Faction Dossiers — the seven powers of the Driftmarch

Seven powers reach across the Driftmarch, and the contest among them is the campaign's weather. Each is a full Chapter 34 tracker — an agenda, a reach, a pressure point, a standing toward the crew, and an influence clock that advances on the faction turn whether or not the crew engages (Chapter 34; the faction turn is run from file 09 and the Appendix A4 checklist). None is a stat block; each is a tide the crew can ride, divert, or drown in.

All seven are built from the Chapter 34 generators and the canon corporations roster, so the corporate names are canon, not invented. Four of them want the Concord in incompatible ways and so fight each other off-screen; three are the crew's natural board and allies-of-convenience. Above them all sits the metaclock, Who Owns the Concord (file 00); beneath them runs the question of what the ark becomes — crown, council, or commons — which each power tries to capture through the internal blocs aboard the ark (file 03, §the internal blocs). Where this file says "backs the Bridge Court / Holders' Table / Commons," that is the lever it reaches for inside the ark.

Index§

• How to read a dossier
• The inter-faction map
• Lumen Sleeper Trust
• GANYMEDE Salvage
• Helios Vanguard Heavy Industries
• The Saltgate Free Companies
• The Free Burrow
• The Concordat of the Woken
• NULL
• Starting state & the faction turn

How to read a dossier§

Each entry gives you the four things a faction needs (Chapter 34) — agenda, reach & methods, pressure point, standing — plus a named face or two to put it on the table (Chapter 39), what it wants with the Concord, and which internal bloc it backs. Then a copy-ready A4 tracker with the influence clock: the only number, moved on the faction turn, never rolled against. When a clock fills, the faction gets what it wants, the sector changes, and you set its next (usually larger) agenda and seed the result into a rumor the crew finds on arrival (Chapter 33). The players act in the fiction against 8; you keep the clock (Chapter 34).

The inter-faction map§

Read the board before the pieces. The four corporate predators — Lumen, GANYMEDE, Helios, NULL — all want the ark and block one another: GANYMEDE wants it dead (broken for scrap), the other three want it alive but theirs, so a win for any one is a loss for the rest. The three constituents — Saltgate, the Free Burrow, the Concordat — are the reach the crew borrows to push back; befriend one and you can lean on a predator's clock (Chapter 34). Standing with the crew is the disposition spectrum from Contacts (Ally / Contact / Rival / Enemy, Chapter 35), and a single dramatic act can move it.

Lumen Sleeper Trust§

The bank that holds your sleep — and the say over when it ends. A cryo-trust managing the fortunes and votes of the still-frozen (Chapter 34, roster 52). The most dangerous power in the Driftmarch precisely because it looks like the helpful one.

• Agenda: win legal custody of the Concord's tens of thousands of Sleepers — their estates, claims, and votes — and quietly ensure the inconvenient ones never wake (Spine B).
• Reach & methods: law, debt, and blackmail; the wake-station at Coldcradle; influence over the Calloway's Watch registry; a triage apparatus that decides who thaws.
• Pressure point: Sefa Brun, a Coldcradle triage officer who kept the real wake-ledger — proof the lists are rigged — and wants out before it buries her.
• Standing: Contact, patron-and-threat. Lumen will fund a careful crew and ruin a curious one.
• Face: Regional Trustee Auren Locke — soft-spoken, genuinely believes the frozen are safer asleep and in his care.
• The ark / the bloc: wants the Sleepers as wards, not citizens; backs a pliant Bridge Court (a crown it can advise) and dreads the Commons above all.
• First contact: a courteous offer — let Coldcradle handle "safe revival" for any Sleepers the crew recovers, suites at a friendly rate, the paperwork managed. The hook that gets the crew's frozen onto Lumen's tables (Chapter 38).

FACTION: Lumen Sleeper Trust
  Kind: A cryo-trust banking the fortunes and votes of the still-frozen (Ch 34)
  Agenda: Custody of the Concord's Sleepers; keep the inconvenient ones frozen
  Reach & methods: Law, debt, blackmail; Coldcradle wake-station; the registry
  Pressure point: Sefa Brun and the real wake-ledger
  Standing toward the crew:  Contact  (patron-and-threat)
  Influence clock (8):  [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
  When it fills → Lumen holds a controlling bloc of the sector's frozen wealth, the
    claims and votes attached, and the say over who aboard the Concord ever wakes.
    New agenda: convert that bloc into open political control of Calloway's Watch.

