by J. Edward Tremlett (Wraith: The Oblivion | Resources)
The Proctors
Nicknames: Day-Trippers, Death-Deniers, Fleshies, Hedonists, Jellybodies, Sensualists, Sexfreaks
Guildmasters: None. The "Guildmaster" the other Guilds speak to is a figurehead: basically the only one who wanted the job and was willing to stick his neck out. He claims to speak with a body known as "The Corpus," which is elected by their Congress to decide overall policy for the Guild, but this is also a lie.
Since the time of the 6th Great Maelstrom, the "Guildmaster" has been Grand Master Donatien. How long he will be able to maintain the illusion of being the Guildmaster - or having any power at all - is unknown. But Donatien is nothing if not crafty...
Center of Power: None to speak of. With the "elevation" of Grand Master Donatien to the Guildmasters, his Haunt of Charenton Asylum, in Paris, has been set up as the center of the "Guild," but that's as much of a smokescreen as anything else. In fact, the true "Guildhouse" of Paris is quite some distance away from the asylum, and Donatien is under strict orders not to go there for fear of compromising security.
Specialty Arcanos: Embody
Organization
The Cult's organization is local, rather than empire-spanning. This is done both to deny their enemies a chance to decapitate them with one blow, and to deny the Cult's members the distraction of temporal power. Of course, that doesn't stop some from getting enmeshed in Cult politics, but those who climb to the top of the heap often find that it's not very tall after all.
The lowest, yet most important, level of organization for the Cult is the local "Guildhaunt," known as a Manor. This is made up of a few Households - groups of low-ranking Proctors who specialize in one particular task - and the Masters they serve. It is led by one Grand Master, who holds total control over the Manor's activities.
Grand Masters are usually appointed by the outgoing Grand Master. Often, this occurs when the soon-to-be-previous Grand Master has had enough and wants to practice what she preaches, or is just about to face a coup attempt. And sometimes the Grand Master gets the position via an overthrow, but these administrations rarely last long. In a case where there's a vacant seat and no obvious candidate, the Masters vote.
All Manors in a local area are grouped into a Society. A Society has no leader, no decisive body and no regular timetable for meeting. In fact, Societies rarely meet, except in times of great emergency or opportunity, and even then there is no compunction for a Manor to send a delegation just because another Manor said they should get together and talk. The best the delegations can hope for is that the announcement is worth the bother of showing up.
The only true job that the Societies can do is to negotiate with groups of outsiders. If talks with the Guilds, other groups, or the Hierarchy are called for, a Society is called, and the delegates who agree to help the Manor in question decide amongst themselves who will go to represent the Manor, or the Society as a whole. That way, the outsiders have no true idea who they're dealing with. The Manor they represent is bound to the agreement made, though, so it's advisable to have at least one member of the Manor in question along with the others.
The entire body of the Cult is called the Congress, but, as with the Societies, this is a very informal thing. If a Society thinks there's a need for a Congress to be called, then it's considered a show of good faith for the other Societies to meet and choose delegates to travel to Stygia. This happens very rarely: usually when the "Guildmaster" has news of huge import, or some terrible emergency that threatens the entire Cult is in the offing. (A recent example was when the Proctors decided to back the Loyalists during the Insurrection.)
The "Guildmaster" is elected by delegates to the Congress. As previously mentioned, this is a leadership role in name only. The Guildmaster can do no more than report back what's been said and done at the meetings, and act as a figurehead for the "Guild." Any promises she makes are hardly binding to the group as a whole, and any orders she gives are at the discretion of the Guild Masters to enforce or ignore.
Outside of the structure are the High Masters: those Proctors who have developed the ideas on Transcendence that that Cult follows. Most of them can be found in the Skinlands, practicing their philosophies. Ideally, a Proctor should seek one of these august Gaunts out for personal instruction and inspiration. However, some of the High Masters are very dedicated to their regimens, and would rather their devotees read their books, notes or websites rather than bothering them with endless questions.
While they are a Cult, and not a Guild, the Proctors retain the standard names for ranks within the organization. This is to maintain yet another level of deception.
Their new recruits start out as Apprentices, and they know next to nothing about what they have just joined. They work in a Household and are led to believe that their Household is the whole of the Proctor population in town. At some point, they are given a surreptitious, unannounced test by the Master who oversees their Household. Those who pass are told of their success, and become Journeymen, and those who fail are not told there was a test at all, and are sent off to a different, "special" Household - the Rapscallions (described below)
Journeymen are let in on the fact that there are more Households in the Necropolis, but never allowed to think there are any more than that. While they toil, their Masters watch for the ones who have the special temperament to believe in Transcendence, work independently towards it, and be trusted with secrets.
