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Faction dossier / tracker for DMs

Track factions by what they want, control, and owe.

This is a working faction ledger, not a worldbuilding bible. Each row names what a faction wants right now, what they control, what they owe, what the party knows, and what moved last session. Copy it into any notes app, or use it as-is.

Two example dossiers below show what a filled-in faction looks like. The structure is system-agnostic; the names are placeholders you can replace.

Copy the outlineSee the full campaign workflow

Example faction record

One faction, as Multiloop stores it.

Every faction carries its own accent color and emblem, a faction type, a current status, and a known-to-the-party setting. Below that: a parent-faction chain, headquarters, key members, and any other factions the record references. DM notes and Secrets stay on your side of the screen.

Identity

The Fellwake Hand

GuildActiveKnown to the party

Description/ share-safe

A small courier order running sealed letters between Fellwake and Mireport. Trades information and access with the party; will not risk open war on their behalf.

Structure

Parent faction
Fellwake Merchant Trust
Headquarters
A warehouse on the Fellwake dockside ward.
Fellwake > Dockside ward
Key members
Quill HarrowfenVoice
Cass's cousinRunner
Referenced factions

Rich-text mentions, not a structured editor today.

  • House Madric
  • Rumerton revenue office
  • Mireport harbor patrol

DM notes and Secrets stay on your side of the screen.

Posture vocabulary

Seven labels, worksheet shorthand.

These are the tags you put on each faction’s Posture toward the party row. They are worksheet shorthand kept in your notes, not Multiloop dropdown values. Pick the one that names where the faction sits now, not where you want it to sit later.

  • Ally

    Openly on the party's side. Good description opener when the party counts on them.

  • Contact

    Working with the party transactionally. Trades information, access, or favors. Describe it in the description; track session-by-session shifts in DM notes.

  • Neutral

    Aware of the party. No active stake for or against. Describe it in the description; usually paired with a known-to-the-party flag set, but no strong tie yet.

  • Rival

    Competing with the party for a goal or resource. Put the surface read in the description; put the private play in DM notes.

  • Hostile

    Will act against the party on sight. Describe it in the description; keep the triggering events and plans in DM notes or secrets.

  • Patron

    Paying or sponsoring the party. Describe it in the description; owed favors and deliverables belong in DM notes.

  • Suspect

    The party believes the faction is behind something. Keep that belief in DM notes or secrets; surface only what the party has openly concluded in the description.

Two worked factions

One the party is working with. One the party is working against.

Same thirteen rows. Opposite postures. Read either dossier for a minute and you should be able to run that faction next session.

ContactType / Guild

The Fellwake Hand

A small courier order running sealed letters between Fellwake and Mireport. The party is on their second delivery. Trust is growing; pressure is growing faster.

What they wantKeep the Fellwake-to-Mireport courier routes open through the quarantine.
What they controlThree sealed routes, the sigil on Quill's letters, and a dockside warehouse in Mireport.
What they oweA safe delivery of Quill's next letter to the Mireport contact. The party was promised a clean handoff.
Pressure on themHarbor patrol warrants on two known couriers, traded from Madric. Clock: next tax cycle.
Name
The Fellwake Hand. The party knows them as "Quill's couriers."
Type
Guild (presents as a merchant courier order).
Status
Active. Operating openly in Fellwake, quietly in Mireport.
Seat
Fellwake. A warehouse on the Mireport dock is an outpost, not the seat.
Key people
Voice: Quill Harrowfen. Runner: Cass's cousin from the Fellwake ferry.
Relationships to other factions
Courting: Rumerton revenue office. Rival: House Madric. At war: no one yet.
Posture toward party
Contact. Trusting, not yet an ally. Helps on deliveries; will not risk open war for the party.
Description (share-safe public facts)
Quill is the Voice. They carry sealed letters. The sigil gets them past the Mireport gate once.
DM notes and secrets
The Hand is Quill's family order, not a trade guild; the sigil ring is kin-only and triggers on blood. Pending question: will the party carry a second letter after the patrol takedown, or pull back and protect the first handoff?

