The Inktouched

Magpies That Hoard Books

During the era of Karvinasstrad, the Inktouched were an organisation of chroniclers founded by one of the Emperors and given the task of recording the history of Belyria in order for it to be passed down to future generations. While much of the region's history was the sort of subject matter best researched from the dark depths of a library, such as the brief history of the Eastern Wyrmrealm, the Blazing Empire's invasion, the downfall of the Wyrm Kingdoms and so on and so forth, there still remained the matter of the history of the individual provinces. At the time there order was founded, there was as yet no central repository of this information, and so scribes of the Inktouched were dispatched to every province of the empire to take a history of it.
At first, this consisted only of central Belyria, but soon expanded to northern Belyria as it was brought into the empire. Later on, the Inktouched would be dispatched to the regions of Asutoa, Sassania, and eventually Ressengia after the conquest of each individually. There, they were tasked with learning what they could of the region, its people, and its culture. But they had a greater purpose in so doing: They would take what they had learned and create new accounts of it, ones created along the approved lines of the Rukhmarite faith. Traditions they deemed unacceptable were erased or rebranded as heretical, their significant cultural figures declared as Sanktulo, and creation myths absorbed into the canon.
When Karvinasstrad collapsed, the lack of central authority left the Inktouched bereft of funding. In order to provide for themselves, they turned to selling their skills to the new Karvina Princes, taking commissions to produce exaggerated autobiographies or embellished histories that would be used to justify claims upon this region or that. Their order shrunk massively under this new state of affairs, and the academy at Sunsreach that had once trained new members of their corps was soon abandoned. In the years to come, the remaining Inktouched would take on apprentices and teach them all that they knew, passing on the torch to successive generations in the hope that they themselves would not be lost to history.

Other Details

The Inktouched wear multi-coloured garments adorned on one side with white feathers, and on the other with black, intended to represent ink upon parchment. The black feathers are a holdover from the days prior to the demonisation of crows under the Rukhmarite faith, and many princedoms in the present day shun the Inktouched for continuing to wear them. They are often referred to by a number of nicknames due to their distinctive clothing, such as "white crows" and more insultingly "black pigeons."

Relationship with the Followers of Ebrietas

The Inktouched have long coveted the information held by the Followers of Ebrietas; an envy that has brought the two groups into conflict multiple times over the centuries. During the age of Karvinasstrad, the Storyteller of the Inktouched is said to have broken into the Followers of Ebrietas' chief temple at Ditayeni, and recorded the secrets kept therein. What he saw there was never discovered, however, for he disappeared on the way back to Belyria, and his journal was never found.
Yet according to legend, some of the journal's pages were eventually blown upon the wind to a town near where the Storyteller vanished. They are said to now reside within the organisation's headquarters in Velwend, where only the current Storyteller is allowed to set eyes upon them.