Cult of Secrets

Our powers are secrets, and they must be kept.

Located in the west of the Wilds, the Cult of Secrets is an extremist, semi-religious cult composed primarily of murderous Gifteds. The cult believes strongly in the superiority of Gifteds over Non-Gifteds and the members use their powers to attack and kill those without. Their favorite method to use is fire or water, either drowning or burning their victims.

Structure

The Cult of Secrets has a rather simple structure. There is one elected head, usually one of the senior members, who is known as the Teller. The Teller acts as a sort of High Priest or Wizard, demonstrating the power of Gifteds to their underlings and setting out decrees. Just beneath the Teller are the senior members, highly skilled Gifteds who have been part of the cult for more than five years and proven their worth. These members are called Haters and their job is to decide on targets and plan attacks. The majority of the cult is simply called Keepers, or Secretkeepers. They do most of the attacking, protesting, and providing. There are minor hierarchies even within that tier, but most are complicated and relatively localized.

Public Agenda

The cult's tenets claim that Gifteds are superior to others in all ways due to their natural abilities. The members are so confident in this that they believe Non-Gifteds should worship them, and some of them even worship their powers in some way. In order to demonstrate this, members go out of their way to attack and hassle Non-Gifteds and those with "useless" or weak powers. They attempt to influence politics in nearby settlements and restrict the freedoms of people without strong powers and often go so far as to personally assault and murder Non-Gifteds and those to oppose their agenda.

Assets

The Cult of Secrets has a large number of extremely powerful Gifteds as members, as well as towns under their control and rich benefactors who support their ideas. The most common powers they have in their arsenal are Icing, Flaming, Aquacity, Telepathy, and Sensing.

History

It's terrifying, Kanya. The way they talk, it's so calm, so logical. The leaders, they're charismatic and humorous. They laugh and joke and talk about their exploits, and it just makes me feel sick.

— Martha Jones

The notion that Gifteds are superior to Non-Gifteds is not new, or even as old as this organization. As long as Gifteds have populated Jerde, there have always been those who believe their powers give them the right to dominate and control those who do not share their abilities. The Cult of Secrets is simply the first organization formed specifically to target and eliminate Non-Gifteds in a planned way.

The cult was created in 1783 by a group of escaped criminals from Tierhal and Decrowed. These Gifteds had been convicted of numerous crimes against Non-Gifteds, including but not limited to physical assault, defamation, vandalism, torture, arson, homicide, and infanticide. The fugitives fled north until they reached the Wilds and headed west, where they disappeared for several years until reports of a cult targeting Non-Gifteds began. The murderers had created this cult and recruited others like them from other countries and the settlements nearby.
Despite attempts from local law enforcement, the group always managed to survive. Senior members with clean records even infiltrated the governments of towns in Rifthaven and Crystland in order to prevent those countries from opposing them. In recent years, there have been more attempts to infiltrate and take down the cult, with one of the most successful that of nine teenage Gifteds in 2006 who chose to investigate the Cult of Secrets for a school project. Most recently, the Dalirn presence in Crystland has put strain on all Gifteds, especially this cult, who might find themselves the targets of a Gifted-hating government.

Tenets of Faith

The Cult of Secrets believes:

• Gifteds are superior to those without powers.
• Not all Gifteds are equal, and less powerful Gifteds should be submissive to stronger ones.
• Gifted powers are given to the worthy. Those without powers do not deserve them.
• Downsides are punishments for the weak. Those who cannot control or hide their Gifted powers are weak.
• Gifted powers are special, and the way they work should not be known to others.
• Those who tell these secrets are traitors to their powers.

Pauci Sunt Digni

Founding Date

1783 AEA

Type

Religious, Cult

Alternative Names

The Killers

Demonym

Secretkeepers

Location

The Wilds

A Deadly Investigation

In 2006, a group of young Gifteds from the town of St. Maria decided to make the cult their focus for a school project. Three of them (Martha Jones, Thomas Jalbreck, and Louis Marstal) joined the cult to get inside information and the rest (Kanya Leimensteir, Nathaniel George, Micheal Thorne, Pio Nikess, Lucy Jonathan, and Warna Strom) worked on interviewing victims and connecting events. Their project delved so deep into the cult's connections that the teenagers began receiving death threats, were arrested on multiple false claims, suffered a betrayal from one of the three who joined the cult (Louis Marstal), and were forced to involve law enforcement after four of them (Martha Jones, Kanya Leimensteir, Nathaniel George, and Pio Nikess) were killed in a series of convenient "accidents."
The project lasted three years and eventually ended with a slew of arrests, trials, and executions, severely cutting down on the number of cult members. The remaining students who began the project moved to live in Crystland and Whirlan, away from the traumatic memories of the affair. Louis Marstal, their former friend, was executed along with the other cult members for assisting in the murder of his friend Martha Jones and the murders of a number of other Non-Gifteds during that time period.

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by Lilliana Casper