Eternian Icons for 13th Age

Watching He-man & the Masters of the Universe: Revelations this past week got me thinking about how the MOTU mythos has got some good candidates for 13th Age style icons. Here's a sampling:

Earl Norem

DARK WARLORD

The dread general of the vast, world-conquering armies of the Horde whose dominion spans universes. He is a figure of legend who employs terror to first breaking the collective spirit of a world before employing the powerful magic and technology to subjugate it.

Gerald Parel

SORCERESS

Guardian of the secrets of Castle Grayskull which was once in ancient times the Hall of Wisdom, a repository of incalculable knowledge, but also a conduit of cosmic power. The Sorceress' unrivalled magic protects these secrets from the wider world--and the wider world from the secrets. 

ELDER DRAGON

Second oldest living thing on the planet of Eternia, the Elder Dragon rules over the rest of his kind from forbidden Darksmoke. He takes a dim view of humanity, being well-aware of their failings, but may be moved to employ his magic and knowledge in their cause, if supplicants pass the tests he puts before them.

Alvin Lee

SERPENT KING

Once this world bowed to the many-headed Snake God and was ruled by his chosen people. The Serpent King was both Eternia's ruler and the Snake God's high priest. When mammalian humanity rebelled, he was imprisoned outside the world with his god. Still, his presence can be felt. His followers keep the faith in secret. The Serpent King works tireless to return and again ascend the throne.

FOREST LORD

Though believed by many city-dwellers to be nothing more than a legend, the Forest Lord is in fact the living avatar of the natural world, a green god that moves silently through the great forest. His followers are most aggressive against the forces of destruction who would despoil nature but have no love for the encroachment of civilization, whatever its form.

Godless in the Outer Planes

The Archons of the Cosmos and their lesser progeny have the comfort (or curse) of an unshakable belief that there was something different before. Their separation and conflict is based on different ideas about how to regain what once was and what precisely the characteristics of that thing was but they know it existed.

Mortal souls, even planar dwelling ones, don't share that faith or knowledge.

Mortals on the Material Planes are generally unaware of the wider conflicts in the Cosmos, but Planar ones, particularly those dwelling in the Concordant Opposition cannot help but be aware. In the city of Sigil, very mortal philosophies have emerge or at least congregated to explain the clash of realities around them.

The Athar deny or at least doubt that the gods and Archons have any privileged knowledge of the multiverse compared to mortals. An elephant might seem godlike to an ant, they say, but it has no greater insight into how or why the sun rises. In fact, some Atharan thinkers have argued that the certainty experienced by the Powers (as they call them) is a barrier to their rational examination of the Cosmos, suggesting that, whatever their puissance, they may be less capable of reason than mortals. Athar sages see the simplistic duality of Law and Chaos with their ill-defined and contingent categories, for explain, as proof for this line of thinking.

In general, Athar adherents seek to free mortal minds from the tyranny of the Powers, for only then can anyone ever hope to understand the Cosmos. Some Atharans believe that a Godhead does exist that undergirds or perhaps created reality, but the nature of such a conceptual being is only conjectural, while others feel such assertions are at best premature.

The Psychonauts of Gyre

The Psychonauts, also known as the Alchemists, are a policlub in Gyre who believe that most intelligent beings are incapable of perceiving the true nature of the multiverse and the Godhead (if such a thing exists), but the appropriately altered state of consciousness can unlock these hidden secrets. To this end, the Psychonauts engaged in personal experiment with a variety of chemical substances are neurologic modifications of their own devising. To fund these experiments they are also the primary suppliers to Gyre's illicit drug trade. They also supply many of the legal mood altering drugs many a citizen of Gyre and provided the experimental research central to much corporate subliminal media.

Psychonaut club members are always eager for more subjects (willing and unwilling, in some cases) for their experiments. They also will at times pay handsomely (or more likely over drugs or chemicals in trade) for exotic psychoactive substances from the Outer Planes.

The Monster Makers of Gyre

The Promethean Society (Monstermakers, Frankensteins)
The learned members of the Promethean Society policlub believe that the multiverse is only intelligible when filtered through the senses of sophont beings, most specifically biologic sophont beings. They believe that a perfected biological being could perceive a more perfected multiverse, and thereby usher in a new age, the Godhead again made manifest through a creation worthy of it. To this end, the Promethean Society members are shapers of flesh and creators of artificial life. Some believe that mundane biological life could be upgraded through grafts or genetic alterations, while others believe only a bioroid Adam could possibly be the vessel for a new consciousness.

