by J. Edward Tremlett (Wraith: The Oblivion | Resources)
Nicknames: Body�Snatchers, Little Marys, Lords, Masters, Puppetmasters, Risers, Schizos, String�Pullers. Male Puppeteers are sometimes called �Punches� and female members of the Guild are known as �Judies�. In addition, Puppeteers will refer to groups of their own Guild as �Punches� or �Judies,� depending on how they feel about them: i.e. �Bring around some extra Punches, we�re gonna need �em� or �Why don�t you and your sorry Judies get outta here?�
Guildmaster: Regional Leaders of the Guild now sit in an emergency council called The Control, which decides Guild policy until new High Masters can be chosen. They are represented at the Council of the Guilds by a previously�unknown � and intensely charismatic � Wraith who goes by the name of Grishka.
Center of Power: The Control meets in the headquarters of The Union Internationale des Marionettes, in Warsaw, Poland.
Specialty Arcanos:/ Puppetry
Organization
The biggest problem facing the Guild is that � put bluntly � they have one splendid structure for an organization that should really be three or four different groups. In fact, the Guild�s greatest weakness has always been its extreme diversity: it encompasses not only those with an eye for money and opportunity, but Renegades intent on overthrowing the system, Heretics in search of Transcendence, and even some Hierarchs who saw the need for direct intervention in the Skinlands.
There are also many disparate theories on what exactly the Guild is supposed to do, or represent. Some see the group as a protector of the Quick, while others believe they must do everything possible to scare � and kill, sometimes � the living in order to lower the Shroud. Still others see their actions as a precursor to Transcendence, visiting the Skinlands to take care of unfinished business and explore new ideas. And then there are those who see the Guild�s actions as a means to gain power and keep it, both over the living and the dead.
Such diversity makes for both strange bedfellows and raucous arguments. It�s been said that only greed and the addiction of Skinriding are what kept them all together, and they are probably right. But part of the fact that cohesion was achieved must be laid at the Guild�s structure, as the Puppeteers have had a well�defined one for centuries.
The Apprentices, Journeymen and Masters all report to Grand Masters at the local level. These Grand Masters, in turn, report to Regional Leaders, who funneled new ideas up and sent orders down, as well as making their own. And they could send disciplinary officers known as Puppetmasters upon any Guildwraiths who bucked the rules.
In addition to their broad powers, the Regional Leaders are held in high esteem due to their role as teachers. All Guildwraiths are entitled to seek them out for instruction in higher levels of their Arcanos. This gives the Guildwraiths an extra incentive to mind their mouths and watch their step, lest they be turned away at the door. It also fosters a high level of respect.
In times past, the Regional Leaders were overseen by a triumvirate of Gaunts known as the High Masters. These commanded from a great theater known as the Skene, which was hidden along the River of Death, maybe a few hours� journey from the Isle of Sorrows. They kept in touch with Regional Leaders by meeting them in the Skinlands, or else animating special Relic Marionettes which were kept by Regional Leaders for exactly that purpose.
And over them all was a single figure: a Gaunt named Marionette, who had led the Guild from the time of the Breaking, though its own internal Purges, and then up through the ages. The High Masters may have been overseeing the Guild�s daily operations, but Marionette was the true leader. One word from her could change plans, alter timelines and persuade almost anyone to look at the situation differently. With that in mind, perhaps Marionette was the only reason the Guild stayed together for as long as it had.
And so, with the destruction of the Skene, the loss of the High Masters and the disappearance of Marionette, the Guild is in danger of fracturing into shards. Some groups have already splintered off and are referring to themselves as the �true� Guild, leading to rapid, perhaps overly�zealous purgings of such upstarts by unamused Puppet Masters.
In order to maintain order, the Regional Leaders have instituted an emergency ruling council called The Control. They have been acting in stead of the High Masters until a new group can be elected, but given how much of their time is spent fighting off attempts to turn the Guild into a Gang or Cult, the vote keeps getting postponed. One Leader has likened the situation to �herding cats across a corn field.�
The Guild doesn�t have much in the way of specialized niches for members to slip into, save one (described below). Every Guildwraith over the rank of Apprentice has some task handed off to them, but they might be piloting news crews towards erupted graves one year and sidewalk�diving pesky reporters the next. Jobs change with the circumstances.
