Factions of the Heroes Guild

22.07.2026 @ 1730

The factions are independent organisations allied with the Heroes Guild. Each pursues a different vision for rebuilding and protecting the world after the Demon War.

A faction offers more than employment. It provides a cause, a network of allies, and a set of principles that can influence how a character approaches adventures. Members are expected to support their faction’s goals, but they are also responsible for questioning its failures and preventing its ideals from becoming excuses for cruelty.

Horizon Hunters

Chaotic Good, Exploration and Discovery Guild
Beyond Every Horizon, Ever Forward.

Representative:Gus, Goblin
Symbol: An eight-pointed compass beneath a rising sun.

Purpose

The Horizon Hunters are explorers, scouts, navigators, cartographers, survivalists, and travellers who venture beyond the boundaries of the known world.

They chart forgotten roads, investigate unfamiliar regions, discover isolated settlements, and create safe paths through dangerous territory. The faction values practical experience, honest records, and the safe return of those who follow.

Discovery does not grant ownership. Horizon Hunters are expected to approach newly encountered communities as neighbours with their own laws, customs, and rights. They oppose expeditions that use exploration as an excuse for conquest or exploitation.

The Pathfinder’s Compact

Every recognised Hunter follows the Pathfinder’s Compact:

• Map What You Find. Record discoveries honestly.
• Leave a Way Back. Mark safe routes and prepare for emergencies.
• No Horizon Belongs to One Person. Discovery does not grant ownership.
• Guests not Claimants. Respect newly encountered communities.
• Share the Warning. Do not conceal dangers for personal profit.
• Take Only What Can Be Spared. Consider what an expedition removes.
• No Discovery Is Worth Every Life. Glory does not excuse reckless sacrifice.
• Bring Something Home. Every expedition should return with knowledge, hope, or a safer route.

The Compact does not forbid danger. It requires risks to be understood rather than imposed through deception or incompetence.

Work and Crisis Response

Hunters maintain maps, route journals, weather records, monster reports, and information about unusual phenomena. They establish Wayhouses that provide shelter, supplies, medical care, and updated maps along dangerous routes.

During crises, they serve as scouts, guides, messengers, and evacuation specialists. They locate water, identify safe roads, survey enemy movements, and guide refugees or armies through difficult terrain. They refuse to support wars of conquest disguised as exploration.

Organisation

Hunters operate through independent expeditionary Companies and local Wayhouses. Each expedition appoints:

• A Guide, responsible for travel and immediate safety.
• A Quartermaster, responsible for supplies and equipment.
• A Recorder, responsible for the expedition journal and discoveries.

Wayhouses are managed by Keepers of the Road. The wider faction is guided by the Compass Rose, a council representing different forms of exploration.

Gus serves as First Pathfinder. He represents the faction but does not command every Company or Wayhouse.

Ranks

1. Wayfinder: A trusted member who has completed and recorded an expedition.
2. Trailblazer: An explorer capable of leading Companies and establishing routes.
3. Pathfinder: A veteran trusted with major expeditions and Wayhouses.
4. Horizon Walker: A member whose discoveries have transformed the known world.

Experience is more important than rank. A local Wayfinder may lead a more senior member who lacks relevant knowledge.

Accountability

Disputes are examined through hearings called Bearings. These focus on identifying recklessness, dishonesty, or violations of the Compact.

Members who knowingly falsify routes, conceal lethal dangers, abandon companions, or support conquest may be declared False Guides.

Player Characters

The faction suits explorers, sailors, rangers, scholars, healers, craftspeople, interpreters, guides, and anyone driven by curiosity.

Each member chooses a Personal Horizon, a destination, mystery, or discovery they feel compelled to pursue. It is expressed through a short Far Calling, such as finding a missing expedition, reaching an unknown shore, or charting a safe path through an impassable region.

The Breakhearts

Chaotic Good, Revolutionary Liberation Network
Break the Chains!

Representative: Neduk Lal, Half-Elf
Symbol: A heart divided by a broken chain, often accompanied by a red cord.

Purpose

The Breakhearts are freedom fighters, escaped prisoners, smugglers, dissidents, workers, and ordinary people committed to resisting oppression.

They oppose slavery, forced labour, political imprisonment, debt bondage, magical domination, and governments sustained through terror. Their goal is not simply to remove rulers, but to ensure that liberated people are able to choose what follows.

