Order of the Shade

Structure

The Order of the Shade is a strictly magocratic organisation which desires the same for all of Arkhera, and its structure reflects such priorities. They are divided into eight divisions which are exclusively populated by a certain magical race, and each division not only has a place on an overall organisational hierarchy, but themselves have an inflexible hierarchy within. The divisions, in order of greatest to least control, are as follows:
Fuchsia Division: The division associated with spellbinders, and the highest of the Order. Unlike other divisions, their leader is not an archmage, but the grand warlock/witch of the entire order. They have the most powerful mages of the group which act as rarely deployed weapons of devastation, as befits the Order's priorities. Their uniforms are fuchsia with violet highlights, and their division prefix is 'Yal', based on 'Yalin', Jaranese for fuchsia. Its current leader is Grand Witch Yal'queran, an ancient chaos-speaker whose body is almost entirely decrepit.
Purple Division: This division hosts the necromancers of the Order, and somewhat predictably has the highest concentration of healers and battle medics within. One of the few organisations which allow the teaching of necromantic control of the living, which is seen as unethical by most other mage groups.  Their uniforms are violet with indigo highlights, and their division prefix is ' Mar', based on 'Marin', Jaranese for purple. Its current leader is Purple Archmage Mar'goritz, a pretentious poet who considers himself the last scion of an ancient necromantic noble house, and a master of turning the living into puppets.
Indigo Division: This division contains human mages, which are the most commonly deployed enforcers of the Order for moderate-to-low threats. Unlike the fuchsia division, which focuses nigh-exclusively on magical skill, the Indigo Division places a strong emphasis on magical and physical superiority, and the highest-ranking members are usually toned as well as magically capable. Their uniforms are indigo with turquoise highlights and their division prefix is 'Ran', which is itself Jaranese for indigo. Its current leader is Indigo Archmage Ran'galchen, a personally groomed geomantic weapon whose heart and soul belongs to the Order's goals.
Blue Division: This division focuses on elven antimages who train in the elf-exclusive art of magical hijacking. These specialised troops are largely deployed when the Order believes they're facing a magical threat. Like the Indigo Division, there's a strong focus on physical wellness in this division too. Currently lacking the most discipline and motivation in the Order. Their uniforms are turquoise with green highlights, and their division prefix is 'Aor', based on 'Aoran', Jaranese for sky blue. Its leader is Blue Archmage Aor'kirin, a liquid shade addicted jokester who suffers from a dark elven genetic quirk that leaves her appearing young even as an adult.
Green Division: The seerish division of the Order. This division is rarely deployed, instead acting as soothsayers and strategists for the Order by using their honed third eyes to predict their enemies' every moves. This division is also the primary gardening staff used to grow Nightshade's food and shadewort supplies. Their uniforms are green with yellow highlights, and their division prefix is 'Mid', based on 'Mido', Jaranese for green. Its leader is Green Archmage Mid'seran, a seer so bound to accurate predictions that she barely considers herself a person anymore.
Yellow Division: The division associated with beastmasters. This division's members are largely considered to be a last line of defense, filled with beastmasters in control of all manner of dangerous wildlife populating the tropical swamps surrounding Nightshade. Within their custody is a zoo of numerous exotic animals, also under magical control. Their uniforms are yellow with orange highlights, and their division prefix is ' Kir', based on 'Kiran', Jaranese for yellow. Its leader is Yellow Archmage Kir'selai, a handsome former Wor'ghanese slave whose hatred for pirates and slavery is the only way to rattle his otherwise relaxed demeanour.
Orange Division: This division is where goblins are placed. One of the most highly populated divisions, the Order draws from this division for agile, disposable troops for low-to-medium level threats. Clambering and infiltration strategies are commonly taught here, and numerous parkour courses are erected in the Orange Division's sections of Nightshade. Their uniforms are orange with red highlights, and their division prefix is ' Chen', based on 'Cheng', Jaranese for orange. Its leader is the brutal, psychologically disturbed Orange Archmage Chen'razghul, a mad jester thought to be the infamous vanished spree killer, Cheegal the Clown.
Red Division: The gnomish division of the Order. What the Red Division lacks in natural magical ability they make up for with sheer engineering savvy, acting as the magitech engineers of the Order. Most of the Order's arcane nullification pulse bombs, smoke bombs, arcane railguns, and flashbangs are manufactured by red acolytes. Their uniforms are red with black highlights, and their division prefix is ' Ark', based on 'Arkhang', Jaranese for red. Its current leader is Red Archmage Ark'golom, an ingenious manager whose non-order job as a patent lawyer gives him unique insight into the flaws of the selfish inventor culture of most gnomes, while he instead values collaboration.
Within divisions, there are numerous ranks, some unique to certain divisions and others order-wide, though all are preceded by their division's colour (Indigo Librarian, Orange Soldier). Such ranks include:
Archmage: The leader of a division. If an expert defeats an archmage in a duel to the death, they become the new archmage.
Expert: The highest of the high, having proven themselves as fighters, mages, and leaders in the field (in theory). Able to challenge archamages to a duel for control of their division.
Librarian: The information curators of the order. Within their ranks, a 'high [colour] librarian' is considered the manager of each division's library.
Soldier: The thugs of the Order, used to crack down on groups and individuals suppressive to the cause.
Sergeant-at-Arms: The diplomats of the Order to the common man, leading a set of staff at local Order lodges, usually organising charity events to curry favour with the locals.
Scourge: The usual dumping ground rank for mediocre ageing soldiers that didn't ascend to expert. There to break and whip recruits into discipline.
Acolyte: Trainees that have taken tests to prove their competence beyond novicehood, but haven't specialised into a role yet.
Novice: Trainees that have just passed their initiation but haven't passed their test to become an acolyte.
Initiate: What all order members start off as. If they fail their division's initiation, they are ejected.
Healer: A generally purple division exclusive rank for medics.
Saboteur: A blue division exclusive rank for especially skilled antimages crucial to mixed-division missions.
Oracle: A green division exclusive rank for seers devoted to strategising based on visions.
Gardener: A green division exclusive rank for seers responsible for tending to arable and shadewort farming.
Keeper: A yellow division exclusive rank for animal keepers at the Nightshade zoo.
Clown: An unofficial orange division exclusive rank for those in Chen'razghul's personal crack squad of face-painted jesters.
Engineer: A generally red division exclusive rank for the Order's magitech engineers.

