The Blackfeld Abbey

**Saint** **Blackfeld's Abbey** were a group of mage-hunters, based somewhere in the Burning Hills.

They began by hunting down mages who caused chaos and death, but some members led a sect and caused a rift in the group's ideology, The rift was between the two views of "All magic is a gateway to evil" and "Dark magic should be used *only by us* to suppress all other magic".

The sect soon became the core belief, and the Order thus practiced umbromancy and hemomancy, and were fairly evil.. But by the 16th century, the Blackfeld Abbey had become more of a **religion**, **idea** or **belief** than a concrete group. They followed the Ravings of the Prophet, their holy book.

## History

### The Order of the Burning Star

In the late 1400s, the Rakki umbromancer Nirwen Skålsag formed a group of rangers, trackers, knights and dispossessed paladins who offered their services in the southwest and southeast Danderillon as **mage hunters** for hire. They called themselves the **Order of the Burning Star**. During this time, they became adept at hunting mages.

Most of them were **vehemently anti-magic** after seeing what it could do to people, destroying them morally and killing innocents wantonly. However, **some** of the Order believed also that some of these necromancers had a point; necromancy was just a perjorative name for a morally dubious form of magic. Other magics were just as bad or worse, and were not hunted down to such a degree. Thus the **seeds of doubt** were planted early.

### The Verse of the Cross

They travelled north to Bracken, where they united with two other similar factions of mercenaries and warriors to form the Iron Chapter in 1487. They united to try to gain some influence in the lawless city, and they came to be known as the Verse of the Cross. The Cross worked with the Iron Chapter for quite some time. However, when the Iron Chapter fissured 3 years later, the more zealous members of the Cross were displeased with the compromises that had been made with the more holy and 'do-gooder' Order of the Gauntlet, and the greedy money-driven Golden Flock. Thus, some of them elected to leave Bracken entirely, and travel southwards for many months.

### Saint Blackfeld's Town

Their march south took them from 1490 to early 1492. In the south of the Burning Hills, they stopped at the abandoned village of Blackfeld. The village was once named after Baluk al'fayad, a Nethir desert warrior and opposer of tyrannical warlords in the eighth century; he was later canonised as Saint Blackfeld. There, they set to work establishing their new home. The harsh orange and umber sands, and their heat-mirage magic, would shield their location from being found by scriers.

### The Blackfeld Abbey

With their new home ready, the Abbey would wax and wane; in the ensuing years, they performed some ritual activity before splitting apart, reforming ten years later, etc. Sometimes, those who believed in the teachings of the Abbey would reform it themselves. Thus, the Abbey is comparable to a dark version of the Harpers. *It was more of an idea than a group in of its own right*.

## The Ravings of the Prophet's Teachings

The Abbey followed the Ravings of the Prophet, excerpts of which can be found on that page. They believed in several central doctrines;

* The strong should not be scared of using their power.
* Dark magic is only evil to those who are burdened by the shackles of tradition.
* True strength comes from control over life and death itself.
* It is a farce to worship the gods when we control our own fate.
* Those with cruor in their veins should be given a chance to submit and join us, otherwise they stand contrary to our goals.
* Our kind desires order and needs to be controlled to best thrive.
* True peace and prosperity will come about when humanity is controlled from the shadows.
* No cost is too great for the realisation of our perfect world.
* The Prophet guides us from above and below, ready to grace the earth a second time.

## Halcyon Revival

Notably, in 1592/3, some who believed in their teachings relocated to Halcyon and began targeting several notable people, like Antoine Christophe Roquefort and Jeyda Stormwind.