The Viziers (CShaH)

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Admits: The Viziers are open to sha'irs of all races. A surprisingly sexist organization, the Viziers will admit only women, and then only those who are proven to be childless. This admission policy is meant to prevent the use of children as hostages to gain access to the secrets of the Viziers, and women are thought to be less corruptible than are men. The Viziers have been very careful to keep their admissions secret; chauvinists might not take an all-female group seriously, and the Viziers do not wish to waste time proving themselves to such pig-headed louts.
Members: There are only eight current members of this sorcerous society. All are human, but as the group expands it will contain members of several races. The members average 7th level overall, though what they lack in magical might, they make up for with shrewd planning and wicked cunning.
Initiation: This group is an active recruiter, sending its agents from city to city in search of likely prospects. To be eligible for admission, a candidate must be a childless female and a sorcerer. The candidate must have displayed cunning and guile, and a willingness to do things as expediently as possible regardless of the consequences. Likely candidates are contacted by a member of the Viziers, and very little about the group will be explained. To probable initiates the Viziers are described as freelance magical advisers to all manner of important personages. The list of clients is very vague but includes powerful merchants and caliphs. It even extends to the Grand Caliph himself, though the last is never stated outright.
Those candidates that make their interest known will be given their first assignment. They will be told to ingratiate themselves with a prospective client chosen by the Viziers. This client might be one that has been somewhat recalcitrant in the past but whom the Viziers would like to have under their influence Such individuals could be merchants, craftsmen, barbers, or anyone else of importance.
The candidate is not told this directly, but it is perfectly acceptable to create conditions under which the prospective client will be forced to accept a magical adviser. A small plague of magical "accidents" or rumors of a magical assassin hunting for the targeted client are just two of the myriad number of fabrications used by the Viziers in the past to snare a client.
If the candidate gets the target to sign up with the Viziers, she will have proved her ability and then will move on to the next step of her initiation. The character's contribution to the society is one of knowledge. The character must reveal likely clients that she may know of and must tell any secrets that she knows concerning important personages. All of these will be recorded in the Viziers' Hall of Secrets for later use.
If the candidate has no secrets, she must go out and get at least one useful tidbit for the Viziers. In some cases, this may be information that the Viziers need, and they will specify what must be discovered. Otherwise, the nature of the secret is left up to the initiate, subject to approval by the Viziers. The character has three chances to come up with information that the Viziers judge to be worthy. Failure will result in the character's extermination, since she now knows entirely too much to be left free.
Secrets that are deemed worthy are those that can be used as leverage to force an important individual (or someone who can influence someone important) to act in a way that is to the Viziers' liking. Some may call this blackmail or extortion, but the Viziers prefer to think of it as "persuasion" and care little for the opinions of others.
If the character can make a contribution, it is time for the test. This is very difficult and should be undertaken with careful planning and lots of research. The character will be given a target and allowed access to the Hall of Secrets. There, the character can dig up information she thinks she will need in order to go out and "persuade" the target to do what is requested by the Viziers. This will always be something that is well outside the realm of the target's normal actions. A merchant may be told to mark all of his wares down to a mere 25 percent of their market value, even if that means taking a heinous loss. A politician may be forced to take a very unpopular stance on a hot political topic. The Viziers don't want the target ruined, merely reminded of the hold his "advisers" have over him.
This can be extremely dangerous for the character. Until she has completed her test, she is not a member of the Viziers and is not covered by their protection. She must rely on her own resources and the secrets that she is able to gain. If successful, she is accepted by the Viziers and becomes a full member. Failure usually results in some retaliation by the target, who may go so far as to kill the character. If the character is captured by the target, the Viziers will arrange for her death before she can reveal anything about the organization.
Characters who pass the initiation are brought into the fold and given the cowl and robes of a Vizier. They are also provided with their own key to the Hall of Secrets, though this will only open the first door in the Hall. The deeper secrets are reserved until the character can truly be trusted by the group—usually after several months of loyal service.
Description: The Viziers are the youngest sorcerous society in the Land of Fate. It was only 10 years ago that they were founded, and the original members are still in residence. Since that time, they have moved among all levels of society, studying those around them and learning their deepest secrets. They are masters of seduction, interrogation, and intelligence, often able to gain information from targets who will never know they let their secrets slide.
The Viziers are also the most secretive of the societies, rivaling even the Red Eyes in the coldblooded protection of their secret existence. No other society will have heard of the group, and no client can rightly say who it is that advises him from time to time. Most clients assume that they have been receiving information from a single individual with vast knowledge about many things and an uncanny knack for finding out the most disturbing little secrets.
The Viziers are organized in a strict hierarchy. The leader is known as the Queen of Ears and is in complete control of the Viziers' spy network. She is also the only member with total access to the Hall of Secrets and the only one to know the full extent of the Viziers' infiltration into politics and economics.
Below the Queen of Ears are the Shadowed Tongues, a clique of three women that organize the efforts of the lower echelon Viziers in accordance with the Queen's orders. None of the Tongues are allowed to converse with one another, and each is told only a small portion of the Queen's total plans. The Shadowed Tongues are often told to give assignments that seem completely pointless by themselves. It is only as a whole that these pieces form a complete picture.
