The Black Academies

Forty years ago, deep within the mountains of The Raktine Confederacy, sages and scholars opened ancient vaults and sought out forbidden lore. There, in the Black Academies hidden in the peaks, they called up powers from Uncreated Night to break the rule of the tyrants and drive the foreigners from Raktia. They were successful, albeit at an awful price.
The wizards who brought forth these monstrous entities are feared and respected, those few who survived their work. Most remain hidden in the Black Academies, studying their dark lore, recruiting worthy acolytes from the ambitious and the reckless. Most academies hate the others, and a constant low-level sorcerous war goes on between them as they struggle to determine who shall be the preeminent sorcerers of Raktia.
The wizards of the Black Academies focus largely on the summoning of powers from Uncreated Night, their binding, and their direction against rivals and enemies. Occasionally one of these great arcanists will consent to help a noble, but usually at a stiff price in human subjects for experiments or a vast sum of gold to fund their research.