A defining feature of The Dark Moon setting is its emphasis on membership of a cult or company – a professional or cultural organization channeling belief, behavior, education and worship – to facilitate community and character progression. Membership of such organizations mold the opportunities and contacts provided to a character, or conversely block advancement, and color social opinion of them if they are not members. Thus they can be a powerful tool to hinder or reward characters, and naturally provide a welter of plot twists.
Although the terms are somewhat interchangeable, Companies and Cults are organizations could be pursuing active religious veneration, magical studies, or to compensate with other facilities and resources focused more on career development. Companies are professional entities, whereas cults are regularly considered purely cultural and oft religious, but not always legal entities.
Nothing prevents membership of several Companies and Cults, unless they have been specifically denoted as being mutually exclusive in that setting. Both types of organizations add depth and considerable opportunities for roleplaying, and as we know from the real world, cults, brotherhoods and secret societies abound – a key part of social development and belonging.
Sellsword bands, bounty hunters, and mercenary outfits; Black Company operating on the fringes of imperial law. While technically legal, their licenses are often provisional and easily revoked. They are known to take work the Blue Companies refuse—raids, assassinations, and suppression of insurrections.
These are state-funded mercenary groups, sworn to imperial banners but not part of the Red Army proper. Blue Companies act as auxiliaries, border garrisons, or special expeditionary forces.
Bronze Companies are collectives of licensed adventurers who undertake tasks the empire cannot, or will not, handle directly. They slay monsters, explore ruins, and mediate disputes on the frontier. While their methods can be unorthodox, their results often win imperial favor.
Gold Companies are chartered financial institutions that blend commerce and worship. Most are dedicated to Denri, god of wealth and trade. Their coffers fund wars, build temples, and purchase political influence.
Green Companies are the empire’s environmental and agricultural arms. They represent foresters, herbalists, alchemists, and caretakers of the conquered wilds. They manage imperial farmlands, logging rights, and the breeding of mounts and beasts of burden. Some branches verge on druidic cults of Brabb.
Grey Companies dominate smuggling, black markets, and illicit trade. They are officially “merchant syndicates,” but most deal in forbidden relics, stolen goods, or slaves. The empire tolerates them so long as tribute is paid and they have the outward appearance of a legal business.
Purple Companies are learned institutions sanctioned by imperial decree to study the Veil—the strange essence underlying all magic. Only their members may legally research or practice magic beyond the simplest cantrips. Often the most reputable Purple Companies are highly sought after colleges.
The Red Companies form the standing military of the Wonndt Relleus Empire. Their commanders answer only to the Emperor himself. Each legion is a state unto itself, possessing judicial authority in the field.
The Silver Companies comprise artisans’ guilds — blacksmiths, masons, shipwrights, and artificers. They maintain strict codes of quality and protect their crafts through apprenticeship and tradition. Each Silvery Company uses their insignia on their craft to denote their expertise.
White Companies exist at the uneasy intersection of religion and empire, faiths that the Emperor recognizes but does not command. They are legally semi-autonomous cults, temples, and spiritual brotherhoods whose doctrines support imperial unity or stability, even if tangentially. In practice, they are both a safety valve for public devotion and a convenient veil for fanaticism.
The administrative heart of the Wonndt Relleus Empire representing the vast and suffocating machinery of law, census, and decree that binds every citizen to their place. They write the writs, levy the taxes, register births and deaths, and adjudicate disputes both civil and divine. To most citizens, there is the Emperor but the Empire is not a person or an army, it is the Yellow Companies: parchment, seal, and wax.
Cults, Purple Companies, and White Companies provide a formalized method of worship or the teaching of magic. The nature of the company or cult is dependent on its focus of veneration. This reflects one of the higher magical disciplines: magery or theurgy. Magery venerate the principles they practice whereas theists worship a god or gods hoping to achieve a deeper and more meaningful relationship with their deity.
In most respects all organizations work in a similar way. A series of ranks within the company or cult mark depth of progression, knowledge and achievement. The highest ranks lead and guide the lower ranks, and are party to the organization’s most formidable powers and deepest secrets. The lowest ranks generally provide support for the organization in return for mutual support, protection, and sometimes magical aid. Most never bother to advance up the ranks, and are happy to stay there, having no aspirations towards personal greatness, but simply seeking a sense of religious or philosophical fulfilment. As a general rule they do the following:
Emphasize faith, spiritualism and philosophical practices. They are focused upon the metaphysical.
Offer access to magic, but usually restrict its teaching to more dedicated or professional members of higher rank. However, those of the lowest ranks are normally permitted to petition senior members to cast magic on their behalf.
Membership is very often open to all members of society, but the higher ranks are vocational in their own right. Thus everyone in a tribe might be a member of the common totemic cult, but only those who dedicate themselves to the path of the shaman can progress up the ranks.
Often have strictures on how their members demonstrate their veneration, with regular services, rituals, festivals, and the like.
Sometimes have restrictions about how and when they may be joined, and limitations upon later advancement. Membership may be limited to those of a certain age, passing a particular a rite of passage, being born to a certain caste, and so on.
Are usually an inherent part of communities and cultures, subject to their social restrictions.
Characters could enroll in more than one cult or company, assuming the organizations are not antipathetic, and that more than a single one is available to one of their culture, status and profession.
History is scattered with examples of associations and societies, some secret, some not so secret, that fulfil a similar role to cults but offer a different emphasis whilst giving access to very similar resources – primarily support, training, and so on. These organizations are known as Companies or at times Guilds.