More sneaky tests are given to these few. The ones who fail are never told of their failure, and left to toil in the Household until such time as they can pass those tests. Those who succeed, however, are led by their Master to the Necropolis' Manor. There, the worthy is introduced to her fellow Masters, and the Grand Master, who tells the inductee the true purpose of the "Guild." She is made to swear an oath to never reveal the true nature of the Proctors to anyone, and after that point she is a Master, and worthy to be called a true Proctor.
There will be a brief period of education in how the Cult operates, no more than six months to a year in length. After that, the Master has options presented to her: she can go back to working in the Household, or else spend time in personal researches, travel to study under one of the High Masters, or go back to the Skinlands to try and begin the process of Transcendence on their own.
As previously mentioned, the Households are - for many outsiders - the "true" face of the Cult. They do the tasks that the "Guild" is best known for. While a Society has to be called to deal with groups of outsiders, members of a Household can do their own dickering and bargaining with individuals.
They are:
Seneschals: (Cloaked Daggers)
The Seneschals maintain the guild's library, most of which is written down in books hidden throughout the Skinlands. They also maintain a Skinlands spy network that may well rival the Masquers' Shadowlands one. Their sobriquet comes from their penchant of killing any Skinlands informants who find out that they've been dealing with a ghost.
Alchemists: (Guinea Pigs)
Not to be confused with the lost cousins of the Artificers, the Alchemists are the Household that tests new, experimental Arts out for the Masters. The problem with this is that such things are not so much a science as a mystical hodgepodge of guesswork, and sometimes Embody can go horribly, terribly wrong.
Gardeners: (Skin Mechanics)
The Gardeners water the flowers left behind by their fellow Proctors: they look after the families, feed the fish, pay the last bills, and make sure prized possessions stay in good condition and don't get boosted by crackheads. Their other primary duty is to look after Fetters for fellow Guildsmen.
Guardians: (Watchdogs)
The Gardeners look after the Fetters of their fellow Proctors, but the Guardians are the ones who are paid to gather, and then watch over, the Fetters of other Wraiths. This is one of the ways that the Cult makes money, and tends to put them either in competition, or cooperation, with the Spooks and the Monitors.
Blackguards: (Hammers)
The opposite side of the Guardians' coin, the Blackguards are hired out to find and then destroy the Fetters of other Wraiths. This endeavor pays well, and also puts them in competition with the Spooks and the Monitors. Especially the Spooks.
Rapscallions: (Failures)
In order to progress from Apprentice to Journeyman, the Proctor must pass a test posed by her teacher. Those who fail may get another chance, but more than likely they'll be taken out of that Household and placed into a "special group." These failed Apprentices "serve" the Cult by being used as patsies and go-betweens in dangerous situations. Most Proctor Circles who got caught and interrogated prior to Soulforging were just Rapscallions, and their ignorance ensures that the main, true part of the Cult remains safe.
and, finally...
Notable Groups
... there are the Huntsmen - better known throughout the Cult as "The Avengers": pale assassins of the Quick who can disappear, reappear, shrug off deadly wounds and use Arcanoi.
It is true that the Cult holds mortals in high esteem, as they recognize that the dead need the living much more than the living need the dead. However, that doesn't mean that all mortals deserve the gift of life, and some people are just begging for a knife in the neck - especially the ones who get too close to the Cult's business and won't back away...
Hence the militant order of the Huntsmen. Sometimes they're hired to assassinate the assassins of other Wraiths - especially by the Grim Legion, in times past - sometimes they do bodyguard work, and sometimes they remove a person who's become a barrier to the Cult's interests. Any slight against the Cult, real or imagined, is enough to set the Huntsmen on a mark, and once engaged, they are relentless and insatiable (And, for all other interested buyers, their fees are surprisingly reasonable.)
In the time of the Storm, the Huntsmen can be found everywhere - dealing out both pointed warnings, and then sudden death, to those who would interfere with the Shadowlands. They're ambushing frisky ghost-chasers in the Heartland, carving mortal hunters into gobbets in the graveyards, dealing death to continental Vampires who dare manipulate Wraiths through their foul magic... the list of targets could go on forever, and their list of kills thus far is rather impressive.