GANYMEDE Salvage§

A dead ark is worth more than a living one. A salvage consortium racing rivals to the wrecks (Chapter 34, roster 26). Where the others scheme to own the Concord, GANYMEDE means to end the argument by cutting it into scrap.

• Agenda: break the Concord for its reclaimable alloys and its drive core before anyone can wake it — and clear the Stilldrift field of competition while they're at it.
• Reach & methods: deniability, patience, and money; a breaking-ship parked off Stilldrift; hired raiders working the strand zone; a habit of making the wrecks they break.
• Pressure point: proof they are scuttling recoverable hulls — manufacturing salvage — which would collapse their claims and their cover.
• Standing: Rival, hardening to Enemy the moment the crew protects the ark. GANYMEDE doesn't forget.
• Face: Breaker-boss Ravna Kost — blunt, unsentimental, treats the frozen as cargo that spoiled.
• The ark / the bloc: wants no polity at all — a broken ark has no citizens to object. Will deal with anyone who'll let the breakers in.
• First contact: a buyout dressed as a favor — Kost offers to "take the derelict off their hands" for clean credits, no questions. It curdles to threats the moment the crew says no (Chapter 38).

FACTION: GANYMEDE Salvage
  Kind: A salvage consortium racing rivals to the wrecks (Ch 34)
  Agenda: Break the Concord for alloy and its drive core before it can be woken
  Reach & methods: Deniability, patience, money; a breaking-ship off Stilldrift; raiders
  Pressure point: Proof they scuttle recoverable hulls — salvage that's made, not found
  Standing toward the crew:  Rival  (→ Enemy as they protect the ark)
  Influence clock (6):  [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
  When it fills → GANYMEDE has cutting crews aboard the Concord and the sector's
    salvage routes locked. New agenda: tax every hull that works the Driftmarch's wrecks.

Helios Vanguard Heavy Industries§

The colossus, and the velvet glove. The oldest Seeder megacorp, which owns a piece of nearly everything else (Chapter 34, roster 66). It does not need to threaten; it can simply outlast and out-own.

• Agenda: acquire the Concord by law and leverage as strategic infrastructure — an ark-scale hull and a future shipyard — and be seen rescuing it, not seizing it.
• Reach & methods: legitimacy, money, fleets, and reputation; ownership of the largest works at Brightspan; a lawyer or a loan for every problem.
• Pressure point: it cannot afford to look like the villain — and a rival within Helios would happily see this regional director fail.
• Standing: Contact, the courteous creditor. Helios is the trap that feels like the rescue.
• Face: Regional Director Lysande Orr — gracious, patient, always offering exactly the help the crew can't quite refuse.
• The ark / the bloc: wants a stable, dealable polity it can buy into; backs the Holders' Table (an oligarchy takes corporate money cleanly).
• First contact: a rescue package — Director Orr arrives offering fabrication, lawyers, and protection for the ark, all on generous paper, all quietly binding. The trap that feels like the answer to every problem the crew has (Chapter 38).

FACTION: Helios Vanguard Heavy Industries
  Kind: The megacorp colossus — owns a piece of nearly everything (Ch 34)
  Agenda: Acquire the Concord by law and leverage; look heroic doing it
  Reach & methods: Legitimacy, money, fleets, reputation; the Brightspan works
  Pressure point: Can't be seen as the villain; a rival within Helios
  Standing toward the crew:  Contact  (the velvet glove)
  Influence clock (8):  [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
  When it fills → Helios holds title (or a controlling stake) in the Concord, lawfully,
    with public goodwill. New agenda: make the Driftmarch a Helios company sector.

The Saltgate Free Companies§

Neutrality is the product. A free-port authority selling its neutrality to anyone who pays (Chapter 34, roster 56). Not a friend and not a foe — the board the crew plays on.

• Agenda: keep the Driftmarch neutral, ungoverned, and taxed; the Concord threatens the balance that makes Saltgate rich, so the Companies play every side at once.
• Reach & methods: the only neutral dock for three jumps; customs, law, berthing fees, and a hand in every conversation; information, bought and sold.
• Pressure point: a rival free port would undercut them in a season, and they cannot pick a side without losing the half that pays them not to.
• Standing: Contact, transactional. Useful, well-informed, and never quite trustworthy.
• Face: Harbormaster Onna Vex — even-handed to a fault, sells the same silence to the crew and to their enemies.
• The ark / the bloc: prefers whatever keeps the ark a customer rather than a power; leans to the Holders' Table as the most transactable outcome.
• First contact: unavoidable — the claim must be witnessed at Saltgate, and Vex hands the crew their first leads with one hand while selling the same to their rivals with the other (Chapter 35).

