The Sisterhood of the Blood Iris

Some twenty leagues to the north and east of the ancient city of Klaractazum, a traveller on the Old Pale Empire Road will find Lake Oxylium. It is a vast and complex body of water with numerous islands of all sizes, their many shore lines famed as the home of an aquatic flowering plant known as the blood iris. This species is a variant of the one found on Earth Zero and possesses deep blue and dark red petals. Growing in profusion wherever the water is shallow and still, the reflections of its wind blown blossoms lend colour to the cold lake waters. The Sisterhood of the Blood Iris takes its name from the flower. It is a religious order with an interest in botanical study and the arts of mental and physical healing. The members of the order, whilst superficially resembling beautiful young women (albeit with strange anatomical variations) are not exactly human. They all belong to a mysterious race known as the Blood Iris Sisters. Five of the Sisterhood's temple complexes are spread over the maze of misty islands which sit just off the northern shoreline of the lake.

Structure

The head of the order is known as the Eldest Sister, although this is a title only and bears no relationship to her relative age. The Council of the Irises consists of the Eldest Sister and the four other Sisters who together, rule the five temples at Lake Oxylium. These have the title of Sister Exelsior and are supported by a small number of Ministering Sisters and a larger number of Acolytes at each site. The five temples and their leaders are linked below:-

Temple	Sister Excelsior	Notes
Huth	Vanette	The farthest west of the temples.
Aluph	Sythania	The smallest temple and considered especially sacred.
Xeld	Calfrigia	The largest temple and the home of the Eldest Sister.
Kern	Amaress	The northern most temple.
Fylle	Jalquiss	The temple in the south and east, closest to the Old Pale Empire Road.

Culture

The people called the Blood Iris Sisters and the cult of the Sisterhood centred on Lake Oxylium seem for all practical contemporary purposes to be one and the same. We know of no individuals sharing that same peculiar heritage and magical morphology, who are not members of the current Sisterhood, although according to ancient accounts in the library of the Temple of Xeld, there may have been some schisms or fragments of competing cultures in the distant past which are now extinct. The Sisterhood of the Blood Iris is all that remains of a unique species; one culture, one way of life and one philosophy of being. Whilst they are not unwelcoming to visitors, the Sisterhood does not seek out contact with others and its own affairs are somewhat mysterious to outsiders. The organisation is known to possess great medical skills and has saved many lives over the years. There are rumours of other intimate services which the sisters may sometimes have offered to lonely men. None of these are confirmed and nothing is ever spoken openly. Then too, there are darker rumours; stories that the Blood Iris Sisters can extract a price in living red fluid which serves them in the practice of their magic. Men call them the Water Witches and they respect and fear them just a little.

Public Agenda

The sisterhood practice an intellectual asceticism and a meditative botony which finds expression in the culture and care of gardens, both in the waters of Lake Oxylium, on its islands and on its shores.

Territories

The Sisterhood of the Blood Iris controls all the waters in the north of Lake Oxylium, but they do not claim the area to the south as their own, although they do venture there.