The equipment and supplies their experiments call for don't come cheap, so many members make a living providing biotech modifications to customers. Some make monsters for underground fight clubs, while still others illegal clones for the very wealthy.

Three Policlubs of the City Gyre

In conceptual realms like the outer multiverse, there are few armchair philosophers. In Gyre, the ring city at the center of the multiverse, policlubs are registered and tolerated organizations formed around philosophic principals with elements of street gangs, secret societies, and sometimes, organized crime. Here are three of them:

Annihilists (Doomsters)
Things fall apart, in the planar multiverse as well as on the mundanes. It's a cold fact more eternal than any promise of Law, and more certain than any ephemera of Chaos. You can deny it or even fight it, but you can't defeat it. The Annihilists choose to embrace it to varying degrees, some by taking the time (as it slowly ticks away) to appreciate, even revel in, its workings, others by actively joining in and hastening things along. What comes after everything crumbles to dust also divides the group. Some feel that only by the destruction of the current multiverse can make way for a new, better, one. Others hold that there will be a final oblivion, and the wounded Godhead will finally rest in peace.

The headquarters of the more action-minded wing of the Annihilist movement is the metal club Rough Beast, located in an abandoned industrial foundry. The official policlub's current leader is a young tiefling woman who sings lead for the house band, The Eves of Destruction.

The Free (The Wardens, The Jailers)
There is a harsh purpose to the multiverse and that is to confine souls. The Black Iron Prison, the Plane of Confinement, is just the maximum security section of a larger and more subtle prison. The Free's founder claims to have escaped the Black Iron Prison but only after achieving a sort of enlightenment while he was in solitary. He and his followers offer this enlightenment to the worlds, but it comes at price. None can truly experience the truth of it without first going through a great trial.

The Free are based in a prison in Gyre; both guards and prisoners are members. Their aim isn't punishment but the stern refinement of the souls in their charge.

Ontic Programmer Collective (Reality Hackers)
Everyone agrees that the mundane universes are essentially patterns in ether and the planar multiverse is a pattern vibrating in the astral manifold, but the question of what structure supports those patterns has been left up to theologians, who obviously have no consistent answer. The OPC believes that the answer is nothing less than the Godhead, and the name of the Godhead is math. The OPC plan is to obtain power beyond even the so-called gods by understanding and manipulating the computational underpinings of the multiverse.

The OPC is an eclectic group of academics, corporate programmer wage slaves, and gifted dropouts. There main need is etheric network time and bandwidth, and they are quite willing to acquire it by almost any means. They seldom rumble in the physical realm with other policlubs, but have been known to make things very difficult for rivals by their machinations on the net.

Terror and Atavism

The Eden Seekers are a group of antignostic sapience-rejectionists among the avian humanoid hyehoon, who sometimes engage in terrorist activities. Contrary to the beliefs of the majority of their species, they view their fabled creator, the genetic engineer Anat Marao as a satanic figure. Their ultimate goal is the purging of the hominid influence in their genome to return their descendants to the “pure” avian genetics of their presumed ancestors.

There is a wide range of expression of Eden Seeker beliefs. Some merely choose to engage in atavistic rituals where their minds are downloaded into bird-like bioroid bodies. Others actually actually have temporary (or permanent) nanosurgically restructuring. Still others are fanatic terrorists seeking to acquire and use weapons of mass gene restructuring.

Though their primary focus is on overthrowing the social structure of the hyehoon homeworld Omu, Eden Seeker extremists sometimes hide in Expanse or smuggle weapons through its hyperspace nodes.

EDEN SEEKER EXTREMISTS

Attributes: Force 3, Cunning 6, Wealth 5

Hit Points: 29

Assets: Boltholes/Cunning 6, Demagogue/Cunning 5, Laboratory/Wealth 3, Zealots/Force 3

Tags: Fanatical

Aurogov

Aurogov is a movement or polity based in the Zuran Expanse. It has been described as a quasi-religious voluntary tyranny (though its leaders consitently deny its religious character). Participants advance through levels ("The Protocol") wherein Aurogov teachings take greater and greater control of their lives. Adherents typically begin with a download of Aurogov’s open license self-help software, distributed by parties unknown in the noosphere of most civilized worlds.  The seed software slowly evolves into a nonsapient ai mind emulation of the (perhaps mythical) founder of the group ("The Prime"). Its progressive audits and critiques of the thought processes and behavior of the user lead to progressive behavior modification of susceptible individuals. "Advanced" members without public relations duties tend to dress in the same grey uniform like garments and use frequent aphorisms from Aurogov teachings in their speech.

