Wind Speakers
Structure
Dean : Regardless of gender, this title is usually given to the most knowledgeable (and generally older) member of the commune. They usually decides on time to stay around communities they are interacting with for a while, and the next course of action. They also take care of possible interactions with law enforcement, if their teachings or actions are not welcome by such.
Dean's Hand: Acting as Second-in-Command for the Dean, they act as the decision-maker for the commune should the dean must be missing or unavailable at the moment,
They usually remains solely around the resting place of the commune should the need arise.
Whisperers: the most dangerous but very respected rank, the whisperers are those that dare to follow their code in hostile lands. Where settlements and cultures are unfriendly to their desire to trade and give knowledge, usually by some sort of tyrant or vindicative law enforcements, their disregard the 'taboos' proclaimed by such instances and try by stealth and other means to leave physical parts of knowledge, historical or magical, to the curious that will find them eventually by chance. They usually live with a form of selfless identity, covering their looks, to protect their commune in case some would like to retaliate on thhem through interrogation of their peers, as even the speakers remembers or known much about their physical appearance.
Speakers: the main rank of the communes. They assist visited settlements through sharing of their knowledge, giving them meaningful lectures depending on the place's needs and trading it or offering it for free depending on the current situation.
Apprentices: usually children raised by members of the commune, either naturally or through adoption, they mostly follow their elders to try and learn from experience early on. This can apply also to new applicants, who can join the commune for various reasons (either through a desire of benevolent sharing of knowledges to the world, an infatuation with a commune member, or as an alternative way to get mentorship in specific domains, usually magic).
Public Agenda
The Wind Speakers are known as sharers of knowledges for anybody that wishes to receive or share valuable knowledge, such as historical events or magical ones. They are usually regarded favorably by most of the public, since they offer their services for trade of knowledge or simple monetary/physical aid to help them meet basic needs such as food and shelter. They also offer their help for free if the locales cannot find ways to pay them and are in a pinch. People abusing their kindness are usually frowned upon, as they dont ask for much.
However, in some settlement where the law or culture can make some historical knowledge or magical one considered heretical or illegal, it is not uncommon for them to either get chastised out of those settlements, or even met with force, if the authorities would act as such. They will often try to send knowledge through their whisperers and disregard such tyrannical views, but they wont respond with violence. They can manage to leave a place fast if the need arise.
Assets
The most valuable assets are the crewmembers themselves, as their overall knowledges can be worth greatly in good hands.
Outside of that, they have varied wealth to pay for food and shelter during their travels, having usually currency from various regions they went to trade with.
They also carry more valuable assets in the form of magical items, of varied power, but tend to be willing to trade them to make the discoveries in the world more available instead of hogging them too long. They also get rather good caravans, outdoors survival equipment and beast of burdens which varies based on the region's climate. But since they are not profit-based, they never have an overload of those, which makes their journey always different and challenging to some degree.
History
The creation of the organisation what shortly after the all of (location).
A group of sages were rather interested into learning adopt the secret language and mysteries the settlement discovers to the West, which was from a civilisation probably lost in time, before the Age of Man. They met rather defensives reactions from their peers, thinking it would be a dangerous to venture away from the safety of their settlement, but they went against other's wishes and venture anyway in the cover of the night.
What they want was quite a bountiful place of knowledge from that ancient tomb, and even found items of values that could help improve the settlement's evolution in terms of manufacturing, such as specific smithing techniques to forge objects with a local ore named Hadenite. However, while they were investigating, they returned to find their settlement in ruin with absolutely no survivors, the village turned to nothingness by a black dragon. They were the last of their culture to remain.
Thinking that their expedition was a sign of fortune for them, they believe this research for knowledge actually saved what remains of them. As such, they decided to named themselves the Wind Speakers, and to live a nomadic, free from settled lifestyle and inaction. They believe that by finding other intelligent creatures and sharing their knowledge and culture, they would never truly die, and remain in history that way.
And thus the endless pilgrimage took old, with two groups of Wind Speakers settling for unknown lands, hoping the keep the flame, their flame, alive.
Tenets of Faith
As they are believing the promotion of self goes against the greater good, and in order to protect them to some degree by reducing easy to track identities, they usually have a code of clothing, and try to favor rather unremarkable clothing and hairdressing style, something even adapting to the local culture in order to blend better.
On most of their communes, those belonging to the rank of whisperers wear a symbolic hood with also acts as a facemask with a particular illusion magic, making them unreckogniseable by their peers, who usually forgot their looks over time. This makes also attempt to find their true identity hard to track for any inquisitives belligerents.
Comments