Do you have any interesting homebrew factions?

The Kingfishers

The Kingfishers are an unincorporated group of like-minded secret double-agents, who play the different petty fiefs of Solasta against each other, with the goal of maintaining the balance of power and preserving peace. They're kind of a cross between the Harpers and the Lords' Alliance. What if Antifa but neoliberal?

The Kingfishers are funded by wealthy corporations, to make sure nasty wars don't interfere with commerce. There is no official membership of the Kingfishers. A Kingfisher knows another Kingfisher by their reputation. Kingfishers however will work with anyone who will help them achieve their goals, even rebels whose goal is to overthrow the system the Kingfishers protect, if they can play them off rival powers to keep a powerful city state from growing invincible. Even foreign empires are potential allies. Maybe even monstrous aberrations. Kingfishers rely on deception and persuasion, stealth and bribery, secrets and lies. Very rarely will they hold their ground in hand-to-hand combat on a level playing field. But they are capable duelists if pressed.

The Red Blades

The Governor-King of Eregor is suspiciously lacking in opposition. Some suspect that he uses a secret assassin force called the Red Blades to remove his enemies within the city.

The Red Blades were once the cult followers of a god of blood and war, following his commands to start wars via assassination and intrigue. One day, however, his commands ceased and his presence was lost. Without a guiding patron, the Red Blades elected a representative: their most accomplished assassin, an elf by the name of Dedris. Dedris found favor with an aspiring senator of Eregor, who promised sanctuary in exchange for their services. And so, the Red Blades became the servants of the senator, who used them among other ill means to become the governor-king.

The Red Blades nowadays have three tiers: the darts, fifteen daggers, and three generals. Each rank answers to the one above it, and one of the generals, Dedris, has command over the other two and answers to the governor-king. They gain new recruits when needed by purchasing them from orphanages using anonymous agents.

Every Dart and Dagger puts their name into a magical book owned by General Dedris. If a person who wrote their name in that book even begins to mention the words “general,” “dart,” “dagger,” or “Red Blade,” in any capacity, that person instantly dies.

I have a silly faction ... called the Moonies.  Well, that is a nickname put on them by their detractors.

The Moonies believe the calendar needs to follow the cycle of the moon.  All months have 28 days.  The first day of the month is the new moon.

They have their own name for the months of the year and if you ask them what day it is they will answer in their system and then add, "... or the fifth of MONTH" [whatever the usual date is].  On the first day of the month they hang a blue cloth outside with a white circle on it to represent the new moon.  Most people just ignore them as cranks.  They don't call themselves "The Moonies", they call themselves the True Keepers (of the Calendar).

Are they just cranks?  Or does the phase of the moon mean a great deal more to them than to 'normal people?'

Whispering Leaves: sorta a Harpers/Emerald Enclave hybrid focused on extraplanar threats who try to use the remote wilderness as the site of their initial incursions, although not above tracing alliances between such powers and more mundane powers in their world and contending with them through assassination direct action.  Because some of their work involved planar hopping, and planar hopping isn't a perfect science, while initially presumed to be based/grounded on Faerun, the Whispering Leaves network exists, in fact started on other worlds, though their coordination is message in a bottle level at best.

The Remnant: a faction of loyalists in the literally shattered world of Abandominion doing what they can to curtail the exploitation of their world in hopes that the Lordmajor may return to rebuild it, though the Lordmajor has an avoidant pathology toward all this since his abdication.

Gerald's Grasp: Lordmajor's brother's scheme to literally sell out the broken world's resources, wealth and souls to various extraplanar actors.  Manipulates various post apocalyptic cults to maximize service to the various bidders, also distracts much of the broken population with a crusader cult purging the world of the Remnant and off world tracking down any vestige of the of the Abdicator Lordmajor to guarantee he never returns.

