannot transfer a nontransferable license, though legally purchased physical goods may be resold under disclosed terms. Serious violation can suspend access with an explicit reason and recovery route; ordinary decline does not erase months of progress.

The Crown of Ash — the Lich King's dominion

A continental power

The Lich King begins with an extensive contiguous realm on one major continent: a central necropolis, subordinate dead cities, burial grounds, fortresses and frontier marches. Proposed initial geography target is roughly one third of that continent's usable land, subject to a layout review; this is a substantial homeland, not a small dungeon. Exact borders must follow the world's actual land and routes and leave viable independent regions.

The king's aim is durable territorial dominion. Its armies guard approaches, retake lost strongholds and extend the frontier when they can support new holdings. The visible world records the consequences: abandoned farms, occupied settlements, excavation sites, new necropolises and contested roads. Art reflects completed simulation changes rather than applying a decorative corruption overlay that silently changes ownership.

Undead armies with finite strength

Skeleton formations provide mass, armored revenants hold strongpoints, spectral scouts gather information, and necromancers provide command and replenishment. These are proposed unit roles requiring combat definitions. Undead do not eat human meals or suffer ordinary living morale, but they require finite animating energy, command capacity, equipment and maintenance. Living servants, if present, retain ordinary needs.

Raising a unit consumes an eligible, recorded remains resource plus energy and ritual time. Historical burial reserves are finite opening assets. Battle remains become available once, only after lawful physical custody or actual occupation; raising consumes their identity permanently. Destroyed raised units yield no fresh eligible remains, preventing a perpetual recycling army. Raising a dead character's body never restores that character, takes over a player's account or cancels succession.

Necropolises and relay shrines maintain a bounded command network. Severing a relay cuts replenishment and starts a disclosed cohesion/energy decline outside remaining coverage; it does not retroactively erase battles or instantly destroy every remote unit. Counterplay includes evacuation, securing burial sites, destroying relays, disrupting rituals and liberating occupied settlements. Necromancy is a defined capability with engine-enforced costs, not permission for the AI to invent forces.

Expansion and defeat

Campaigns progress through reconnaissance, a feasible supply/command corridor, visible mustering, applicable notice, invasion, siege and costly occupation. Existing settlements do not flip to undead control because a distant influence score rises. Each new frontier needs garrisons and support; unsupported advance stalls or becomes vulnerable to counterattack. The king can wage war on the horde or pressure neutral settlements when geography and priorities support it, rather than exclusively targeting humans.

Temporary truces or prisoner exchanges may be possible through a herald, but ordinary food trading and easy friendship are not its core loop. Players can contribute without leading a grand army: rescue displaced residents, supply frontier defenses, map relays, fund expeditions or reclaim a small crossing.

The Lich King's body and its soul anchors are distinct. Defeating the field body creates a real respite. Reconstitution requires an intact recorded anchor, a finite stored cost and elapsed ritual time. Destroying all anchors prevents further reconstitution; no hidden replacement appears simply to preserve a permanent boss. Surviving undead holdings then follow an explicit collapse or remnant policy with their remaining resources. This defeat model is proposed and must be implemented before the king is fightable.

The Ironblood Horde — the orc royal dynasty

A realm with a ruling family

The horde is a durable society of trolls, goblins and orcs under successive orc kings of House Ironblood. It controls a large homeland with strongholds, working settlements, mines, pasture and contested marches. Its domain is separate from the Lich King's initial core; one reachable contested frontier can create conflict between them without requiring all their borders to touch.

Orc warbands supply much of the command and heavy infantry; goblin communities specialize in scouting, engineering and logistics; troll groups provide formidable assault troops. These are common institutional roles, not immutable restrictions on every individual. Clans have interests in land, pay, protection and prestige. Their disagreements make the realm political, without requiring a separate daily planner for every inhabitant.

Expansion under a crown

Royal policy balances food, tribute, clan loyalty, border defense and military ambition. The horde defends its settlements and launches funded campaigns for fertile ground, resources, routes or strategic depth. Its troops consume real food and equipment, need transport and suffer losses. Troll resilience must have a bounded recovery rate and cost; it cannot restore losses indefinitely during every fight.

Outlying warbands may scout or raid under explicit royal or clan authority, consuming that organization's assets and political standing. Raiding does not grant territorial ownership. Conquest requires siege, occupation, an adequate garrison and a continuing supply route. A victorious king may offer tribute or vassal terms, with exact obligations, notice, exit and breach consequences. No agreement automatically grants access to a human's entire treasury or other members' offices.

Humans can earn safe-conduct, trade at permitted border markets, negotiate limited truces or cooperate against a shared threat. Deals remain conditional on real interests. Supplying a clan may improve that clan's opinion without making the king a friend; supporting one heir can alienate another. Human players can repel the horde, bargain with it or help shape its politics rather than facing one permanently hostile script.