FACTION: The Saltgate Free Companies
  Kind: A free-port authority selling neutrality to anyone who pays (Ch 34)
  Agenda: Keep the Driftmarch neutral and taxed; let no single power win outright
  Reach & methods: The home port; customs, fees, law; information bought and sold
  Pressure point: A rival free port; can't choose a side without losing the other
  Standing toward the crew:  Contact  (the board they play on)
  Influence clock (4):  [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
  When it fills → Saltgate has taxed the Concord's traffic into its revenue and brokered
    the balance of powers around it. New agenda: charter a second port and double the toll.

The Free Burrow§

No masters — not again. A Companion-rights movement with safehouses across the sector, in the tradition of Sable Thresh-Ember (Chapter 34, roster 31/32; Chapter 31). The conscience the campaign cannot ignore.

• Agenda: free the Companions held in the Concord's stasis-hold — legally "cargo" under the old law — and ignite a regional Second Liberation (Spine C).
• Reach & methods: numbers, solidarity, and sabotage; safehouses and sympathizers; deep roots at Marrow Deep; Warren Mutual's long memory and longer ledgers.
• Pressure point: a schism over means — law versus force — and a charismatic leader whose grip on the hotter heads is slipping.
• Standing: Contact, warming to Ally the moment the crew treats the stasis-Companions as people.
• Face: Wren Sablekin-Feral — a Feral organizer who can hold a room, and knows she may not hold her own faction.
• The ark / the bloc: the natural home of the Commons; will fight a crown aboard the ark as hard as a bond-holder outside it.
• First contact: the moment the stasis-hold is known, Wren finds the crew — to ask their help freeing it, or to warn them off selling it. Either way, the Companion question is now theirs (Chapter 31).

FACTION: The Free Burrow
  Kind: A Companion-liberation movement with safehouses across the sector (Ch 34)
  Agenda: Free the Concord's stasis-Companions; ignite a regional Second Liberation
  Reach & methods: Numbers, solidarity, sabotage; Marrow Deep; Warren Mutual ties
  Pressure point: A schism over law vs. force; a leader losing her grip
  Standing toward the crew:  Contact  (→ Ally if helped)
  Influence clock (6):  [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
  When it fills → the stasis-Companions are free and the Liberation is a sector-wide
    movement. New agenda: a free Companion polity — possibly aboard the Concord itself.

The Concordat of the Woken§

We are its people, not its salvage. An old-world remnant — the Sleepers already thawed from the Concord's first cohort, organizing around the ark as a claim (Chapter 34, roster 54; Chapter 30). The crew's conscience and the ark's rightful population at once.

• Agenda: secure the Concord as a sovereign homeland for its own people; wake the rest and govern themselves.
• Reach & methods: moral authority and old-Earth claims; the legitimacy of being the ark's actual passengers; charisma and a growing voice at Saltgate and Calloway's Watch.
• Pressure point: they have the claim but no power — and Lumen's lawyers can have a Sleeper "declared legally dead," voiding both the person and the vote.
• Standing: Ally-leaning; the faction whose cause is hardest to refuse and easiest to fail.
• Face: First-Woken Ada Sandoval — thawed early, eloquent, carrying a whole people's hope and the exhaustion of it.
• The ark / the bloc: the body the internal blocs grow from — the Concordat itself splits toward Commons, Bridge Court, and Holders' Table as it succeeds (file 03).
• First contact: Ada Sandoval seeks the crew out for passage and a hearing — the woken want to come home to the ark, and they need a hull and an ally to get there (Chapter 38).

FACTION: The Concordat of the Woken
  Kind: An old-world Sleeper remnant organized around a lost claim (Ch 34)
  Agenda: Secure the Concord as a sovereign homeland; wake and self-govern
  Reach & methods: Moral authority, old-Earth claims, the legitimacy of being its people
  Pressure point: A claim with no power; "declared legally dead" voids them
  Standing toward the crew:  Contact  (Ally-leaning — the crew's conscience)
  Influence clock (6):  [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
  When it fills → the woken are recognized as the Concord's rightful population and begin
    to govern. New agenda: decide, internally, what kind of polity they will be (file 03).

