Midnight Darkness

This is an evil vigilante group which exists to strike down powerful or influential non-evil men and women within Aerdy. Their prime targets are priests, especially those of Pholtus and St. Cuthbert.

The organization is generally thought to be in the service of Nerull, the Reaper, and their aim of bringing death to servants of good is fully in accord with that general view. Indeed, priests of Nerull are among their number, and the second echelon, the preceptors, is almost exclusively of that brethren.

Since the cult is only believed to have been active for 30 years, and its killings only linked to it for many fewer, no man has been able to collect a great deal of information about it.

The head of this hierarchical cult, a man known simply as "Hidden Sickle" to the preceptors, is actually a priest of Tharizdun, one Karnquiza. His "hidden agenda" is described in his entry in the South Province chapter. In brief, he is a servant of the Scarlet Brotherhood. While this is not especially surprising, what is perhaps startling is that the preceptors haven't yet realized this.

This continuing ignorance suggests that, at the very least, The Reaper himself is happy to go along with this charade.

Midnight Darkness leaves a calling card behind when it has disposed of a victim. Almost always, a poisoned dagger is left jutting out from between the shoulder blades of a victim (poison is the usual form of dispatch, but is not always used for the actual killing). Tied around the handle of the dagger is a strip of ragged black cloth which itself is soaked in an alkaloid contact poison (type N) which renders the cloth potentially lethal to handle for 12+d12 days (until the poison degrades).

Midnight Darkness does not have many agents in Aerdy. Beyond the four preceptors, there are perhaps a dozen specialist agents (again including a few priests of Nerull). And below them are 20 or so hirelings, junior assassins, and an indeterminate number of hired thugs. They do not use much in the way of wizardry, with priests and thieves dominating their numbers. They have assassinated perhaps 30-50 people a year prior to the Greyhawk wars. But since that time the group has become much more active, and they represent a threat to any servant of Good, wherever he may hide.

The use of disguise, magical and mundane, and magical items allowing teleportation for swift travel and despatch of their victims, are hallmarks of their operations.