Zaharmak
[za-khar-MAK]
Zaharmak Is Not Unified
Zaharmak's cells share a common enemy but not a common goal. Use this section to define how different factions within Zaharmak operate and what drives them to fight.
The Unforgiving. They keep lists. Names of foremen, guards, factory owners, union leaders who compromised, workers who informed, families who stayed silent. They do not kill for strategy, only for balance, ensuring those who profited from suffering experience it in turn. The guilty burn first, but in time, they find guilt in everyone.
The True Revolutionaries. They still believe in something more. They try to take factories instead of destroying them, to build power instead of dispersing it. But their fight is uphill, against an industrial machine that won't bend and a movement that won't stop burning. Every time they organize, another cell turns their work to ash.
The Arsonists. Fire is simple. Fire is clean. They don't recruit, they don't debate, they don't plan. They only burn. Factories, warehouses, rail depots, bank halls; anything that keeps the world running. Some say they are reckless, but to the Arsonists, the reckless ones are those who think anything in this world deserves to stand.
The Strategists. They choose targets carefully, hitting where it hurts most: supply lines, key personnel, choke points of power. They could cripple industry, if the other cells listened to them. But Zaharmak is chaos. Every coordinated strike is ruined by random impulsivity, every plan collapses under the weight of an organization that refuses to be one.
The Parasites. Revolution is profitable. These cells move in the name of Zaharmak but fight only for themselves. They rob payrolls, hijack shipments, and carve out little kingdoms in the ruins of industry. Other cells despise them, but no one is organized enough to root them out. Some Arsonists steal before they burn. Some Parasites burn what they cannot steal. The line between them is thinner than anyone will admit.
Zaharmak on Other Factions
Zaharmak views industrial factions like The Poke and Colderyn as irredeemable oppressors, with their allies complicit in exploitation. While their approach is often hostile, Zaharmak forms temporary alliances with factions that can support their revolutionary goals. These relationships are purely tactical, with Zaharmak leveraging cooperation when it serves their fight against systemic inequality.
Celtumpra. Zaharmak are largely unaware of Celtumpra's existence. They often misattribute the magical sabotage that benefits their cause to random chance or as a sign that their revolution is just, never suspecting a hidden hand at work.
Colderyn. Colderyn's labor camps are one of the revolution's most fertile recruiting grounds and a primary target for infiltration. Zaharmak cells actively work to cripple the cartel from within through organized strikes and industrial sabotage.
Mustring. Mustring is a necessary and deeply distrusted arms dealer, providing weapons essential for the revolution. However, Zaharmak knows the syndicate's loyalty is to profit alone and cells have been sold out in the past.
Navrow. Navrow pirates are a useful, if unreliable, means of transporting weapons and agents. Zaharmak treats them as unreliable assets, aware that the pirates' greed makes them untrustworthy and prone to betrayal.
The Navtog. The Navtog's colonial empire and use of slave labor make them an ideological enemy. Zaharmak cells are often actively anti-Navtog, targeting them to free slaves, destroy property, and acquire weapons and supplies.
The Osprey. Some Zaharmak cells view The Osprey as the faceless heart of the corrupt global system, the ultimate enemy to be torn down. Though almost impossible to identify, they treat any offer of aid from supposed Osprey agents with extreme suspicion, assuming it is a trap.
The Ironpenny Poke. The Ironpenny Poke's factories are seen as the epicenter of worker exploitation and one of the primary battlegrounds for the revolution. Zaharmak agents embed themselves within the wage-slave workforce to incite mass strikes and execute acts of industrial sabotage.
Zaharmak NPCs
Zaharmak's people are scarred by rebellion, shaped by loss and fueled by anger. Leaders inspire through firebrand speeches, struggling to hold their movement together as ideals give way to vengeance. Fighters are resourceful and ruthless, experts at sabotage and guerrilla tactics. Opportunists and zealots alike thrive in the chaos, each driving the revolution forward for their own reasons.
Major Players in Zaharmak
Yaroslav Koval. Yaroslav Koval leads Zaharmak's most fervent cells in Kavesk. A stocky man with hands permanently stained by soot, his eyes have the flat, unblinking intensity of a true believer. Born in the shadow of the city's factories, he sees the rebellion not as a war to save people, but as a righteous fire needed to purify the world. He preaches sacrifice and martyrdom, and his followers give both willingly, though few survive his leadership for long.