Aurogov is thought to have its origins on Old Earth and is a multi-geneline--even mutli-species--organization, but its primary functionaries are a clade of gray-skinned, long-chinned humanoids who call themselves "Technicians" but are known to those outside the organization as Aurogovans. Defectors from the organization report the Technicians' habitat within the Expanse is also the home of the Ascended Masters of Aurogov: Individuals who have obtained superhuman powers by mastering all stages laid out in their central texts. There are always three Ascended Masters and they always hide their faces behind masks like giant eyes. They are either posthuman masterminds or a bit of theater to provide cover for the real leaders, depending on what defector you ask.

There are allegations or rumors that Aurogov and its Ascended Masters have a hidden agenda: they are actually engaged in a secret, psionic distributed computing project. Every new participant in the Protocol--every new mind they can access--brings them closer to their goal.

Attributes: Force 3, Cunning 6, Wealth 5
Hit Points: 29
Assets: Demagogue/Cunning 6, Organization Moles/Cunning 5, Marketers/Wealth 5, Security Personnel/Force 1
Tags: Theocratic

The Instrumentality

Attributes: Force 8, Cunning 5, Wealth 7
Hit Points: 49
Assets: Space Marines/Force 7, Planetary Defenses/Force 6, Strike Fleet/Force 4, Zealots/Force 3, Pretech Manufacturers/Wealth 7, Marketeers/Wealth 5, Organization Moles/Cunning 5, Cyberninjas/Cunning 3
Tags: Theocratic, Planetary Government

The Instrumentality of Aom is a theocracy controlling several systems in the Orion Arm and providing spiritual guidance for the faithful scattered throughout many more. It aggressively seeks to expand its sphere of influence, primarily by peaceful conversion, but it’s not opposed to violent conquest.

“Aom” can be many things (depending on the context and the audience) but is generally described as both the godhead and the godhead-receptive spiritual being complex. Church liturgy often uses litanies of statements of opposites to analogize the ineffable Aom.

Church hierarchy has both an exoteric and esoteric version of its history--and the exoteric version is carefully crafted for a given audience and prone to revision with each doctrine update. The esoteric version conforms to known history in most respects. The faith had its origins in the early days of the Radiant Polity. Two memetic engineers working for a political action group became interested in ancient forms of spirituality and embarked on a private project. The Church views this as divine inspiration; whatever the case, the engineers set their ais to synthesizing a belief system from the commonalities of the “paleo-faiths” still extant within the human sphere: Trimurtitarianism, Prosperity Wicca, Mantrayana Hubbardism, Santerislam, Metaqabala, Ghost Dance Sufism, the Tao of the Taheb, veneration of the Mahdi Magdalene, various public domain forms of Corporate Confucianism, and others.

The first version spread rapidly after release into the Polity noosphere. Soon, various permutations of the faith were being practiced in different systems. Conflict between sects followed. The developers were both martyred in the first twenty years of the faith’s existence. The sectarian strife and clashes with other memes intensified over decades and eventually tore the Radiant Polity apart.

The Instrumentality was one of the entities to emerge from the four centuries of chaos that followed. The numerous sects had been winnowed down to a single orthodoxy with a rigid hierarchy. While the Instrumentality’s evangelists revise doctrine to best win converts, on the worlds already under church control it’s rule is uncompromising, even if it’s actual tenets are sometimes vague.

One Man Mob

The Pharesmid Syndicate is criminal organization centered on the planet Smaragdoz. The members of the group are all bio-clones or mind copies of their founder, Smaragdine terrorist Uln Pharesm. Pharesm was a mole within the development group in the beta phase of the Smaragdine noospheric Consensus. With his access to the computing power of the noosphere, he was able to generate several copies of his mind, and abscond with governmental funds. Pharesm betrayed the members of his terrorist cell, keeping the money for himself, and hijacking their bodies with his copies. With his new mind-confederates, he embarked on a criminal enterprise that continues to this day.

Pharesmids all wear facial tattoos, though they may disguise them in the course of their criminal operations. Their progenitor has augmented his brain to give himself limited psi abilities, and it may be that some lieutenants have similar enhancements.

