Faction Identity — making sides feel distinct in fiction

What it is. system-faction-asymmetry makes factions play differently. This module makes them feel like different peoples. A faction reads when its silhouette, values, colour, and motif all say the same thing — so a player knows which side they’re looking at from one frame, and knows what that side believes from one unit. Mechanical asymmetry without fictional identity is a stat-sheet; fictional identity without asymmetry is a costume.

Player fantasy / why it’s fun. Players don’t main a faction for its numbers; they main it because it’s theirs. Identity is what they’re loyal to. A distinct faction is a distinct fantasy: the swarm, the disciplined line, the desperate salvagers.

The four identity channels

Every faction needs a coherent answer on all four. When they agree, the faction is legible; when they clash, it’s noise.

Channel	The question	Read at a glance?
Silhouette	Could you name the faction from a black shape?	Yes — shape is the fastest read
Values	What does this people believe / fear / want?	Slower — read through behaviour & lore
Colour	Which Regalia hue owns this faction?	Yes — one accent per side
Motif	The repeated visual/verbal signature (a shape, a word, a ritual)	Yes — the thing that recurs

The strongest factions map a value onto a mechanic onto a look in one line: the disciplined line believes in order → fights in formation (mechanic) → straight silhouettes, the ink navy (look). Change any one and the other two feel wrong.

Vectors / options — where to source contrast

Pick a primary axis of difference and let all four channels express it:

Contrast axis	Faction A pole	Faction B pole	Expresses through
Order ↔ chaos	rigid, geometric, few	teeming, organic, many	silhouette density; formation vs swarm
Growth ↔ decay	living, verdant, `green`	rusted, salvaged, `bark`	material & motif
Sky ↔ earth	tall, pale, airy	low, heavy, grounded	silhouette height; ground vs flight
Old ↔ new	weathered, ritual, ink	sharp, forged, bright	tone & naming register
Predator ↔ prey	angular, forward, few	rounded, defensive, many	shape language; posture

Two factions should sit at opposite poles of the same axis — that’s what makes them read as a pair rather than two unrelated design docs. StarCraft’s three sit on order↔chaos↔hybrid; each is a clean silhouette and a clean fantasy.

Method

Pick the contrast axis that matches your mechanical asymmetry (system-faction-asymmetry). If Faction A masses cheap units and B fields few elites, your axis is chaos ↔ order — build fiction on that.
Write each faction’s value in one sentence — what they believe and fear. This drives naming (world-naming-and-tone) and behaviour.
Assign one owning hue per faction from the Regalia set. One accent each, never shared — colour is the fastest faction read (see hook).
Design the silhouette rule. A shape language each faction obeys: straight-and-tall vs low-and-organic. Test it as black shapes — if you can’t tell them apart in silhouette, neither can the player mid-fight.
Choose the motif — one recurring signature (a broken-lantern crest, a word that only they use, a ritual gesture). It appears on units, HUD, and lore.
Cross-check the triangle. Value ↔ mechanic ↔ look must agree for each faction. A “peaceful” faction with the aggressive kit is a contradiction the player feels but can’t name.

Worked example

Axis: growth ↔ decay, on a drowned-coast world.

	The Tidewardens	The Wracksalvage
Value	keep the light; hold the line	take what the sea gives; owe nothing
Silhouette	tall, straight lanterns & robes	low, hunched, jury-rigged hulls
Colour	`ink` navy + `paper`	`bark` + `gold`
Motif	the unbroken flame	the scavenged hook
Mechanic	few, durable, defensive (holds ground)	many, cheap, opportunistic (swarms wrecks)

You can tell them apart as black shapes; you can tell them apart by a single hue; and each look is the mechanic. That’s a legible pair.

Aesthetic hook

Colour is the fastest faction read the JUDGE has an axis for (palette harmony). Give each faction one owning accent from the Regalia set — ink reads as disciplined and cool, bark and gold as desperate and warm, green as living, rose as aggressive. Because they all belong to one harmonised set (npm run palette, AA-gated), factions can be distinct without clashing — the whole frame stays one world, which is exactly the JUDGE’s palette-harmony bar (design/JUDGE.md axis 3). Keep silhouette contrast doing the heavy lifting so the sides read even where their pooled sprites share a lit scene — contrast lives in the edge and shape, not only the fill (docs/CONVENTIONS.md). Pair with world-aesthetic-direction to brief the look and pattern-readability to keep both sides salient in a crowd.

Traps

Palette-swap factions. Same silhouette, different hue. Players read them as the same side in two colours. Silhouette first, colour second.
Look that fights the mechanic. A “gentle” faction with a hyper-aggressive kit. The triangle (value ↔ mechanic ↔ look) must close.
Shared accent. Two factions on the same hue are indistinguishable at distance. One owning accent each.
Motif overload. Five crests and three slogans dilute the one that matters. One motif per faction, repeated.
Fiction with no mechanical asymmetry. If the sides play identically, the identity is a costume — pair with system-faction-asymmetry or drop to one faction.

Composes with

system-faction-asymmetry — the mechanical difference this module dresses; they must be authored together.
world-aesthetic-direction — turns each faction’s colour/silhouette rule into a briefed, JUDGE-passing look.
world-naming-and-tone — faction names and the words only they use.
pattern-readability — keeps competing factions salient in a busy frame.