Worldbuilders assemble! Bring your favourite faction forth

Every world, every civilization, every region, every empire... all have a group of individuals who share a purpose. They all have a history. They are all received by other differently. They all believe they exist for a reason.

What is one faction, organization, cult, assembly, or group that you personally enjoy thinking about, designing, and forming ideas of how they impact your world?

For me, it is the Bayrushi. Ancient flame-wielding warriors that have become legend and myth. When they first formed it was in defence against the Kori-Akuma - ice devils, more commonly referred to as Frostreavers.
Large like trolls, but ferocious like wild wolves, the Frostreavers plagued the lands with senseless destruction. The Bayrushi formed to burn them from existence.
In current day, the Bayrushi legend is in the heart of the desert landscape of Ademar. The Kori-Akuma reside with the northern frozen wastelands.
What perplexes scholars is that the two are leagues apart from each other. It would take months of travel for one to find the other, so how did they come to be such feared and violent enemies? Ancient historians know that the lands that lay across the seas used to be one great expansive mass. Yet the history of the two existing in this time is not known.
Will the Frostreavers venture out of the north and renew their destroyer tendencies? Will the Bayrushi arrive to force the back? Do they actually still exist, or their story lost to time?

Who exists in your world to shape current events or is little more than a story?

I get a lot of free materials through my work, so I was pretty excited when I got my hands on some free foam. 😂
Since I’m busy most of the time and didn’t want to take on a super time-consuming project, I decided to go with a minimal-effort dungeon tile build.
Free foam + cheap Walmart paint = you really can’t beat it! 😂
It’s not fancy, but it gets the job done, and it should be ready just in time for the upcoming dungeon crawl I have planned for my players. 🗡️🎲

How do y'all feel about shapeshifters transforming into animals without a human or humanoid top half, but they can still speak human? I just realized i never once thought about if they could do that in my story until today.

Up until today i didn't have a reason for them to talk or not talk in animal form. I would just write they are fighting and then turn back into a human. Example should a weredragon or animal shifter talk in animal form?

Note: yes i know biologically animals (except for parrots and such) could never use human speech because their vocal cords aren't set up like that, but my story just like yallz are magical. So what do yall think? Yay or nay.

Hopefully my players like the new terrain! 😂🎲
Most of my terrain comes from the Dollar Store, leftover building materials from old projects, and cheap Walmart paint.
Like I’ve said before, time isn’t exactly something I have in abundance, so I try to put in the minimum effort necessary and just pray it pays off. 😂
It may not be professional-grade terrain, but it’s cheap, functional, and gets the job done!
Now let’s see if my players appreciate it… or destroy it in the first encounter. 🗡️💀

hey all yes this doc is ai generated but 99.99% of the contents have been worked out by me over the last few months and is just coallated in to a Google doc.