Last change from session notes

Session 8: harbor patrol took two couriers on old warrants traded from Madric. The Hand trusts the party more; the clock got shorter.

RivalType / Merchant

House Madric

A Rumerton merchant house running a satellite in Mireport. They want the Fellwake courier routes. They traded warrants to the harbor patrol to slow the party's contact.

What they wantTake the Fellwake courier routes and convert them to Rumerton revenue.
What they controlTwo Rumerton warehouses, a Mireport quarantine order traded from the harbor patrol, and a silent crew shadowing the party's known contacts.
What they oweTime. A warrant-for-time trade with the harbor patrol is ticking; House Madric owes the patrol a favor back.
Pressure on themQuill's Mireport contact is about to name them publicly. Clock: one session.
Name
House Madric. Known at the table as "Factor Madric's house."
Type
Merchant. Presents as a family trading house; operates closer to a factor's guild.
Status
Active. Rumerton office open; Mireport office staffed but under scrutiny.
Seat
Rumerton. A satellite office on the Mireport waterfront.
Key people
Factor: Madric. Shadow: a Rumerton crew the party has not named. The Mireport desk clerk is the only face the party has seen.
Relationships to other factions
Subsidiary of: Rumerton revenue office. At war: The Fellwake Hand. Courting: the harbor patrol.
Posture toward party
Rival. Has not moved against the party directly yet; is already moving against their contact.
Description (share-safe public facts)
Madric is a factor. He funds relief shipments. He was not in his Rumerton office the morning the party arrived.
DM notes and secrets
Madric is laundering shipments; he hired the courier shadow and is running from Saltwright, not toward it. Pending question: does the party reach the surviving courier roster before Madric's crew does?

Last change from session notes

Session 9: Madric reached Saltwright first and burned part of the courier roster. A partial copy survived with a vendor.

The tracker / thirteen rows

What each row is for.

Three groups. Identity is written once when the row opens. Stakes is where most session updates land. Knowledge split is what the players can name, what they cannot yet, and the one thread that keeps the row alive.

Group

Identity

Who this faction is and how they present at the table. Fill these when the row opens and revisit only when the faction itself changes shape.

  1. Name

    How the party would refer to them in one line. Underlying true name in parentheses if different.

    Example / The Fellwake Hand. The party knows them as "Quill's couriers."

  2. Type

    One tag. Pick from guild, kingdom, military, religious, merchant, criminal, academic, family, cult, or other. Not alignment.

    Example / Merchant. Presents as a family trading house; operates closer to a factor's guild.

  3. Status

    One of active, secret, disbanded, or destroyed. Change it when the world changes, not when the party discovers the change.

    Example / Active. Operating openly in Fellwake, quietly in Mireport.

  4. Seat

    Where they operate from. A named place, a district, a ship, a shrine, or "itinerant" if they have no seat.

    Example / Rumerton. A satellite office on the Mireport waterfront.

  5. Key people

    One or two short lines. Use the format role: name. Leave blank rather than pad with walk-ons.

    Example / Factor: Madric. Shadow: a Rumerton crew the party has not named.

Group

Stakes (description and DM-notes prompts)

These five worksheet prompts do not map to separate fields on the faction. Write them into the description (share-safe) or DM notes (DM-only) depending on whether the party has earned the information. The one exception is faction-to-faction ties: Multiloop tracks relation types between factions, though the in-product editor for those ties is not live today, so treat faction-to-faction content as a description or DM-notes prompt for now.

  1. Relationships to other factions

    One short line per meaningful tie. Multiloop can carry relation types between two factions (allied, friendly, neutral, rival, hostile, at war, subsidiary, parent), but the editor for those ties is not live today, so write the ties into the faction's description when the party can see them and into DM notes when they cannot.

    Example / Description: courting the Rumerton revenue office. DM notes: at war with The Fellwake Hand; the Hand does not know yet.

  2. What they want

    Their goal right now, in one sentence. Share-safe version goes in the description; the real motive behind it goes in DM notes or secrets.

