"The average cult only presents a danger when its leaders order mass suicides. But the Seafarers? Ask your friend - those people threaten the whole world."
The Midnight is a realm of endless danger and ravenous shadows, constantly driving against its border with reality. But it is also powerful - and power attracts followers. Midnight-worship has existed almost as long as mortal mages have, but in recent years it has crystallised into an unusually organised and powerful cult. The
Eternal Seafarers believe that the world is destined to fall into darkness, and that they are its heralds. Though this perspective is disturbing enough, far more worrying is the cult's growing influence on the politics of the Archipelago - and their insistence that the 'drowning of the earth' is coming soon.
To Sail the Sea of Shadow
Secrets Uncloaked
The Seafarers brand themselves as a charitable organisation which helps those whom society shuns. Widows, orphans, the hurting and the magic-less - all are equally small compared to the Midnight's shadow, and all mortal woes will be shed by the rise of the Dark. Perhaps the higher priests truly believe this, for in the meantime they provide shelter, food and community to people who do not have them. This aspect is what allowed them to set down roots in Ekos - to a nation where secrets are like gold, their openness shone like diamonds.
Of course, as the cult grew in number and knowledge, things... changed. The priests of the order in particular began to walk around in heavy robes that left little skin uncovered, and instead of simply cursing the twin moons - constant enemies of the Midnight's power - they hid from the night sky altogether. Whereas before, their sacrifices to the Midnight were conducted at random, now the rituals occur at calculated times and locations. To an outsider, it would appear that the doom which the Seafarers prophesy of is drawing near.
Depths Unseen
There are four levels to the ranks of the Eternal Seafarers:
- The Hands comprise newcomers to the order. Most of them are disillusioned with outside society and the Great Wolves, and do not care to delve deeper into the secrets of the Eternal Sea - they are more concerned with the benefits of an organisation willing to help them.
- The Voyagers are the devotees of the order, advancing from ignorance to 'wisdom'. They not only provide resources like food and clothes, but also recruit new Hands to the cult's ranks. More recently, they have also begun to search out a 'Sealed Gateway' of some kind...
- The Navigators are the order's priests, steeped in old and forbidden knowledge. They submerge themselves in long-lost texts, searching for the 'truth' that they hold so dear, and shepherd the Seafarers towards oblivion. Their knowledge has had increasingly-obvious effects on them.
- Finally, the Captains are two mythical figures rumoured to finally bring about the 'drowning of the earth' that the cult desires. If there is in fact any evidence of the prophecy which predicted their rise, or any mentions of their existence at all, the cult has hidden them away.
Wisdom Unwise
"Shadowed world, unseen
Dreams of what has never been
All shall fade away..."
Like most cults, the Eternal Seafarers guard their secrets jealously, and only reveal enough about their beliefs to convince potential members. Infiltrating their ranks proves dangerous, for the Navigators have a way of revealing false intentions and often retaliate against intruders. However, those who have left the cult - without mysteriously disappearing afterward - bring back invaluable information.
The core of the Seafarers' beliefs is that the world arose from the Midnight - that the seven
Great Wolves, whom they call the 'Usurpers', set in place the boundary between reality and darkness. Those beings of shadow caught on the wrong side of that border became animals and mortals; the currents of the Eternal Sea became ley lines of magic; and false lights were placed in the empty sky. And the 'rightful rulers' of the world were cast deep into the Midnight, their power suppressed.
Moreover, the priests of the cult speak of a 'heavenly retribution' that will one day rain down upon all living things, as punishment for the darkness they innately possess. This prophesied doom is what they seek to 'save' the world from, by enshrouding the world in the Midnight's protection. It is why they strategically open rifts into the darkness, attempting to hasten the 'drowning of the earth' before their prophecy comes to pass - and it is why the priests have undergone alarming changes in their efforts to be one with the Dark.
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