NULL§

The company that shouldn't still exist. A shell holding company rumored to predate the Ejection, owning hundreds of subsidiaries and admitting to none (Chapter 34, roster 16). The campaign's adaptive adversary and the metaclock's hidden hand.

• Agenda (hidden): repossess the Concord on a pre-Ejection lien — NULL financed or built the ark — and bury what it carries: the Last Transmission and whatever silenced Lasthollow.
• Reach & methods: secrecy and deniability, always through someone else; subsidiaries threaded through the other factions, so NULL can act as Lumen's quiet partner, Helios's hidden creditor, or a name on a Saltgate ledger.
• Pressure point: a truth about its own origin it has buried — and there is no obvious lever; the crew must make one over many sessions (Chapter 34).
• Standing: Unknown, curdling to Enemy as the truth surfaces. For a long while the crew won't know NULL is in the game at all.
• Face: an intermediary who calls himself "Mr. Ashford" and signs only "N." — never the same description twice, never the real client (Chapter 38, patron 64).
• The ark / the bloc: wants no genuine polity — only a puppet it can hold the strings of; will fund a Bridge Court claimant it controls, then collapse it.
• First contact: a too-generous offer to buy one small odd thing — a debt the crew carries, a piece of branded gear, a copy of the ark's logs — from "Mr. Ashford," who never names his client. The crew won't recognize it as NULL for a long while (Chapter 38, patron 64). (Optional: a crew arriving from Dead Air (WC02) already knows Ashford's face and that NULL wants them dead — start their standing at Enemy and let the slow burn be a fast one.)

FACTION: NULL
  Kind: A shell holding company rumored to predate the Ejection (Ch 34, roster 16)
  Agenda (hidden): Repossess the Concord on an old lien; bury what it carries
  Reach & methods: Secrecy, deniability, subsidiaries inside the other factions
  Pressure point: A buried truth about its origin — the lever must be MADE
  Standing toward the crew:  Unknown  (→ Enemy as it surfaces)
  Influence clock (8):  [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
  When it fills → NULL's lien is suddenly, legally real; the Concord — and whatever the
    memory cores hold — vanishes into a company no one can find. (The metaclock's hand.)

Starting state & the faction turn§

Set the clocks before session one and move them with the Appendix A4 checklist between sessions (file 09; Chapter 34). A suggested opening, with the crew freshly holding the claim and the powers only beginning to circle:

METACLOCK — WHO OWNS THE CONCORD (8):  [X] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]   (1 of 8)

Lumen Sleeper Trust ........ clock 8:  [X][X][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]   (2 — already at Coldcradle)
GANYMEDE Salvage ........... clock 6:  [X][X][ ][ ][ ][ ]         (2 — breaking-ship in place)
Helios Vanguard ............ clock 8:  [X][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]   (1 — opening its charm)
Saltgate Free Companies .... clock 4:  [X][ ][ ][ ]               (1 — fees already creeping)
The Free Burrow ............ clock 6:  [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]         (0 — waiting on the crew)
Concordat of the Woken ..... clock 6:  [X][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]         (1 — first cohort organizing)
NULL ....................... clock 8:  [X][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]   (1 — unseen, already moving)

The predators start ahead because they were here first; the constituents start low because they need the crew. Whichever powers the crew doesn't hold in check creep forward on their own — and the crew learns what moved only on arrival, because no word outruns a ship (Chapter 27). A filled clock is the next job. The full routine for running seven clocks and the metaclock together is in file 09.

A worked turn. The crew spends a session at Stilldrift, salvaging an escort hull and exposing a GANYMEDE breaking-ship rigging a "recoverable" wreck to scuttle. On the faction turn between sessions:

• GANYMEDE was hindered directly → tick back one (2 → 1); the manufactured-salvage proof is now a live thread against them.
• Helios wasn't touched by the crew, but Orr uses the scandal to position Helios as the ark's "responsible steward" → tick forward one (1 → 2).
• Lumen quietly advances a probate at Coldcradle while no one's looking → forward one (2 → 3).
• The Free Burrow heard the crew protected the ark rather than stripping it → standing warms toward Ally, though its clock holds.
• The metaclock ticks forward one (1 → 2): the contest tightened, mostly by Helios and Lumen, even as GANYMEDE lost a step.

The crew jumps home to find GANYMEDE chastened, Helios suddenly courteous and everywhere, and a Sleeper they meant to wake reclassified on someone's ledger — three clocks moved, one by them and two by their own success. No one rolled against a faction; the crew acted, and the GM kept the clocks (Chapter 34).