Culture

The Order of the Shade prioritises magical power above all, and there's a clear culture of 'sink or swim' within the it. Those who struggle are generally left to languish while stronger members are honed into useful assets for the Order, which leaves a lot of Order members considering themselves to be worthless or at least layabouts.
This leads to a highly passionate or at least arrogant set of higher ranking members and a mostly insincere set of lower ranked layabout members. Most of the Order's recruits are from the most downtrodden members of society; former travelling entertainment groups, homeless vagrants, disgraced or exiled nobility, and orphans. This leads to a very polarised population; those which are pessimistic and give up amid their prospering rivals and those that are driven to succeed no matter what.
Despite the organisation's aims to create a form of mago-meritocratic system, schmoozing is remarkably common towards leaders susceptible to it. While some division leaders, such as Yal'queran, Ran'galchen, and Chen'razghul don't take kindly to brown-nosing and are more likely to kill a schmoozer than promote them, other leaders are happy to fill their expert ranks with mediocre mages whose only skills were complimenting the right men.
The Order's culture is also highly insulated and controlled, due to the leadership's ability to curate what novices and acolytes hear about the outside world during their training. Due to the desperate background of most of their recruits, their general strategy is to cement their mark's already grim outlook on the world, further convincing them that the powers that be are incompetent, evil, or corrupt, before lauding the Order's idealised, meritocratic vision as the solution to each of the societal woes that got their trainee there in the first place.
Hence, by the end of training, even the most demotivated Order acolyte believes that the Nightshade commune, while not necessarily helping them succeed, is somewhere they belong and get free food, meaning they are generally still available as a loyal hand on deck when necessary. It helps that this is also the only organisation with access to traditional liquid shade refinement techniques that the Liquid Shade Cartel fails to use, meaning they have a monopoly on the highest quality form of liquid shade, which can enable shadewarping in skilled individuals.
It should be noted every division of the Order is notably racist against orcs, as due to their status as humanoids incapable of learning magic of any sort (for the most part) they are considered to be human-shaped animals rather than people worthy of consideration in a magocratic system. There is no division set aside for orcs.