Members often work in secret, using false identities and concealed symbols. Secrecy is treated as a tool for survival rather than a requirement.

The Unbound Articles

Every Breakheart accepts the Unbound Articles:

• No Person Is Property.
• Freedom Cannot Be Forced.
• No Crown Is Above Question.
• The Helpless Are Not Weapons.
• Break the Chain, Not the Hand Within It.
• Leave No Empty Shackle.

The Articles exist to prevent liberators from becoming the next generation of tyrants.

Work and Crisis Response

Breakhearts investigate prisons, labour camps, slave markets, corrupt officials, abusive nobles, and organisations that profit from captivity.

They forge papers, bribe guards, establish safe routes, hide fugitives, sabotage prisons, destroy oppressive records, and help liberated people find employment and new identities.

During war, they organise evacuations, resistance cells, sabotage, and irregular forces. They do not automatically support every rebellion. An uprising that merely replaces one ruler with another is not considered liberation.

Organisation

The faction has no permanent headquarters or supreme commander. It is organised through independent safe houses called Hearths.

Each Hearth is led by a Hearthkeeper and may specialise in shelter, intelligence, transport, medicine, or resistance. Travelling messengers called Red Runners carry information between Hearths.

Major decisions are discussed by the Broken Circle, which includes representatives from Hearths, liberated communities, and allied movements. One seat remains empty for those still imprisoned.

Neduk Lal serves as the First Voice, representing the faction without ruling it.

Ranks

1. Spark: A trusted member willing to oppose oppression.
2. Chainbreaker: An agent capable of organising escapes and small operations.
3. Liberator: A veteran responsible for major cells and liberation efforts.
4. Heart or Unbound: A member who has freed communities or destroyed a powerful oppressive system.

Rank is not a foramal title, it grants responsibility rather than unquestioned authority. Any member may refuse an order that violates the Unbound Articles.

Accountability

Serious accusations are heard through a Reckoning. These hearings examine what happened, protect those harmed, and determine whether trust can be restored.

Members who exploit liberated people or attempt to seize control may be declared Chains. Those who enslave others, return fugitives to their captors, or dominate liberated communities may be named Chainmakers and expelled.

Player Characters

The Breakhearts suit former prisoners, dissidents, soldiers who rejected immoral commands, smugglers, healers, workers, scouts, negotiators, and spellcasters skilled in movement or concealment.

Each member chooses a Chain to Break, a particular form of oppression they have dedicated themselves to opposing. This commitment is expressed through a Heart’s Promise.

The Alliance

Neutral Good, Diplomatic Coalition
Many Voices, One Peace.

Representative:Sirrin Wenal, Human
Symbol: A circle formed from several open hands.

Purpose

The Alliance is a coalition of diplomats, mediators, interpreters, couriers, legal scholars, merchants, and community representatives.

Its members believe peace does not require complete agreement. Their purpose is to prevent differences from becoming excuses for unnecessary suffering.

The Alliance carries messages across hostile borders, negotiates ceasefires, oversees prisoner exchanges, records treaties, and provides neutral spaces where opposing groups can speak.

Diplomacy is considered an active and sometimes dangerous form of service. The Alliance does not believe peace should be imposed by the powerful or built by silencing those most affected.

The Open Table

The Alliance follows a diplomatic creed called the Open Table:

• Every affected voice should be heard.
• Listening does not mean agreement.
• Suppressed grievances will eventually return.
• People must not become bargaining tokens.
• Agreements must be clear and honest.
• A promise must be realistic enough to keep.
• Neutrality must not ignore cruelty or unequal power.
• Even failed negotiations should leave a route back to communication.
• Peace should survive the people who negotiated it.

The Three Voices

Alliance mediators examine disputes through three perspectives:

The Voice of Claim: What does each party say it wants?

The Voice of Harm: Who is suffering now, and who will suffer under each solution?

The Voice of Tomorrow: What prevents the conflict from beginning again?

Work and Crisis Response

The Alliance mediates disputes involving land, trade, religion, inheritance, borders, resources, and political authority.

Its neutral centres are called Concord Houses, while diplomatic couriers are known as Open Hands.

During war or disaster, the faction maintains communication, arranges evacuation routes, protects medical access, negotiates limited ceasefires, coordinates relief, and helps communities form temporary councils.