Since the time of the Storm, the Avengers have also been given standing orders to slaughter Rots and Risen on sight. Many of the poor souls who've been blown through the Shroud into decaying bodies have told stories of being chased, harassed and then viciously attacked by lone killers. Likewise, many Risen have told of being stalked - sometimes right from the coffin - and harried at every step by entire packs of these hunters.
Of course, Rots and Risen are no weaklings. There have been some epic confrontations in the dark, unwholesome places of the Skinlands, and sometimes the prey wins against the hunter. But, as is quite often the case, the mortal authorities find yet another headless, rotten corpse in a dark alley, and wonder where it could have come from.
The Household shares the same structure as the others. However, when a Journeyman Avenger graduates to Master, they often gravitate back to the Household after their education rather than going on to something else. No one outside of the Avengers is sure why: some say that once you've gotten a taste for killing, even Transcendence pales by comparison, while others hint at darker motivations best kept secret.
They also can't help but notice that the Masters are given a one-handed sword as a gift to mark their passing into Mastery, and wonder what strange properties it may possess...
Current History
Of all the "guilds," the Proctors, perhaps, fared the best during the Storm's beginning. They were as caught by surprise as the others when the first blast-wave roared over the Shadowlands, but the survivors just leapt into the Skinlands. And when it became clear that the Storm wasn't going to just blow over, they stayed there, alternating between Haunts and their Arcanos.
As a result, they missed a lot of occurred, and what came after. The "Guildmaster" of the time - a Gaunt known as The Drummer - fell in the defense of Stygia, and his attendants just barely escaped with their unlives. They hurriedly emptied the Congress' meetinghouse on the Avenue of Endless Archways of all the important materials it contained, and, when a lull in the Storm presented itself, fled to the Shadowlands as quickly as possible.
Meanwhile, in the Skinlands, the Proctors began to be attacked by shambling hordes of rotting zombies - many of which seemed well-versed in the Haunters' Arts. After a few weeks of losing well-placed operations in the Skinlands, most Manors did the only sensible thing and let the Avengers loose: ordering them to slay any so-called "Rots" they could find. The orders were carried out gleefully.
In short season, the Societies began to receive invitations to a Congress - in the Skinlands, this time - mailed courtesy of the former Guildmaster's attendants. Cult business needed to be discussed, and a new Guildmaster chosen to represent them at an upcoming Council of the Guilds. Normally, those matters wouldn't have been sufficient to guarantee a high attendance, but the Proctors had been hearing rumors about Charon's Transcendence from other Wraiths, and wanted to hear of it from the ones who'd been there.
The meeting - held in Las Vegas, Nevada - was quite possibly the largest meeting the Cult ever had. No few of the High Masters were also in attendance, curious to know of that had taken place. By and by, the attendants showed off what they'd been able to salvage from the meetinghouse in Stygia, and then described what had taken place that fateful day.
When they confirmed that, yes, Charon had Transcended, the words electrified the audience. What had he done that they, themselves, had not? What elusive secret had the Emperor discovered? And did The Drummer know what it was...?
For their part, the attendants could not say: The Drummer often kept his own council, and told them only as much as he thought they needed to know. However, they did know that The Drummer, Charon and the Lady of Fate had a short, private talk just before the Emperor saw to Stygia's defense. The Drummer walked out of it smiling widely and chuckling to himself, telling them only that "a new age" had just dawned for the Proctors, one and all. He'd planned to tell them all about it later, apparently... but "later" never came.
Most of the Cult's worthies were able to fill in some of the blanks from there. The Hierarchy and the Proctors had enjoyed an "understanding" over the ages - one that allowed the Proctors to go about their business in the Skinlands without too much interference from the Legions in exchange for certain favors. Maybe The Drummer had performed a very large favor for Charon - something to do with the Emperor's time in the Skinlands? - and had called it in. Or was there something they were supposed to have done...?
Either way, with the Hierarchy gone, that was most likely a moot point. The best thing to do now was to present a new "Guildmaster" to the reformed Council of the Guilds, and rejoin the party. Grand Master Donatien volunteered for the job, which raised a few eyebrows, given his well-known abhorrence of ghostly politics. But, as there were no other volunteers, he was a shoo-in for the position.
The first meeting of the Council in question was, of course, rather amusing. Seeing the Artificers get taken down a few pegs was a real treat for Donatien. And he bargained as though his life depended on it to make sure that the Proctors got the job of watching for Skinlands threats - the one job that he knew the whole of the Cult would do with no complaints.
