The Bleak Cabal

The Bleak Cabal is a faction devoted to the idea that existence is inherently meaningless, beyond what meaning one assigns to it. Life is pointless, brutish, and painful. Death is no different. There is no plan to the universe, no over-arching structure of the multiverse, and anything you choose to do, is ultimately only important because you chose to do it.

The members of the Bleak Cabal are always on the brink of madness because of this worldview and most eventually give in, joining those who came before them in the catatonic state known as the 'Grim Retreat'.

The Bleakers look at the indifference of others, the constant pain and suffering of the poor and needy as just another meaningless thing and so many devote their lives to helping ease that suffering. Choosing to do something altruistic or kind despite the fact that it is ultimately meaningless, choosing to do it just because one can, is that much more important when there are no external factors making that decision for you.

The Bleak Cabal runs all of the sanitariums, hospitals, soup kitchens, shelters, and of course The Gatehouse, in the interest of altruism for its own sake.

### Relations with Other Factions

Their constant melancholy makes them unpleasant on a philosophical level but due to their charity to all who need it and their lack of strong convictions in most arenas they don't make enemies. The Doomguard differs in that they see existence as meaningless because everything will lead to ruin, and the Xaositects see existence as meaningless because all is chaos, but these differences are not enough in any of their minds to lead to any serious enmity.

### Ranks of the Bleak Cabal

Joining the Bleak Cabal is simple enough, but involves a long period of apathetic hazing until finally being accepted. Members of the Cabal lose all but their given name (in order to show their rejection of meaning) and begin to share in the further secrets of the cabal. Either by exposure to those with similar nihilistic viewpoints or by the very nature of having the belief that existence is meaningless, all members of the cabal are ticking timebombs of madness, each day they slip further away from reality. With that in mind, many members share meditation techniques to avoid madness and become immune to certain types of psychic damage and psychic affects as a result of their meditation.

The Cabal also teaches its spell-casting members some unique abilities when they reach higher ranks of the faction, and teach martial fighters new techniques (with the stipulation that half of all treasure they earn returns to the Cabal), also included in their martial technique training is a very sophisticated series of lessons in diplomacy and charismatic speech.

Bleakers tend to have short lives ending in a stay at the Gatehouse when their madness takes hold. As a result, most factols of the Cabal move fast, working hard to enact new goals while a team of factotum watch for the signs of madness. The current factotum is a bugbear named Gorp.

### State of the Cabal

The past thousand years has been largely without consequence to the Bleak Cabal. They live as they always have, continuing to work to lessen the suffering of the common folk and eventually losing themselves to the Grim Retreat.