Neutrality has limits. The Alliance may openly oppose extermination, enslavement, or conquest.

Organisation

Each Concord House is led by a Concord Keeper and advised by a Local Assembly.

The wider faction is governed by the Council of Many Voices. No single kingdom, ancestry, religion, or faction may control more than one-third of its seats.

Sirrin Wenal serves as First Voice, representing the Council in major negotiations.

Ranks

1. Listener: A member trained in the Open Table.
2. Envoy: A trusted messenger and witness authorised to handle minor disputes.
3. Mediator: A diplomat capable of leading major negotiations.
4. Voice of Many: A member whose work has prevented wars or created lasting cooperation.

The Alliance does not restrict rank progression through qualifcations or approval instead requesting a proven track record of negotiations. The Council of Many Voices will deleberate and debate this record to see if the application is ready to move up the ranks.

Accountability

Misconduct is examined through Hearings of Accord. Members who falsify agreements, sell confidential information, silence affected groups, or manipulate negotiations for power may lose rank.

Those who repeatedly corrupt the diplomatic process may be declared a Closed Voice.

Player Characters

The Alliance suits diplomats, interpreters, couriers, merchants, priests, historians, guards, investigators, and characters raised between different cultures.

Each member chooses a Personal Concord, a conflict or diplomatic principle they are committed to addressing. It is summarised through an Open Word.

The Foundation

Lawful Neutral, Commercial Consortium
Beyond Every Horizon, Ever Forward.

Representative:Wick Hupe, Gnome
Symbol: An open hand holding a golden key.

Purpose

The Foundation is a network of merchants, investors, craftspeople, inventors, accountants, caravan masters, engineers, and explorers. It finances workshops, farms, mines, trade routes, ships, inventions, and the reconstruction of communities damaged by war or disaster.

The Foundation believes wealth should create lasting value. A repaired bridge, trained workforce, reliable trade route, or productive workshop is considered more meaningful than coin left unused in a vault.

It is not a charity, and its investments are expected to provide a return. However, it rejects slavery, deliberate fraud, predatory debt, and ventures that enrich investors by destroying communities.

The Articles of Enterprise

Every member follows the Articles of Enterprise:

• A venture must create value.
• Every cost, including injury and environmental damage, must be counted.
• Contracts must be understood by those who sign them.
• Those claiming the greatest reward must share the risk.
• Labour is not property.
• Wealth should circulate and be used.
• Accounts must be complete and accurate.
• Profit does not erase a promise.
• A successful enterprise should survive its founder.

Ventures and Holdings

A Venture is a new or temporary commercial project, such as funding an expedition, testing an invention, opening a trade route, or rebuilding a workshop. Each Venture appoints:

A Factor, who manages the project.

A Ledgerkeeper, who records accounts and ownership.

An Assessor, who examines safety, legality, and community effects.

A Holding is a permanent asset, such as a farm, mine, workshop, bank, warehouse, ship, or caravan company.

Proposals are judged through the Five Measures; Purpose, Cost, Risk, Return and lasting Legacy.

Work and Crisis Response

The Foundation maintains commercial centres called Exchanges and proposal offices called Venture Houses.

During crises, it transports essential goods, monitors shortages, establishes emergency markets, and repairs roads, wells, bridges, mills, and workshops. It allows prices to reflect genuine costs but punishes deliberate exploitation of desperation.

The Foundation works with the Horizon Hunters, Alliance, Liberians, Oath Keepers, and Breakhearts. It considers the Gilded Network a predatory rival.

Organisation

Each Exchange is managed by a Chief Factor and an Exchange Board. The wider organisation is governed by the Grand Ledger, whose members represent major Exchanges and commercial disciplines.

Wick Hupe serves as First Factor. He represents the Foundation but cannot spend its central reserves without approval.

Ranks

1. Associate: A recognised member permitted to trade through Exchanges.
2. Investor: A trusted participant in Foundation Ventures.
3. Factor: A commercial leader authorised to manage major projects.
4. Magnate: A member whose Holdings or innovations have transformed a region.

The Foundation grants the rank of Associate to anyone who wishies it, but Investor and Factor must have a qualification related to there area of investment. The Magnate need majority support of the Board to be awared.

Accountability

Disputed accounts and failed Ventures are investigated through Audits. Failure is not automatically fraud. Members are judged by whether they reported risks honestly, maintained accurate records, and attempted to limit harm.