Of course, he didn't have to argue too forcibly: the new representative from the Puppeteers - the only other competitors for the job once the Haunters and Spooks were out of the way - was quite amenable to the notion. That didn't stop the two representatives from engaging in a little verbal jousting, of course... at least until the moment Donatien got the terrible feeling that, however new the man's voice was, there was something about the Puppeteer's eyes that was terrifyingly familiar...
Current Activities
The Proctors' job - so far as everyone else is concerned - is to deal with threats from the Skinlands. This usually takes the form of rather lethal "accidents" occurring to those who make a habit of meddling with the dead. It's nothing that the Huntsmen wouldn't do on their own initiative, anyway, so promising that was a bit like promising to pretend to breathe.
Past that, the Cult has received a much-needed burst of enthusiasm. The fact that Charon - of all people - Transcended has given them a new hope: Masters are seeking out the High Masters, researching previous Proctors' journals and embarking into the Skinlands. New recruits are being plucked from the newly-dead and placed on the road to Transcendence. It's a good time to be trying to be alive.
Discovering what The Drummer did - if anything - has been given a top priority. The Alchemist Households are digging into the old libraries in the hopes of finding what he might have done. Meanwhile, some of the Cult watch the town of Tedworth, England in the hopes that he will return from the Labyrinth. So far they have waited in vain, but they are nothing if not hopeful.
As for the Huntsmen's full-scale slaughter of Rots and Risen, it continues unabated. The Cult is aware, by now, that not all Rots are Spectres and Haunters (provided they're not one in the same, which is highly debatable...) but, quite frankly, the Proctors don't give a damn. The zombies are cutting into valuable space and hiding places, and generally scaring the Quick senseless, and scared Quick are more difficult to work with. That they lower the Shroud is considered beside the point.
As for the Risen: the Proctors consider the brutes to be just another symptom of the Puppeteers' utter, callous disregard for mortals - a symptom that can be violently alleviated without much hand-wringing.
They've known for some time that the only real use the Risen have to the Guild is to lower the Shroud through ghostly carnage and mayhem, and they've stood in opposition to that sort of thing since the beginning. In fact, one of the major reasons that the Puppeteers had to keep moving their training camps was because the Proctors would always report their locations to the Hierarchy.
With no Hierarchy go to crying to, the Proctors have to be a little more proactive. That suits the Huntsmen just fine...
Current Political Situation
The Proctors differ from their "kin" in the way that they eschew Stygian politics as much as possible. They don't have the time for alliances, allegiances or anything but the most cursory of dealings. They have been known to strike deals to get people off of their backs, but past that it's back to the Skinlands for them.
That said, they do know how to play the game, when it strikes their fancy to do so.
As such, they support the Artificers, Masquers, Pardoners and Usurers. This is strictly utilitarian: the Cult needs the Artificers to alter electronic records for them, so they can erase the evidence of having died, and Masquers are often required for disguise purposes. The Pardoner is everyone's friend, provided you can stomach their moralizing. And the Usurer is the best person to go to when you're low on Juice or hurting, provided you can find them...
They tend to be at loggerheads with the Monitors and Spooks, and this, also, is strictly utilitarian. A good deal of the Proctors' money comes from looking after others' Fetters, or destroying them, which puts them into direct competition with the two Guilds. Fortunately for the Proctors, the Monitors consider them to be beneath notice, and only make the Cult their business if they lose too much business to them. The Spooks are always good for a punch-up over nothing, though - even these days - so the Proctors have to very careful in dealing with them.
Meanwhile, the Puppeteers are a royal pain in the ass. The two groups have never seen eye to eye over the proper nature of relations with the living, but now, with the Risen popping up everywhere, the Guild's gotten a lot worse. It's not down to total war yet - thanks to Grand Master Donatien's expert politicking - but anyone with their ears to the ground senses that a slap across the table might not be too far away.
And as for the Haunters... there's a reason why the Proctors have always stood in their way. The legend goes that when one of the early Haunters went down into the Labyrinth, untold ages ago, a Proctor followed, and she did not like what she saw. Since that time, they have seen the Haunters as a front for Oblivion, and have refused to budge from their judgment. The Guild's recent "adventures" in the Skinlands are just all the more proof, as far as the Proctors are concerned.
They say that the Haunter's Guildmaster Midian, Himself, is out there, somewhere in the Skinlands. His head is a prize any Avenger would like to claim...
