D&D5e - Elves of the Fehin Dae.pdf

(4182 KB) Pobierz
Elves
Of the fehin dae
A faction guide for the Divine
Shadows of Enyryss
Written by: John Adams
Introduction
I’ve felt for a long time that elves needed a bit of a
shakeup in the fantasy genre. Their society and
culture is always portrayed as aloof, but generally
on the good side of the spectrum. As such, elves
tend to be shepherds of the shorter lived races,
guiding them towards greatness and prosperity.
With this faction guide I want to reveal a
new facet of an immortal existence. One that views
the other cultures around them as mere tools to be
used, broken, and discarded at the whim of their
betters. The elves of the Fehin Dae are meant to be
masterful manipulators, moving through the shad-
ows of other civilizations and guiding the destinies
of “lesser” races to achieve a grand scheme, un-
known to those outside of the cabal’s membership.
hin Dae have remained true to their purpose since
their inception, and it would be difficult to argue
that they do not have the blessing of Enyryss.
Their historical successes could serve as proof
enough of divine grace from the Maiden of Whis-
pers.
History
The origin of the Fehin Dae lies within the conflicts
that arose during the War of Sundering when celes-
tials and fiends rose to make war against their deif-
ic masters. During this time, mortal nations
clashed with each other or tore themselves apart in
civil wars, mimicking the actions of their other-
worldly patrons.
The elvish nation of Nasqurel became a vic-
tim of these conflicts, along with the principle wor-
ship of Enyryss, the goddess of shadows. In the last
days of the War of Sundering, Enyryss was be-
trayed and struck down by her favored servant,
Ilyssara. As she fell, Enyryss reached out with the
last of her essence and took hold of the shadow of
her betrayer using it to flee to relative safety. As
Ilyssara struck the final blow, in her hubris, she
failed to notice that she no longer cast a shadow.
Within the beshadowed cathedrals of
Nasqurel, a similar betrayal was taking place. For
years the cult of Ilyssara had grown within the
church of Enyryss. With Enyryss’ faithful focusing
their efforts beyond Nasqurel’s borders keeping the
neighboring nations at each other’s throats, those
who came to revere the betrayer were able to elimi-
nate several key clergy members before suffering
retaliation.
As Enyryss’ power faded, so too did the
blessings of her clerics. While many went mad, oth-
ers came to see the betrayal within their own
church and struck back against the turncoats. Un-
fortunately, this left Nasqurel bereft of the illusions
and subterfuge that had kept it protected from the
2
Overview
The Fehin Dae are a cabal of ruthless manipulators
born from the remains of a fallen civilization. Using
a combination of potent magic and advanced tech-
nology they infiltrate nations and organizations
across the realms in pursuit of a grand, unknowa-
ble, goal.
Dynasties have risen from dust and fallen to
ash with the unseen guiding hand of the Fehin Dae.
They view the nations of other races as one might
view a pet or family business. Entire royal lines
owe their existence to these secretive elves and like-
ly don’t even realize it. Every action of the Fehin
Dae is carefully planned, sometimes for decades, to
create the maximum desired effect.
All of these machinations are orchestrated
as a form of worship or reverence to Enyryss, the
fallen goddess of shadows. Enyryss was slain dur-
ing the War of Sundering, but the Fehin Dae be-
lieve that she is merely wounded and waiting for
her opportunity to emerge once more and reclaim
her throne from the usurpers. Whether there is any
truth to this belief remains to be seen, but the Fe-
predations of its neighbors who soon turned their
crusaders toward the elven forest.
The border villages were trampled beneath
the heavy booted feet of humanity’s soldiers while
the elven clerics slew each other within the tem-
ples. The chaos and uncertainty forced many citi-
zens of Nasqurel to attempt to flee their forest
home, meeting with varied degrees of success.
When Ilyssara struck the final blow against
Enyryss and the fallen goddess stole her betrayer’s
shadow, a curse tore through Ilyssara’s cultists
that transformed them into horrifying creatures
now called bhaynes. The touch of shadow burns
these creatures and within the forests their echoing
howls pierced the daylight hours until they could
climb to the top of the forest canopy where they
now reside.
Before the final crusades descended on
Nasqurel’s cities and the betrayers of Ilyssara were
cursed to remain in the treetops during the day-
light hours, several remaining clergy of Enyryss
that had escaped madness, managed to abscond
with a small library of tomes and relics and retreat
from the capital to take refuge in the forest. Using
their limited arcane knowledge, and what few of
Enyryss’ blessings remained, they managed to hide
themselves from the marauding crusaders as well
as the bhaynes until the fighting had subsided.