Public Agenda

To the public beyond Nightshade, the Order is a charitable, if mysterious organisation that is willing to help other organisations in return for resources, information, and nonaggression. They have numerous lodges throughout the cities and towns of Arkhera, which are used as soup kitchens, hostels, and recruitment drives for the organisation, regularly scouting the homeless and destitute for potentially powerful mages.
This and their cracking down on smuggling groups such as the Liquid Shade Cartel and the Malassaian Smugglers has led the Order to have a surprisingly positive reputation among commoners, and even noble houses are generally grateful for the Order's assistance in endeavours, even if they're vaguely aware of their sinister magocratic intentions.

Assets

Nightshade has an exclusive traditional liquid shade refinery which acts as the best Arkheran provider of magical stimulants. In addition, they have a diverse collection of powerful, well-trained mages which act as a powerful military unit, especially in guerilla warfare. Whenever armed conflict between noble houses breaks out, both sides seek the backing of the Order for convenience's sake.
Most crops not related to liquid shade are retained to feed the population of Nightshade, however sometimes exotic meats from the Yellow Division's dead zoo animals are exported to gourmets within and without Arkhera. They also retain the wood they cut down from their surrounding lands, and import numerous important stones, including redstone, nasite, and norvite for wnad production, their own redstone mine having dried up centuries ago.

