Knights of the Covenant

### **General:**

The Knights are small secret organization dedicated to the spread of dissension and chaos throughout the known world. They have no agenda, no large plans, and no lofty schemes. They spread violence, disease, discord, and distrust for the fun of it. They fund mayhem when requested to do so (sort of a grant organization for evil) and provide their limited number of personnel when necessary (death mages, mercenaries, assassins, etc). They are a union of like-minded people with a common interest.

### **Goal:**

The Knights are a fairly new and small organization dedicated to the spread of dissension and chaos throughout the known world. They have no agenda, no large plans, and no lofty schemes. They spread violence, disease, discord, and distrust for the fun of it. They fund mayhem when requested to do so (sort of a grant organization for evil) and provide their limited number of personnel when necessary (death mages, mercenaries, assassins, etc). They are more a union of like minded people than anything else.

### **Territory:**

The group operates in any region of Xaria.

### **Genesis:**

Unknown. It is suspected that after the defeat of the evil wizard known as Tertian and the death of his brothers, he decided to sow evil for the sake of evil. Wishing only to punish the 'good' of Xaria and to enjoy himself doing it too.

### **Past:**

While much of the group’s founding is still a mystery, it is known that the group is a fairly recent addition to Xaria.

### **Present:**

NOTE: History is current only to 499.
The group is small, but effective, and is growing every day. With the mantra of “evil is fun” and flexible time requirements, they find it an easy task to recruit appropriate people. The group is known to exist, but their Modus Operandi makes it difficult to detect which events are linked to them.

### **Leadership:**

The nominal head of the group (and suspected founder) is Tertian, last survivor of three evil wizard brothers. There has been some reference to "the Founders" implying that Tertian may have founded the group with other powerful people.

While the leadership is a closely guarded secret, the rest of this small group falls into two categories: Swords and Knights

#### Divisions:

Low level members, called Swords, enjoy the mischief of evil, but have other goals, tasks and groups to which they pledge their allegiance. They do promise to spread evil when possible and to assist the covenant when asked. They Agree to obey the commands of Knights or founders and provide services when needed. They will provide intelligence and reports that may help Knights.

In return the Covenant will provide, “a system of support and tutelage for what should be their true malevolent nature”. The Covenant will also consider their requests before those of the common petitioner when it comes to providing Covenant resources.

Knights of the Covenant have pledged their lives to the Covenant and are the “Generals” of the cause. They spend all their time creating chaos, or planning it. They hatch the plans, allocate funding and material, do research, etc. They can be Warriors, Mages, thieves, merchants or any other class, but are all very motivated and intelligent. They have discretionary usage of covenant resources to further their plans. They belong to no other groups.

### **Code & Prohibitions:**

Members are expected to assist other members and to actively attempt to sow discord and distrust whenever possible…property damage is an acceptable bonus.

The unofficial code of the group is:

1. Foster an atmosphere of chaos, discord and discontentment throughout the known lands.
2. Create distrust between the populace and the authorities that hold sway over them.
3. Seek out and encourage the latent malevolent tendencies of the populace.
4. Protect the Knighthood of the Covenant, its possessions and its members in both word and deed.

The covenant tries to behave intelligently. If a situation is hopeless, they will leave. If the payoff does not look like it will equal the resources put forth, it will not be done. The Founders (most of whom are unknown) know that being careful and cautious will net them more in the future than a rash movement would gain them today.

### **Recruitment:**

Recruitment is on a personal basis. Swords and Knights spot potential members and based on reputation and deeds ask them to join. Swords refer recruits to Knights for actual acceptance. There is no training as members should be good at evil before being asked to join.

### **Typical Member:**

Members are intelligent and motivated individuals who revel in seeing mayhem, destruction, distrust and chaos unfold before them. They enjoy it more if they are the cause. They usually work alone, but can assist others when needed.

### **Generally Known:**

“The Covenant? Never heard of it. Are they the ones collecting for the Halgudaran Orphan’s Fund?”

### **In-Character Quote:**

Details of an intercepted letter from a Knight of the Covenant to Tertian.

"My Liege,

I hope this missive finds you well. I have not much time, as I am expected a number a leagues from here in the morning. We have been having a grand time lately, wish you could be here to join in the fun. One of the Swords did the funniest thing at a farmer’s hut near the border of Gallura of which you would be proud. Next time we meet I will tell you about it! The three of us laughed for hours afterwords.

You should know that there are rumors flying around Halgudar. It seems the elf killer is once again at large. To what extent we cannot be sure, but suffice it to say, Halgudar probably does not need our personal attention. It seems to be following our agenda on its own. There are also stories of some great magikal destructive force that was deployed.
We have acquired a goodly number of “recruits” from the battlefields of Halgudar. Our mage can only secure a small number at a time, but they are being led to the staging area as fast as we can move without being noticed.

I heard that you have gotten hold of a Djin. Is this true? I can only imagine the wondrous things we could accomplish with such an artifact! I also heard tell that you were able to humble a Veldron in the process!

A full report will follow, but most importantly I am sending you this artifact. It is small, but it has magikal powers we cannot study in the field. We took it from an archeologist, he will not be needing it anymore! It may be nothing, but the information we garnered from him before his untimely demise indicates that it was found around a former Sequestrum stronghold. If it is indeed of Sequestrum origin, it could be of great value to ourselves or our allies.

Hope to be back home soon.

Fulfilling the natural order,

Verianl, Knight of the Covenant "