As the dust settled, Nasqurel was no more
and its people suffered greatly under the yoke of
their conquerors as their culture and knowledge
were slowly eroded away and lost to the chaotic
entropy of history. The Fehin Dae survived amidst
the ruins of their former civilization for a time, but
while the First Council were without divine assis-
tance, they were practiced deceivers and manipula-
tors and eventually insinuated themselves into the
society of their nation’s conquerors, where they
waited, observed, and plotted.
Dae gathered influence and power in secret, ma-
nipulating nobility and criminals alike within the
nation of Feron through blackmail, misdirection,
and arcane enchantments. Over time these manip-
ulations fomented into civil war and shattered
Feron into the independent city-states now collec-
tively known as the Rivenlands. With the success
of their scheme came a brief vision; the faintest of
whispers from a goddess that was thought to be
dead. With this vision came purpose, and the cler-
ics of Enyryss anointed themselves as the First
Council of the Fehin Dae. With the few faithful
still at their side, the First Council began to extend
their grasp beyond the borders of the Rivenlands
to guide nations, great families, and powerful indi-
viduals into ruin as sacrifices to the Whispering
Maiden to restore their goddess with the wreckage
of those that ushered in her downfall.
Within the following century, the Fehin
Dae cemented their hold over the Rivenlands
through a cautious campaign of manipulation that
stoked the flames of the feuding nobility. Those in
power that could be seen as a threat were often de-
posed by agitators and revolutionaries who had no
idea that they were pawns of the First Council.
The various city-states were often goaded into
wars to foster mistrust and feuds between families
that could eventually have grown into a unifying
force. The Fehin Dae became masters of the crimi-
nal underworld and noble courts of the Rivenlands
without most people even knowing that they exist-
ed. Because they numbered so few, roughly two
dozen elves, the faithful of Enyryss operated
through proxy, using other organizations to ac-
complish the less important aspects of an individu-
al mission while the elves focused solely upon the
most important tasks required for success. This
success almost always involved the dissolution of
one or more of the proxies used by the fledgling
organization, usually those who had the most con-
tact with Fehin Dae agents.
3
Over the next several decades, the Fehin
After the Fehin Dae had a secure hold in
the Rivenlands, they began to focus on outward
pursuits. They looked to the noble families of
neighboring kingdoms and contemplated how their
brief existence could be leveraged against them.
The elves collected vast knowledge of noble geneal-
ogies and national histories. Using this knowledge,
the Fehin Dae began to truly play the long game.
The elves guided the evolution of entire bloodlines
of humanity through arranged marriages and scan-
dalous affairs to guide generations toward power or
ruin as they desired. The dynasties of the broken
empire of Tarkenwold, that ruled for over four cen-
turies, owed their creation and existence to the
guiding hand of the Fehin Dae, but so too did the
ravening hordes of Solken Lok that marched across
the steppe to tear down the Tarkenwold walls.
Throughout the centuries, the Fehin Dae
have orchestrated the collapse of numerous re-
gimes without discovery. The Balgrid Mercantile
Guild’s collapse after the discovery of powerful de-
monic relics in several of their warehouses, the
usurpation of the throne in the kingdom of Velgun
by a relatively minor noble family, and the frac-
turing of the thieves guild of Port Allor into multi-
ple warring sects are all examples of the Fehin
Dae’s extensive reach. The nearest they ever came
to a failure was when several freelance adventurers
unwittingly interfered with a plot against a power-
ful merchant guild in the kingdom of Gormensk.
The adventurers discovered the conspiracy by acci-
dent while working for the local magistrate to
track down a guild of thieves. The thieves in ques-
tion had ties to the Fehin Dae, and key infor-
mation about their part in the conspiracy. The dis-
covery of this information opened an investigation
that revealed the much grander scheme against the
guild and their associates.
The Fehin Dae in charge of this operation,
Nalise, had to act quickly to sever any leads that
could reveal her organization’s existence. As such
the memory alterations and record purges were
performed at a substandard level which allowed
some rumors to circulate that a secretive organiza-
tion was somehow controlling vast portions of the
criminal elements within several cities of the
realm. The merchant guild initially profited from
its infamy as a target of the Fehin Dae, but their
accounts eventually dried up as former business
contacts began to utilize competing guilds. Thus
cementing the rumors of a great shadow cabal as
fact among the citizenry of Gormensk.