Those who falsify accounts, exploit workers, steal resources, or create fraudulent debts may be declared False Factors and barred from Foundation commerce.

Player Characters

The Foundation suits merchants, craftspeople, accountants, engineers, inventors, sailors, farmers, explorers, guards, healers, and administrators.

Each member chooses a Personal Venture, an enterprise or economic goal expressed through a Founder’s Claim. A Personal Venture may seek profit, social improvement, reconstruction, or technological progress.

The Liberians

Lawful Neutral, Historical Preservation Society
Beyond Every Horizon, Ever Forward.

Representative: Page Flips, Kenku
Symbol: An open book beneath an unblinking star.

Purpose

The Liberians are historians, archivists, archaeologists, translators, curators, cartographers, and adventurers dedicated to preserving the past. They recover endangered records, document ruins, protect historical sites, preserve oral traditions, and maintain archives containing the memories of vanished peoples.

They believe history belongs to more than rulers and armies. Tools, songs, family records, burial customs, and ordinary lives may reveal more about a civilisation than royal monuments.

The faction does not claim that every relic belongs in a distant museum. Objects may remain with the communities that created, inherited, or continue to use them.

The Custodian’s Charge

The Custodian’s Charge teaches that members are temporary guardians of history:

• Remember those ignored by official histories.
• Record an object or site before removing it.
• Place preservation above possession.
• Maintain clear provenance.
• Test written claims rather than accepting them automatically.
• Treat missing and erased records as evidence.
• Consult living communities connected to a discovery.
• Restrict dangerous knowledge rather than destroying it without cause.
• Return sacred objects and remains to rightful custodians.
• Correct the record when new evidence proves it false.
• Leave useful records for future generations.

The Four Records

Liberians study four forms of evidence:

Written Record: Books, laws, maps, letters, and inscriptions.

Material Record: Buildings, tools, graves, roads, and physical remains.

Living Record: Oral histories, songs, customs, and memories.

Missing Record: What has been erased, hidden, destroyed, or excluded.

Recovery Expeditions and the Index

Recovery Expeditions may involve, Surveys, Excavations, Recoveries, and Repatriation.

Each expedition appoint a Curator, Recorder, Conservator, Provenance Keeper, and Community Speaker.

After an expedition new discovories are classifed and sorted by the Index.

• Open. Anyone can read and see this discovery, the Libarians belive it to be safe.
• Guarded. Anyone can read and see the discovery but caution is advised.
• Restricted. Only memebers of the Libarians can read or see the discovery.
• Sealed. The discovery is dangerous to be around, or knowing information about it has consequences.
• Black-Sealed. Only the upper ranks of the Guild may know about this discovery.

Black-Sealed material may cause catastrophic harm if released. The Liberians preserve it unless continued preservation presents an immediate and uncontrollable danger.

Work and Crisis Response

The faction maintains Grand Archives, regional Chapter Archives, and temporary Field Archives.

During crises, members evacuate collections, record testimony, protect legal documents, preserve the names of the dead and missing, and document events before governments or victors can rewrite them. Life takes priority over artefacts.

Organisation

Each Grand Archive is led by a High Curator and supported by a School of Provenance. While the wider faction is governed by the Convocation of Memory.

Page Flips serves as Grand Curator, representing the faction and coordinating major recovery efforts.

Ranks

1. Reader: A recognised member.
2. Researcher: A member authorised to lead surveys and access guarded collections.
3. Curator: A scholar trusted with major expeditions and collections.
4. Living Chronicle: A member whose work is recognised throughout the faction.

While the rank of reader is appointed to anyone who joins the faction the rest of the ranks require the applicant to pass an examination.

Accountability

Disputes examine documentation, provenance, cultural ownership, damage, concealment, and personal benefit.

Members guilty of serious manipulation may be declared Name-Stricken. Their work is not erased. Instead, the archives record which findings remain reliable, which are disputed, and how the deception occurred.

Player Characters

The faction suits scholars, storytellers, explorers, guards, translators, engineers, healers, craftspeople, and members of communities whose histories were ignored or stolen.

Liberian characters frequently confront questions of ownership, secrecy, repatriation, and whether dangerous knowledge should be preserved.

The Redeemers

Neutral Good, Charitable Redemption Order
Back from the Brink.

