The Foxfire Syndicate

Codename: “Illumine the Shadows”
Classification: Restricted / Eyes Only
Status: Active (Unconfirmed)

Overview

The Foxfire Syndicate is not a guild, not a cult, and certainly not an army — it is an idea wearing a dozen faces. Existing in whispers between realms, this network of spies, scholars, and assassins moves unseen through the arteries of the world. Its creed, “Illumine the Shadows,” is less a motto than a paradox: truth, they claim, can only be revealed by those willing to hide within lies.

Officially, the Syndicate does not exist. Unofficially, its fingerprints are everywhere — forged documents in Dirkshire’s archives, missing research notes in Faladrim’s libraries, and coded messages hidden within the sermons of the Church of Lost Hope. When the Convergence tore the veil between realities, the Syndicate did not flee the chaos. It listened to it. Then it began to speak back.

Doctrine and Purpose

The Foxfire Syndicate believes that truth is the only divine constant, and that the Convergence — the bleeding together of worlds — is the universe’s final lie. To them, knowledge itself is salvation, and ignorance the truest sin.

Their doctrine, known internally as the Litany of the Hidden Flame, teaches three tenets:

Every secret burns. To hide truth is to feed corruption.
Illumination demands sacrifice. No revelation comes without blood.
The fox runs ahead of the fire. The Syndicate must stay unseen until the blaze is unstoppable.

Paradoxically, their secrecy protects the very light they claim to serve. For every truth they uncover, a dozen shadows are cast to conceal it — and somewhere within those shadows, X and Y wait, pulling threads only they can see.

Hierarchy

“X” – Title: The Lantern Bearer
The unseen leader of the Syndicate. All references to X are written in red ink and burned upon reading. Some believe X is not one being but several acting as one voice through shared possession or illusion. Others claim X was the first kitsune to survive a direct Convergence echo — a creature who remembers too many lifetimes.
“Y” – Title: The Shadowed Tongue
Acts as the Syndicate’s enforcer and executioner. Y is said to move through reflections, appearing wherever betrayal threatens the cause. The few who have seen Y’s face describe it as both male and female, mortal and spectral — possibly a glamour woven from dozens of stolen identities.

Below them, ranks dissolve into function rather than form: Whisperers (informants), Embers (field operatives), and Ashen (cleaners). Membership is transient — names shift, memories are rewritten, sometimes willingly. Every operative knows only their handler and their next task. None know the full truth, for truth itself is the Syndicate’s most dangerous weapon.

Known Associates

Ashira — The Hand of Atonement
Once a healer, now a blade. The Syndicate’s scholars describe her as “the mercy that bleeds.” Ashira sees no contradiction between faith and murder — to her, both are acts of balance. Where the innocent suffer, she brings light; where the corrupt thrive, she brings flame. It is rumored that she alone speaks directly with X, though none can prove it.

Saya, The Forgotten Fox
A prodigy turned pariah. Her failed mission — the spirit-binding of a noble — unleashed a Convergence echo so potent it erased her identity and fractured several city wards. The Syndicate declared her a liability; Y marked her for retrieval. Yet some operatives now whisper her name in reverence, believing her amnesia a sign of divine selection — a fox reborn by the Convergence itself. Others hunt her as a living heresy.

Influence Across Pooflandya

Though the Syndicate’s numbers are few, their reach defies logic. From the slums of Dirkshire’s industrial maze to the ruined temples of Cyndralis, encoded messages appear like sparks in the dark. Their operatives infiltrate factions, sowing dissent and illumination alike. The first leaked documents describing the Convergence phenomenon — the same reports now circulated among the Arasaka archives and Vermossa Council records — originated from a single Foxfire cipher.

To the Syndicate, this act was not treason. It was revelation. They believe the world’s salvation lies not in defeating the Convergence, but in understanding it fully, even if that understanding consumes them.

Secrecy and the Price of Knowledge

The Syndicate’s secrecy is not born of fear, but of necessity. The Convergence feeds upon awareness — the more one studies it, the more it studies back. Each operative who learns too much risks drawing the attention of something vast and sentient within the phenomenon. Thus, the Syndicate hides its truths in layers of deception, hoping to trick the cosmos itself into looking elsewhere.

For every truth they uncover, a memory is erased; for every revelation shared, another operative disappears. Whether these vanishings are the work of Y or of the Convergence itself is unknown.

Recovered Fragment — Author Unknown

(The following text was found etched into a glass shard recovered from the ruins of a Dirkshire warehouse, sealed within a lockbox marked “FFS-Redline.”)

“Light does not banish darkness. It reveals it.
The Convergence is not our enemy — ignorance is. If the gods won’t speak truth, we will steal it from their tongues.
And if the world burns for it, then let it burn bright enough to show what’s been hiding beneath.”