The following decades leading up to present
day saw the Fehin Dae scale back many of their
operations to avoid discovery. Instead they fo-
cused much more on recruitment in order to reduce
their reliance on outside elements that lacked the
proper discretion.
The recruitment had mixed results. Many
of the elves remaining in the Rivenlands had be-
come comfortable with their positions in the, pre-
dominantly human, city-states. In a somewhat un-
characteristic move, however, half-elves began to
be approached as possible candidates. The societal
isolation endured by half-elves meant that many
were eager to join an organization that welcomed
them, gaining the Fehin Dae multitudes of skilled
operatives. Though half-elves
aren’t typically well
regarded by their elven peers unless they distin-
guish themselves in a truly grand fashion.
Organization
The Fehin Dae is a relatively small organization
that wields immense influence. They accomplish
this by using small teams, or even solo operatives,
that infiltrate the influential facets of a society and
manipulate its members toward whatever goal
they desire via blackmail, extortion, seduction,
bribery, disinformation, and, occasionally, murder.
Due to the incredibly long lifespan afforded to
elves, the plans of these infiltrators take place over
the course of years or even decades.
4
At the head of the Fehin Dae are the mem-
bers of the First Council. These elves are the same
priests and priestesses of Enyryss that evaded the
subjugation of Nasqurel over a thousand years
ago. They are ancient, even by elven standards,
and rarely interact directly with anyone beyond
the other members of the First Council. They pre-
fer, instead to communicate their wishes through
an artifact known as the Shadowmind which can
communicate across vast distances with a form of
telepathy to implant an agent’s orders directly into
their mind.
Each of the five Councilors, or Drusei, are in
charge of a single facet of the Fehin Dae’s opera-
tion. Lirwen is the Councilor in charge of the or-
ganization’s arcane development, the Istan Ruil.
The wizards and sorcerers under her command are
responsible for developing the powerful memory
altering enchantments and the various arcane tools
and implements used by the Fehin Dae to hinder
divination magic used against them.
Derisand is the Councilor in charge of the
Fehin Dae’s technological advancements in the
Glaross Ruil. His crystalline technology has been
used to create several unique weapons and surveil-
lance devices utilized by the Fehin Dae. This divi-
sion contains many of the youngest members of the
organization as well as the largest concentration of
half-elves amongst the Fehin Dae.
Tesiren is the Councilor in charge of the Fe-
hin Dae’s recruitment efforts with the Annura
Ruil. She allows the priests and priestesses of her
group great autonomy when choosing individuals
or groups to target for potential recruitment. Tesi-
ren does, however, take great pains to monitor and
research the potential recruits to make sure they
can be trusted. Any that she deems incapable or
untrustworthy vanish before they are offered a
place in the organization. This typically happens
without an individual recruiter’s knowledge.
Ilduan is the Councilor in charge of the or-
ganization’s training group, the Misaani Ruil.
Ilduan works very closely with Tesiren when deter-
mining a recruit’s placement within the organiza-
tion. Each recruit is paired with a personal tutor
that directs their training and prepares them for
whatever duties they will be performing in the Fe-
hin Dae. Depending on a recruit’s previous experi-
ence and skills, training can last anywhere from 2
years up to 2 decades. During this time the recruit
learns how to utilize the various magical and tech-
nological items used by he Fehin Dae, spy craft
techniques, assorted mnemonic exercises, and cul-
tural knowledge of the region in which they will be
operating to mold them into highly skilled and
adaptable agents of the Fehin Dae. It is also during
this time that the recruit is educated on the tenets
of Enyryss and the divine purpose driving the Fe-
hin Dae.
Nusaar is the Councilor in charge of the
largest sub-group of the Fehin Dae, the Lussa Ruil.
Members of this group are the agents which ven-
ture into the wider world to sow chaos, mistrust,
and eventually the downfall of the nation, guild, or
noble family that is targeted as a sacrifice to
Enyryss. These agents are given little direction as
to how to accomplish their task. The objective is
always the same, however, total collapse.
Within each of these groups, the individuals
hold a rank that differs only in its moniker, de-
pendent upon which group they work with . An
operative from the Lussa Ruil holds the same level
of influence as an arcanist of the Istan Ruil. Over
the decades an unofficial rank came into use that is
reserved for members that have participated in
multiple successful operations, or offerings as the
Fehin Dae are fond of saying. The rank is Nual-
than and is used as a prefix to the operatives nor-
mal rank to denote a sort of seniority amongst
their peers. An individual whose advice should be
heeded because of their experience in the field. Be-
5

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika:

Zgłoś jeśli naruszono regulamin