Burny's Game (unofficial name).  In DiA there's an ancient copper dragon that's been dispatched to Avernus on a long term mission to basically run a listening station tuned to Tiamat and her cult's activity.  She still does that, but I've adapted her to use her far forward observation post (and access to the Infinite Staircase) to patronize a network of agents across planes, but mostly prime material based, excavating lore, history, artifacts, personages and entities who disrupt or challenge the ordering of Dragonkind along Tiamat/Bahomet axis pursuant to breaking the two dragon deities horde like grasp over what dragons "are" (the presumption being they are actually the stuff of creation and the present schism is actually bad for cosmology).  Also, art heists, lots of art heists ... not entirely divorced from the larger principle of the faction, but art heists sometimes for art heists sake.  

The Instars...'cause I like butterflies....I made it as an Emerald Enclave subfaction as part of the linked pub in my sig block.

The Peregrines

a Group of messengers who believe the information should never be restricted, they are focused on mobility and the standard members are able to cast longstrider, jump and feather fall. They operate out of the city of spires (reflavored elberon) which is made of layers and the innumerable stairs, elevators, streets, and skylanes between them. Their base is an abandon collage in the 3rd layer

it was fun to use them to send the players on a multi layer quest to return their letter. The next mission was an masquerade ball, complete with an investigation, and an attempted assassination. Sadly the campaign fell apart around then but they were fun to use

Sounds great for a chase encounter.

The Crescent Warriors

A multinational organization of glory-seeking war-god worshippers. They try to win fame and favor with their god by defeating the strongest enemies they can in battle. Many spend years wandering the world with nothing more than weapons, armor, and food, trying to find powerful enemies far from home. As a result, they will often join adventuring parties or armies. Players of the fighter, barbarian, or cleric classes that prove their skills to higher-ranking members can be inducted into the group.

I’d love to have more factions, but so far, players are all kind of together in the same group rather than each having their own unique contacts.  There are a few mobs and secret agents, but not many non-state actors.  Within a big org like the Aventine Church of the Numen, though, there are a bunch of competing factions and sects.  For example:

The Holy Office of the Firm Catechism

Basically the Inquisition.  Currently led by the insidious Cardinal Thiego Hurtado de Mar y Trinxit, the Firm Catechists serve to both maintain the supreme worldly power of the Ecumenopolitan over the Church as a whole and to ensure doctrinal adherence to the teachings of Cardendos, the Fifth and Final Prophet.  Pursuant to these goals, they have staged pogroms and used ethnic cleansing to drive “demihumans” and followers of other religions out of the Asturian Peninsula.  They also encouraged and helped organize the worst excesses of the Appellate Crusades, which have rendered the Middlemarches a nightmare of war, disease, and famine for a hundred years.  While their influence is mostly felt in the Churchlands and the heart of the Cardendan Empire, they have agents in the Middlemarches and the Widderzee Islands where they surveil the reformist movement known as the Demurrers, as well as undermining apostate churches on the Saadic Coast.  They have never established a reliable toehold  in the main campaign city, owing to the presence there of their hated rivals, the radical nuns of the Poor Sisters of the Sorrowful.

One of the reasons I like writing on these forums is that once I put stuff down in writing, it makes me see something else I need to write down and increases my overall productivity.  Once I wrote up the Firm Catechists, I realized I needed these guys, too.

Brigada Zed

Brigada Zed began when the Kingdom of Bragara was incorporated into the holdings of the Churchlands by Cardendos.  This grant doubled the earthly holdings of the Church and secured for Cardendos the twin crowns of Imperator and Ecumenopolitan, uniting the thrones for the first time since the Divine Republic.  For the Royal Family and aristocracy of Bragara, however, it spelled certain doom.  The ex-members of the Royal Guard began clandestinely ferrying aristos out of the country to safety and remained behind to protect the common folk from the worst depredations of their new masters.  Hundreds of years later, Brigada Zed still exists as a network of small cells operating independently.  This network has spread from Bragara throughout the Churchlands and it is thought to have some resources as far north as Castelrouge.  When a member takes public action, they cover their face in a black mask and when they need to identify themselves, they do so by drawing a Z in the air and making three quick swishing noises.