    Example / Description: Keep the courier routes between Fellwake and Mireport open. DM notes: Build enough trust with the party to use them as Quill's fallback couriers.

  3. What they control

    Named holdings, routes, relics, or people they move. Write the obvious holdings in the description; the hidden leverage in DM notes or secrets.

    Example / Description: Three sealed routes, the sigil on Quill's letters, a dockside warehouse in Mireport. DM notes: The sigil is kin-only and triggers on blood.

  4. What they owe

    Open obligations, debts, promises, or threats currently unpaid. Share-safe obligations in the description; trade-offs behind the scenes in DM notes.

    Example / Description: A clean handoff of Quill's next letter to the Mireport contact. DM notes: The Hand also owes the Rumerton revenue office a fee kicker next cycle.

  5. Pressure on them

    Who or what is squeezing them, and with what clock. This is prep context the party rarely hears directly; it belongs in DM notes, not the description.

    Example / DM notes: Harbor patrol warrants on two couriers, traded from Madric; clock at the next tax cycle.

Group

Knowledge split

Two mechanisms carry this split: a Known-to-the-party flag on the faction (which the campaign share view filters on), and the DM-only DM notes field. There is no separate posture field; keep posture description in the description and the private play in DM notes.

  1. Known to the party and description

    Mark the faction as known to the party once they have met or heard of it; leave it unknown when they have not. Write the posture-toward-party sentence into the description. This sentence is share-safe if the faction is known to the party.

    Example / Known to the party: yes. Description: A rival merchant house that has not moved against the party directly yet; already moving against their contact.

  2. Description (share-safe public facts)

    The three or four things a player could name without a check. Put them into the description, and the campaign share view will show them when the faction is marked known. If you cannot list anything, the faction has not hit the table yet.

    Example / Description: Madric is a factor. He funds relief shipments. He was not in his Rumerton office the morning the party arrived.

  3. DM notes and secrets

    What is actually true if different from the public line, plus the one reason this faction is still a live concern. Kept out of the campaign share view and visible only to the DM and DM-permission members.

    Example / DM notes: Madric is laundering shipments through the relief ledger. Pending question: does the party reach the surviving courier roster before Madric's crew does?

One more row

One connective row: last change from session notes.

Below the thirteen fields, keep a one-line delta from the last session that touched this faction. It is the ledger's tie to your session notes. A row with no delta for three sessions, no open thread, and no pressure either way is safe to retire.

Tracker rhythm

Add on pressure. Update only on movement. Retire often.

A faction tracker fails when it becomes a second campaign to run. These three rules keep it small and keep every row alive.

  1. 01

    First pressure

    Add

    Open a row the first time a faction acts against or for the party, or the first time the party pins themselves to the faction. Not sooner. A named guild the party walked past in session one is not a row yet.

  2. 02

    Sessions that moved it

    Update

    Touch the row only when something changed. Update posture, what they control, what they owe, pressure on them, and the last-change line. Leave identity fields alone unless the faction itself changed shape.

  3. 03

    Gone cold

    Retire

    Retire after three sessions with no next change, no open thread either way, and no world pressure on them. Move their identity notes to a cold archive; keep the tracker short so every row is live.

A crimson-lit war hall with a long council table, hanging banners, and maps spread under low lamplight.

A faction is a plan with people behind it. The tracker names what they want, what they hold, and who is already pushing back.

Margin rule / cut

Leave these out of the ledger.

Every row you write is a row you maintain. Keep the tracker small by keeping these out of it.

  • Full ideology essays and pre-campaign lineage charts. Keep those in your worldbuilding doc, not the tracker.
  • Every neighborhood guard post, temple, or merchant house the party has not touched.
  • Alignment debates. A faction has a goal and a posture; alignment rarely helps at prep.
  • Reputation scores or renown math. Posture and open threads carry the same weight with less spreadsheet.
  • Factions the party has not heard of and the world is not about to push into play.
  • Copy-pasted descriptions from published adventures or paid GM bundles.

