The Sea's Children (CShaH)

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Admits: The Sea's Children is composed entirely of elementalists whose expertise lies in the province of the sea. Sorcerers who have sea as their main province may be allowed to join this society, but such members are exceedingly rare. A sorcerer would have to abandon his secondary school to be allowed to join the Children, and few are willing to do this.
Members: The Sea's Children is comprised entirely of elves and humans. Of the more than 200 members, 117 are elves. There are 12 half-elves, and the rest of the society are humans. Both sexes are represented, though there is a definite bias toward females, who form 57 percent of the society.
Initiation: The ranks of the Children are made up exclusively of sea elementalists. Agents of the Children roam the coasts aboard ships of all sorts, earning their keep by using their magic to perform vital functions aboard the ship and to converse with any hostile sea creatures that may accost the ship.
At every port, the elementalist(s) aboard a ship will disembark and seek out any elementalists of the province of sea. The elementalist will stay from several days to a few weeks, making cautious inquiries as to the location of any elementalists of his province that may be in the area. Sympathetic sailors are the usual source of information; mariners have a great deal of respect for sea elementalists since they are so useful aboard ships. Sea travelers will almost never doublecross a sea elementalist, not wanting to incur the wrath of those that can stir up trouble where the mariners' livelihood is concerned. Because of this, sailors serve as safe go-betweens for the Children and will often be used to contact a likely elementalist.
Once a member of the Children has found a sea elementalist, he will ask that elementalist to go with him to the next port. This request is delivered to the elementalist by a sailor who knows him. This serves the purpose of protecting the contacter from ambush and of setting the contacted elementalist at ease.
If the character agrees to accompany the Children's elementalist, all is well and the character will be told something about the group that has contacted him. Should the character decline, he will simply be left alone and the Children will never contact him again.
Along the journey to the next port, the Children aboard the ship will watch the elementalist they have contacted. If he treats the sailors well and uses his magic appropriately, he will be accepted as an initiate. When the ship stops at the next port, the members of the Children will ask the character to join their organization and tell the character what must be done to continue his initiation.
Having proved his ability by helping out on the ship and using magic appropriate to the situation, the character must now make his contribution. This involves hiring on with a ship bound for a long journey. The character's fee for services will be taken by the Children when he returns.
Sea elementalists can charge from 1 to 3 gp per day, depending on the strength of their magic and their haggling ability. For characters attempting to make their contributions, 1 gp per day is standard. If the character must cast a spell, additional charges are made at the rate of 10 gp per level of the spell. This charge can quickly increase the cost of having an elementalist aboard and is the reason why a ship's captain will only ask for a spell to be cast if it is absolutely necessary. If injured while on board a ship, the elementalist will be paid 1 gp per point of damage taken. Double this if the elementalist was forced to fight along with the crew.
If the elementalist returns with all his gold and most of the crew intact, he will have made his contribution and will be able to begin the test.
Tests are quite dangerous and involve the dispatch of some sea monster or the clearing of a treacherous spot of water. This is rated according to level so that a 3rd-level elementalist isn't set out to destroy a troublecausing marid. But it will stretch the character's abilities to the maximum and will always have a significant tie to the sea. Many sea elementalists have been slain while undertaking their test to join the Sea's Children.
Characters who manage to complete their test are ready to become full members of the organization and are brought into the fold with great ceremony. Because of all the pomp and ceremony involved, these events are held once a year on the first day of Mihla. This date seems to hold no significance to any of the major religions of Zakhara, but it does mark the highest tides in many seaports in the Land of Fate.
The ceremony of initiation is only a formality. Once an initiate finishes his test to the approval of the society, he is considered a member and receives the benefits thereof. The ceremony is important because it presents newcomers to the group so they will be recognized by the other members in the future.
Description: The Sea's Children are one of the hardest sorcerous societies to define. While they appear to be expanding regularly, the organization itself seems too fluid to have any sort of internal consistency. Leaders come and go with apparent randomness and without consultation among the Children. Like their leadership, the location of their primary base of operations changes constantly. One day it may be in Huzuz, the next day somewhere in the Pearl Islands.
All of this is part of the Children's plans. They thrive on shifting changes, and their leadership rotates according to complex tide patterns. The location of their base of operations changes in response to trade routes. Where the boats are, the Children will be.
