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IGA – Information Gathering Association

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Updated
BySuraia Silverbell
“First rule of IGA: never talk about IGA. So naturally everyone knows about it.”

Overview

The Information Gathering Association, better known as IGA, is the largest known spy organisation in the Xaverion Islands. People love to claim the IGA works for the Xaverion Order—but in truth it is a separate organisation, answering only to its own hidden hierarchy.

Despite frequent rumours that the IGA is “evil,” its alignment is better described as neutral leaning toward good. More often than not, IGA operations target crime and corruption. What unsettles people are their methods:

  • The ends frequently justify the means.

  • “Anything goes” is acceptable—as long as you don’t get caught.

Most citizens assume that IGA agents see themselves as above the law, and in many cases, that assumption isn’t entirely wrong.

Public Face & Reputation

The IGA is a paradox:

  • “First rule of IGA is never talk about IGA” – yet everyone knows they exist.

  • Most people have never knowingly met an operative – yet everyone has a story that involves “someone who knew someone” that IGA questioned.

They are:

  • Feared by criminals and corrupt officials.

  • Resented by those who dislike being watched.

  • Quietly appreciated by those who benefit when smugglers, traffickers, or cults vanish without a very public trial.

To the Xaverion Order, the IGA is an uncomfortable necessity: extremely useful, completely uncontrollable.

Leadership & Structure

At the top of the IGA stands a person codenamed Spot, said to be nothing short of a genius in magic and enchanted items.

Common rumours insist she:

  • Never leaves her laboratory,

  • Is “just” a magic user behind a desk,

  • And controls the organisation purely from the shadows.

Inside the IGA, the story is different. Operatives know that Spot does go into the field on cases; the reason most people think she never leaves the lab is simple: no one outside the IGA knows what she looks like or her real name.

Beneath Spot is a strict, secretive hierarchy:

  • Every island has at least one high-ranking operative stationed there.

  • Each of these has a number of agents working under them, who may in turn command their own small teams.

  • Some operatives function as lone wolves, preferring to work alone and report only to their handler.

  • Everyone answers upwards—to their handler or superior—rather than to any outside authority.

The exact ranking titles are not public knowledge. Even many lower-level operatives only know the ranks immediately above and below them.

Locations, Headquarters & Safe Houses

Because the IGA is a spy organisation, it does not operate from open, public offices. Instead, it relies on a web of hidden locations:

  • Secret bases on various islands

  • Safe houses scattered across the Xaverion Islands

  • Hidden meeting points known only to specific cells or handlers

It is common knowledge that the IGA has a headquarters somewhere, but:

  • No one outside the organisation knows where it is.

  • Several cities claim to host it in rumour; all are almost certainly wrong.

The secrecy of these locations is not only for the operatives’ sake; it also protects informants and assets whose lives depend on not being associated with the IGA in public.

Assets & Information Network

The IGA’s greatest weapon is not magic or blades, but information.

They maintain a vast network of:

  • Assets – people who provide regular information in exchange for payment, protection, or favours.

  • Informants – one-time or occasional sources, sometimes unaware they are dealing with IGA at all.

Details about these individuals are among the most closely guarded secrets of the organisation. To protect them:

  • Identities are compartmentalised.

  • Only a few handlers know who certain key informants actually are.

Whether the IGA truly has “eyes and ears everywhere” is uncertain—but the belief that they do is often enough to make people think twice before doing something that might attract their attention.

Cases, Records & the Great Library

The IGA keeps extensive records of its work, organised into “cases.”

  • Each case gathers together reports, evidence, coded notes, and correspondence related to a single investigation or cluster of linked events.

  • Typically, the main files of a case are stored in whatever secret location the lead operative is currently using as their base.

For particularly sensitive cases:

  • Files may be deliberately scattered across multiple locations and safe houses, so that no single breach can expose everything.

Somewhere—location unknown—the IGA maintains a large hidden library, where:

  • Closed cases are archived.

  • Other valuable information collected by the organisation is stored.

  • Records are said to date back to the foundation of the IGA.

Codes & Ciphers

The IGA is well-known for its love of:

  • Coded messages

  • Breadcrumb trails

  • Codenames and layered meanings

Each operative is allowed, and even encouraged, to use their own codes.

This makes deciphering someone’s work extremely difficult if that operative goes missing—or if the wrong person gets hold of their notes.

Contacting the IGA

There are no public offices where citizens can simply knock and request IGA services, and the IGA does not accept “paid contracts” in the way mercenary companies do.

Instead, common wisdom says:

  • You do not hire the IGA.

  • If they need something from you, they will find you.

For those truly desperate to reach them, the method is simple—but unnerving:

  1. Go to the local tavern (or similar public place).

  2. Make it known—quietly but clearly—that you wish to speak with the IGA.

  3. Wait.

If the matter interests them, they will arrange a meeting. If not, you will hear nothing… and may still find that someone has started watching you, just in case.

IGA in the Present Day (Year 22, Fifth Era)

In Year 22 of the Fifth Era, the IGA remains:

  • Widely known,

  • Poorly understood,

  • And deeply embedded in the quiet workings of the Xaverion Islands.

Most people will never knowingly see an IGA operative at work. Yet rumours of their involvement surface around:

  • Exposed corruption cases that never went to open trial,

  • Criminal networks that collapse overnight,

  • Missing ledgers, vanished witnesses, and scandals that die before they truly begin.

They are not the official law—that is the role of the Xaverion Order. But in the gaps where law, politics, and fear leave things untouched, the IGA has a habit of appearing, rearranging the board, and disappearing again…

…leaving behind a cleaner street, a missing criminal, and a lingering question about who, exactly, they did it for.

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