Xabier Aritza. A former officer from the Grand Empire of Ibunor, Xabier Aritza brings military discipline to Zaharmak's rebellions. His clean-cut, humorless demeanor is that of a soldier who has seen too much war and now applies its cold calculus to everything. He organizes raids and sabotage with the same unflinching focus he once used to order firing squads on deserters, viewing civilian workers and factory barons alike as assets and acceptable losses on a map.
Emma Rivers. Few people in Zaharmak know the real Emma Rivers, as she does not exist. A Bethunian infiltrator, Emma's true expertise lies in assuming new identities. She will spend months inside a factory, becoming a quiet and trusted worker, learning every routine and secret of the facility. Her colleagues, if they survive, only realize the truth when she fails to appear for a shift, leaving behind only fire.
Zaharmak Adventures
Zaharmak's rebellion is built on anger and desperation, a fire that burns brighter as industrial powers tighten their grip. When you bring Zaharmak into your campaign, think about how their strikes are as much about destruction as they are about vengeance and fear: factories left in ruin, leaders eliminated, and terror spreading among the high and low alike. They don't just fight for liberation, they fight to make those in power feel the pain they've endured.
If the adventurers align with Zaharmak, they'll be part of a revolution that demands sacrifice. A Big might ask them to smuggle weapons, assassinate a leader, or sabotage a factory, but every victory comes at a cost. Zaharmak doesn't offer loyalty, they offer a cause, and it's up to the adventurers to decide how far they're willing to go.
As adversaries, Zaharmak is unpredictable and relentless. Their decentralized cells strike without warning, targeting supply lines, factories, and the people who protect them. Adventurers hired to oppose Zaharmak might guard critical infrastructure, mediate with frightened workers, or find themselves targeted by the faction's sabotage.
To show Zaharmak's impact, explore the consequences of their actions. A successful strike might leave workers starving or provoke violent retaliation. Their idealism clashes with their methods, forcing the adventurers to confront the messy, human cost of revolution. Zaharmak isn't just a faction, they're a question: how much are you willing to break to build something new?
Faction Scenario: Zaharmak
Primary Operation. To spread the Zaharmak ideology of revolutionary liberation throughout the oppressed working classes of the world. Their "operation" is the sum of countless independent cells acting on the same core principle: destroying the corporate and political structures that enslave them.
Methods
Grassroots Agitation. Zaharmak's influence spreads like a virus through disenfranchised populations. Individual agitators share radical ideas in the slave pits and factory slums, turning despair into focused rage. Their propaganda is simple, direct, and promises liberation through violence.
Opportunistic Violence. Zaharmak cells are reactive and opportunistic, not strategic. They orchestrate strikes, riots, industrial sabotage, and targeted assassinations based on local opportunities and grievances, not a grand, overarching plan. Their methods are crude, direct, and often careless.
Decentralized Cells. The Zaharmak movement is a chaotic network of independent cells with no central command. A cell might be a handful of factory workers with stolen explosives or an entire community that has risen up. This decentralization makes them impossible to destroy but also impossible to control.
Complications
Ideological Purity. The Zaharmak's fanatical devotion to their cause makes them enemies of everyone who is not with them. They are hunted by every major power and viewed as dangerously unpredictable even by criminal syndicates like the Mustring, who will sell them out for the right price.
Unreliable Alliances. Zaharmak has no true allies, only temporary partners of convenience. They work with Mustring smugglers to acquire weapons and with Celtumpra agents to sabotage industrial targets. These alliances are fragile, as the Mustring will betray them for profit, and Celtumpra rarely if ever reveal themselves to their sometime-allies.
Doctrinal Fracture. With no central leadership, Zaharmak ideology is open to interpretation. Many cells are "Zaharmak" in name only, using the banner to justify simple banditry or personal vendettas. Others become so radicalized that their indiscriminate bloodshed alienates the very workers they claim to liberate.
Adventure Hooks
Tools of the Trade. A Zaharmak cell hires the party to infiltrate a Colderyn mining outpost and break into its secure explosives magazine to seize the black powder and arm the desperate miners for a violent uprising. Unfortunately, the miners are not soldiers, but the Colderyn Ironclads definitely are.
A Necessary Monster. The Ironpenny Poke hires the party to protect a factory manager from a Zaharmak assassination plot. The manager is a ruthless tyrant, but he is also the only person enforcing the factory's minimal safety protocols, and his replacement is not so careful.
Highest Bidder. A brilliant Colderyn metallurgist has been captured by Ironpenny Poke agents. A local Zaharmak cell offers to hire the party to "liberate" him, so they can publicly execute him as a corporate war criminal. The Colderyn post a sizable bounty for the safe return of their stolen asset.