Smugglers' Docks, part 2: Putting together a starter faction for Empire of the Dead

The Factions in the original book and figure substitutions:

• Holy Orders - could do these initially out of some Paladin and Cleric figures from D&D
• Lycaon - Werewolves
• Nosferatu - Vampires, maybe some D&D villains and rogues for thralls, D&D bat swarms, evil cleric maybe for Guardian
• Gentlemen's Club - Victorian Gents with a few Mad Scientist figures, can field out of colonials and old west figures to start
• Sons of the Empire - Gents, Darkest Africa adventurers and British officers would do
• The Darkfire Club - Evil gentleman's club & Zombie mobs - Would have to paint some figs for the human component, possibly out of Malifaux, have enough zombies to fake it, and the actual set to paint
• Wulfen Jaeger - field from Cossacks
• Zendarian - field from colonial Germans or Russians

The last four are all variants of the Gentlemen's Club that cost extra for special features.

Setting up a Gentlemen's Club

The Gentlemen's Club seems to be the most basic faction, so let's see how goes together. The recommended starting budget is 150 shillings, +50 for statistic and skill upgrades if you want to start with more experienced factions. I'll go with the base 150. The basic Gentlemen's Club is a neutral faction. One third, rounded up can be heroes, including the leader, so:

The President 20
Vice President 15
The Secretary 15
Members x 5 @ 10 = 50

That's 100 for personnel, so 50 left for gear. We have three equipment lists to consult, Generic equipment p.92, Exotic equipment, p.95, and Gentlemen's club weapons, p. 78 The three heroes can use exotic equipment, but not the membership.

First cut at buying gear:
Heavy Pistol and Sword for President   7 + 3
Repeating Rifle for Vice President 10
Lt Pistol and Silver ammo for Secretary 5 + 5
Member with Knife and Torch 1 + 2
Member with Light Pistol 5
Member with Axe 3
Member with Sword 3
Member with Volleygun 6

They'll need a name for the club, and for each character, and a card listing them with a statistics bar for each.
The stats bars will look familiar to anybody who has played any form of Warhammer or its descendants, differing in details.

The Euripides Club (apologies to A.C. Doyle)
Not feeling inspired at name generation tonight, I do a bit of web searching and come across The Victorian and Steampunk Name Generator and generate a few lists from their different social groups, from which to weed down.

Lord L. Swords Trente - President
Alexander Robinett Demalynes IV - VP
Sir Cattermole Elders Jessop - Sec'y

Saunderson Binstead III
Perry Gormackin Hynde
Bartholomew Willis Reade Jr.
Montague Fleetwood Meredith Jr.
Rev. Newell Crohill Shirwode

The Euripides Club as above is going for maximizing on numbers, especially the number of heroes, so it is a bit weak on the equipment side, which is also weighted towards the heroes. Should it succeed in early encounters, its first order of business will be to gear up until everyone has firearms and then start picking up some of the generic and exotic equipment.

Within the current 100 + 50 distribution, it could do something like this to get more guns:
Drop the silver ammo, and replace the members' axe and torch with two light pistols.
Replace the repeating rifle with a shotgun for 8, and upgrade the member with sword to a light pistol.

Doing both would look like:
Heavy Pistol and Sword for President   7 + 3
Shotgun for Vice President 8
Volleygun for Secretary 6
Member with Knife and Lt Pistol 1+5
Member with Light Pistol 5
Member with Light Pistol 5
Member with Light Pistol 5
Member with Light Pistol 5

I think I'll go with that instead, so:

Lord L. Swords Trente - President with Heavy Pistol and Sword
Alexander Robinett Demalynes IV - Vice President with Shotgun
Sir Cattermole Elders Jessop - Sec'y with Volleygun

Saunderson Binstead III, Member with Knife and Light Pistol
Perry Gormackin Hynde, Member with Light Pistol
Bartholomew Willis Reade Jr., Member with Light Pistol
Montague Fleetwood Meredith Jr., Member with Light Pistol
Rev. Newell Crohill Shirwode, Member with Light Pistol

The gearing up path will start with obtaining more long arms.

I'll add in the stat bars later.