Representative:Xalal, Tiefling - and ex-warrior of the Demon Army.
Symbol: An open hand holding a small flame.

Purpose

The Redeemers are healers, mediators, curse-breakers, former criminals, survivors, and defectors who believe no person should be abandoned while a genuine path back from darkness remains.

They protect people escaping cults, cruel masters, magical control, supernatural corruption, and destructive ways of life. Redemption does not erase responsibility. The faction distinguishes redemption from forgiveness. Victims are never required to forgive or reconcile with those who harmed them.

The Returning Path

Every Redeemer follows the Returning Path:

A path back should be offered where genuine change is possible.

Surrender does not make a person innocent, and victims do not owe forgiveness.

Mercy must not create new victims.

Coercion and magical control must be addressed before meaningful choice is possible.

Truth must come before comfort.

Change must be demonstrated through action.

Protection may end when someone repeatedly abuses mercy.

No one should be expected to walk the path alone.

The Three Steps

Redemption is described through three stages:

1. Turning:The person stops causing harm or seeks freedom from the force controlling them.
2. Reckoning: They confront their actions and accept appropriate consequences.
3. Returning: They build a life that no longer depends upon harmful behaviour.

There is no official moment at which redemption is declared complete.

Work and Crisis Response

Redeemers protect defectors, negotiate surrender, break compulsions, treat corruption, gather testimony, arrange restitution, and help former offenders rebuild their lives.

Their sanctuaries are called Lantern Houses.

During crises, they establish refuges for civilians, prisoners, defectors, and cursed people. They offer surrender where possible but accept that necessary force may still be required against those who continue to attack.

The faction opposes mass pardons that avoid accountability and the Pale’s attempts to alter memories or personalities in the name of redemption.

Organisation

Each Lantern House is led by a Lantern Keeper and supported by healers, counsellors, guards, teachers, and investigators.

The wider organisation is guided by the Gathering of Open Hands. Its membership balances people seeking redemption, victims, protected communities, and public safety representatives.

Xalal serves as Bright Lantern.

Ranks

1. Sheltered: A new member or resident who has accepted the Returning Path.
2. Guiding Hand: A trusted Redeemer capable of supporting others.
3. Lantern Bearer: A veteran authorised to lead missions and difficult cases.
4. Beacon: A member whose work has restored communities or created lasting paths away from harm.

Accountability

Serious cases are examined through Reviews of the Lantern. These consider the person seeking redemption, those harmed, and the conduct of the faction itself.

Members who manipulate vulnerable people, conceal ongoing abuse, or use the faction to escape responsibility may lose rank. Those who pretend to change while continuing to cause harm may be declared Pathless.

Player Characters

The Redeemers suit healers, negotiators, survivors, former criminals, former cultists, curse-breakers, investigators, and characters who believe mercy and responsibility can exist together.

Each member chooses a Personal Path, a form of healing, justice, or restoration expressed through a Lantern Promise.

Verdant Circle

True Neutral, Druidic Conservation Order
From Root to Sky, Life Endures.

Representative: Urukir, Lizard Beastfolk
Symbol: Roots beneath a spreading canopy.

Purpose

The Verdant Circle is a fellowship of druids, rangers, herbalists, farmers, hunters, naturalists, beastkeepers, and guardians dedicated to protecting the living world.

The Circle believes people are part of nature rather than separate from it. Farming, hunting, logging, mining, and settlement are not automatically opposed. The faction acts when exploitation prevents the land from recovering or denies future generations what they need to survive.

Stewardship does not mean preserving everything exactly as it is. Fire, death, migration, predation, harvesting, and change are all parts of nature.

The Circle strongly opposes magical blights, engineered diseases, corrupted animals, and attempts to turn nature into an indiscriminate weapon.

The Covenant of Root and Sky

The Covenant teaches:

The Three Stewardships

The Circle divides its work into a set of three lesser circles:

The Circle of the Wilds: Who are tasked with protecting wilderness, migration routes, rare species, and remote habitats.

The Tended Circle: Who focus on supporting farms, fisheries, settlements, roads, mines, and managed landscapes.

The Circle of Renewal: Who are responsible for restoring damaged, polluted, exhausted, or magically corrupted land.

Work and Crisis Response

The Circle maintains Sacred Groves, smaller Greenholds, and protected Seed Vaults.

