The Shadow Council
Whispers in the cracks of the Xaverion order
Overview
Nearly everyone on the Xaverion Islands has heard of the Shadow Council—and almost everyone with any official authority will insist they do not exist. To most common folk, they’re half cautionary tale, half campfire story: a faceless cabal blamed for disappearances, stolen relics, and deals that go very wrong.
Behind the rumours, however, lies a very real clandestine organisation operating across the islands and beyond. The Shadow Council thrives in the gaps between law and dogma:
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Dealing in black-market trade
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Hunting archaeological sites and magical artifacts
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Seeking power in any form, no matter how forbidden
Because of this, they frequently clash with the Wanderers League, chasing the same ruins, relics, and pieces of lost knowledge—but for very different reasons.
Myth, Denial & Reputation
Most official organisations—Xaverion authorities, the churches of the New Faiths, and many city councils—flatly deny that the Shadow Council exists at all.
This denial has several effects:
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People who claim to have encountered the Shadow Council are met with ridicule or polite dismissal.
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Any concrete evidence tends to vanish into private collections, locked archives, or “lost paperwork.”
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The Council themselves encourage this uncertainty; the more their existence is debated, the safer they are.
The only major organisation that openly insists they are real is the Wanderers League, which maintains that the Council is a persistent and dangerous rival. Many outsiders shrug this off as a personal vendetta of the League’s founder, Morgan Shadowsongs, and accuse the League of exaggeration.
Goals & Activities
The Shadow Council is not a single-purpose cult or gang. It is a loose, layered network united by shared habits and opportunities rather than a public manifesto. Known and suspected activities include:
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Black-Market Trade
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Smuggling restricted artifacts and spell components
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Handling cursed or Ghor-touched items that no respectable merchant would touch
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Arranging discreet buyers for relics that should, by all rights, be in guarded vaults or temples
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Archaeology & Relic Hunting
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Racing the Wanderers League to old tombs, ruins, and lost sites
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Stripping locations of artifacts before scholars can study them
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Selling or hoarding knowledge that could reshape politics, magic, or faiths
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Pursuit of Power
Their operations deliberately push against the laws and moral codes laid down by the Xaverion Senate, the New Faiths, and local authorities.
Membership & Ideology
If the Shadow Council has a guiding philosophy, it is this:
Those who make the rules do so to protect their own power.
We simply refuse to be bound by them.
Members tend to share at least one of the following traits:
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Outcasts or heretics — such as those who still honour Denday or Ghor despite centuries of persecution.
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Radicals and opportunists — who believe great power is worth any risk.
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Law-weary pragmatists — smugglers, tomb-raiders, and scholars who feel suffocated by Xaverion law and church interference.
What unites them is not a single god or doctrine, but a willingness to break the rules of the islands in pursuit of their own goals.
Recruitment
The Shadow Council does not maintain public fronts or open recruitment halls. New members are approached, not invited to apply.
According to collated accounts:
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The Council watches for individuals whose actions catch their attention—smugglers who never get caught, researchers who defy restrictions, mages dabbling in forbidden arts.
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If someone is deemed “worthy,” a recruiter will make contact, often under a false name and with a simple offer:
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work, protection, access to resources—and a share of whatever they can take.
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Because of this mystique, some people actively try to draw the Council’s eye, carrying out reckless or dramatic stunts in the hope of being noticed.
Not all of those would-be recruits survive the attempt. The Council does not feel obliged to rescue those who misjudge their own abilities.
Structure & Compartmentalisation
The Council’s internal structure is deliberately obscure and heavily compartmentalised.
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Each member reports primarily to the person who recruited them, who stands “above” them in rank.
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That recruiter in turn answers to someone higher, forming chains of obligation rather than a clear, public hierarchy.
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Disciplinary power usually sits with the recruiter:
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If you break the Council’s rules, your handler decides how you are punished.
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Most known cells are small and isolated:
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Lone wolves with one or two “apprentices,” who might not even know each other.
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Cells that collaborate on a single venture and then vanish back into the fog.
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Contact between branches is rare, usually routed through messages, middlemen, or shadowy intermediaries.
Because of this, it is entirely possible for two Shadow Council members to know each other for years without realising they are both in the Council, unless someone chooses to break protocol.
No one outside the organisation—and very few within—can say how high the chains of command climb, or whether there is a single “inner council” at the top at all.
Secrecy, Codes & Infiltration
Speaking openly about the Shadow Council is strongly discouraged within its ranks.
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Members are expected never to admit affiliation to outsiders, and to reveal it to insiders only when they are already certain.
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Nicknames, codenames, and layers of false identity are common; written records tend to be heavily encoded or destroyed once a job is finished.
Because of this secrecy, it is impossible to know:
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How many Council operatives may have infiltrated other organisations, such as merchant guilds, noble houses, churches, or even the Xaverion Order, Seafarers Accords, or IGA.
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Whether certain political or economic shifts were orchestrated by the Shadow Council, or simply convenient accidents.
Officials who take the Council seriously treat them as a slow, patient infection rather than an enemy army: hidden, persistent, and very hard to cut out without harming the host.
Relationship with Other Factions
Wanderers League
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The League is the only major organisation that openly names the Shadow Council as real and dangerous.
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Their conflict is practical as much as ideological: both pursue ruins, artifacts, and lost knowledge, but the League wants to study and preserve, while the Council wants to control and profit.
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Some League expeditions quietly include counter-intelligence measures specifically in case the Council is also on the trail.
Xaverion Order & IGA
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Officially, there is no such thing as a Shadow Council case file. Unofficially, some Xaverion investigators and IGA operatives treat unexplained patterns of smuggling, missing relics, or coordinated corruption as “shadow work.”
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The Council’s compartmentalised structure makes it nearly impossible to prosecute them as a single organisation; by the time a network is mapped, it has often already reconfigured.
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Publicly, priests and paladins denounce talk of the Shadow Council as rumour, distraction, or blasphemous fear-mongering.
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In practice, some temples maintain private watch lists of suspected heretics and black-market patrons whose behaviour aligns a little too neatly with Council-style operations.
The Shadow Council in the Present Day (Year 22, Fifth Era)
By Esmayday in the cycle of Qastaii, Season of Thoron, Year 22 of the Fifth Era, the Shadow Council has adapted to a world where:
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The Seas are dangerous, thanks to siren activity and Ghor’s lingering hold over the waters. This has driven even more trade—and thus more smuggling—into the hands of those willing to risk it.
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The Waygates are no longer in active use, and the knowledge of their operation is considered lost. This makes any fragment of waygate lore, any surviving anchor stone or control rune, priceless on the black market—and therefore exactly the sort of thing the Council would move heaven and earth to acquire.
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Organisations like the IGA, Xaverion Order, and Seafarers Accords are more coordinated and better informed than ever, forcing the Council to work slower, quieter, and more indirectly.
To most citizens, the Shadow Council remains a rumour, a name whispered when something vanishes that should never have moved, or when a promising scholar or mage disappears after asking the wrong questions.
To the Wanderers League, and to a handful of investigators who know how to read patterns in the dark, the Shadow Council is very real—
a sprawling, unseen rival, patient enough to wait centuries for an opportunity and ruthless enough to seize it when it comes.