Analyzing the Sea's Children is quite difficult. Their plots are incredibly intricate, as each piece of a plan has very definite effects on the neighboring pieces. Like the oceans' currents, the various portions of a plan are often invisible to those that are not a part of them. This has led many to speculate that the Children really do not have a clear concept of what they are doing. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Children do little to disabuse their critics of these erroneous beliefs. It is a common saying of the Children: "Until one swims deep, the complexity of the sea is unknown." That motto applies equally well to the organization itself.
The Sea's Children are led by the Tribunal, a threemember group of high-level elementalists. These men and women are all of equal status and rotate out of their post regularly. There are 18 Children who serve as members of the Tribunal from time to time. This seemingly random change of leadership is actually one of the strengths of the Children; it is very difficult to tell who is in charge at a given point, making assassination or subversion a very tricky proposition at best. Even the Brotherhood of the True Flame balks at investing large amounts of money in killing someone who isn't currently in a position of power. The Children would simply rotate someone else into the slain member's post and replace him at their convenience.
With everyone switching around, it might seem that the members of the Tribunal would be hard pressed to keep up on what they are supposed to be doing. The Tribunal avoids this by adhering to a very complex plot that was laid down by the founding members 500 years ago. The plan has no name but is studied by all members of the Tribunal. Though the leaders of the Children are allowed to make snap decisions on how to best follow the plot or to adjudicate problems within the organization, deviation from the plan is forbidden. Fortunately, the plan is complex enough and riddled with so many subplots that it is impossible for an outsider to ever fully comprehend it. Only a magical ritual allows members of the Tribunal to keep track of the plan, and this same ritual prevents them from every revealing its true intent to anyone.
Below the Tribunal are the Waveriders, men and women charged with traversing the Land of Fate to find new elementalists, carry out orders, and deliver messages and orders to those elementalists traveling abroad. The Waveriders are greatly respected by sailors everywhere, as their presence aboard a ship seems to guarantee a quick and safe journey. The Waveriders are allowed to make judgment calls while in the field but are restricted from changing the orders they are given or those that they are entrusted to deliver. To do so could cause deviation from the plan and result in uncontrolled chaos.
Below the Waveriders, there are no formal posts. The rest of the society spends its time carrying out orders or waiting for other orders to arrive. Most spend a few days in a port before being handed orders and moving on to complete them. Characters that are part of an adventuring group are encouraged to bring their companions along with them on society missions but are discouraged from revealing too much of their true nature.
Some members of the Children have become too old to travel comfortably, so they retire from active duty. These men and women are cared for in port towns throughout the Land of Fate and serve as instructors and advisers to all the Children. Any member of the Children can ask to study under one such master and will be granted the time to do so. During study, the character gains 200 XP per month and can engage in no other activity, especially adventuring. In exchange for knowledge, the character is expected to perform menial tasks for the master. Such an experience is humbling but does bring improvement.
The Sea's Children keeps tabs on the movements of other sorcerous societies, thanks mostly to the efforts of sailors currying the Children's favor. This provides the Children with a detailed account of the movements of known wizards along the coast or across the sea but has left them somewhat blind where inland travels are concerned. There has been some effort made to gain the trust of merchants that regularly use aquatic trade routes, but these have met with little success. Few of the Children can bring themselves to trust those that don't live by the sea, limiting the usefulness of these contacts.
The Children have a very strange outlook on life, an expansion of the deceptive attitudes of the average water elementalist (see Chapter 1). The Children believe that every person has both a "deep self" and a "shore self." The "shore self" is that which is presented on a day-to-day basis. This is a genial personality that is useful in making friends and allies (though some Children have found it useful to present a more threatening face). The "shore self" is tailored to the environment in which the elementalists spend the majority of their time; those that travel with the surliest of sailors will develop a rougher exterior than those that spend their time cruising the pleasure galleons of nobles. Because the "shore self," like the "deep self," is a permanent part of an elementalist's personality, an elementalist will not normally change his style of travel or the types of individuals with whom he associates. The plan has taken this into account, and elementalists are given orders that suit their "shore self" as well as their "deep self."
