Red Room (agency)

*“What do you think causes the Red Room to have this sort of effect on its agents? Most other intelligence organizations don’t have their agents thinking their partners are plotting against them.”*
*“I expect it’s the fact the Red Room encourages its agents to plot against one another.”*— Shannon O'Reily and Derek Hawthorne, *Esoterrorism*
The **Red Room** was one of the branches of the House. The Red Room functioned as the coordinator of all of the House's field and intelligence operations, essentially serving as the main combat unit within the House's structure.

## Purpose

The Red Room's primary function was to manage all of the House's spy/intelligence operations and coordinate units in the field in either setting when necessary.

* **Intelligence**: The Room's most common function was spy work, placing agents within both hostile and friendly organizations so as to conduct investigations, determine how much of the Truth they were aware of, and counter any of their operations as necessary. Derek Hawthorne alone had been placed within the CIA for several years, on top of also countering measures taken by mundane criminal organizations.
	+ **Counterintelligence**: The Red Room's primary defensive role was to protect the House's own information whenever necessary, including by silencing anyone who might spread that information to the outside. Part of this role included having its own agents, even partners, spy on each other, creating an unmatched sense of paranoia that made agents less likely to commit treason.
	+ **Investigations**: As part of their intelligence work, the Red Room investigated any potential threat to the House, whether that was rival groups with magical connections or even average criminal rings that were coming close to the Truth. Such an investigation is where Derek first encountered the Wazir.
	+ **Interrogations**: Red Room agents were trained in interrogation techniques, even being capable of getting information from the ghosts of the deceased and circumventing a geas when necessary. This notably did not include torture, as torturous methods proved ineffective.
	+ **Maintaining Covers**: Should an agent break their cover and be unable to kill themselves to avoid leaking information, it was the Red Room's duty to fix the damage and pull the agent out. This was shown when the Professor got Derek released from prison after his arrest in Thompson City, where he pretended that Derek was a DEA agent on a classified mission.
* **Combat**: The Red Room's other key feature was its role in planning combat operations, with its agents being trained for both espionage and magical combat. Though they were always encouraged to keep situations quiet when they could, should combat break out for any reason, Red Room agents were always the top combatants within the House.
	+ **Military Operations**: Should the House encounter a situation that required outright action, the Red Room was assigned to the task. This included everything from raids on vampire hotspots to the assault on Cassandra's Lair.
	+ **Magic**: If a Red Room agent showed magical proficiency, they were trained in the art of magical combat so as to use their powers offensively in combat settings. Both Shannon O'Reily and Penny Hawthorne showed their magical abilities on the battlefield multiple times.
* **Connections**: As a result of their intelligence operations, the Red Room had connections all over the world to both reputable groups and criminal organizations. Derek was shown to be on friendly terms with a mobster, alongside having a half-brother in charge of a mercenary organization, but the group's biggest ally was the United States federal government, who usually let them operate with limited restrictions.

## Members

* The Professor - Division Head, retired after the House's fall
* Derek Hawthorne - Later promoted to the Committee (deceased)
* Shannon O'Reily - Retired after the House's fall
* Penny Hawthorne - Retired after the House's fall
* Tommy Moretti - Traitor (deceased)
* Ishikawa Sakura - Derek's personal assistant
* Nathan Hawthorne - Later promoted to the Committee, elected President of the United States after destroying the House
* Ben Talbot - Retired, later joined Derek's Team and retired after the House's fall
* Ashley Morgan - Presumed dead, in truth led the Network (deceased)
* Christopher Hang - Presumed dead, in truth turned into a vampire (deceased)