Faction: The Fight Cult

The Fight Cult

Backdrop

A wonderous new craze has captured the hearts and minds of a capital city in your setting. A group of explorers uncovered a cache of rusted old weapons from a bygone era. Though the weapons themselves are mundane, the fever and excitement they've inspired in the people of your capital city are quite real.

Underground gladiatorial rings begin to popup in many locations in or adjacent to the capital city, and the popularity of this trend increases over time as more and more people are drawn to the sports. Though not officially legal, the popularity of the fight cult with the nobles, merchants and anyone of repute grants it a level of immunity to harder persecution.

The games begin

The fight cult is rarely something as mundane as a duel between two people or two parties to the death. Instead, rounds are often exotic and themed after specific events in the nation's history. Actual death can certainly happen, but it's more rare than a casual viewer would expect; this is aided by the use of dulled or wooden weapons and novelty equipment.

Here's a sample (1d4) of what kind of gladiatorial events the fight club is running this week.

1. A simulation of a great naval battle. Transporting all the water here and setting up all the boats sure costs a lot, but it's worth it. 
2. Combat in a maze with huge men dressed as minotaur's (2HD, AC 14, 1d8, know the maze instinctively through memorization, helmets are deliberately clunky and can't fit everywhere in the maze). The round ends when the human survivors find their way out, or slay all the beasts.
3. Enormous, 20v20 match with both sides replicating soldiers from a famous battle against a hated enemy (with many historical liberties taken for the events of the battle and what the hated enemy was like)
4. Actual small dungeon (any one pager of choice) with the top cut open (probably too high to just climb over the walls).

Fighters are generally split between paid gladiators, who attend attend to make a living, and fight cult members who take up various roles in the events (playing the role of monsters, a hated rival faction, arena dangers). 

Mechanics

• Fight cult members are typically fighters or specialists of 2-4th levels, though other more exotic classes are not unheard of. 
• They tend to wield weapons that were iconic to a particular historical culture for your setting. In mine, they used roman gladiator equipment.
• Unless specified elsewhere, fights only have a 10% chance of bringing live weapons. 
• Unless pressganged into participating, participants are rewarded with a percentage (based on the number of paid gladiators in attendance) of however many guests booked the venue on the night. Early on in the fight cult's progression this may only be a few silver.
• As a suggestion, keep a talley of whenever your players perform actions that endear or evoke repulsion in the crowd. At the end of a round, give the player [10xtalley] in silver as bonus earnings.
• Referees (1HD, AC 18) will be present (usually 1 for every five entities in the event). Unless it's using live weapons referees will do their best to keep the blood to a minimum, and will step in when a combatant is downed to have them taken off the scene by assistants(1hd, AC 12)
• There aren't many rules in the fight cult, but those that do exist are enforced by the fight king's praetorian guard (level 3 fighters). Rules are:
• Whatever weapons or armour the match specifies is to be strictly adhered to.
• Rules of duels and combat are to be adhered to. This especially includes listening to a referee.
• Magic and weird shit is a grey area. It's generally a no, but as the fight cult evolves this rule's enforcement wanes and eventually is removed entirely.
• Fighters can generally keep whatever they find in the ring.

Progression

As the cult grows and attracts more viewers, the lust for blood and violence grows out of control. The city's butchered understanding of the culture they emulate begins to take focus around a central god of war. This religiosity is taken with various degrees of seriousness by the participants (many of whome just wanna see the blood flow).

At some point it begins to grow out of control. Wooden blades go from the norm to the preshow to a distant memory, and live weapons become the norm. Injuries are far more common, and the few rules that exist (and the referees that go with it) begin to disappear. The pool of willing gladiators dries up, and the cult begins to turn to criminals, poors and the sickly for membership.

Eventually even this doesn't sate the fight cult's arenas. Kidnappings in broad daylight start to flair up and become more and more common as random civilians are pressganged into membership with the fight cult as gladiators, or to play the role of wild beasts to be slaughtered. Exotic beasts are brought in from distant lands, and mad inventors harness strange technologies to bath the arenas with fire and blood. 

At some point it all goes horribly wrong. Either a fan favourite gladiator is killed (some suspect foul play) or the enthusiasm of the audience boils too hot. Whatever the case, there's blood in the streets. Thousands will die.

Inspiration

This idea comes from reading about Renaissance Era Italy's fascination with Rome and Greek wisdom (and then culture). The idea of having a faction that's themed around a romanticized, fictionalized version of an idea from the past is appealing.

That and the wacky shit that happens in Skerple's Magical Industrial Revolutions if an invention/craze is allowed to go on for too long.