Order of the Solar Oculus

Purple tabards bearing a stylized sun with 8 points embroidered in gold thread are seen in most places in Talen'Lith, either in town, or in the field hunting monsters and doing jobs.
Most members are heavily armed and armored, wearing plate mail embellished with their sigil. The lesser members never speak to those outside the order, a vow of silence.
In reality, the Order of the Solar Oculus is a brainwashed group that centers around a Beholder who has somehow provided even simple farmers with the ability to become powerful warriors with magical abilitites. They are extremely popular as their sales pitch is often accompanied by magical charming.

Structure

"Eyes" are the leadership, and regular members serve under them. They have magical eyes that have replaced one of their normal ones, and each eye color gives them a different type of power. The power is somewhat diverse in intensity and quality, while one member with a purple eye may be able to fully charm a person, the other may just improve their mood or make them seem more attractive. Powerful eyes can be passed from one person to the next, but it usually results in death.
Known Eyes- (Purple Eyes) Eye of Talent- Runs the recruitment station in Talen'Lith.
(Red Eyes) Eye of Discipline- Runs an adventuring wing taking job board posts in Talen'Lith.
(Pink Eyes) 40 Winks- Assassins of the order, who can put people to sleep
(Grey Eyes) Abyssal Gaze- Powerful warriors of the order, who can disintegrate matter with their eyes.
(White Eyes) - Priests, not blind but seem that way since they have powerful scrying and divination powers.
(Ice Blue Eyes) - The personal guard of the Solar Oculus

Culture

Every member of the Order is brainwashed to some degree. Open a helmet of a "blind" foot soldier and they seem to have no desire whatsoever to do anything but stay alive and follow orders. And they do so quite literally, having been "programmed" by the Solar Oculus himself. The eyes have more free will, and wrangle the things the Solar Oculus couldn't account for. Like having his men bathe, train, etc. During adventuring, most of the eyes just tell the troops what the issue is and let them work it out, it more often works out the Oculus is happier.
According to a former member named Billiarius, he had no idea where the eye objects come from, but as part of the initiation, you must hold one. Many gouge out their own eyes to replace it on the spot. Those that do not are put to sleep. Those that run- are killed. 
Once an eye is in a person it changes. Then the priests come and evaluate your eye. If it is powerful, you keep more of yourself, but "better" was his wording. The eye seems to choose its type on you and enhance things it finds pleasant. 
He felt powerful, able to rip through anything. He didn't even bother to carry weapons. People that generally wanted to be liked became eyes for talent, able to charm people. Those that wanted people to fear them did just that. 
Those that fail the test of the eye AND don't get a powerful eye are often stripped of most of their free will, and dubbed the "blind".

Public Agenda

Essentially a well structured adventuring guild, they heavily equip their members and take a percentage of the treasure found to support this. They take a no-nonsense approach to their jobs which has led some to complain about their methods.

Assets

A recruitment center in the main rebuilt town. A keep in a unrenovated section on the south side of the river. An unknown number of members.

History

Their official stance is that they were founded by a holy warrior in a far off land, the order has grown enough to be a major player in any area they deem in need of aid. They have set their sights on Talen'Lith, as the high traffic of adventuring is both ample work and recruitment opportunity.
*spoilers* In actuality they are led by a beholder who intends to take the place of The Great Eye and is its child.

