Adventure: The Culling

[Carthrat]

Religions of Note Within the World

1) Church of Selene

The Church of Selene has strong origins in Europe, particularly France, England, and Spain. It's know that they hold *many* ancient old estates and mansions as part of their holdings, along with all sorts of antiques, books, and whatnot. In general, they have enough money to do pretty much whatever they want, and they're not above throwing it around in order to get the right people to the right places.

Selene, the goddess, is associated with celestial bodies as a whole, though her primary link is with the Earth Moon, Lunar. Her clerics portray her as a benevolent deity, and many of them are employed as doctors, paramedics, defence lawyers for the poor, and aid workers.

Quite a few clerics also take a more aggressive approach, seeking to root out all sorts of evil as it appears.

This all being said, Selene herself is more of a neutral figure. She certainly lends her power to her chosen, and the majority of these figures are kind and just people.

A few, who gain her powers for reasons unknown to the rest of the flock, participate in all sorts of criminal activities; drugs, criminal aid, corrupt lawyers, whatever. This are a minority, but a steadily growing minority at the same time.

No cleric of Selene is supposed to hurt another, but they come into conflict often enough anyway. If two members are at odds with each other, they lose all mystical powers for the duration; in general, both clerics give up and go away, leaving whatever groups are involved to fend for themselves.

Selenites are generally rich enough to be above bribery and mercenary duty. They focus far more strongly on the causes and motives involved; exactly what drives a Selenite is often a mystery to all involved. There are no real 'Churches' of Selene, unless you count every house in which a Selenite lives; they all become a temple to the Goddess.

Recently, the Church has been copping a great deal of flak from the other power groups. The Church of Mystrix, usually on even terms with Selene, has recently begun making aggressive noises towards them. The reason for this is unknown to outsiders; apparently, there was some kind of fight a few months ago, in which a Selenite killed a Mystrix devotee. Details are generally unknown.

What motivates Selene herself is unknown to outsiders. All that is really known is that you can't expect any one thing from a Selenite.

2) Church of Mystrix

In stark contrast to the Church of Selene is the Church of Mystrix. While the Selenite clergy are generally rich, comfortable, and doing what they will at their leisure, the average Mystrix Devotee comes from a city slum, lives off McDonalds muffins and way too much pepsi, is in cahoots with several gothic clubs, wears black clothes, dyes her hair red... and all the rest of it.

Mystrix herself is the self-styled goddess of Magic. The Cabal of Dastran was initially not impressed with this title, but upon discovering that the church had all sorts of horrible magic they'd never heard of (and the Cabal has heard of alot), they decided to 'allow' Mystrix her status. Mystrix promotes the use of magic in all its forms; she would like nothing more than to see magic being used in everyday life by all humans, everywhere. As a result, she *hates* most technology. She's got no problem with it being used by her own clergy, of course; but she loathes how it dominates the world, as the 'Dominant Paradigm'.

These days, devotees hang around in large gangs, wandering around and beating up Clerics of Selene wherever they can find them. Animosity has grown to such a ridiculous height that the Clerics have started hiring bodyguards, while the Devotees have started paying the Cabal with astonishing amounts of drugs and magical lore to get them to go out and punt around the Selenites.

Much like Selene, there aren't any real churches to Mystrix. The advent of the mobile phone means that every Devotee can easily find others nearby, and quickly congregate to do whatever needs doing. It's somewhat ironic that for a deity so against the spread of technology, the Devotees use it so often.

3) Other Religions

Most religions are, simply put, frauds. Christianity is *not*, at least, in part. Nobody really knows what happenes to the spirits of people upon death, and many people don't really want to.

There's all and sundry gods out there, many of whom have *very little power*. However, those gods who have only a few devoted believers are among the most dangerous; these people have all of their gods power vested in them, making them as potent as any Selenite. With almost blind fanaticism to spreading their deity's message, they're capable of truly radical acts.

Most Divine power is vested in Selene and Mystrix, however, and out of all the groups that hide themselves from public scrutiny as a whole, these powers are the ones that seek to spread themselves more thoroughly.

[Carthrat]

Cabal of Dastran

The Cabal of Dastran is the last non-religious magical power of any note. Mages fall into two main types; those who are in the cabal and those who aren't. Those who aren't fall into a further three types; Dead, Running, or so powerful that the Cabal leaves them along.

The goal of the Cabal, founded by Kelas Dastran in the days of yore, is to rule the world. Some might argue they've already fulfilled this goal. They have people everywhere, and they have people watching those people, and people watching those people, and... *things* watching those people.

The reason the Cabal hasn't outright come to claim the world is very simple. If they revealed themselves, they'd get flattened by the collective might of the rest of humanity- and they'd probably lay waste to huge chunks of the world in the process, but at the end of the day, they'd all be dead.