PHARESMID SYNDICATE
Attributes: Force 3, Cunning 6, Wealth 5
Hit Points: 29
Assets: Cyberninjas/Cunning 3, Smugglers/Cunning 1, Thugs/Force 1, Laboratory/Wealth 3

Selling Dreams

The Phantasists are renown throughout the galaxy as dream merchants. No purveyors of mere sims or other mass produced neural trickery, the Phantasists use ancient arts to craft neurochemical mixtures that deliver an individualized, specific, and vivid oneiric experience.

The Phantasists inhabit the sky city of Eidolon (believed to be a folly constructed by a prelapsarian plutocrat), floating above an environmentally damaged world populated by nightmare horrors. They generally appear as baseline humanoids with pale complexions and blue eyes, though they are a creative people and sometimes wear other more varied bodies. Phantasist society is a syndicate subdivided by guild and class. At least when dealing with the public, all Phantasists affect an air of ancient nobility. Though their own official history is perhaps purposefully obscure on their origins, historians believe the Phantasists are descended from an artists’ colony that took up residence in the city during the age of decline before the Great Collapse.

Phantasists have made extensive study of dreams. Their technicians (or “oneironauts” in their advertising copy) delve into simulations constructed from centuries of dream log data gathered in their sleep laboratories from a myriad of sophonts. Comparing the subjective experience with real-time neurologic data they have been able to isolate dream elements and experiences. All this knowledge goes into the synthesis of their oneiric neuronanochemical cocktails for high paying clientele.

Phantasists don’t seek to create crude and causality-bound simulations of physical reality; Their aim is the crafting of experiences with the particular sensation of a dream. There are rumored to be rogue oneirochemists who are willing to create jamais vu traps and  unwaking nightmares for special clients, but the Phantasists vigorously deny that any of their number would participate in those practices.

[For Brutorz Bill who's been wanting new science fiction material. More to come. ]

And the Superhuman Krewe

The Southron canal city of New Ylourgne has a culture all its own. This is as apparent in its magical traditions as anywhere else. While a  professional, (somewhat) public, and singular Thaumaturgical Society holds sway in the City, New Ylourgne is home to a patchwork of societies and cabals, secretive in their teachings but often flamboyantly public in their rivalry.

Despite the tales sometimes heard in the Sorcerers' Quarter, most of these mystical societies or “krewes” don’t trace their traditions to the Averoignian magocracy that once ruled the city. Most seem instead to date back about fifty years, and the oldest rarely more than a century. They began as as social clubs for local thaumaturges (and non-thaumaturgist adventurers), who threw public parties and helped fund parades and celebrations related to Oecumenical holy days. These krewes began to compete for public acclaim, and thaumaturgical spectacle was part of winning these contests.The spells that created illusions and wonders became closely guarded secrets, hidden behind layers of coded language, and artificial mythology, unique to each krewe.

There was some precedent for these organizations. The mages of the Black Folk had long formed gender-specific orders for socialization and the exchange of knowledge.These orders waged ritualized magical battles in order-specific costumes in the city’s streets. Though this practice was suppressed by the ruling Averoignian sorcerers, it was never completely eliminated. The krewes may have been inspired to a degree by these groups, and in turn the Black Folk orders have conformed their primary ritual performances and competitions to the Oecumenical holiday calendar.

The krewes typically have exalted or archaic sounding names, harkening to some legendary founder or progenitor. The officers of the krewes (which are typically almost every thaumaturgy practicing member) take on ornate and nonsensical titles, and often go masked in public performances to evoke an air of mystery. Much of this mummery is magical enhanced; in many ways, the krewes are as adept as illusionists at fooling the public.

While the vast majority of the krewes are only out for fun and entertainment, the magics they wield are very real. Though it happens less these days, it’s not unheard of for serious magical feuds to exist between krewes that have ended in death.

Against Chaos

When the City was only a Dwergen fort on a swampy island, religious separatists from Grand Lludd were founding their own states some leagues to the north. These groups were sometimes derisively called “Sticklers” in their native country, but they called themselves the Lawful. Though their religion has disappeared in the centuries since, they left their mark on the New Lludd colonies they founded.

The Lawful took their name from their belief that existence was a struggle between the forces of Law (the living spirit of the commandments of God) and Chaos (everything non-godly). They opposed what they believed to be the excesses and superstitious ritual of Oecumenical Hierarchate, but also its softer stance on the practice of magic. They also rejected the worldliness of their homeland--the imbibing of strong drink, dancing, and merriment in general. The situation became intolerable when Gloriana became queen, and begin patronizing the thaumaturgical arts. It was even rumored that she was of fae-blood---a race inherently aligned with Chaos, and thus the Devil!