Members monitor wildlife, water, soil, weather, crops, and magical contamination. They restore forests, rivers, wetlands, and farmland while helping communities use resources sustainably.

During famine, flood, fire, plague, or war, they protect wells, seed stores, livestock, farmland, forests, and medicinal plants. Restrictions upon harvesting must be accompanied by realistic alternatives.

Organisation

Each Sacred Grove is guided by a Heartwarden and a Ring of Seasons, which includes Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter Voices.

The wider faction is guided by the Great Canopy, a gathering of Heartwardens, travelling stewards, scholars, and representatives from affected communities.

Urukir serves as Father Root. He represents the Circle but does not rule it.

Ranks

1. Seed: A recognised member who has completed an act of stewardship.
2. Tender: A steward capable of caring for protected sites.
3. Warden: A veteran authorised to coordinate major interventions.
4. Heartwood: A member whose work has preserved or restored a region.

Accountability

Serious disputes are examined through Reckonings of the Seasons.

Four examiners consider what was created, what was protected, what was taken, and whether destruction was necessary.

Members who exploit protected resources, falsify reports, spread blight, or use nature against civilians may be declared Blightbound.

Player Characters

The faction suits druids, rangers, farmers, hunters, herbalists, healers, engineers, scholars, diplomats, and anyone concerned with long-term survival.

Each member chooses a Personal Stewardship, an environment, species, natural cycle, or community relationship they have accepted responsibility for. It is expressed through a Green Promise.

Oath Keepers

Lawful Good, Sacred Knightly Order
Our Word Is Our Shield.

Representative: Lagrul Arvo, Asmar
Symbol: A silver shield bearing a rising sun.

Purpose

The Oath Keepers are guardians, knights, wardens, priests, healers, and ordinary people who have sworn to protect others from violence, monsters, supernatural corruption, and war.

They defend settlements, guard dangerous roads, escort vulnerable travellers, hold threatened borders, and remain behind when others are forced to flee.

An Oath Keeper’s word is considered sacred. Members are taught never to promise lightly, because an oath binds not only the person who speaks it but everyone who chooses to trust them.

The order values courage, discipline, loyalty, and sacrifice. It does not demand fearlessness. Courage is the decision to stand firm despite fear, particularly when another person depends upon you.

The order also recognises that duty can become dangerous. An oath must protect the innocent rather than excuse cruelty, domination, or needless sacrifice.

The Covenant of Dawn

Every recognised Oath Keeper follows the Covenant of Dawn:

• Speak No Empty Promise. Understand an oath before giving it.
• Stand Between. Place yourself between danger and those unable to withstand it.
• The Protected Are Not Possessions. Protection grants no authority over another person’s choices.
• Duty Does Not Excuse Cruelty. No law, command, or promise makes an evil act righteous.
• Ask Before Sacrifice. Offer your own life, not the lives of those who made no such choice.
• Guard Even the Fallen. Prisoners and defeated enemies remain under the order’s protection.
• No Darkness Is Faced Alone. Seeking help is wisdom rather than cowardice.
• Remain Until Released. An oath continues until fulfilled, transferred, made impossible, or formally released.
• Welcome the Dawn. Protection should lead towards safety and renewed independence.

Sacred Oaths

The order distinguishes ordinary promises from Sacred Oaths.

A Sacred Oath is formally witnessed, recorded, and supported by the wider faction. Such oaths may be sworn to protect a settlement, escort refugees, guard a dangerous site, maintain a truce, defend an important route, or hunt a creature threatening innocent lives.

The order refuses oaths that demand conquest, murder, forced conversion, political obedience, or the protection of a tyrant from the consequences of their actions.

Accepted Sacred Oaths are recorded in the Book of First Light at the nearest Dawn Bastion.

Work and Crisis Response

The Oath Keepers protect communities threatened by monsters, raiders, magical disasters, tyrants, and surviving horrors of the Demon War.

They maintain fortified shelters, guard roads, train local defenders, escort refugees, protect healers, and defend settlements unable to afford soldiers of their own.

During war, they serve as defensive soldiers, battlefield guardians, escorts, and commanders. Their shield walls protect gates, hospitals, bridges, evacuation routes, and refugee camps.

The order prefers defensive action but may support an offensive campaign when it is necessary to end an immediate threat. It is reluctant to participate in wars fought for wealth, territory, revenge, or prestige.

