1d12 Dog Breeds

Feel free to change breed names; most of these are just stand-ins due to a lack of specific world locations.

1. Ghosthounds. Bred to sniff out ethereal undead. Seeking drive is triggered by the presence of ectoplasm. Sometimes trained alongside tracker dogs to find the source of the spirit's former body.
2. Shift Trackers. Bred to detect shapechangers. They rely on the scent of mimics and body snatchers to detect their targets, resulting in a culture of heavily perfumed doppelgangers.
3. Trollhounds. Bred to attack giants, trolls, orcs, and other brutish monsters. Large dogs, similar to Tibetan mastiffs. Variant breeds for hunting or fighting owlbears, yetis etc.
4. Mongrel Trollhounds. Named mongrels due to the experimental introduction of troll blood into their bloodline. Makes the resulting dogs tougher and gives them minor regenerative properties at the cost of hairlessness and unpredictable behaviour.
5. Familiar Friend. Small toy-dogs bred specifically to act as familiars. Smart and obedient, but heavily dependent on their owners for validation and company.
6. Droopy. A breed raised near Shadowfell breaches. Look like grey basset hounds - a common myth is that their skin sags because there's nothing under it but bones and sadness. Often crossbred with ghosthounds.
7. Steed-hounds. Gnomes and halflings have perfected the breeding of dogs as beasts of burden. These dogs are often docile to the point of tolerating almost anything, making them good family pets if they can continue to be put to work.
8. Pixie dogs. A small, furry breed kept as a companion. Believed by some to have the passive ability to charm those in their presence, resulting in them being treated more like children or idols than dogs.
9. Magicanine. Dogs that are exposed to magical energies at birth, resulting in shifts to their physiology. Treat as a regular dog with access to one or more of the following druidcraft, mage hand, prestidigitation, thaumaturgy.
10. False Magicanine. A regular dog painted different colours to look like a magical dog. Especially cunning conmen may use magic of their own to make the dog glow, levitate, breathe fire etc.
11. All Seeing Eye Dog. Can only see the future in greyscale.
12. Veteran-hound. A theraputic breed to help barbarians that wish to let go of their rage. Their senses are highly attunded to their masters' anxiety and tension, allowing them to comfort or distract them before the rage takes over.

For more dogs, check out this reddit post.

Alignment Factions (Rough Draft)

EDIT 17/02/19: I have spoken to a few people about this system on Discord, and we've come to the agreement that, much like the Ravnica faction system this is based on, the system predominantly benefits casters. If I come back to this in the future- which I doubt I will do unless there is a lot of interest in it- I think what I'd do instead/as well is to make some traits that players gain as they level up/commit alignment-specific deeds, similar to feats.

The following are optional semi-backgrounds, based on old D&D editions applying alignment as much more concrete concepts with mechanical influence. These would work for games where DMs want alignment to be core forces in their world- perhaps to the extent where they are manifested as gods or core elements.

When a player selects their alignment, they capitalise either good, evil, lawful, or chaotic. This trait becomes their founding alignment, which determines which alignment's traits they benefit from.

Each core alignment has a language. This language consists of body language, glints in the eye, and occasionally specific code words and dialects. These can only be spoken by those with the same alignment, and cannot be learned through other means. At the DM's discretion characters may get to learn the language of both their good-evil alignment and law-chaos alignment.

Neutral gets nothing right now because in the metaphysical war of polar ideologies, you don't get points for indecision.

Firenewt Tables

Like this, but with a sword and riding an ostrich

These tables are in relation to an upcoming post on my personal take on firenewts. They can be used separate from that interpretation though provided that you are alright with using firenewts as a society with a history of militaristic politics, slavery, and fire worship.