The Unseen Assembly
Over the course of history, they have gone by many names and served many purposes. They have watched empires rise and fall, sometimes playing a hand in both. They have split, splintered, and come back together again as ideology shifts and changes with the time. They are the unseen hand that guides and leads the world to their own ends. Their voices are never heard, but ever felt. They have been the shadow on Ellecrid's back. and dispite the ever shifting sands of time, they have maintained their aninimity with vigourous diligence.
They are no longer the altruistic order of nobles and commoners meant to help direct and shape the world into something prosperous for all. What they are has become twisted and warped into something far more sinister. Their enemy is all the world and all the world hasn't a foggiest idea they even exist. Such a group would be nothing short of a principle antagonist to those willing to fight the shadows.
Structure
The organization has gone through many organizational structures over its long life in the shadows of Ellecrid. When it was first established somewhere in the midst of the first or second Titan War, it was one group with reach enough to affect the outcome of the conflicts. As the years and eras pressed forward, the single organization grew too large to be housed and directed under one roof, so it split. In the modern age as the Band of the Bloody Stars continues their struggle against them, it has been iuncovered more truths and insights on the organizations' structure.
The Unseen Assembly is now the unbrella that houses the various branches and subordinate organizations, the three most prominant of which are the Assembly, the Chamber, and the Order. It is to be assumed and understood that any subordinate organization falls within the oversight of one of these three primary branches. That is not to say there haven't been or don't exist upstarts to the dominance of the three, but, if allowed to endure, they have never posed a great threat against the superiority of the primary branches.
The primary three brnaches were said to have been established when the organization had become too large for one roof. They share equal say at the table when the branches do come together, but as the yearsa have progressed since their split, so to grows the rift between the branches as the leadership of each consider how their goals may be achieved over the other two. Regardless, the primary three branches have taken oversight of controling what they call a pillar of civilized society. The Assembly seeks political control of nations and their ruling class. The Chamber seeks economic control of the world's finances and commerce. The Order seeks religious control of the world various faiths and belief systems. To achieve this control, each branch has structured their leadership more in line with their aspirant sphere, but the organization of the Unseen Assembly has endured in many respects from the old days in the form of the agents at their beck and call.
Again, within each branch, certain specifics may vary, especially in the leadership structure, but for the most part, the ground level operations have remained the same. The bulk of the pool of agents is made up of a network of spies, contacts, skilled tradesmen of all kinds. The breadth of their reach can be assumed to be globe spanning, lending to insidious notion that the unseen fingers of the group touches all things. But ranks do exist within this broad spanning netwrok as has been discovered.
The lowest rung on this totem pole would be a group of folk known as the Seen but Unknown. These peoples are the common men and women of the world, craftsmen, inn keepers, apothocaries, so forth, the everyday men and women who would not be so assuming to the average inquisitive eye who support the organization through various means, whether that is by use of their trade, information, shelter, their uses and skills go on, but they maintain their own livelihoods as they see fit, largely separatre from the greater machinations of the Unseen Assmebly, until called upon by agents of greater rank.
The Unseen and Unknown are the next rung on the Unseen Assembly's totem pole of street level operations. These are the agents specifically in the know about the organization's existance and are actively working to prosecute and progress the Unseen Assembly's will. They are as varried as the Seen but unknown in terms of persons and skills. They are most commonly noted by the possession of something called an iron favor, which they use as both a badge of office and a means tto interact with the goods and services that the Seen but Unknown can provide.
The next two rungs are the most likely to have been altered within the structure of the primary three branches, but the essence of the ancient titles remains the same and some even keep them alongside any honorifics specific to their branch.
Above the Unseen and Unknown are known simply as the Unseen, a group of branch specific leaders who assume to preside over chapters of the branches and their organizations as well as high ranking members of the organization who coordinate and conduct much of the day-to-day and serve as leaders to the subordinates in their care. It is often theorized that these Unseen are alfuent or predominant figures in society, but have never alluded to or come close to revealing their alignment weith the Unseen Assembly. These individuals have a great deal of influence and power, often times being assumed to be the top of the food chain by most of the ranks of Unseen and Unknown and Seen but Unknown under their perview. Only the most well informed of the organization are aware that they are not the top rung of the totem pole.
The tope rung of the organizations' structure is a group called the Unknown. They run the ortganization strictly from the shadows and rarely emerge for any reason other than to direct the Unseen or gather together, which most do using proxies anyways. The Unknown are the boodie men of their own organization as many of the Unseen even know or believe they exist. All personal record of the Unkown is stricken and erased, according to documentation, they don't official exist as born and libving persons. They are so secretive that none of them would assume an open faced position of a king or emperor or any other rank in society in order to maintain their aninimity. The best part for them, and worst for their enemiesis that there is no record or knowledge of how many Unknown there even are in the organization as a whole.
Public Agenda
It must not be discounted that the Unseen Assembly's goal is nothing short of world domination, as insurmountable a task as that may seem, that is what it is. At first their intentions were to ensure prosperity for all under the Titan's thumbs and pave the way for the world to progress into something more akin to utopia. The intentions of those old founders have been diluted and perverted by the machinations of the younger now.
To this end, there is no public known agenda. In all honesty, the public doesn't even know such an organization exists for as wide spread their influence may be, it is through the guises of deception and misdirection that the Unseen Assembly has maintained their grip and power. The division of the organization has not helped with this as the ideologies have taken the organizations' means farther and farther apart from each other.
