Hidden Powers Behind the Ashes
In a land where kingdoms crumble, tribes scatter, and beasts rule the wastes, true power often belongs not to the crowned or the mighty, but to those who dwell in shadow. Evil Land’s secret organizations thrive in alleys, caverns, ruins, and even the minds of its people. They wage silent wars, guard forbidden truths, and shape the destinies of nations without ever stepping into the light.
Here is a catalogue of the most whispered-of secret societies — cabals, cults, and conspiracies — whose tendrils reach deep into Evil Land’s veins.
Origin: Descendants of an ancient assassin’s guild that pledged themselves to guard Evil Land from tyrants.
Purpose: They murder kings, generals, and warlords they deem too cruel — but their definition of cruelty changes with every generation.
Methods: Cloaked in bramble-woven garments, they use poisons brewed from venomous flora.
Secrets: Some say the Veil no longer kills for justice but for profit, having been bought by megacorporations. Others claim they are cultivating a living weapon — a thorned child who will bleed poison into any throne they touch.
Origin: Survivors of the Temple of the First Dawn, driven mad when its light vanished.
Purpose: They consume sun-scorched relics and burnt offerings, believing they will birth a “new dawn” from their bodies.
Methods: Ritual cannibalism of those who die under sunlight; secret feasts held at midday when shadows are shortest.
Secrets: Rumor insists their leader has swallowed the Dawn-Spark, glowing faintly in the dark like a coal inside his stomach.
Origin: Traders and caravaneers who once crossed the Bridge of the Thousand Lanterns before it fell.
Purpose: To restore lost trade by controlling hidden tunnels and forgotten paths.
Methods: They guide caravans safely at night with star-lit lanterns — but only if paid in secrets, not coin.
Secrets: Their lanterns contain fragments of imprisoned stars. They bargain with factions by selling directions to treasures, though never the treasures themselves.
Origin: Formed by scholars who escaped the Black Library of Korrithane before it froze.
Purpose: To preserve fragments of forbidden knowledge by singing them in coded hymns.
Methods: They gather in abandoned temples, blending sacred chants with records of arcane formulae.
Secrets: To learn too many of their songs is to risk crystallizing into black glass. Many choir members already bear crystalline growths along their faces and throats.
Origin: Nomads who worship the Singing Fragment of the City of Shards.
Purpose: They seek to rebuild the shattered city from scattered crystals across the wastes.
Methods: They tattoo their skin with glass shards and walk barefoot across jagged fields.
Secrets: Whispers say their leaders are already half-glass, their voices resonating like wind-chimes. They may be building a living city made of themselves.
Origin: Spawned from the ruins of Evil Land’s megacorporations.
Purpose: To reclaim dominion by binding the world to contracts and debts.
Methods: They deal in ledgers inked with blood, binding even the poor to lifetimes of service.
Secrets: They own the Ledger of Forgotten Debt, ensuring that even the dead repay them. Some suspect they have already enslaved ghosts to balance their accounts.
Origin: Sailors of the Crimson Harbor who were stranded when the sea retreated.
Purpose: To bring the sea back by offering blood and salt.
Methods: They sabotage wells and poison rivers, leaving behind coiled serpents of salt as their mark.
Secrets: Their rituals are said to stir tides beneath the soil. If they succeed, whole kingdoms may drown inland.
Origin: Swamp-priests who believe the Frog-Crown of the Spire will awaken their “sleeping gods.”
Purpose: To prepare the land for the gods’ return by spreading plague and rot.
Methods: They wear masks carved like frog faces, croaking hymns in unison during midnight rites.
Secrets: Their leader claims to already hear dead gods speaking through frogs’ throats. Some believe the cult is breeding amphibian abominations.
Origin: Fire-worshippers who survived the Ashen Palace of Veyth.
Purpose: To ignite Evil Land until nothing but flame remains.
Methods: They build braziers atop hills, sacrificing cities as “offerings” to their god of cinder.
Secrets: They are obsessed with finding the Ember Throne, believing that whoever sits upon it will ascend as a living fire.
Origin: Formed from survivors who once chased the Caravan of Mirrors.
Purpose: To use illusions and reflections to manipulate rulers and armies.
Methods: Their wagons appear where hope is weakest, showing visions of futures that lure victims into ruin.
Secrets: Some claim the Shrouded Caravan and the original Caravan of Mirrors are one and the same, endlessly circling the land in overlapping realities.
Origin: Beast-priests who venerate the Hollow Behemoth and other monstrous titans.
Purpose: To call the great beasts back to dominance over man.
Methods: They carve horns and fangs into instruments, playing songs that summon beasts to cities.
Secrets: They believe the Fang of the Hollow Behemoth is a holy relic. Whoever wields it will become the beast’s new incarnation.
Origin: Miners and alchemists who once worked along the River of Forgetting Gold.
Purpose: To rediscover the last veins of gold and harness its memory-erasing power.
Methods: They erase witnesses, often paying their assassins with dust that removes the memory of murder.
Secrets: Their vaults contain dust enough to erase whole generations — if loosed, history itself could be wiped blank.
Origin: Heirs of the Theatre of Whispering Masks, who believe truth itself is the ultimate performance.
Purpose: To strip the falsehoods of rulers, exposing corruption through staged revelations.
Methods: They wear bone masks that force their victims to confess hidden crimes in public gatherings.
Secrets: Some say the Pale Stage has infiltrated royal courts, steering politics by planting masks upon sleeping rulers.
Origin: A secretive society of scribes and survivors who seek to recover the People’s Last Treasure.
Purpose: To restore the collective memory of Evil Land, no matter the cost.
Methods: They tattoo histories onto their bodies and pass memories orally in coded stories.
Secrets: If they succeed, they could unify Evil Land — or break it apart forever by revealing truths factions cannot endure.
These secret organizations are the veins and shadows of Evil Land, the unseen movers behind its ruin. Some whisper of lost dawns, some drown kingdoms in salt, some deal in debts, and others dream of restoring what was broken.
They do not fight openly like tribes or kingdoms; they work in silence, letting rumor and ritual do their killing. Yet their power is undeniable. To encounter one of these cabals is to risk being bound in their webs forever, for in Evil Land, the shadows are often stronger than the sunlight.