Nobody likes the Cabal (except *maybe* the Church of Mistrix, who regard the Cabal as a bunch of dogs to be used as needed), but nobody can deny it's power (again, except the aforementioned Church, members of which take great delight in putting wayward magi in their place.)

The current head of the Cabal, Guy Reigheart, claims direct decendance from Dastran himself. His current plan is about as crazy as that of his ancestor; he plans to create a Mind Control spell *so powerful* that he can dominate the entire world at once. Needless to say, not all of the Cabalites are thrilled with this option, but since most can't compare with him, they generally just hope he'll die of old age before his plans come anywhere near something resembling fruition.

The average Cabalist has free reign to do as he wishes- when he's not under orders from a superior. The pecking order in the Cabal narrows alarmingly quickly, so there are only a few Cabalites who really give the orders. Reigheart spends most of his time in his magical laboritories, leaving the rest of the bigwigs to do what they please.

The majority of Cabalists are black warlocks, who revel in their power and enjoy using it to dominate the humans around them. They must be careful, however- more than one mage has met his end at the hands of a vengeful Selenite, Kensei, or other vigilante. Their magic runs the gamut from destructive to cognitive to manipulative- if the Cabal hasn't heard of a spell, it probably doesn't exist.

A few Cabalists are good people who have been forced to join the Cabal or die. Because assassination is the only real way to gain more political power within the Cabal, very few of these mages (even the talented ones) are in positions of controlling power. They try to stem to atrocities performed by the Cabal, and head off other Cabalists in their own quests for power.

There are only two real groups of people Cabalists fear. The first is the Church of Mystrix, who have all sorts of strange counters for Cabal magic, and have a philosophy of hammering down the Cabalist that sticks up.

The other people are Kensei. Cabalists, oddly, *never* hire Kensei for any operation. Because these swordmasters are incredible dangerous, often very clever, and are always spoiling for a 'challenging fight', Cabalists often find themselves put into positions where they will be forced to fight these men. Often, they'd rather run away- something of which many Kenei are taking note, and therefore adjusting their 'hunts' accordingly.

[Bjorn]

Hm.  I have a concept for a non-Cabalist (running) mage.  I'll try to flesh out a background asap.

[Dracos]

Brian:
I've heard.  And anyway, you know me, I claim an area and then make the concept that fits there later. =)

Rat:
Hum.  Will have to read later.

Dracos

[Anastasia]

GM to GM question here, Rat.

Are you planning on using any of the PCs from the Adventure incarnations? I don't object on principal, but I would like to chat with you if you are going to use any.

[Carthrat]

THE PC, Dune, and most likely not. I'm sure he has more important things to do. Same goes for his gang.

NPCs? Maybe. I'll chat with you about that. Certainly they're around.

<->

Kensei

Kensei is a term used as a whole to denote swordsmen so skilled that they can excise supernatural ability through their intense focus.

You can further seperate these humans from other warriors who are simply 'skilled' by their motivations. Most swordsmen fight for a cause they strongly believe in; rather than intense focus, their belief and emotion give them strength. Kensei, however, derive their ability from their sheer skill. He may brag about his abilities, he may fly into a temper, he may fall in love, but when it comes to a fight, he never lets these things stir his skill.

That's not to say he won't fight *because* of these emotions. It's a fine line to draw. However, most Kensei fight because they live to perfect their abilities. Morality frequently takes second place among these men; first and foremost is the fight. To find worthy fights, they ally themselves with many different groups, often supporting themselves as mercenaries. They only wish to engage the strongest of foes they encounter; they disdain weaker men as not worth dispatching.

Some Kensei have strong views on killing; some do not. While their first priority may be to improve their skills, they are still only human, and thus can be driven by all the same things any normal man can be drove by. The greatest battles they hope to fight are against other swordmasters. As a result, their numbers are kept low (eliciting a giant sigh of relief from the rest of the community).

Despite the name, Kensei use all sorts of weapons, and come from all sorts of places. The origins of the traditions are found in the ancient times, when civilisation had not yet fully formed on Earth. Almost every culture has some example of these masters, and while presently, most Kensei originate from Japan, they can be found all over the world.

The core traditions of all remain essentially the same, and can be summed up as follows;

1) Always seek to improve your skills.
2) Petty Feelings are a mere distraction.
3) To Fight is to Live.

Fewer kensei than ever are accepting of the second tradition, which may soon fade into obscurity. However, it is the truth that the greatest masters follow all three, counting their days only by the flesh they cleave, and acting like you'd expect a psychotic murder-starved maniac to act.

Among other power groups, Kensei have quite understandably gained a reputation as insane mercenaries. Their numbers are thankfully few, but as so many people have found themselves attacked by uncannily skilled swordsmen for no good reason, many groups try their hardest to avoid the Kensei alltogether- or hire one of their own. Perhaps these fighters will kill each other, leaving the real thinkers alive and well.

[Anastasia]

*WAves the flag of I suck*

Yeah, I meant NPCs. I think you got the drift, though.