The "deep self" is the core of the character. It is the true nature of that character and, ultimately, what decides the actions a character may take. This may be very different from the "shore self," forcing elementalists to think quickly in order to maintain their "cover." For example: a character whose shore self is very mean and opportunistic (traits gained from traveling with dishonorable mercenaries most of the time) may have a "deep self" that is quite selfsacrificing and devoted to friends. While traveling with a group of mercenaries, the character sees an old friend in danger of being killed by bandits. The character puts himself in great danger of being killed to rescue what appears to be a total stranger. In order to keep those around him from discovering his true nature, the elementalist may say that he was only rescuing the man to see if he might have something of value that the elementalist would be able to take rather than letting it fall into the bandits' hands.
The Sea's Children are rather fond of disguises and are the most likely to use the disguise abilities of an elementalist to further their own ends. Many have developed elaborate schemes in which they hold various estates and titles under different disguises. Such individuals are valued by the Children, as they allow one person to cast his or her influence over a very wide area. Those among the Children who have mastered disguise are treated exceptionally well and will rise in prestige faster than those who are not as proficient with this skill.
Because of their shifting attitudes and their use of disguise, the Children have fostered a general mistrust of all sea elementalists. This doesn't mean that elementalists are not respected (or, in some cases, feared); it means only that people are very suspicious of them. This has irritated a number of dedicated sea elementalists, and a small group of these spends most of its time repairing the damage caused by the Children to the image of elementalists the world over.
Goals: The plan is the guiding path for the Tribunal. It encompasses a thousand different branches, each of which leads to a final end point. And when the Tribunal manages to finally pull all the branches together, the plan will have led them to a world where they can truly become one with the sea.
There are countless plots in action at any one time—some of them being carried out by individuals who are not even members of the Sea's Children. These unwitting dupes may simply be delivering messages or packages from one member to another, or they may be so firmly wrapped in plots not of their own design they do not see that their will is not truly their own. It is this layering of plots and the use of outsiders who don't really know what it is they are involved with that maintains the mystery of the Children. While other societies have complex plots, none can rival the intricate flowing of those concocted by the Plan and the Sea's Children.
The elementalists that belong to the Sea's Children are intent upon returning to a sea in which they can live out their lives in peace amid the splendors of the deep. Few members of the society know this, however, as the Tribunal and the Waveriders feel such knowledge may be disconcerting to those who aren't as enlightened as they are.
In order to achieve their ultimate goal, the Children have set about locating sea-related magical items and artifacts of various sorts. These items are kept secure in hidden caches beneath the waves of the Golden Coast. These caches are guarded by assorted traps and the depths of the ocean as well as a number of "natural" guardians. Giant squid, crabs, and other aquatic monsters can often be found around these treasure troves, and they seem very aggressive toward those that would dare to steal from the elementalists. These creatures never attack members of the Children, parting respectfully for those that come to retrieve an item or two. The Children see this as tacit approval by their element that they are doing the right things.
The plan calls for the recovery of more than a hundred items. The Children have managed to find and secure a quarter of these. There are a number of items that they have found but cannot retrieve and more that seem to have been lost in ages long gone.
Once all of these items have been found, the Children will be called to the Great Grotto. The location of this undersea cavern is still unknown, despite the best efforts of the Children to find and prepare it. Some believe that it can be found only when the time is right, that the Great Grotto is actually a gate that will lead to the world of water when the time is right.
The plan speaks of a great sleeping, during which the Children will become more like the creatures that inhabit the sea. Prophecies foretell these changes, one of which is quoted below:
: ... And they crawled from their resting place on webbed hands and feet. Their eyes were swollen and glassy, their necks elongated and perforated with vertical slashes that could only have been gills, such as a fish have. They flopped about on the stone and splashed into the water in a great migration. Their skin shone and rippled beneath the light of an unseen torch, and beneath the water it was evident that they were scaled. Then, without a backward glance they dove deep and swam out to sea.
The Tribunal believes that the Children will emerge from the Great Grotto as a new race and will live within their chosen element for all time to come. This is their ultimate goal: the ability to become as one with that to which they have devoted their life.
These goals have remained completely undetected to any of the other societies. Even if they were discovered, the other societies would leave them alone. The Children do not interfere with anyone's plans and will be of no real consideration if left to their own devices.