Other Groups (CSH)

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The following groups do not fit into any other category, yet their influence pervades the Known Spheres. They do not appeal to a particular character type, but instead operate on higher (or lower) ideals.
==The Seekers==
The Seekers are a group dedicated to knowledge. Their pursuit of knowledge brings them into contact with nearly every facet of spacefaring life, and their activities are viewed with a combination of suspicion and appreciation.
Symbol: An eye with a sword behind it. In more feudal spheres, the Seekers are known as the Company of the Orb and Sword.
Headquarters: Compendium, a planet or crystal sphere filled with the knowledge the Seekers have gathered. The Seekers admit or deny the existence of Compendium depending upon the situation, but no non-Seeker has yet found it.
Purpose: The Seekers are dedicated to knowledge and try to stay on good terms with sages in space and on the ground. They look for answers to questions such as what is the home planet of the giff, how the Arcane fill their orders so quickly, and why crystal shells are spherical. Often, these arguments bog down for lack of evidence, but the Seekers look to adventurers to gather interesting information, which they then make available to sages and seers seeking advice.
Thus, the Seekers are information brokers, but they do not deal in trivial gossip. A Seeker may be intrigued by the mystery of a magical item or curse but will not be interested in the temporal rulers of his own sphere.
The Seekers deal with most sentient races, provided that these sentients deal with each other fairly. They have no dealing with the neogi, for example, but will work with beholders, illithids, and humanoid races to gather information.
Allies: The Seekers have many acquaintances but few true allies. They deal often with the Sindiath Line, which transports their members from sphere to sphere. The Seekers show a particular affinity for the Pragmatic Order of Thought, whose ideals include the free exchange of information—a goal the Seekers approve of highly. The Seekers agree in principle with the wandering exploration of the Celestians but view their individual explorations as less effective than a concentrated series of research expeditions. Finally, the Seekers cooperate with the schools of magic, particularly (but not exclusively) the Shapers.
Enemies: The Seekers also have few enemies. The Xenos interfere with the Seekers (who employ creatures of all friendly races) much the same as they harass other nonhuman organizations. The Arcane and the Seekers are in an uneasy truce, as the Arcane do not like the Seekers' meddling in the history of their race.
Joining: The Seekers maintain a hierarchy of circles, with those in the higher circles knowing more about the overall goals of the organization than those at lower levels. Becoming a first or second-circle member of the Seekers is fairly easy, but there are few members in the higher circles that guide organizational policy. Moreover, the exact number of circles and the names of the higher-level members are not revealed to outsiders or those of the lower circles.
Seeker membership is made up of a bewildering mixture of races from around the Known Spheres. All of the player-character races (except the scro) can be found in Seeker ranks, although some are more helpful and forthright than others. In addition, there are a number of minor races that have members among the Seekers. While promotion may be blocked by the occasional racially biased superior, the organization as a whole is the most egalitarian in the Known Spheres.
Benefits: Low-circle members of the Seekers have access to the libraries at the various Seeker outposts. These compendia of facts provide a valuable resource for those researching the history or properties of the Known Spheres. However, some of the information in these libraries is incorrect or misleading, and there are disturbing gaps in coverage. Access to more accurate and comprehensive tomes requires membership in a higher circle.
Members may also propose questions to theorganization. Questions are reviewed by the higher circles, and if considered appropriate are added to a bulletin of interesting topics that is distributed to all Seeker outposts. Thus, the combined knowledge of the entire membership can be focused on one member's problem. Answers may take years or even centuries, however, so members are encouraged to continue their own investigations.
Obligations: Members of the Seekers are required to tell their leaders of any unusual event or fact that might be of interest to Seeker members.
==The Xenos==
The Xenos are an entirely human organization with a rabid hatred of the other races of space. Liberal Xenos believe that the other races should be enslaved, while the more traditionalist members believe that complete eradication is called for.
Symbol: The Xenos use several symbols. They include a human ear, a field of white (to signify purity), and a black eagle.
Headquarters: The Xenos have no formal headquarters, although they may be found nearly anywhere. There are rumors of an all-human enclave, called Purity, where the Xenos have established a base, but no one knows where it might be.
Purpose: The Xenos seek the complete subjugation or destruction of the nonhuman races. They act to sabotage and destroy nonhuman works and ideals. This may range from demolishing the forge of a dwarven vessel to putting two warring beholder factions on each other in hopes they wipe each other out.
To further their ends, they put out false, misleading, or slanted information, which is how they became the enemies of the Seekers. The Xenos muddy the waters to the degree that no truth can be seen, and think nothing of destroying artifacts and rewriting histories to fit their own purposes.
To a Xeno, the elves did not suddenly disappear from the Realms for a home in the west—they called down the gods in the Time of Troubles and then got out when they realized they had endangered themselves. The elves did not show mercy to the ores when they forbore from annihilating them at the end of the (Jnhuman War—they preserved them to use as a weapon against groundling human nations. Such lies are at the heart of Xeno thought. If you lie loudly enough and often enough, it will taint the truth.
Allies: The Xenos have few open allies, in part because they remain underground in quasi-humanoid societies. Their active numbers are small, but they enjoy the tacit support of many humans who have had their fill of drunken dwarves, aloof elves, and temperamental beholders. Finding an active Xeno is easy but imprisoning one is difficult; they have a habit of escaping when under human guards.
