Category:Viejos Sagrados

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“Then study with abandon,” the stranger said as great batwings burst from beneath her coat, casting a chill shadow over Mauro. “Study without restriction. Study as though your life depends upon it, then study beyond the limits of fleeting life and stale morals. Do so, and you will not just please Brightwell, you will give worth to your studies and satisfy your own hunger.”^[1]

Los Viejos Sagrados can refer to two groups:

• A group of scientists and enlightened atheists, who took control over the struggling Conquista when it was still an Island of Terror, as the clergy of Taiia was quickly losing influence due to the domain being largely magic-dead at the time. Motivated by humanitarian compassion and a genuine drive to improve the lot of all people equally, these Viejos Sagrados brought the benefits of scientific research and development, freedom from slavery and cooperation to the bickering tribes that called the land home. If the group had a weakness, it was that it was too intellectual and distant from the common man. This became a problem when la Infestación and the Red Haunt introduced a twisted mockery of democracy to the land, and los Viejos Sagrados were ousted from power and eventually shut down and dismantled.

• A secretive qabal of spellcasters, alchemists and scientists, who believe they were founded by Mauro Builterman in response to an appearance by the goddess Brightwell. In truth, the founder of this second group had an encounter with a persona of the Red Haunt, who encouraged him to learn with wild abandon and defy all limits of ethics and morality, and even to surpass mortality. The qabal has been gathering knowledge with an unquenchable thirst, engaging in circle magic and soliciting dream oracles. Recruitment is random and merciless, as the qabal occasionally leaves books of instruction where anyone might stumble upon them and either learn or perish. While the lower echelons of the group allow spellcasters and alchemists of all walks of life and alignment, advancement in the group eventually winnows out all who do not adhere to one of the alignments compatible with a Cleric of Brightwell. The qabal is not concerned with the direct betterment of mankind, as it tends to hoard most of its discoveries, but with gaining as much knowledge as possible so they might destroy the world that is and rebuild it into something better.