How Can We Help?
< All Topics
Print

Keepers of the Silent Vigil

Posted
Updated
BySuraia Silverbell

Compiled from confiscated notes, funerary fragments, and whispered testimonies across the Xaverion Isles.

Overview

The Keepers of the Silent Vigil are a secretive society devoted to the protection of the temple dead of Quintra and Denday. Where others see only ancient linen and carved stone, they see guardians: mummified priests, paladins and oracles whose watch must never be disturbed.

They are hunted by necromancers, mistrusted by the Church of the New Faiths, and mostly forgotten by common folk. Yet in candle-lit crypts and ruined sanctuaries, the Vigil still keeps watch over the dead—and over those who would misuse them.

The society is most often known simply as the Silent Vigil. Older documents sometimes call them Keepers of the Veil or Keepers of the Silent Vigil, but all such names point to the same oathbound tradition.

Beliefs & Purpose

Guardians, not necromancers
Members of the Vigil believe that the mummified dead of the old sun and moon temples are not mere remains but vessels still bound to sacred duty. Their slumber must be preserved, their wards renewed, and their bodies protected from theft or desecration. Only the gods—or the world itself—may decide when they rise.

Sacred duty of preservation
Their central vows revolve around three tasks:

  • Keep them hidden: Remove or conceal sarcophagi when grave robbers, collectors or cultists draw too near.

  • Keep them pure: Maintain old wards, repair broken seals, and perform rites of cleansing where corruption has touched a tomb.

  • Keep them remembered: Preserve fragments of liturgy, names and insignia so that the dead are not lost to oblivion.

The Lost City of Silence
Among the Vigil, the City of Silence is spoken of in hushed tones as the First Necropolis—the divided sanctuary where Quintra’s Halls of Radiance and Denday’s Vaults of Midnight once faced one another across the Silent Causeway.

Most scholars in the Fifth Era treat the City as legend or a ruin long lost beneath earth and time. The Vigil, however, keeps scraps of maps, prayers and processional orders that insist it once was real—and may yet be found again. Some prophecies suggest that its rediscovery will herald the return of the Old Gods or the start of a great upheaval, depending on who is doing the interpreting.

Opposition to necromancy
To the Vigil, necromancers and warlocks who bind the dead are the greatest blasphemy. They believe that to shackle a mummy of Quintra or Denday is to wound the balance of day and night itself. Many of their secret operations revolve around foiling necromantic rituals, warding likely targets, or quietly removing vulnerable remains before they can be taken.

Origins & History

The exact founding of the Keepers of the Silent Vigil is unknown. The earliest references date from late in the Age of Darkness, when open worship of Quintra and Denday was collapsing and the necropolis traditions were already under threat.

Most historians agree on a likely sequence:

  • Late Age of Light / early Age of Darkness:
    As the great necropolis of the City of Silence filled, specialist orders within the twin priesthoods took on permanent roles as tomb-wardens and embalming priests. Their task was purely practical at first: maintain wards, oversee burial, and ensure Ghor’s corruption could not touch the sanctified dead.

  • Height of the Age of Darkness:
    With wars, plagues and undead horrors spreading, mummies in lesser necropoleis became prized targets for necromancers seeking powerful vessels. Some of the tomb-wardens went to ground, forming hidden circles to move and protect the most important sarcophagi. These circles became the first Keepers.

  • Rise of the New Faiths:
    When the New Faiths declared the Old Gods “dead” and branded their worship heresy, the last public temple-keepers were executed or forced to convert. Those who remained loyal to Quintra and Denday turned fully underground. From that period onward, mentions of the Vigil appear only in seized letters, accusations of heresy, and frightened rumours.

By the Fifth Era, the City of Silence itself has faded into myth, thought by most to be destroyed or buried deep beneath the earth. The Vigil treats it not as a destination on a map, but as a promise—that somewhere, the first guardians still sleep, waiting.

Organisation & Methods

Scattered cells
The Silent Vigil does not gather in councils or temples. It moves in small, hidden cells scattered across the Xaverion Isles and beyond. Each cell knows only a handful of other contacts. Knowledge and orders travel in the form of:

  • coded prayers that read as ordinary devotions,

  • shared sigils carved into stone or candle-wax,

  • and the oral retelling of carefully altered myths.

Sanctuaries
Their “chapels” are seldom above ground. Most are:

  • forgotten side-crypts in ruined sun-temples,

  • sealed chambers beneath moon-shrines,

  • or lonely burial caves far from villages and patrols.

There, one may find a handful of mummies resting behind intact wards, surrounded by offerings of oil, candles and old symbols of both light and night.

Roles within the Vigil

  • Relic-keepers
    Maintain funerary goods, fragments of liturgy, and surviving temple objects associated with specific mummies.

  • Tomb-wardens
    Specialists in wards and mummification lore who inspect and repair seals, or oversee the relocation of endangered sarcophagi.

  • Scholars & chroniclers
    Piece together histories of the temple dead, recording names, dates and deeds in coded ledgers so that memory survives even if the body is lost.

  • Quiet agents
    Individuals embedded in noble households, merchant caravans or city watch posts, steering would-be tomb-robbers away from sensitive sites and reporting necromantic activity to their cell.

Symbols & Practices

The Vigil has no single public emblem, but certain signs recur in seized relics and graffiti near suspected safehouses:

  • a small unlit candle carved beside a stylised sarcophagus,

  • a paired sun-burst and crescent scratched into stone, the rays and curve deliberately faint,

  • and in some cases, a simplified outline of the Silent Causeway—two parallel lines meeting at a circle, said to represent Quintra’s and Denday’s quarters joined by a single road.

Common practices among known or suspected Vigil members include:

  • leaving a single white or blue candle at disused altars of Quintra or Denday, unlit during the day and lit only at moonrise,

  • tracing a warding circle in dust or ash at the threshold of abandoned crypts,

  • and quietly correcting locals who call the mummies “undead,” insisting they are consecrated rather than cursed.

Reputation & Present Day

Among common folk
Most people in the Fifth Era know only fragments:
stories of “grave-keepers” who appear when tombs are disturbed, or cloaked strangers who pay good coin to reclaim old sarcophagi and move them elsewhere. In many villages such figures are dismissed as superstition, while in others they are whispered of with a mix of fear and gratitude.

Among necromancers
Necromancers and Ghor-cultists know the Vigil as persistent meddlers. Where a powerful mummy or untouched necropolis is rumoured, Vigil activity is often not far behind. Some necromantic circles teach specific counter-wards meant to unravel the work of “those who cling to dead gods.”

Among the New Faiths
Officially, the Church of the New Faiths condemns any secret society tied to the Old Gods. Unofficially, records suggest a certain confusion: Vigil members have been burned as heretics, mistaken for necromancers, or quietly used as informants when their knowledge of tomb-wards proves useful against Ghor cults.

Within their own whispers
In their own words—at least, as recorded in intercepted prayers—the Keepers of the Silent Vigil do not see themselves as rebels or heroes. They are simply the last attendants of a duty everyone else has forgotten:

“We keep the watch they once trusted us to keep.
Until sun and moon fall silent,
the Vigil does not break.”

Table of Contents