Their witch-hunting and monster-slaying was not as much appreciated as it had been in this new more permissive era. The Lawful sought a way to leave corrupt Grand Lludd behind and start afresh in the New World, where they hoped to build the perfect society.

Their first task was girding themselves for war. They had heard stories of the the New World, and knew it to be as infected by magic and godlessness as their homeland. And so, lead by their greatest holy warriors--their paladins--they set sail to bring the dominion of Law to the Chaos of the wilderness.

Things didn’t go exactly as they planned. They built settlements, slayed monsters and cleared ancient ruins, true, but the Strange New World infected them as well. Witches and warlocks (their terms for sorcerers) emerged among them, and they couldn’t ferret them all out. Contact with the Natives, Black folk, and other Ealderdish colonists softened their strict ways.

Today, the Lawful are mostly seen as just as quaint part of New Lludd’s past. Still, there are rumors of some families--and perhaps even whole villages--that keep to the hold ways. Stern folk living almost monastic lives, who believe they’re still in a holy war against Chaos, and so train their children generation after generation to take up arms against monsters and magic.

Legion of Hate

The self-styled Knights-Templar of Purity are a secret society and criminal organization which can be found throughout the Union, but most common in the South and rural areas of the Steel League. The knights engage in a campaign of terror and intimidation, aimed primarily at racial and ethnic minorities. There goal is the cleansing of the New World of these “undesirables” and its return to of the land to its “rightful” owners.

The true origins of the group is unknown, but they came to public prominence perhaps a hundred years ago, and have waxed and waned in influence throughout the intervening years. Their traditions hold that the white man of Ealderde is actually descendant of the true master race of now-sunken Meropis, who was eventually overwhelmed by their giant servitors--the people mainstream New World history calls the Ancients. This master race was being “perfected” by higher, angelic beings from a planet which is unseen today, and possibly destroyed. Their overthrow by the Ancients is held to have thwarted the process of the spiritual evolution of the human species.

This supposed revelation came to a penniless, drifter (known in the Knight's lore as "The Great Man") from a strange “artifact” found atop a granite monadnock in the South. He began to preach that the granite mount was to be the site of the Temple of Purity, from whence the paradise-on-earth to come would be ruled. But first, the descendants of the peoples holding humanity back would have to be purged.  This included the Natives of the New World, the Black Folk, the giantish hill people, and the Yianese.

Tragically, hard economic times caused more people than might have otherwise to be swayed by the man’s poison pronouncements. Soon, white-robed and hooded Knights-Templar circles were springing up across the South, and brought violence wherever they appeared.

The typical Knights-Templar is not a particularly skilled fighter, though the most fanatical members may sometimes be of the gifted. They view thaumaturgical magic as tainted, and view practioners of those arts as debased and degenerate.  Generally, the knights-templar prefer to let force of numbers and surprise work to their advantage. They seldom attack police or even adventuring groups directly, unless they feel they have the upper hand. They also use their anonymity when outside their hoods and robes to their advantage. Some small towns are virtually controlled by the group, though this is seldom apparent on the surface.

There is some speculation about the mysterious artifact which seems to have led to the group's formation. Self-proclaimed defectors have told authorities that the founding circle has a wizened, severed head, which whispers (sometimes shrilly yells) glossolalic proclamations, which are then interpreted by the High Panjandrum of the Temple as yet more venomous hate.

Acolytes of Misrule

"Then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom."

- H.P. Lovecraft, "Call of Cthulhu"

Almost as feared by the denizens of the City as the Reds, are the Anarchists. Before the War, they were probably even more feared. Yet the Anarchists are even less understood, if possible. Few have guessed at the true motives of the forces behind the mad bombers of popular imagination.

"Anarchist" is actually a term used for a wide variety of groups. Some are largely peaceable groups, philosophically opposed government. Others are absurdist or surrealist artists dedicated to breaking down authority in a variety of ways. The ones that get the most sensationalistic media are terrorists attempting to destabilize governments by destroying the populous' faith in said government's ability to protect them. All of these groups are fertile recruiting grounds for the most insidious and dangerous faction.

The truth is that anarchist philosophy and action are secretly promoted and supported by extraplanar forces. Anarchists claim communion with beings of raw chaos, crippled and lobotomized by the irruption of crude matter and banal casuality into their realm. These ultimately formless beings, are often portrayed (or disguised) in anarchist works as vaguely unsettling frog-like creatures, or sometimes seemingly innocuous cartoon characters of various sorts. These beings want nothing so much as to destroy the irritant that is the Prime Material Plane.

