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Faction War & Political Intrigue Campaign Template

Political campaigns live or die on whether the DM can keep track of who wants what, who knows what, and who's secretly betraying whom. The Faction War template gives you three fully-realized competing factions with leaders, secret agendas, and contested territory — pre-wired with the relationships that make political intrigue actually play like political intrigue rather than a list of names on a whiteboard.

Enemy (85)Secret (60)Secret (55)Leads (95)Leads (90)Rival (70)Envoy (80)
The Iron Circle
Faction · Active
factionmilitary
The Silver Court
Faction · Active
factionmerchant
The Ash Brotherhood
Faction · Active
factionsecret
General Morreth
NPC · Alive
leader
Lady Voss
NPC · Alive
leader
The Pale Envoy
NPC · Unknown
leadersecret
The Contested City
Location · Known
location
The Faction War template, exactly as it opens in the app. Drag to pan, scroll to zoom.
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What's included

  • 7 nodes: three factions, two faction leaders, a hidden agent, and the contested city
  • Open warfare edges between the Iron Circle and Silver Court
  • Hidden edges: the Ash Brotherhood secretly funding both sides
  • A faction group with color coding for easy visual separation
  • 2 quest goals: uncover the funding source and broker a ceasefire

Use cases

  • City-based D&D campaigns with competing guilds or noble houses
  • Planar politics — devil courts, archfey rivalries, or githyanki vs githzerai
  • Post-war campaigns where former allies are now rivals
  • Sandbox worlds where faction standing shifts based on player choices

Ideal for Dungeon Masters running intrigue-heavy D&D 5e, Pathfinder, Blades in the Dark, Vampire: The Masquerade, or any faction-driven TTRPG.

More free templates

  • Mystery Web — A web of suspects, clues, and secrets around a central crime.
  • Heist Crew — A crew of specialists, the target, and all the complications in between.
  • Royal Court — Nobles, alliances, betrayals, and the scramble for royal favor.

Or see all campaign templates and build a map from scratch.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to use three factions?
No, but three is the smallest number that produces real politics. With two you get a war; with three you get shifting alliances, someone playing both sides, and a balance your players can actually tip. Add a fourth by duplicating the pattern — the template is a starting shape, not a limit.
What are the hidden edges in this template?
The Ash Brotherhood secretly funds the Iron Circle and separately advises the Silver Court. Two directional Secret edges, both hidden from players. Neither faction knows. It's the reason the war keeps escalating when nobody seems to want it to, and it's the thing your players are eventually going to work out.
How do I track a faction's strength changing over time?
Every relationship carries a 0–100 strength you can edit after any session. Recording erosion is the point: an alliance at 85 that the party spends three sessions undermining becomes a 40, and the map starts predicting what happens next rather than just recording what happened.
What happens if my players kill a faction leader?
Nothing breaks. Leaders are separate nodes linked to their faction, so removing General Morreth leaves the Iron Circle and all of its faction-level relationships intact — it just gains a succession crisis and an empty leadership slot for you to fill.

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