Once an enemy surrenders or can no longer fight, they become a protected prisoner.

Organisation

The order operates through regional strongholds called Dawn Bastions and smaller outposts known as Watchfires.

Each Dawn Bastion is led by a Warden, supported by a council called the Shield Table. Its members oversee training, healing, supplies, spiritual guidance, investigations, and relations with nearby communities.

The wider order is governed by the Circle of First Light, a council of seven senior members drawn from different regions and traditions.

The Circle is led by the First Shield, who represents the order but cannot alter the Covenant of Dawn or command every Bastion without the Circle’s support.

Lagrul Arvo represents the Oath Keepers within the Heroes Guild.

Ranks

• Sworn: A recognised member who has accepted the Covenant and completed their first protective duty.
• Shield Bearer: A guardian trusted to lead small defensive missions and witness ordinary oaths.
• Dawn Warden: A veteran capable of commanding major defences and accepting Sacred Oaths.
• Oath Eternal: A member whose service has protected entire regions or permanently strengthened the order.

Authority remains limited by the Covenant. A lower-ranking member is expected to refuse an order that clearly threatens innocent people.

Accountability

Failures and accusations are examined through a formal hearing called the Weighing of Oaths.

The hearing considers the exact promise made, what the member understood, whether circumstances changed, what attempts were made to seek help, and whether fulfilling the oath would have caused greater harm.

The order does not automatically punish every failed promise. Some oaths become impossible or were made using false information.

Members who knowingly betray those under their protection, abandon an oath for personal gain, or abuse people who trusted them may be declared Forsworn.

Player Characters

The Oath Keepers suit knights, soldiers, guards, healers, priests, scouts, engineers, diplomats, messengers, and community leaders.

Former criminals, mercenaries, and servants of evil may join if they sincerely accept the Covenant of Dawn.

Each member chooses a Personal Oath, a promise or duty that guides their service. It may concern a person, settlement, road, ideal, sacred site, or threatened group.

The oath is summarised through a short Dawn Vow, such as:

• No road shall close behind the fleeing.
• While one breath remains, hope remains with it.
• No companion who can still be saved will be abandoned.

A Personal Oath should create difficult decisions without removing the character’s ability to choose.

Grand Inquisition

True Neutral, Druidic Conservation Order
From Root to Sky, Life Endures.

Representative: Urukir, Lizard Beastfolk
Symbol: Roots beneath a spreading canopy.

Purpose

The Pure Inquisition is an order of investigators, exorcists, monster hunters, scholars, priests, and disciplined warriors dedicated to uncovering evil hidden within ordinary society.

Its members investigate cults, demonic influence, possession, forbidden magic, supernatural corruption, organised sacrifice, corrupted relics, and creatures concealed among innocent communities.

The order was founded after the Demon War, when surviving cultists and servants of the Demon King infiltrated noble courts, temples, merchant guilds, and military organisations.

The Inquisition believes vigilance is a public duty. Suspicious deaths, unexplained symbols, altered records, and repeated disappearances must not be ignored merely because investigating them would inconvenience someone powerful.

It also recognises that suspicion may become its own form of evil. Members are expected to search for evidence rather than confirmation of what they already believe.

Doctrine and Controversy

The word Pure reflects the order’s belief that morality is determined primarily by nature rather than upbringing.

The Doctrine of Unclouded Light teaches that certain creatures, curses, bloodlines, and supernatural forces possess an inherent inclination towards evil that discipline and education may restrain but rarely remove.

The order is particularly hostile towards Tieflings and others descended from demons. Even those who have committed no crime may face surveillance, restricted trust, and investigation based upon their ancestry.

Some inquisitors accept that exceptional individuals may resist their inherited nature. Others believe good behaviour merely proves that corruption is presently controlled.

This doctrine creates significant conflict with the Redeemers and with communities that believe people should be judged by their actions rather than their ancestry.

The Doctrine teaches several central principles:

• Search every shadow.
• Nature may reveal danger, but deeds determine the immediate response.
• Containment comes before mercy.
• Nobles, priests, heroes, and inquisitors are not beyond examination.
• Personal hatred must not direct an investigation.
• Dangerous knowledge must be recorded and controlled.
• Major accusations and judgements must be witnessed and reviewed.
• Mercy must not place innocent people in unnecessary danger.