As long as those jobs are done, everyone�s entitled to go about their business, cut their own deals and tend to their own affairs. And as long as no one messes with another�s business, no one complains. The only real rules are: (1) to do what you�re told; (2) to keep quiet about Guild business; (3) to not ask too many questions about others� business; and (4) not let in anyone you can�t vouch for.
Special Groups
The Guild does have one, very special niche that needs filled: the creation of the revenants known as the Risen. It�s something of a cottage industry, and a very lucrative one at that. Especially now.
With the fall of the Hierarchy, and the Shroud at the weakest it�s been since just before the Insurrection, the secret is out: the Risen are real, and the Puppeteers can help you Rise. That is, of course, provided you�ve got the tools, the talent and � more importantly � the money for it. But the Guild�s nothing if not open�armed when it comes to such tough�luck cases: at least, so long as their money holds out...
The branch of the Guild involved with the Risen �Boot Camps� � called �Corpse Factories� by less amused Wraiths � is known as the Restringers. The more modern Guildwraiths involved in the process have also gone by �Overtakers,� �Revenant Risers� and �Zombies R� Us,� while older Guildwraiths prefer the more genteel sobriquet of �Lazarites� or �Resurrectionists.�
There are a lot more of the Restringers out there than other Wraiths might like to think. Their operations are vast, and employ many Guildwraiths to do the various tasks needed to keep it all going. Some of the more obvious positions are recruitment, vetting and instruction, but there are some other, less obvious ones as well.
For example � some would�be Risen need to have animal Conduits made by a specialist in the Arcanos, as they have no proper Fetters that would suffice. And every Risen who manages to get out of the grave is followed by a trail of Puppeteers, who take turns watching from afar. At least one of those Puppeteers will also be a Reaper of some stripe, ever on the watch for opportunities amongst the �collateral damage.�
And when the Risen falls down for the last time, someone has to collect the Conduit and get it back to the Guild for safekeeping. These warehouses of dark, Shroud�bending energy must be guarded from those who would steal them, and the ones with active Shadows within them need to be destroyed.
More details on the Puppeteer�s relations with the Risen in the time of the 6th Great Maelstrom can be found in Risen Revised.
Current History
The rank and file of the Guild was in good hands when the 6th Great Maelstrom struck. Most of them were in the Skinlands, plying their trade, when it all came down. And the ones in the Shadowlands just jumped into convenient bodies and waited for it to blow over.
And once they realized that the Storm wasn�t going to pass by anytime soon, they buckled down and looked to their Regional Leaders for guidance until contact could be reestablished with the High Masters. Common thinking was that this was no different than the two Great Maelstroms from recent memory, even if some things about this one � like the sudden appearance of zombies and the drastic lowering of the Shroud � were rather different, indeed.
Then came dark word from Stygia � carried by noble Ceridwen, their representative to the other Guilds. The Isle was swamped, and the Empire was gone. Charon had returned but briefly and then disappeared. The Skene was a blasted, water�logged hole infested by Doomshades, with no sign of the High Masters. And Marionette, as far as anyone could tell, had either been lost in the epic battle at the Isle of Sorrows, or else had never even made it there.
To say this was cause for alarm was something of an understatement. The Regional Leaders held an emergency meeting in Warsaw, and discussed what to do, next. There was no clear consensus, though: no one in the Guild had ever put serious thought to a time when both Marionette and the High Masters would be gone in one, fell swoop.
However, something had to be done, as fracture�lines were already forming in certain segments of the Guild. The news that Charon Transcended made the Heretics more feisty than ever before, and the loss of central power from Stygia got the Renegades talking about how to take control of the show � especially since most of the �Old School� Renegades outside the Guild were swept away by the Maelstrom. Meanwhile, the Hierarchs wanted to shore up what was left, understandably, and the Regional Leaders could well understand that.
So it was decided that they should make the meeting the first in a series of council gatherings, and work out emergency protocol for the Guild. Order would be maintained, splintering would not be permitted, and things would go on as usual, with eyes open to new opportunities, of course. New High Masters could be elected out of their number at some point in the future, but new procedures put into place for the post�Stygian Guild. Someone with a lively wit referred to the council as �The Control,� and after a few days� worth of debate the name stuck.
The Control was supposed to be an emergency measure until new High Masters could be elected. But, given the complexity of the Guild, itself, there�s been no real movement to call such a vote, yet, as other, more pressing matters of procedure are still being hammered out. Plus, no true leaders have surfaced, or put their foot forward: well�known Regional Leader Colin Grant would have been a favorite, but he was too in love with his job, and Rasputin � whom everyone figured would be up for a power grab � disappeared into the Skinlands and went deep underground once the whole mess started.
