Nice Foes for Nice Icons

13^th Age permits players to take negative relationships with Icons, to define their characters in opposition to these mighty foes. Sometimes, though, it’s tricky to reconcile that opposition with the mechanical benefits of icons. It’s easy to justify getting a benefit from a positive or conflicted relationship – I’m a loyal follower of the Crusader, so sometimes I get help from the Crusader and his allies. It’s easy, too, to come up ways to involve enemies of the evil icons – I’m a foe of the Crusader – so sometimes I get help from the Priestess or the Great Gold Wyrm.

However, it can be a bit harder to come up with foes of the good or neutral Icons on the fly – especially if your players don’t want to ally with evil forces. Who stands against the Archmage, the Priestess, or the Great Gold Wyrm, but isn’t in league with darkness?

Archmage

Non-evil Iconic Enemies: High Druid, Elf Queen

• Champions of nature, who object to the Archmage’s cavalier manipulation of the cosmic order.
• Survivors of magical experiments gone awry.
• Renegade spellcasters, who chafe under the Archmage’s strangehold on magical research.
• Rival powers like the Elf Queen or the Diabolist, who have their own claims on magical authority that clashes with the Archmage’s domain.
• Thieves or spies investigating the Archmage’s operations.
• Magic-hating dwarves.
• Spirits trying to escape magical bindings or wards.
• Wizard King loyalists insulted by this pretender to the title

Dwarf King

Non-evil Iconic Enemies: Elf Queen, Prince of Shadows

• Miners or adventurers objecting to the Dwarf King’s claim on all underground riches
• Elves pressing the ancient rivalry with the dwarves
• Robin Hood-esque brigands fighting dwarven mercantilist hegemony
• Ambitious dwarven nobles or oppressed dwarven commoners plotting against the king

Elf Queen

Iconic Enemies: Dwarf King

• Folk of Drakkenhall, who want to expand into territory claimed by the Queen
• Dwarves pressing the ancient rivalry with the elves
• Foes of the Dark Elves
• Common folk who’ve been bewitched/abducted/enchanted by wayward fae
• Agents of the Archmage, who seek magical powers forbidden by the Queen

Emperor

Non-evil Iconic Enemies:-

• Revolutionaries and the unjustly accused, fighting against the oppressive state
• True allies of the Emperor, conspiring against the evil nobles and advisors who’ve led the Emperor astray, or who use the Emperor’s name to further their own selfish ends
• Enemies of corrupt officials
• Separatists from the Empire’s remote provinces who plot to secede from Axis
• Champions of some higher cause or calling than mere mortal law

Great Gold Wyrm

Non-evil Iconic Enemies: –

• Well-meaning monks who believe it’s time for the Great Gold Wyrm to finally move on to the afterlife.
• Unwilling heroes tormented by maddening dreams sent by the Wyrm.
• Foes of corrupt or crazed paladins.
• Heroic dragons who seek to replace the Wyrm; as long as the Wyrm remains trapped in the mouth of the Abyss, there’s no-one to counterbalance the threat of the Three

High Druid

Non-evil Iconic Enemies: Archmage, Emperor

• Civilisation in all its forms – wood-cutters and farmers, scholars and city-builders, road-makers and hunters
• Alchemists seeking curative ingrediants in the woods
• Foes of the former High Druid, who fear the new Druid will prove as monstrous as her predecessor
• Rival druids who seek to challenge the High Druid, and must weaken her first
• Sages and spellcasters who fear the High Druid will endanger the Empire by breaking protective magical wards.

Priestess

Iconic Enemies: –

• Servants of the Dark Gods, who believe the Priestess threatens cosmic balance by favouring the Light.
• Servants of certain Light Gods, who believe the Priestess threatens cosmic balance by secretly favouring the Dark
• People who just think anyone that nice must be up to something.
• Those who feel that whatever divine penance or punishment they suffered was too harsh.
• Merchants and nobles who aren’t evil, per se, but who’d like a little moral flexibility
• Hard-as-nails adventurers who know that, sometimes, you have to be do cruel things for the greater good, and so are at odds with the Priestess and her followers

Prince of Shadows

Non-evil Iconic Enemies: Archmage, Dwarf King

• The authorities in any city, cracking down on the Prince’s criminal empire
• Victims of the Prince’s schemes
• Rival criminals, taking their shot at the Prince.
• Thief-takers and agents sent to recover stolen goods.