The Three Proofs

Before formally condemning a person or organisation, investigators seek three forms of evidence:

• Proof of Deed: Establishes what harmful act occurred and who was harmed.
• Proof of Means: Establishes how the suspect could have committed the act.
• Proof of Intent: Establishes whether the act was deliberate, accidental, coerced, or committed under supernatural control.

Possessing dangerous knowledge, magic, or equipment does not automatically prove guilt.

When lives are in immediate danger, an inquisitor may intervene before all Three Proofs have been established. The emergency action must later be recorded and reviewed.

Warrants of Illumination

Major investigations are authorised through formal documents called Warrants of Illumination.

Common Warrants include:

• Warrant of Inquiry: Authorises questioning and observation.
• Warrant of Search: Authorises the search of a named location.
• Warrant of Seizure: Authorises the confiscation of dangerous evidence.
• Warrant of Containment: Authorises the detention of an immediate supernatural threat.
• Warrant of Purification: Authorises the destruction of a confirmed threat that cannot be contained.
• Warrant of Internal Light: Authorises an investigation into members of the Inquisition.

An inquisitor may act without a Warrant when delay would place lives at immediate risk, but the action must be justified at the earliest opportunity.

Work and Crisis Response

The Inquisition investigates disappearances, forbidden rituals, desecrated sites, curses, unexplained transformations, supernatural diseases, and reports of creatures acting beyond their expected nature.

Members gather witness statements, preserve physical evidence, study historical records, and examine magical residue. Divination may support an investigation but is rarely accepted as sufficient evidence by itself.

The order operates through fortified Chapters, smaller investigative posts called Insights, and restricted collections known as Shadow Archives.

During supernatural outbreaks, the order may establish a controlled area called a White Line. Entry and exit are recorded while investigators determine how the threat spreads and who has been affected.

A White Line must provide food, water, shelter, and medical care. It is intended as containment rather than punishment.

The Inquisition also investigates false accusations during crises. Refugees, cursed survivors, unfamiliar peoples, and minority communities are often blamed for disasters they did not cause.

The order works closely with the Oath Keepers and consults the Liberians. Its relationship with the Redeemers is strained, while its hostility towards the Childer of Night and Demonata is absolute.

Organisation

Each Chapter is led by a senior member called a Chaplain and supported by a White Tribunal.

A White Tribunal normally includes:

• A senior investigator.
• A supernatural specialist.
• A legal or religious scholar.
• A containment officer.
• An examiner responsible for internal misconduct.

The wider order is governed by the Conclave of the Unclouded Eye, which establishes investigative standards, coordinates major operations, and examines accusations against senior members.

Oddersk Nobleforge represents the order within the Heroes Guild and holds the title of Examiner.

Ranks

• Candle: A recognised member who has completed basic training and assisted with an investigation.
• Investigator: A trusted member authorised to question witnesses and request minor Warrants.
• Inquisitor: A veteran capable of leading investigations and issuing Warrants.
• Detective: A member whose work has exposed major conspiracies or protected entire regions.

Rank represents investigative trust rather than holiness. Senior members receive greater scrutiny because their decisions can destroy lives, reputations, and organisations.

Accountability

Serious misconduct and contested judgements are examined through Trials of Illumination.

A Trial considers whether the Three Proofs were established, whether evidence was gathered lawfully, whether witnesses were threatened, whether favourable evidence was concealed, and whether prejudice influenced the investigation.

A failed investigation is not automatically misconduct. Honest mistakes may occur when evidence is incomplete or supernatural forces create false trails.

Members who falsify evidence, persecute innocent people, conceal corruption, or use the order for personal power may be declared Lightless.

Their Warrants are revoked, their previous findings are reviewed, and innocent people harmed by their actions must be publicly cleared where possible.

Player Characters

The Pure Inquisition suits investigators, priests, monster hunters, scholars, guards, exorcists, healers, alchemists, trackers, and survivors of supernatural corruption.

Its characters frequently confront questions involving evidence, urgency, responsibility, prejudice, and the difference between danger and guilt.

Each member chooses a Personal Vigil, a threat, mystery, or form of corruption they are dedicated to investigating.

A Personal Vigil is expressed through a short Watchword, such as:

• Authority will not hide the evidence.
• No stolen voice shall remain unheard.
• I will know what you are before I decide what you deserve.

A Personal Vigil should direct the character’s attention without deciding every case in advance.