Margin rule / write

How this fits Multiloop

Factions live in the World & Lore module. The identity rows above are real fields on the faction. The stakes and knowledge-split rows are description and DM-notes prompts; they do not map to separate storage.

  1. 01Identity is structured. Name, faction type (10 options: guild, kingdom, cult, family, military, criminal, religious, merchant, academic, other), status (4 options: active, disbanded, secret, destroyed), headquarters (plain text), headquarters location link, parent faction link, and a Known-to-the-party flag are all fields on the faction.
  2. 02Stakes are text. "What they want", "what they control", "what they owe", and "pressure on them" are description or DM-notes content, not separate fields. Write the share-safe parts into the description; write the private play into DM notes.
  3. 03Faction-to-character memberships are structured. Faction-to-faction ties can carry a relation type (allied, friendly, neutral, rival, hostile, at war, subsidiary, parent), though the in-product editor for those ties is not live today, so for now describe faction-to-faction ties in the description or DM notes.
  4. 04Session notes and shared player notes drive Analysis. It proposes new faction candidates when a group, guild, cult, government, or crew becomes concrete in the notes. Existing faction rows remain deliberate edits in the native faction editor.

Faction sharing happens through the campaign share view. The share view uses the faction's Known-to-the-party flag and player-view setting to decide inclusion, and keeps DM notes out of the shared content. Put public-facing text in Description and private prep in DM notes or Secrets.

Next prep opens with approved new faction records already in place, shared notes accounted for in the scan, your deliberate description and DM-note edits ready to read, and the factions that went quiet still quietly on the list.

Copy the outline into your notes app.

Markdown / plain text

This works in a plain document, a markdown file, a notebook page, or a campaign workspace. One block per faction. Select and copy.

# Faction dossier

Identity
   Name:
   Type: (guild / kingdom / military / religious / merchant / criminal / academic / family / cult / other)
   Status: (active / secret / disbanded / destroyed)
   Seat:
   Key people:
      role: name

Stakes
   Relationships to other factions:
      ally / rival / patron / subsidiary / at war / courting: name
   What they want:
   What they control:
   What they owe:
   Pressure on them:

Knowledge split
   Posture toward the party: (ally / contact / neutral / rival / hostile / patron / suspect)
   Description (share-safe public facts):
   DM notes and secrets:

Last change from session notes:

FAQ

Before you open your first row.

How is this different from a worldbuilding faction sheet?
A worldbuilding sheet captures who a faction is, forever. This tracker captures what they want and what they owe right now. Worldbuilding sheets live on; tracker rows retire when the faction stops pressuring anyone.
How many factions should I keep in the tracker?
As many as are actively helping or squeezing the party, plus any the world is about to push into play. When a faction goes three sessions with no movement, no open thread, and no pressure either way, retire the row. You can still keep their worldbuilding notes elsewhere.
How is this different from the NPC tracker?
The NPC tracker tracks people. The faction tracker tracks organizations. A single NPC can be a key person inside two factions; a faction can outlive any single NPC. Use both when the campaign has named orders, not just named people.
Do I need to list every ally and rival as a separate relationship line?
Only the ones that affect play. Use the worksheet tags (ally, rival, patron, subsidiary, at war, courting) for the ties that will come up at the table in the next few sessions. Factions with no live tie to another faction leave the row blank. These are tracker shorthand, not product rules.
Does this work outside D&D?
Yes. Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu, Blades in the Dark, and most campaign-based tabletop RPGs run on the same stakes-and-obligations layer. The posture vocabulary does not change.
Do I need a tool, or will a document work?
A document works. The structure fits a markdown file or a spreadsheet. A campaign manager helps once factions start connecting to NPCs, locations, and session notes, and you want those connections to stay current without copying them by hand.

Get Early Access

Keep the pressure map current after the game.

Multiloop holds each faction as a record in World and Lore, links it to the NPCs, locations, and notes that reference it, and surfaces faction candidates from DM and shared player session notes for you to review.