Making a Faction

Hi there!
This is your GM speaking, or rambling! This part might not be very useful if you already know what you're going for, but maybe it'll be helpful for new players or player who join on later dates. Hopefully it can provoke thoughts of what you want to play, who you want to play with, and what your goal in the game is.

So let's get started!

Make something you enjoy
Even if you don't want to spend a lot of time playing as part of the campaign, you are welcome to just chill and world-build with us. Make a nation, get it on the map, and write a wiki page if you want to. It's all cool. At some point in the future I'll invite the interested to take an adventure through the world we've created in a PnP campaign, and your nation could be part of the backdrop!

Make something visible
If you want an active part in the campaign, avoid the obvious dangers: The isolationist nation, the invisible nation, and the irredeemable evil nation. The first two are difficult to play with for other players, because their nature makes them not play well with others. The last one, the evil nation, is not something I would say you shouldn't do - hell, evil is fun - but trying to dominate everyone else can only bring so much game. Sooner or later, they'll come to the conclusion that eradicating the evil nation is the only way forward.

If you want to dominate other factions, grind them beneath your heels, and raise your flags high as their citizens slave for you - attack the NPC factions. They're all my children, and well... I'm a bad parent. Or discuss it offgame with the player. Being on the defensive can be fun.

Make something dynamic
No Empire lasts forever, and most change in a thousand little ways before they give way to other things. A faction can have a strong presence, that sudden shifts when their ruler dies, or a revolution overthrows the government!

Be prepared to change things to switch things up a bit, but don't just randomly change things:

Play the meta
Talk/write to other players outside of the game. Discuss the direction you'd like to take, what you'd like to happen. And then bring in your GM when you have something super cool. A suggestion, a development, a political marriage, an alliance of nations, the beginning of a world war, the birth of a God, something extraordinary, whatever your heart desires.

... physical
Consider where your faction is. What and who does it have access to? Resources and nations mainly, but where could it go in the future? What areas around it would it like to occupy or see unoccupied? Who threatens it?

... in the political landscape
What does your nation think of the other nations? Think about how cultures clash, how ignorance or equality can be prevalent in a society, and what taboos other factions likely break.

And why is your nation relevant in the greater picture? You're playing them because they can have an influence on the world, so in what way will this manifest?

... in history?
Where did they come from and who did they come from? What relation do they have with other nations, and are there any rivalries? Play the meta, discuss with others. No nation should exist in a vacuum at the start of the game, unless that is specifically their thing.