Brotherhood of Crows

Secret and mysterious organization established personally by Falon the Conqueror, that was created to oversee the fledgling Imperium from the shadows, working relentlessly to stamp out all sort of corruption while purging out threats to the continuous existence of Sacrum Imperium.
Many consider them the deadliest assasins in the whole world – which, while probably true, focuses overly on a relative small part of their day-to-day operation. They can also be considered the only organization that can somehow force the Grand Emperor to reconsider his actions – or to have him abdicate the throne – mostly because few of them lost their lives to daggers and poisons of Crows.

Structure

Exact internal structure of Brotherhood of Crows is a mystery. Their 'open' and official part includes their own resident-agent within every province capital, with the right to control every single one local imperial official – or even every imperial citizen – without any sort of warrant. If they have suspicions, they can do this and noone can really do anything with that, with the sole exception of appealing to the Imperial Ministry of Justice if one thinks he is persecuted due to local crow personal dislike.
They are responding to orders from the high-ranked crow titled Imperial Overseer, who is a part of Imperial Council, while having the right to control imperial ministries. So much for official part of the Brotherhood.
Beside that there are also specially trained kill-teams, well-trained assasins and simple spies that are organized atop imperial regional structure, more than capable of purging threats to the Imperium by assasinations and serving as a political police, marking potential enemies of the Holy Empire within its vassals states.
While this is a sort of public knowledge in the Imperium – its hard to hide such knowledge for 3000 years and, frankly, Imperium is fine with this being known as it causes fear amongst its enemies – noone really knows where their bases are and who commands them. The few that were discovered were soon abandoned and replaced with another, better hidden places.
There are also some public locations, mostly prison camps for political prisoners that were deemed too dangerous – most of them are actually purely temporary and of rather high quality, serving as – as it was once called – decent holiday resorts, where enemies are gently reminded that Imperium watches over them – and next time they may be assasinated rather than detained, or even send to for example prison colony in Valley of Ashes.
The problem is – noone really knows who truly commands the Brotherhood. While regional commands might as well be governed by the Imperial Overseer, the prison camps definitely aren't. This leads to the general consensus that Overseer is in fact a fake – or, to be exact, an official responsible for controlling the Council – while the true power lies elsewhere. Some even say that gods – or damons/ascended form of Falon the Conqueror or some of his companions - are in fact rulling over the Brotherhood directly, to ensure the continued survival of Imperium without intervening directly.

Public Agenda

Continuous survival of Imperium of Karadia is the Brotherhood sense of existence. They work tirelessly to purge the corruption from Imperium (or at least to serve as a constant reminder that there is and probably will be reprisal if their corruption becomes a potential threat to Divine Mandate) while ralso reminding the certain elements of vassal states that Imperium watches them.
This makes them one of the most disliked and distrusted organization in Imperium – though they do not really care for that, as their rewards for loyalty is supposed to be truly great, which makes many of them into practical fanatics, that wholeheartedly believe in what Imperium impersonates.

Assets

Many extremely competent assasins either waiting in hiding to strike or living openly as the local provincial controllers (in this case assisted by competent administrators capable of smelling coruption and forged papers from miles away). Able to kill whoever and whenever they can, as they officially do not really exist.
Brotherhood of Crows is, in fact, officially an organization separated from the Imperium – overseeing it as a kind of overimperium – that even the Empire itself cannot really touch, with several attempts ending with de facto civil wars. Combined with natural disasters and other means of gods showing their displeasure.
They are also capable of using Raven Knights and 101st. Infantry Division forces at will, which they tend to do if they are openly targeting detected sects and cults that are to be exterminated while being too strong to be dealt with by a single Crow assasin.

History

Brotherhood of Crows was established by Falon the Conqueror himself during his early wars, beginning as a group of scouts and spies that responded personally to him. They weren't really all that important during the Markh dynasty period, though they were responsible for several attempts to kill one or two emperors that were seen as madmen and a threat.
It was reorganized during the Dawn War into more or less what it is today, with most reforms caused by imperial expansions or reorganizations – with its 'hidden' part changes (if there are any) remaining unknown.

Demography and Population

Crows are recruited from what could be described as pro-imperial fanatics. Meaning people who consider Imperium as something truly great, a country that ensures the continued freedom and progress of all peoples of Karadia. Also meaning overly high rate of people with strong religious beliefs, as it is hard to be an imperial fanatic without believing in imperial gods.
They also like to recruit people with personal reason to hate the corruption in Imperium, for example those who seen their loved ones for example dying due to corrupted official's decision or so on. Even if old and infirm they can still at least clean the local headquarters without the real risk of stealing important documents. If young and healthy they can end end up in a secret training facility, when they are repurposed into assasins or general agents.
Last category of people to become Crows are plain old orphans and slave children, taken to the aforementioned locations and then changed overtime into fanatic supporters of Imperium... and whoever the Crows need them to be.

Type

Information Network

Alternative Names

Crows, Ravens.

Demonym

Crows, Ravens.