I had a faction known as the “The legacy of Hypnos “ it was Greek campaign but in a modern day world . Basically cult like worshippers that committed attacks on temples and shrine of other gods and they had demigods that could make people sleep with a touch which helped them . Eventually we won a battle against them and we got awesome weapons like a necklace capable of making you sleep.

The Men of the Wild

These are rangers in the fashion of Aragorn that watch the frontiers are prevent small bands of enemies from attacking and pillaging small settlements and farms on the borders.

In my setting they mostly concern themselves with the Orcs to the north and west of the kingdom.  But they guard the western frontier also and are on the lookout for anything unusual.

The Guardin' Gnomes

Led by the Gnome Chompsky, a fearsome gnome warlord, this trans-national army of gnomes stands for the liberation of gnome-kind from servitude and ridicule. The Guardin' Gnomes comprise several brigades of giant badger-riding badger knights, the vanguard of heavily-armored breachgnomes, a contingent of irregular goblinstickers, and the famed illusion-wielding imagemakers. The gnomes specialize in teamwork and guerrilla tactics combined with illusion magic and experimental technology including the infamous swarm of exploding parrots.

The Knighthood of the Silver Anchor

Warring city states make the conworld a dangerous place to live in. And when the strong powers of the world are wizard-kings seeking their own aggrandizement, violence is a fact of life. The Knighthood of the Silver anchor is an unaligned order of knights who seek to do something about that state of affairs. Though they accept applicants from every nation, their numbers have never been large. Their purpose is to police the use of violence. Their members seek to prevent open conflict through their actions. Many of their members are adherents of the Binder of Demons--often turning to the faith and joining the order after spending time in the militaries of the northern city states. They are a military order, lead by a Knight Captain who dispatches members of the order to anywhere where fighting might break out.

To gain entry to the order, an applicant must come from a martial background. (Martial was a good descriptive word which might allow for bladesinger wizards to join while also explaining why twilight clerics don't have to). However, members need to be diplomats as well as warriors, since the best fight is the fight avoided. Members are often paladins. The blazon of the order is vert, an anchor argent, and once admitted, all members must add the anchor argent to their coats of arms. Once admitted, members are also initiated into the Binder's mystery, although there is no requirement to seek greater enlightenment. Should a member wish to find greater enlightenment, holding vigils and undertaking vows would be the way forward. The Knighthood is like a round table without an Arthur to lead them.

In my world there is a group of halflings called the Hearthlands South Shore Tea Party. 

The name comes from their ability to use poisons, often in tea or other consumables. They love two or three part poisons. 

They are a legendary group of assassins who specialize in killing in a three very distinct ways. The first, is by people finding the victim dead, and not being seen. The second is by the victim dying in a very public sort of way, and them not being seen. The third is for that individual to disappear forever, and them not being seen. Did I mention they are never seen? 

No one really knows if they exist. (They do.) They are treated as a sort of boogie man in their homelands. Once suppressed, they might still be out there, or not. They might have other races now, maybe...

You get the picture. 

The Chosen Of Pelor

As monstrous creatures begin to creep back upon the land, many churches have taken it upon themselves to police the realms. These warriors are ultra religious zealots of the church of Pelor (god of honour in battle) who live in secretive enclaves high in the mountains. They send out war bands of travelling disciples to roam across the continent, hunting down fiends, undead, and cults that go against their god. The warriors that serve in the Chosen inscribe their axes with religious text. Each swing of these weapons counts as a prayer of atonement for their sins, which goes directly to Pelor. Each of these blades has been passed down for many hundreds of years, and a little bit of the soul of each owner has rubbed off on these holy weapons. Over time, they have become imbued with holy magic, and will smite any creature that dares face their god with a golden fire.