One thing the group could agree on was the need for a new face at the Council of the Guilds: Ceridwen � perhaps terrified by something she�d seen in the final days of the Empire � tendered her resignation and went back to more quiet duties. The Control found their new mouthpiece in a previously undistinguished Grand Master who went by the name of Grishka. Tall, imposing and intensely charismatic, he was perfect for the job because he was bound to no one ideal, forceful in speech, a wily dealer and � best of all � mostly unknown, and therefore bereft of serious enemies.
It was Grishka who attended the meeting in London, then, and he got on with the others � even the Proctors, oddly enough � like a house on fire. He made no moves to block their rival Guild�s insistence that they be the ones to take care of Skinlands threats, and gratefully accepted the task the Guild took on, conceding that they were the best ones to do it.
But onlookers couldn�t help but notice how often he seemed to be chuckling to himself, as though he were caught in the rapture of some dark, private joke...
Current Activities
The Guild�s new job is to help maintain a network of Haunts for Wraiths to use as shelter during the Storm. They do this by taking control certain, strategic hosts, such as city planners, surveyors, architects, town councils, zoning boards... indeed, anyone who might be involved in planning to tear down old buildings, uproot spooky, old boneyards or raze apartment blocks with sordid pasts. So if your City Council�s looked a little peaked and ragged since just before the turn of the Millennium, and the plans for �urban renewal� haven�t gone anywhere at all... now you know why.
That�s the Guild�s day job, though. The rest of the time, it�s business as usual: riding for fun and profit, finding folks with the right aptitudes � and attitude � and inducting them, and trying to maintain a friendly face for the other Guildwraiths to connect with. They�re also doing all they can to steer the Living towards evidence of the dead, to try and keep the Shroud as low as possible.
The only thing that�s really changed is the situation with the Risen. Now that the Hierarchy doesn�t exist anymore, they don�t have to be secretive about the whole deal. No few Wraiths have joked that if there were a Yellow Pages service in the Shadowlands, the Puppeteers would have a big, red ad on the first available page advertising the nearest �corpse factory.�
Needless to say, certain members of the Guild think that�s a great idea, and are wondering how to get such a service in motion.
Current Political Situation
Throughout the ages, the Puppeteers � realizing their somewhat precarious position � have tried to have friendly relations with all the Greater Guilds. This hasn�t always succeeded, of course: it�s hard to be friends with someone who might be Soulforging you tomorrow, or turning you in for a bag of coin the day after that. Likewise, though they try to be nice to the Pardoners, that group�s members are rarely happy to see them. Simple Castigations turn into extended lectures on the morality of Puppetry, and sometimes they even charge extra out of sheer disgust. Death�s a bitch that way...
They have enjoyed a �good working relationship� with the Monitors. This doesn�t make them allies in any sense of the word � just people you can call on when favors are needed and things must be done, and vice versa. Where the Monitors use their own Arcanos to manipulate the metaphysics of Fetters, they hire on the Puppeteers for more physical dealings. After all, you can tear the strings that connect a Wraith to his Fetter, but there�s nothing more final than having it Skinridden into a blast furnace.
They also had an �understanding� with the Haunters and Spooks, though that seems to have fallen away in recent years � especially with the Storm on. The Guild considers it a pity, since Shroud�renders should all hang together. However, as the Haunters seem to be going in a dozen different directions at once, and the Spooks are being run by a man too soft�hearted for his own good, maybe the thaw in relations are just as well. The Puppeteers figure it�s only a matter of time before time comes around once more, and they�re all �friends� again.
As for the Proctors... the two groups have always been in a strange position with one another. Happenstance and Imperial Edict may have made them occasional allies out of sheer necessity, but such situations were rare. In truth, the two Guilds have always been � and most likely will always be � enemies, due to their competition for the same services and differing opinions on how to treat the Quick. The Proctors see the Guild as callous murderers, and the Puppeteers see the Proctors as hedonistic lapdogs of the Hierarchy.
However, with the Storm on, the Guild cannot waste its resources with open war, and the Council of Guilds is too untested to withstand one. So � for now, at least � The Control is urging caution in dealing with their opposite number, in spite of the aggravation caused by the more militant Proctors� hunting them down. �Detente� is the watchword of their emissary to the Council of the Guilds, and Grishka is happy to oblige.