Why would any intelligent person choose to serve these nihilistic creatures? First, since the chaos null-gods have no concept of time, their victory may be temporally remote enough for anarchists to enjoy the benefits of their service for quite some time. Second, a lot of anarchists have been driven utterly insane by their brushes with their master's alien minds.

Part of this madness may be caused by the alien code called aklo, which is learned by all anarchists during their initiation into the secret doctrine. Aklo allows them to decode the messages from their fellows and from their null-gods--often found in nonsensical graffiti, banal but odd posted signs, and surrealist/absurdist comic strips. The mental restructuring it causes is also the source of the ability of advanced adepts to manipulate magical energies with frightening power.

Anarchist initiates and potential recruits may serve or aid anarchist masterminds in their various schemes, which are often ill-conceived and needless complicated, but always promote fear and sow discord. Masterminds are a diverse lot (their masters place no premium on conformity, after all)--some appear as scientists others masquerade as normal criminals, while still others dress and act like sorcerers out of old legends.

Anarchism is more popular in Ealderde, particularly in the east, but Anarchists have been known to effect outrageous accents, regardless of their true origins.

Symbol: A featureless black flag, or a stylized eye.

Special Benefits: The induction into true anarchism is the learning of aklo--which allows interpretation of anarchist messages and communication with the chaotic null-gods (Aklo can't be learned without becoming an adherent of the chaos beings, attempts to do so will lead to conversion). More advanced followers may develop boons, which are magical powers which often take on an unwholesome or disturbing manifestation. Anarchist magic-users essentially become something like 3e sorcerers--they don't require memorization or spell components. However, every spell casts requires the caster to make a saving throw, with every failure resulting in some sort of physical manifestation (a skin lesion, tic, change in color of one eye, etc.). Every two failed saving throws in a row deal 1d4 points of damage. One of these manifestations will "heal" for every 24 hours without magic use. Any game effects of the manifestations are at DM discretion.

The Red Menace

No outside force, not even magical threats, seem to strike as much fear into the populace of the City and its world, as the so-called Reds. These agents of a technologically advanced underground civilization seek to transform the world in their society's image, wiping out free thought and individuality in the name of their perverse vision of equality and unity. Despite their aims, their tireless machinations often dupe innocent citizens and draw them to their cause.

The origins of the Red menace lie with an Old Worlder named Carisdall, who returned after being presumed lost at sea with a strange story of a hidden island civilization where private property was forbidden, and everyone worked for the good of the society as a whole. The rest of his life, Carisdall tried in vain to relocate his utopia. He also wrote a manifesto describing the islander's philosophy which he termed "Communalitarianism." His work found adherents, and spawned small-scale experimental communities and political parties in several countries.

The real danger came when Carisdall's philosophy began to infect the subterranean remnants of an underground civilization. Sometime during the upheaval of the Great War, the degenerate remnant of an advanced, subterranean civilization experienced a violent revolution based on these ideas. The idle, and intellectually diminished ruling class was slaughtered by the more bestial workers. The former workers sought to realize Carisdall's utopia, but in a "scientifically perfected" manner that would have likely horrified the man who inspired them. The workers began to alter themselves into different functional groups to better serve society. Then, using the thought-broadcasting machines of their ancestors, they began to subtlely influence the minds of unsuspecting surface-dwellers.

The Reds (so-called because of their fondness for symbols colored a deep red) seek to transform the whole world into their sterile ordered society with the egalitarianism of the ant hill. To this end, they subvert humans to their cause--either through bribery, deception, or mind-control. There are those evil humans join the Reds, cynically hoping to enrich themselves as long possible before inevitable Red transformation. Some humans under the influence of Red thought-machines become more carnal and depraved, before finally entering into emotionally vacant, automaton-like state that is the Red's end goal.

Symbol: A red clenched fist or a red five-pointed star.

Special Benefits: Reds see magic as the product of decadent superstition, and disbelieve it entirely. This disbelief provides them with a degree of magical resistance, as it does their human stooges in more advanced stages of Red mental conversion (+2 to saving throws vs. spells or direct magical effects). Human in earlier stages are sometimes given technological devices by their masters that duplicate the same effect. Agents might also be loaned other technological advanced items as well, though these will always be parcelled out in a limited, efficient fashion.