Glabglung "Gab" Mirrorball (owner of the The Long March tavern just outside the city) asked you to look into a group called the Order of the Solar Oculus. They were seemingly a very popular new adventuring company with a “charming” sales pitch. Investigations into their behavior found a few oddities. Sometimes there were complaints about how the job board posting was handled, When told they would be paid 5g for a right kobold hand, they approached the kobolds and convinced them to cut off their hands rather than be slaughtered. This was by no means the norm, as the order handles many many missions with their swelling numbers. Adventurers for Profit began a poster campaign against them, reducing their overall recruiting for a while, but after a few months the posters that were still up were worn or ratty or simply were covered with others. A few other direct confrontations have always gone in the Adventurers for Profit favor, but then the Order brought up charges against the AfP after having gone into the “depths”, a cavern system that is said to go all the way to the underdark. In the Depths, AfP attacked and killed several members of the Order, and found a strange tapestry with a great eye floating above a city like a sun.
Some of you remember an adventure on a new year celebration where you briefly entered the Shadowfell, finding a strange sight- a intact [Talen'Lith in the Shadowfell , albeit with a great eye hanging in the sky providing the only source of light on the plane of shadow. At some point, the tapestry went missing from the guildhall, and shortly thereafter the charges by the Order were dropped.
Even more oddly, AfP attacked and killed an Order caravan which turned out to be carrying the egg of a “baby” beholder, which has been adopted and named Gazy. Gazy was delivered to Zellix for care and (mild) experimentation. Norman has informed you that Beholders do not reproduce that way.
Dazy , Roofus , and Murak were at the Job board and were approached by [Jospehine , the job board employee you have had the most interaction with. She informed them that each week a different Order member had- for months been grabbing the same job and never fulfilling it- that to find a missing person. Investigating the one who posted it- you found a burnt house, with information of what the person’s name was. Billiarius. Going back to the job board, you found records of Billiarius taking a job in the same forest you had protected the Unicorn from the order previously. You found Billiarius as he was being attacked by thugs, and he proceeded to disintegrate one of them before falling unconscious, except for his grey eye, which seemed to move on its own. You hurried him back to Talen’Lith after covering the eye and he has been staying at “Spell Check” for a few days resting up and answering questions.
Billiarius was safe, and told the group much about the Workings of the Solar Oculus. He informed the group that the Tapestry was in the hands of the order and had enlisted the world's foremost expert on Hao Jin- Arcane Artist; Lord Unvera. The group breached the keep peacefully, and extracted Unvera, the tapestry, and Roofus took out a dangerous Grey Eyed member of the order. 
It took some time for the tapestry to become unlocked, working with Unvera, but eventually the discovery was that it drained permanent magical items to function. Entering the tapestry, it was Talen'Lith over 3000 years ago. Before the switch. Upon a hill they spoke with a strange man who turned out to both be Hao Jin- Arcane Artist himself but also a Mind Flayer who had broken away from the Elder Brain. He had spoken with so many oracles and learned that something was to befall the city on this day, but he doesn't know what it is. He came to weave the history right into his art. 
The group entered the memory city and learned that the Church of the Eye already existed before the switch, spouting that the end of the world is near, that the Olman Empire was going to destroy the whole world and that only the The Great Eye could protect them. Through some great effort, the whole city was shifted into the shadowfell, but the common citizens had no clue what was going on, only suddenly going from a clear blue sky to a nightmare realm of undead and beings devoid of emotion. Truly, looking outside their city limits was a bleak nothingness, the end of the world. And so when in that darkness a light appears that no flame, no magic can push away- they worship it as a god. 
The group saw this happen, and while they tried to stop it, it was inevitable. In the center of the city a beholder and his cultists shattered an artifact containing a spark of divinity, absorbing it into himself and becoming a god, a huge unblinking light in the sky that pushed away the darkness, repelling the undead and saving the city. His priests were quick to cry out that it was the Great eye that alone prevented the destruction of the city, and that the Olman empire had destroyed the whole rest of the world.
Having found out how the Great Eye ascended, the group exits the tapestry only to find that the manor keep is under siege. The forces of the Solar Oculus had found them, Billiarius was dead on the floor with his eye missing, and Unvera only cried out that he had nothing to do with this. 
The group fought off the attackers, handily with Roofus' goblin troops and what Adventurers were still with them. Now they plan to attack the home of the Solar Oculus and put and end to its schemes.

Unity, Truth, Heroism

Founding Date

Janurary 1, 1001

Type

Religious, Cult

Training Level

Semi-professional

Veterancy Level

Trained

Leader

The Solar Oculus leader