How to Make Your Own Braunstein Domain Faction

The BROSR is the talk of the town again. 

This time because some lady who's wringing cash out of the OSR whales for her Kickstarter decided to mention the word "Braunstein". If you're among those who took out a second mortgage to purchase a bunch of her gaming books (let's call these fellas "shadowmarks") it's likely you've never actually played a long form D&D campaign. I'd wager most shadowmarks have never had a PC reach Domain level or, if they were forever DMs scratching and scrounging for gaming friends at the B.O. Palace of their Friendly Local Gaming Store (BO-FLGS) then they've likely never DMed anything with Domains.

I invite such shadowmarks to check out BROZER: Island of War and Winter for more information on running Domain scale. While I know it's difficult for such marks to read, download a PDF that doesn't cost 100+, or enjoy the writing of men (as it's written by the men of the BROSR) I think they could learn a great deal. And it's free! 

If you play BROZER for even a single shot tournament style session you will have all you need to know to run Domain play in real D&D. Take BROZER down to your BO-FLGS and find guys to play it with you. Surely, they can take a four-hour respite from drooling over their newest foil pikachu card to give it a shot.

But what BROZER doesn't have is rules or precise advice on how to CREATE domain leaders. That's where this blog comes in.

How We Did It In BROZER

BROZER was simple. The Factions were ideas most of the men of the BROSR had for a long time, or tested in real BROSR campaigns. For the resources the Faction Leaders had, we simply used the 1e Advanced Dungeons and Dragons "Monster Manual" (MM). If you're creating a monster faction you simply go to the entry for the monster in the MM and start rolling up the Lair numbers. Rolling up the Lair Treasure will determine if the faction and/or its leader has magic items to use.

If you want a human faction you simply choose one of the Men entries from the MM that best fit your theme or needs. "Beserkers" for a Viking style faction, "Pilgrims" for a village led by a cleric, etc. In wisdom I gained through over a hundred sessions of running my ACKS campaign, I realized the "Hobgoblin" entry was the best one to use to roll up a standard human town garrison. 

Simple.

This will give you a Faction that's about level 9 of power and resources. But what if you want a lower or higher level faction? 

Lower or Higher Level Factions

You can use a version of the Adventurer Conqueror King System (ACKS) "Creating Advanced Characters" (found on page 253 of ACKS1). ACKS2 changed some things which make it a bit too complicated for this blog. If you're running ACKS, however, I highly recommend it. (ACKS2 has these rules on Page 388 of the "Judge's Journal"). This blog will focus on making a Faction for 1e Advanced D&D.

This blog will also focus on creating LOWER level factions as I'm going to challenge my BROXT friends to do so today for a special gaming event.

Step By Step

As the DM you will give yourself or your PCs an XP pool to use to level the leader of the Faction. You do this rather than determine a level for the leader since all classes in old school gaming level at different rates. A Level 5 BX Elf is much more powerful than a level 5 thief, for instance. 

As far as ability scores, one cannot doubt that AD&D Method III is best in ALL cases of playing AD&D but most especially if you want to create a faction ruler of note.

Then you determine a pool of gold pieces to purchase keeps/castles, troops, henchmen, magic items, and equipment. As per ACKS you will need to pay troops SIX MONTHS worth of wages (to indicate them being in your employ for a while). 

Don't forget that Cleric sorts pay HALF for the cost of their Keeps and Castles.

For your henchmen you will need to pay GP in the amount of the XP for the level you want them.

For instance, if you want a Level 2 Fighter henchmen you'll need to pay 2,000 GP since it takes a fighter 2,000 XP to get to Level 2. 

Deciding on Magic Items is a bit trickier. ACKS1 uses a sort of lottery system where you pay X amount of GP to roll on the possibility of this or that type of item. I will remake that here for use with 1e AD&D. Remember these are Magic Items you can equip your Faction Leader with our outfit his people with. These charts all start in the Dungeon Masters Guide (DMG) page 121.

Roll for any randomly determined magic item (Table III): 2,000 GP 

Fighters can choose to roll on Swords (Table G): 2,000 GP

Fighters can choose to roll on Armor & Shields (Table F.) or Miscellaneous Weapons (Table H.): 3,000 GP

Magic Users can choose to roll on Scrolls (Table B.): 1,000 GP

Magic Users can choose to roll on Rods, Staves & Wands (Table D.): 4,000 GP

Clerics can choose re-roll one time any edged weapon they get or any arcane scroll or rod etc they get.

Thieves/Assassins can choose re-roll one time any item they get.

This is probably broken but it will give you a good baseline to work with and adjust as needed for your campaign and/or Braunstein.

Conclusion

If you do all of the above you should end up with a Faction leader who controls a domain and leads an army or cohort of sorts. You might get some crazy magic item which will flip the Braunstein session or your long running campaign upside down. This is a good thing!

You don't want to be a shadowmark you want to be a gamer! 

BROXT Create a Faction Challenge

Most of the superstars in the BROXT were not known to the BROSR when BROZER was written. Thus, they did not supply a faction for that Ennie Nominated work. It's time for them to prove they can do the work!

As of 04/01/2025 (this is not an April Fool's Joke) I challenge all members of the BROXT to create a Braunstein Faction for 1e AD&D using the above rules. The faction leader will have 20,000 XP and 20,000 GP to purchase troops, henchmen, magic items, castles and the like. Structures will cost 1/2 of normal for this challenge (which is 1/4 if you are a cleric sort).

The BROXT CHAMPION "Foolish Intanius" will have 30,000 gp to work with. All those who took part in "BROXT BATTLEGROUND" will have 25,000 gp to work with.

We want something of a bit lower power since I'm going to bully a Living Urf DM (or DMs) into letting us use these Factions in real ongoing campaign(s) for a future challenge where said Factions are to compete in some way.

They are challenged to blog about it to give a breakdown of the Faction's resources, alignment, motivations and MOST IMPORTANTLY the Appendix N story which inspired the Faction. I challenge the BROXT Superstar to directly rip off a character from an Appendix N story. Against my better judgement, however, I will accept Factions and Domain Rulers who are from other works that are NOT from Appendix N. 

It seems necessary since many of the best Appendix N Domain ideas were alright ripped off for BROZER! Be warned that most of the BROXT Bookers have a bias in favor of Appendix N...

The BROXT Superstars will have about a week to accomplish this challenge. I will reveal the winner(s) during my April 6th appearance on the "ACKS TO GRIND" podcast. The best entry or entries will have a chance to contend for the BROXT Championship Belt at a later date. They will be judged on clarity, usefulness/playability in a real campaign or Braunstein, following the rules, and coolness factor.

Good luck!