The Steel Reciters
Assassins without peer
The Steel Reciters have cemented their place at the top of the shifting heap of gangland players after the dramatic end of family rule and the rise of the ambitious and deadly Mysphodel Artanos, a relatively well-known Planestrider (considering she's the head of very secret society) and cold-blooded killer, who was able to overturn centuries of tradition and reform the organization from the top to the bottom by slaying most of the members of the Mouzakis and Dougarian crime families who had run it for more than a dozen generations. Once actively hunted by the Khazigiri empire, and furtive in their dealings, under Mysphodel's ambitious plans the organization now spans the Empire and beyond, with representatives in the major cities inside and many outside the Empire, as well as in several population centers in the lower and outer planes including Sigil.Identifiers:
Steel reciters often tattoo their symbol, a black Kris knife at an angle down and to the right, on the inside of their wrists, on their upper biceps, and or occasionally on the side or the back of their neck.Structure
Organized heirarchy where regions are managed by and report through a captain who reports to a commander, who then answer to a Poet (or Poetess) up to Mysphodel Artanos whose official title is "The Reciter of Steel" at the top of the organization. She is an incredibly dangerous killer who nevertheless has never end up at the end of an imperial rope or in a Khazigiri prison, leading many to suspect that the government itself works with the reciters from time to time, and their strength is tied to their powerful silent partner.
Above the Poets but still a tiny bit below the Reciter is Mysphodel's partner, known only as Fletcher which is surely not his real name, though it is reflective of his mastery of the bow. The story goes that her enemies in the old organization had hired him to kill her, when their power failed them, but she brokered a deal behind their backs in Minon to merge the reciters with the Minonois Coven du Tigre Noir (Coven of the Black Tiger) of which he had been a high-ranking member, meaning she was now his employer. The end of the Mouzakis and Dougrian lines was completed soon after. The Black Tiger merger brought the Reciters to an international and extraplanar scale, necessitating a more flexible structure than they previously had; the lower ranking cells were maintained as before but the higher leadership levels became decentralized to operate more freely, almost as independent guilds or franchises of the Khazigiri Steel Reciters.
Ranks and roles in the organization:
- Freelancer: a non-member who does some form of work for the organation, without being a member.
- Ghostwriter: A Freelancer that doesn't even know they're a freelancer; they're working for the org but don't realize what they're doing is for the Steel Reciters.
- Author: A member of the guild who actually gives the recitation of steel; an assassin.
- Published Author: an Author with 15 or more confirmed guild recitations.
- Outfitter: A guild member dedicated to quartermastering the authors under a given captain, meaning usually responsible for between 5 and 8 authors in a densely populated area or perhaps only 1 or 2 in a more remote place.
- Watcher: A guild member who is primarily a spy or researcher rather than a killer, though they may also be Authors. Generally only found in urban areas with economic or political importance.
- Agent: While the term can get thrown around in a lot of contexts, an agent is also a specific role where secrecy is of the highest importance; the Captain will assign a recitation to an agent rather than a specific author, and the agent will select the Author and one more agent who will then choose the Outfitter, and so on, for all the roles involved in that particular recitation, so no one person knows who the rest of the participants are. An agent may empioy a freelancer or ghostwriter at their discretion. All communication goes to the agent, and the agent manages all confirmations as well as any disruptions. The Captain retains control of the finances. Agents can also be employed at higher levels, and may serve as dead-drop messengers at any point in the chain, meaning they can collect encrypted messages from anonymous sources and place them in locations pre-arranged by the recipient, ensuring the anonymity of all involved. Additional watchers may be employed to ensure the chain remains unbroken and/or to ensure payment is managed smoothly.
- Captain: A published author who assigns orders to the authors or agents that report to them, as well as to ancillary roles where needed. They, rather than the authors themselves, are the ones generally interfacing with buyers.
- Commander: an organizational role compiling the activities of captains into reports and summaries for poets. A Commander will usually oversee 5-8 captains.
- Poet/Poetess: A strategic leader over 3-6 commanders, directly intefacing with Mysphodel and Fletcher.
- Black Tiger: Fletcher's title refers to the Minonoise organization that the Steel Reciters merged with eight years ago when it stipped being a crime family and became a crime syndicate. His authority is second only to Mysphodel's. While she is much more involved in running the operations of the syndicate, he is particularly concerned with recruiting, training, and testing the other authors to ensure that the fear others have at the name is justified by more than simply empty reputation. While Mysphodel rarely if ever takes on any recitations personally herself any longer, Fletcher tries to involve himself where possible in daily activities and has been known to work as an agent on some recitations and participate actively in others that might otherwise seem too mundane for the org leadership to concern itself with. This also allows him to stay informed about the other Poets and commanders, upon whose loyalty the whole thing depends.
- The Reciter: All guild members can call themselves a reciter, but only one, Mysphodel, is called THE Reciter.
Culture
The cultural theme and core concept of the Steel Reciters is that murder is a form of art, and specifically, a form of poetic performance (a recitation) with steel blades instead of spoken or written words. The lower ranks operate with militaristic precision, while the upper ranks are by their nature more strategic, fluid, and adaptable to situations. Each of the Poets and Poetesses of the Recitation of Steel is expected to not simply operate in the best interests of the organization, but to come up with their own variation on the art form itself. The Poet rank is a fluid one as far as domain, where some are clearly geographic in nature - High Naarod from Coldhorn to the villages north of Kiraly, for instance, is under the domain of a specific Poet (and often intertwined with the Glass Street Shankers, a smaller and more traditional criminal org based in Kiraly) - but other Poets lay claim to a specific style regardless of where its activities are, and tend to employ Monks or Forest Rangers better suited to those styles rather than pure Assassin types. One branch of the Reciters is also racially delimited, open only to Halflings like the Poet at its head.
Keeping a disparate collection like this together requires a singularity of vision and dedication to avoid endless infighting and power struggles. Though the reciters certainly do have some of these issues still today, the eagerness for revolt has been aggressively suppressed by Mysphodel, who took over the organization in a coup about eight ago (12029ADE). Her willingness to crush any and all opposition without mercy or hesitation certainly keeps the Poets in line.
Et Post Terminum (The Border is Behind You)
Founding Date
9004
Type
Guild, Assassins
Alternative Names
Cutters
Demonym
Reciter
Leader
Location
Comments