Powers

Factions

The groups that hold power.

The Wickwardens

Goal: keep the lighthouses lit and the Heartcoal asleep. The Wickwardens were sworn the year after the first Vespertide, when the islands learned that a lit lighthouse is the only thing the Sallowkin will not cross. Every keeper takes the oath in a lighthouse chapel, with the lantern burning above and the sea black below, and learns Ebbtongue, the order's chanted signal-language. The order is old, proud and short of everything: keepers, cindrels and the city's patience. Its keepers prefer Ebbsong to Brandwork, because a verse leaves the cindrels alone. - Leader: Keeper-Commander Ysolde Marr, from the Wardhouse in Caerlune. - Toward the players: allies. The players are its newest keepers, sent to relight Skerrow. - Rivals: the Aurel Combine, who sell the order its cindrels and would like to sell it everything else. - Faith: most keepers pray with the Ilvaric Vigil.

The Aurel Combine

Goal: corner the cindrel trade, and raise the Heartcoal for profit. A merchant charter from 212 AF, granted when the islands needed someone to weigh, price and ship cindrels fairly. The Combine has been weighing them ever since, and fairness has become a matter of interpretation. Every cindrel sold in the isles passes across a scale in the Weighhouse, and a quiet share of them never comes back out. The Combine funds the Ilvaric Vigil openly and the lighthouses reluctantly. Its newest venture is the boldest: a deep-diving expedition to the Heartcoal, the star's core, the one light that never dims. - Leader: Magnate Corwin Vale. - In the field: prospectors and claim-jumpers on the Vitrean Flats, among them Dessa Quill. - Toward the players: polite rivals at first. An auditor will offer the new keepers "help" with their lighthouse, for a cut.

The Slackwater

Goal: wake the Heartcoal, and let the sea take back the old world. The Slackwater began as a grief-cult inside the Choir of Fathoms: mourners who stopped praying for the drowned and started praying to them. Its members leave black candles on doorsteps, and whisper that the Sallowkin are only coming home. Nobody outside the cult knows who leads it. Its members call the leader the Unspoken, and say the Unspoken will act when the lights go out. The next eclipse is ninety days away. - Where they gather: drowned places, above all the Orrery of Thale. - Toward the players: hidden enemies.