The dynasty matters

Persist the king, royal lineage, eligible adult heirs, succession rule and clan support. Each king has a temperament: one favors tribute and consolidation, another roads and trade, another conquest. Death starts the published succession procedure. An uncontested heir inherits existing territory, debts, treaties, military orders and limits; a disputed succession can create a council interregnum, rival claimants or civil war.

Political fracture redistributes existing troops and stock. It never duplicates them, issues fresh starting grants or multiplies the parent organization's strategic attention budget. Treaty changes follow their clauses and notice periods; a new king cannot silently invalidate a caravan's safe-conduct mid-journey. If the royal line ends, use a recorded clan election or explicit regime change. Do not invent an unrelated replacement king and pretend the dynasty continued unchanged.

Territory, fairness and encounter design

These factions are asymmetric established powers. The neutral-house trial's comparable-to-human starter assets do not apply to them. Their larger opening estates, populations, armies and reserves are explicit world-history allocations recorded once in the world manifest. Their subsequent actions still pay costs and obey authority, knowledge, movement, custody and persistence rules. Cap administrative and strategic throughput through funded institutions and a faction-wide budget; subdividing a realm into planners or clans creates no free decisions.

On a new world, allocate major domains before choosing human founding locations. Reserve viable starting districts, neutral trading partners and escape routes outside those domains. On an existing world, introduce them only in verified unclaimed regions through a versioned migration, or in a separately initialized world if there is insufficient room. Never paint their starting borders over a human's existing title or current assets. Geography changes and migrations are a later implementation decision, not an action authorized by this document.

Both expanding powers can become a serious threat; neither receives a guarantee of eventual world conquest. Travel, upkeep, command reach, resistance, competing enemies and domestic obligations limit advance. Initial test policy allows one new offensive territorial campaign per major faction at a time; defending existing fronts continues with real forces. Tune this limit from world simulations. Healthy frontier pressure must still leave humans viable settlement, trade and recovery choices.

Applicable newcomer protection and territorial war windows remain the shared rules from the MMO gameplay design. Patrol contact inside an established hostile domain and an offensive siege against a human estate are distinct actions. Entering a known lethal border requires a clear risk preview; it does not silently cancel home protection. Attacking while protected follows the existing explicit protection-loss review. Being offline never accelerates a faction's war eligibility.

Map and faction interface

The strategic map shows known control, disputed frontiers and reported danger, with observation age. Rumoured domains can be broad and uncertain; neither an ice quest nor a faction name reveals every hidden fortress. Polar territory should be readable at world scale, while necropolis networks and clan strongholds become inspectable only through appropriate reports or observation.

A faction dossier shows name, computer-controlled status, known ruler, diplomatic stance, observed territory, access rights and shared history. Distinguish Unknown intentions, No audience, Recognized petitioner, Licensed trader, Safe-conduct, Truce and At war. Permission is separate from friendship. A recognized petitioner cannot use the trade action, and a licensed trader cannot enter every mage citadel.

The quest journal shows current chapter, required evidence, completed contributions, reward scope and blocked/recovery conditions. It hides undiscovered later revelations. Border warnings state the known consequence and alternatives. Return briefings group actual frontier changes, royal succession, quest completion and expiring permissions, without inventing activity during quiet periods.

Delivery and verification

1. Foundations: add faction identity, territory initialization, knowledge projections and capability definitions. Keep the first neutral-house trial independent of this larger work.
2. Realms and access: implement durable domain control, border behavior, faction dossiers, quest evidence and scoped permits. The two polar seats must share recognition without sharing physical inventories.
3. Armies and resources: implement wards, necromancy, soul anchors, unit needs, dynastic succession and supported combat. Test their costs and counters before enabling real player encounters.
4. Campaigns: enable Lich King and horde expansion after territorial notice, siege, occupation, logistics, retreat and recovery pass the shared rules. Major-faction conflict is not delivered by existing small local military encounters alone.

Acceptance must cover: no mage audience before recognition and no trade before the second chain; no quest bypass through replay, a new representative or borrowed credentials; recoverable objectives; persisted cross-polar recognition with separate cargo custody; visible and finite overwhelming defense; one-time remains consumption; supply/ward/relay disruption; finite Lich King reconstitution and final defeat; orc succession without duplicated armies or erased treaties; migration without stolen player land; and continuous versus unattended/restarted worlds producing the same results.

Run long seeded trials with both expansionist powers, neutral houses and simulated human communities. Measure territory concentration, time between offensive campaigns, resource conservation, accessible starting land, recoverable defeats and opportunities for small contributions. Adjust costs, administration and campaign limits from these results rather than secretly weakening armies when a human looks at them. Names, exact map allocations, quest rewards and combat values remain proposed tuning; the three faction identities and their stated roles are the requested design direction.