In addition to grass-roots support, the Tenth Pit and the Chainmen are reputed to work with the Xenos.
Enemies: Most official organizations repudiate the Xenos, at least publicly. The human trading companies view the Xenos as dangerous to the continuation of trade; the nonhumans consider them blood enemies.
Joining: To join the Xenos, you must be accepted by an active cell. These are easy to find if you're human; they can be found anywhere ignorant people live.
Once you have found a cell, the members must invite you to join. If you accept, there is an involved but magically meaningless induction ceremony involving oaths to the supremacy of humanity and the destruction of the nonhuman races. This ritual is carried out with great solemnity and has a transforming effect on people who undergo it.
Benefits: Aside from the ability to socialize and discuss beliefs with other like-minded people, there are few benefits to being a Xeno. Members help one another in times of trouble, but Xenos tend to have limited resources and personal power.
Obligations: Theoretically, each Xeno is supposed to be constantly working to frustrate and destroy nonhumans. In fact, few Xenos will do this individually, except to occasionally snub or make disparaging remarks to a demihuman from a position of safety. However, in groups these humans are capable of incredible viciousness and have been involved in murders, beatings, acts of vandalism and sabotage, and other crimes throughout the Known Spheres. When group activities are planned, members are more likely to become involved; refusal to do so can lead to ostracism or even violence against the offender.
==The Shapers==
The Shapers are the spacefaring organization that represents the wizard school of invokers. Shapers promote their specialty of magic through exchange of knowledge and organized support for one another throughout the Known Spheres.
Symbol: A clenched fist holding three lightning bolts.
Headquarters: The Shapers have no formal central headquarters. However, they have regular conclaves that are held in space settlements all over the Known Spheres.
Purpose: The invokers of the Known Spheres aremuch more organized than mages of the other magical schools, primarily as they have significant advantages over the other schools in space. First of all, since they are barred from using spells of the school of conjuration/summoning in any case, their powers are not diminished in the phlogiston. Second, their combat abilities (and the wide variety of combat spells available to them) make them highly prized in the rough-and-tumble spelljamming life.
To most outsiders, the Shapers are a source of magical knowledge and assistance. They act as a guild, providing members with referrals from people who need the assistance of wizards, offering training in the magical arts, and setting the standards of excellence for magical practice in the civilized portions of the Known Spheres.
The other schools of magic, however, do not see the Shapers in the same way. The Shapers are known for acting to freeze noninvokers out of any magical business, even to the point of enacting licensing laws for mages in some spaceports, so that unlicensed mages are forbidden from practicing magic for fee. Since the Shapers issue the licenses, most of the business goes to invokers.
The Shapers are also stingy with magical training. They hoard magical knowledge jealously, not even sharing spells with other schools. A noninvoker who seeks training at a Shaper academy may be charged triple the tuition—or may simply be refused.
Allies: The congenial face that the Shapers present to nonmages attracts many. Almost all the trading houses consider the Shapers to be honest businessmen. Only Gaspar Reclamations, which is led by a member of the rival school of alteration magic, holds any hostility to the Shaper organization. The mercenary companies have learned that they can count on the competency of Shaper-trained mages, and prefer them to mages of other schools for combat support. (This only serves to further inflame the other schools.)
The Xenos support the Shapers, as this magical specialty is restricted to humans only. However, the Shapers try to play down this affiliation, as they do not want their good name associated with the hate-mongering Xenos.
Enemies: The Temple of Ptah sees the Shapers as competitors for magical services in the Known Spheres and so attempts to thwart the growth of this organization whenever possible. The Seekers dislike the Shapers because the latter behave as information sinks: once the Shapers have a piece of information, no one else is allowed to get their hands on it.
Joining: To join the Shapers, one must first be an invoker (a specialty mage of the school of invocation/evocation). This school's membership is restricted to humans. One must then apply for membership in the Shapers. This usually involves a simple competency test in invocation/evocation magic and the payment of a 100-gp license fee.
Benefits: In many spaceports, Shapers have a monopoly on magic for hire. While noninvokers can work as speUjammer pilots, they are not permitted to cast magical spells in the spaceport. This benefit alone has made the fortune of many Shapers—and not a few conjurers and enchanters whose prices were able to rise to black-market levels because invokers are unable to cast spells from these two schools.
Shapers may also receive magical training for level increases (if this option is used in your campaign; see the Dungeon Master's Guide, Chapter 8) at any Shaper academy for normal costs (100 gp per level per week). Other mages must pay three times normal costs.
Obligations: The Shapers wield considerable power and exact a fee for its use. Any Shaper mage must pay 10% of the income from any magical endeavour to the Shapers as a tithe. This tithe is not to the overall parent organization (which is too diffuse to manage such things effectively), but rather to the local chapterhouse and academy.
Moreover, a Shaper arriving at a new spaceport is expected to make a courtesy visit to the chapterhouse upon arrival. There may be some local fees for acquiring a practicing license, and some chapterhouses even charge a 5% tithe on all goods for new members in addition to the license fees, on the assumption that some of this money was not properly tithed.