Grow Followers (Action)
Duration: Variable
Trigger: When you attempt to convert more of a Settlement's population to follow your Faction.
If your Faction has its Capital located inside a Settlement & only has Families equal to a portion of that Settlement's total Families, you may attempt to raise your number of Families by converting more people within the Settlement to follow you, an ally, one of your Retainers/Subfactions or your Liege.
Describe to the GM how you are plausibly attempting to convert people & to whose side. It doesn't have to be your Faction; you can work on someone else's behalf.
The Duration is 2 months for low switching costs (commodities & entertainment), 4 months for medium (guilds & banking, mercenary services), & 8 months for high switching costs (ethnic associations, religious faiths, nobility).
When the Duration elapses, make a Success Save to determine the base number of how many Families could be gained.
| Result | Effect |
|---|---|
| Crit (≥12) | 100% of the target's current Families. |
| Pass (8–11) | 50% of the target's current Families. |
| Seven (7) | 10% of the target's current Families. |
| Failure (3–6) | Nothing. |
| Fumble (≤2) | 10% of your current Families (not the target's) leave you. |
Reduce the amount gained to at most:
> ([Settlement's Families] - [Competitors' Families]) / 2
A Competitor is a Faction in the same Settlement that shares the same financial niche as you — whether that be a mercantile, banking, legal, government, military, magical, educational, industrial, or entertainment niche matters not.
Examples abound: Two bakeries serving the same artisan niche; a messenger guild & a cult serving a divine messenger; two gate/guard societies; two banking houses; two divisions within the same company (they can't share employees). When in doubt, ask: "Would a customer choosing Faction A have any reason to also patronize Faction B?" If not, they're Competitors.
If you want to try to claim Families from a Competitor, you should try Sabotage, warfare, or other forms of attack. You can also differentiate your offerings so that you're not directly competing with entrenched forces — for example, a revolutionary movement would struggle to make open headway against an established town police force, so they can differentiate by instead going underground & only move to the open after growing in numbers.