History
The story goes that the Unseen Assembly's first itteration came about during the Titan Wars, specifically between the first and second of the conflicts. At that time, the charter scripted by the founding members was under one of their other names, but specifically which one is up for debate, most agree on the Princer Society. Regardless, the Unseen Assembly had been formed with a primary goal to put an end to the conflict so that those who lived beneath the skies the titans wared in would be given time to prosper without fear of devestation wrought by a war they had no hand in.
After these inciting conflicts, the histories go quiet on exactly what was happening specifically as the Princer Society took a place at the table of the Aldacairn senate as a political party. From such a position, they took a strong hand in guiding the growing elven empire across the vast territory in northern Preydor. A memebr of the Princer Society, one Elarian Swallowhedge was the mind behind the Glitering Wall that guards the southern isthmus into Rhohador.
As fortuitous as the expansion accross the sea had been for the growing coffers and influence of the elveln empire, this colonization would begin to portent forboding futures for the organization. Many scholars look at this expansion as a desperate and zealetous grab for land and power beyond the continent of Preydor. Most of the bold moves made by the empire beyond the borders of their homeland was orchestrated by Princer Society members. The raw Wildes on Omyth, however, would not so easily bend and subjegate themselves as their homeland had.
When the colony of Merridain was established, and many more followed suit,the Princer Society took that opportunity to split into the primary three branches. This was not public knowledge, but it alluded to the growing rifts and cracks within the party. This division would, however, quickly show its growing pains as the branches' differing ideologies ran rampant the farther they were from the central control of the primary sanctum in the homeland.
The Faeralyth Crisis, as it is known in some historical circles, is the evnt deescribing the biological shift in many of the colonists in Merridain due to prolonged exposure to the Wildes and the apotion of Wildes pantheons into colonial culture. It is also the event believed to be a great turning point for the Unseen Assembly. If the Princer Society had not shown itself to be controlling and desperate to keep that control, the loss of the Merrish colony and the subsequent anexation of Ostland, Vandebaux, Ompari, and parts of Rhohador forced that character to come to the forefront. The empire flailed through many failed invasions to try and reclaim the lost colonies, the Princers, often the loudest and most active figures of this time of unrest. Failure after failure mounted until the Princer Society began to lose popularity and influence in the homeland, resulting in the partys' utter dissolvement, save for a few proud nobles who clung to the old days. The Faeralyth Crisis, the Founding of Merridain, proved that the organization needed to change their approach.
The Princer Society was publically extinct, but the masterminds behind the organization seemed to have rebranded themselves then and there and went to ground. No longer would they publically take the reins, but instead guide them through subtlety and conspiracy. This move had far more ramafications than they could have anticipated at the time, or perhaps they did, and abided it anyways.
The next event the Unseen Assembly played a large hand in would not come until the turning of the Third Age and the Breaking of the Ley Lines. A global tragedy it was, as at the height of the Age of Charter Magic, the Ley Lines were broken, their sourceforges overrun by horrors and sealed up. To recount each individual tragedy is the work on bards and lore keepers, or elsewhere than here, but the devestation the world over cannot be understated when all the lights went out all at once. It is said that the Unseen Assembly did it, once again losing the control they had worked so diligently to rebuild, they forced everyone back into discord.
Perhaps they had planned to rise from the ashes and bring about the domination and control they sought as the enlightneed or fortunate few who could save the world, but their hubris was yet to be punished. It is well known that when the Ley Lines were broken, Aldacairn suffered the least of the world powers, further implying the organization's plan to act as the newly darkened world's shining beacon of light and hope. What they must have overlooked was how their neighbors would react.
The Warlord's War marks the true end of the Third Age as Aldacairn was beset by the whole of their southern neighbors led by a fierocious Warlord, whose name has been lost to history. Preydor was in chaos for three decades as the conflict waged. Ultimately, a group of heros valiantly threw back the tide and ended the war. From here, the organization goes eerily silent.
Here and there through the Fourth Age and the early years of the fifth, threads can be traced, loosely so, back to the Unseen Assembly working in the shadows. With the Fourth Shattering upon the world, one can only guess what hand they wish to play now.
Technological Level
The wealth of knowledge the Unseen Assembly has at its disposal is nothing short of fathomless. They have been in operation since close to the dawn of the ages and therefore have had time to collect, catalog, document, and archive vast stores of knowledge and information that no mortal could ever hope to consume in a single lifetime. This eldrich nature of what they know and what they know of is the source of much anxiety among their enemies. But as the ages have progressed and as their machinations falter here and there, some information that they once had could have very well been lost, misplaced, or stolen.
It is actually unclear just how knowledgable the organization is with the curious and varied forms of Charter Magic. Since the breaking of the Ley Lines, such defined practices are not well studied.
Foreign Relations
Though the sources are yet unclear, what seems to be the common motis aparendae of the Unseen Assembly is still control in all forms. They intend to have their hands in every pot. Their networks reach far and wide and will do whatever they must to ensure their control is maintained, built, or reinforced.
Their agents are scoured in as many courts and places of prestige as possible. Though it cannot be that every single person is won to their machinations, that does not mean they are not working around the outlyers to ensure that eventually, their will be done.
Founding Date
Unknown
Type
Illicit, Syndicate
Alternative Names
The Princer Society, Templars of the Gate, The Chalice League, Elder Hand, Titanfall, The Elder Aegis, Bane Order, Conclave of Order, The Assembly, The Chamber, The Order
Currency
An Iron Favor.
Related Ranks & Titles