History

900 BGA (Before Garlan's Ascension): A set of spellbinder supremacists, working with necromancers and Jaranese mages that considered themselves oppressed by the changing cultural moorings of Arkhera founded a secretive organisation that fused Galdusian and Jaranese-Na'liman ideals. The founding members agreed to rename themselves according to their race and opened up divisions for magical races that hadn't yet joined. The first Grand Warlock renamed himself as Yal'jerik.
750 BGA: Apparently having missed the point of the founders' initial changing of their names, the third Grand Warlock, originally Kazarus, instated that all who passed the Order's initiations must be renamed according to their race, and codified the specific order of racial magical potential that has been carried through to the current day. The Grand Warlock renamed himself to Yal'lakash.
634 BGA: The Order, under Grand Warlock Yal'hazang, finally becomes a public entity, and sets up an official headquarters in the deep jungles west of the Forest of Summer, close to a redstone mine discovered by their seers. This city becomes known as Nightshade.
512 BGA: The longest-running Grand Warlock, an ascendant known as Yal'langshen, rises to power, quelling numerous rebellions with a combination of ideological cushioning, information control, exploited pessimism in its recruits, and powerful telepathy. It was under this grand warlock's rule that the general strategy of marketing to the downtrodden and miserable truly took off.
0 AGA (After Garlan's Ascension): Upon Garlan's ascension, the Order of the Shade is made to face numerous sanctions, including seizure of much of its ancient Galdusian magitech, for their support of the old necromantic order. Yal'langshen, meanwhile, puts on a display of regret, and secures a place as a tax-paying major organisation that despite being quasi-religious and a separate political entity to the electorate, enjoys many of the perks of a noble house. He did this on the urging of his seerish advisors, who correctly foresaw their redstone mines drying up.
20 AGA: Inera, a chaos-speaking spellbinder girl of sixteen, is taken in after rampaging through Godswater to avenge her recently-burnt-for-deviancy high elven, female lover. She is initiated and renamed as Yal'queran.
63 AGA: Yal'queran, now an expert, does some digging and discovers Grand Warlock Yal'langshen was not a spellbinder by birth but a necromancer, and is horrified at this betrayal of the traditional racial order. She takes matters into her own hands, using her chaos-speech to corrupt his orderly ascension stone from within in a duel, transforming him into a hideous, partially corporeal abomination before ending him. As such, she ascended to Grand Witch of the Order of the Shade.
72 AGA: Grand Witch Yal'queran supports King Yal'miroen Boathis in the fight against Abraxas the Revolutionary, due to Green Archmage Mid'veris foretelling a resounding victory by the Royal Electorate. As such, she earned royal favour for her service in suppressing the ill-fated revolution.
156 AGA: Due to her brutal, compelling nature of chaos-speaking, which led to the permanent enslavement of numerous daemons which supplemented her now vastly aged body, Grand Witch Yal'queran attracts the ire of the Daemons of Arkhera. Their diplomat, Rakh'dor ge Nu'ei, gives her an ultimatum; either she releases her enslaved daemons or she offers the daemons something truly worth allowing such a blasphemous suppression of chaotic immortals. Yal'queran covertly offers the bodies of everyone in the Order upon her death, an offer Nu'ei gladly accepts.
467 AGA: Altus Wratheon, the self-proclaimed last scion of the Wrathaek family, is recruited to the Order with promises of reclaiming old necromantic glory, and is subsequently renamed as Mar'goritz. In the coming years he would use a mixture of genuine skill with selective schmoozing and backstabbing to rise to the top of his division.
524 AGA: Patenter Zigg of River's Fork, disillusioned with the patent competition in River's Fork stifling collaborative progress, turns to the Order, being renamed to Ark'golom. He would prove himself worthy, and ultimately rise to the rank of Red Archmage.
525 AGA: Lanna Shearwater is stolen from her parents by Grand Witch Yal'queran due to her status as a powerful geomancer as an infant. She is then personally raised by Yal'queran as Ran'galchen and eventually ascends to Indigo Archmage.
536 AGA: A mysterious seerish oracle from Crabber's Mouth named Veranda is successfully recruited into the Order, or rather, as if on a whim, she made a pilgrimage to the notably anti-seer Sanguinas Isle to find an Order lodge and insist upon joining it. She quickly found her place, ascending to archmage within three years under the name Mid'seran.
541 AGA: The infamous spree killing known as the Cheegal Incident happens to Deathsport, wherein a downtrodden circus performer, having apparently lost his goodwill for his audience, burnt down the big top his show took place in, killing numerous parents and children in the blaze. He was subsequently retrieved by the Order and renamed Chen'razghul, making a name for himself as an unusually rebellious and individualistic member of the Order who with his small cult of personality, the Clowns, quickly took over the Orange Division.
543 AGA: In a trafficker busting operation, a set of human operatives for the Order discover a set of Wor'ghanese beastmasters being trafficked by elven pirates. Among them is Annelus, a worm controlling beastmaster who would swiftly learn the Common Tongue and rise through the Yellow Division's ranks as Kir'selai, the current Yellow Archmage.
547 AGA: A dark elven teenage girl, Naraxa, after a truly unfortunate life of homelessness and sexual exploitation she believed to be love, found apparent acceptance and perpetual access to drugs at the Order as the acolyte Aor'kirin. She would, through a combination of dumb luck, surprising talent, and a hidden deviousness, manage to find a way to the head of her division, now content with as much liquid shade as she could ever drink.
551 AGA: The seers of the Green Division foretell an oddity in the Scorchpeaks, likely fire dragons, whose discovery will change the Order for, they believe, the better. Currently only the Green Oracles, Green Archmage Mid'seran, and Grand Witch Yal'queran know about these predictions, and are currently deliberating on a course of action.

Demography and Population

Goblins (30%)
Humans (28%)
Elves (18%)
Gnomes (10%)
Spellbinders (5%)
Seers (4%)
Beastmasters (3%)
Necromancers (2%)

Rule of the Strong

Founding Date

c. 900 BGA (exact founding date unknown)

Type

Religious, Cult

Alternative Names

The Order (slang)
Cultist Fucks (Liquid Shade Cartel lingo)

Leader

Yal'queran

Leader Title

Grand Warlock

Major Exports

Traditionally refined liquid shade
Magitech weaponry

Major Imports

Redstone
Iron
Copper
Tin
Nasite
Norvite
Magical texts

Parent Organization

Forests of Summer (province)

Location

Nightshade

Official Languages

• Common Tongue
• Jaranese
• Old Galdusian

Notable Members

• Aor'kirin
• Aor'merath
• Chen'razghul
• Ran'galchen
• Yal'queran

Related Ethnicities

• Arkheran
• Galdusian
• Jaranese