There are two levels of rank below the Shadowed Tongues: Veils and Daggers. The Veils are the ones that actually deliver the advice of the Viziers and the demands made for such advice. Daggers are the collectors of secrets, those that prowl the back alleys and shadowed hallways in search of information that can be used by the Viziers. At the present time, there are two Veils and two Daggers. New members will be assigned to the Daggers as the Veils are moved up in importance.
The Daggers are also supplemented by a very efficient spy network. Surprisingly, this network overlaps with that developed by the Red Eyes. In order to save work, the Viziers infiltrated the Red Eyes spy network. The spies now believe that they are being asked to give duplicate information to different couriers to insure that the information gets where it is going. Because the Red Eyes aren't particularly chummy with the agents and spend as little time as possible speaking to them, this coup has gone unnoticed. While this has been a very risky maneuver for the Viziers, it has worked out exceedingly well—so far. If the Red Eyes ever discover what is happening, though, the Viziers will have to go underground very quickly to avoid eventual extermination.
The Hall of Secrets is the most closely guarded of all the Viziers' treasures. This is where the most dangerous and important secrets of Zakhara's rulers and elite are held. Guarded by a host of mercenary barbarians, the Hall is secreted deep beneath Huzuz. A tunnel complex surrounds the Hall and is heavily trapped through magical and mundane means. Trying to successfully navigate the tunnels without becoming skewered, crushed, dismembered, burnt, electrocuted, or otherwise meeting an untimely end is next to impossible. Those that have managed to delve into the tunnels and make it to the Hall are so weakened by their journey that they are easily dispatched by the mercenaries outside the Hall. It is important to know that the tunnel complex was not constructed by the Viziers. It is an ancient structure, built by an unknown force. Occasionally, strange creatures are found loose within the tunnels and must be dispatched by the mercenaries. More frightening yet, a score of yak-men recently launched an attack against the Hall of Secrets but were dispatched by the Hall's guards. Why the yakmen were in the tunnels, and how they managed to come so far south, are mysteries that the Viziers would very much like to have solved.
The Viziers should be used as the most mysterious of villains in an AL-QADIM® campaign. Their agents seem to come and go as they please, and many powerful men and women are "in their pockets." Individuals that suddenly begin exhibiting behavior contrary to their normal behavior, or performing acts that go against their grain, can sometimes be found to have employed a new adviser, if only for a short while. This clue may set a party of characters on the trail of the Viziers, but only the most clever will be able to discover the adviser's true origins.
Characters will most likely never be asked to join this group, unless they are exceptionally devious and unscrupulous. The Viziers are not evil, exactly, but they will let nothing interfere with their goals and are not at all adverse to using assassins to protect their interests. When the need for such assassins arises, the Viziers typically make use of Holy Slayers loyal to the Red Eyes. This tactic works because of the Viziers' infiltration of the Red Eyes spy network, and it is sure to cause confusion as investigators find themselves pursuing the Red Eyes while the Viziers continue with their acts unmolested.
If a character does get involved with the Viziers, it should be on a "work-for-hire" basis. A group of adventurers may be paid handsomely to discover how yak-men are able to come so far south without being detected. The group will never be told of the tunnels or the Hall of Secrets, as this information could compromise the secrecy of the Viziers themselves.
Particularly ambitious and clever characters might discover the secret of the Viziers and do what they can to bring it down. This is best done from within the Viziers, though this has extreme risks, and only the most resourceful of characters would be able to accomplish this feat without being destroyed.
The Viziers are the real power behind the caliph. Though they have yet to infiltrate the Pantheist League or the Grand Caliphate, in most other areas they are secretly pulling the strings. Characters might be aware of a secret society controlling various aspects of the government, but finding out more will be very difficult and very dangerous.
Goals: The Viziers want nothing less than to completely dominate the world around them while remaining in the shadows. Toward this end, they have sought out the secrets of important individuals. The secrets are used to "persuade" these individuals to act in ways beneficial to the Viziers and to influence politics throughout the Land of Fate.
The Viziers will approach a target individual and reveal some tantalizing tidbits about that person's enemies or their own hidden weaknesses. This teaser is usually convincing enough for the target to hire one of the Viziers as a personal adviser. The Vizier then uses her position to unveil more secrets about the target, which are then used to influence actions and decisions made by the target. The Vizier always remains in the background, never being seen to openly confer with the target. In the end, once the target has been used as fully as possible, the Viziers leave the man or woman to deal with the consequences of actions they were forced to make by the Viziers. Very powerful targets will be extricated from difficult situations by their adviser, who will then disappear, only to come back later with more "suggestions."
This plan has been very successful, as the rulers of many cities are under the control of the Viziers at various times.
The Pantheist League has so far been a stumbling block for the Viziers, as the power there is centered around religious institutions that are notoriously hard to subvert. It is hoped that the strict laws and religious strictures of the League may be turned against its rulers by the Viziers, who are desperately searching for "handles" on these men and women.
The Viziers would desperately like to get members within the inner circle of other sorcerous societies, but so far they have been thwarted at every turn. Should they ever be able to gain control of these societies, their power would increase exponentially. Of special interest is the Constellation. If the Viziers could gain the prediction abilities of this group, their plans would leap ahead a hundredfold. Knowing when and where to maneuver their agents would allow them great power over the other societies. Unfortunately, as they are trying to keep their society a secret, they are not able to contact the Constellation. Even if they did contact the Constellation, it is unlikely that they would be given the answers they seek. The astrologers will not do anything to increase the level of intrigue the Viziers have already created.