Entry to these organizations often requires some test of worthiness, and demonstration of suitable prowess within the field that the group specializes in. Despite being less metaphysically orientated, many groups still engage in ritual and follow strict rules of conduct, always alert to those members who’d transgress the rules set up to ensure mutual support, or the respect of the local community. As a general rule they do the following:
Provide more pragmatic values that are central to the operation of the organization.
Do not offer formalized access to magic. Though, individual members who are skilled witches may teach minor magics to other members.
Are very often vocationally orientated with the aim of supporting members of similar careers, protecting professional interests, and governing prices for services.
Tend to be less constrained in their ways. Members are not required to attend festivals or rituals for example, and most members go about their daily lives calling on the organization when needed – but duties, save for the direct officers of the group – are far less formal than in cults.
Can generally be joined at any time. Membership is based upon competence or dedication towards an ideal – not a rite of passage.
Are separate from communities and cultures. Although they operate within them, they transcend community boundaries in ways cults cannot.
Characters can join Companies and Cults in one of two ways:
As part of character creation.
During game-play, as they learn more about their game world, and the organizations working within it.
Membership is not mandatory – but characters who join a group are likely to have access to certain benefits and resources that non-members will either be denied or find difficult to obtain. Some thought should also be given to the roles these faiths and fraternities play in most societies:
Individuals usually inherit their parents’ and community’s beliefs, and are exposed to these attitudes and rituals day-in, day-out throughout their childhood and adolescence. Initiating into a family or community cult is a natural progression, and even desired by many young people.
Individuals likewise inherit the same profession as their parents, usually working as children to help their father or mother perform their tasks. Thus parents often expect their offspring to follow them into the same career, and thereby company or brotherhood.
Cults and White Companies are very often the basis for community. Not joining or initiating results in social stigma, or even exile or ostracism. Social pressure may be too difficult for some individuals to avoid. Silver Companies and Guilds may similarly have a major influence at the family level, perhaps forming a stranglehold on a particular craft or employment, and forbidding non-members from performing that type of work.
During the Careers and Development stages of [[Character Creation]] players may opt to initiate into an organization. Joining at the character creation stage offers certain benefits:
Membership provides immediate context for the character, helping define and identify who he is, what he believes, and where he belongs in the world.
Having several characters be members of the same or similar organizations, even if they are from different backgrounds and professions, provides a ready-made reason for them to be associating and working together at the start of the game.
Joining a company or cult during character creation requires no rolls for entry. It is assumed that the initiation forms a natural part of the character’s progression from childhood to adulthood.
Membership is divided into several levels that reflect dedication or devotion to the organization. The levels are explained in more detail later in this chapter, but any character who joins a company or cult during character creation is considered a Common Member with the actual title being based on its nature.
The character has undergone some form of formal initiation, usually as part of the rite of passage from youth to adult, which has created a relationship with the organization. They follow its principles and general beliefs, but gain no special advantages beyond the support it provides its members.
Characters who start off as professional mages of a cult are permitted to begin one rank higher, being assumed to have successfully undergone the Initiation Ceremony or ritual associated with the company or cult. Following the initiation ritual the character undergoes a period of training where he studies with the group’s teachers and elders so that he becomes an active and productive member. This training is considered part of the overall character creation process. At the end of it the character emerges with the magic skills associated with the organization’s nature.
Many characters will join a company or cult during the course of play. They may come across a group that matches their ideals at that time or find a calling that requires a particular religious or behavioral approach that only a particular kind of organization can serve.
Joining a one during play requires a number of things:
A demonstration that one is worthy of joining the group.
Impressing the organization’s leaders to gain membership.
A donation of some kind.
Once a character has joined a company or cult they often seek to rise in the organization’s ranks, in the pursuit of greater respect, reputation or responsibility or simply out of a thirst for knowledge and power. Progression is sometimes limited by the nature of the organization; purple companies might only grant access to the higher ranks to those who are professional mages. Others might slow advancement according to the skills of the character, his completion of a suitably heroic task or even block promotion until a space in the ranks opens up.
It should always be remembered that just because a character might meet the mechanistic requirements of a particular rank that doesn’t automatically grant them the right to achieve it. Promotion within a company or cult is a very major reward, and should be something strived for by roleplaying. In fact it is encouraged that each advancement is somehow played out as a separate adventure or test to grant further depth to the organization.
Most Companies and Cults are arranged in a pyramidal hierarchy. Common members form the base of the pyramid, and are the most numerous members of the organization. These are regarded as part time supporters, affiliate members or retired comrades who may associate in any number of companies and cults, provided it is done as part of their spare time.
Higher ranks represent professional members of the organization, working or being educated full time under its edicts. Numbers diminish as one advances up through the ranks until a handful of individuals, or even only one, occupy the upper echelons. Promotion brings greater privilege, prestige, learning, and sometimes magic or other benefits. The heroes, movers and shakers generally fill the highest ranks with the devoted, yet relatively inactive, faithful forming the lower tiers.
Different Companies and Cults have different names for their ranks. The Comparative Rank table shows the default rank names arranged by each organization’s type and the membership level. Rank names can vary according to setting, but the above suggestions are included for ease of reference to the magic chapters.
Rank | Cults and White Companies | Purple Companies | Mundane Companies and Guilds |
|---|---|---|---|
Common | Lay Member | Novice | Associate |
Dedicated | Initiate | Apprentice | Apprentice |
Proven | Acolyte | Adept | Journeyman |
Overseer | Priest | Master | Master |
Leader | High Priest | Archmage | Grand Master |