Bleak Cabal
Who Find No Sense in the Multiverse
To the Bleak Cabal, the quest for cosmic meaning is futile-the multiverse doesn't make sense, and it isn't supposed to. With no greater truth, individuals must derive their own meaning from the multiverse. This introspection kindles empathy and kindness in many Bleakers, who commit themselves to easing the suffering of others. Existence is merciless, so the Bleak Cabal must show mercy in its stead.
Bleakers tend to those overcome by the strange realities of the Outer Planes, which exert their influence on travelers who wander past their boundaries. The Bleak Cabal rehabilitates creatures that have been stricken with planar curses, glimpsed mind-shattering expanses, or ventured into the howling darkness of Pandemonium.
Factol Lhar (chaotic good, orc gladiator) surveys the citizens of Sigil with growing concern. Lhar works to expand the Bleak Cabal's charitable in-fluence. Under his direction, the Bleak Cabal has opened community kitchens throughout the city where hungry citizens can get a free hot meal. How-ever, some factions don't view this expansion as benevolent. Lhar moves carefully, always looking for like-minded individuals to further his cause.
Goals
With the lack of belief in a natural order or sense in the multiverse, the Bleak Cabal shuns the the concept of the rule of three, maintaining only a single goal. Help people through this madness known as life. There is much debate as to how the Bleakers can best help others. The faction offers help through an asylum for the insane in the gatehouse. Two floors up, they also offer services as an orphanage.
Further bleakers aid planar refugees. Homeless housing options combined with services to find work, soup kitchens, and magical medical offerings are all offered by this lot. The final group is known as the Faceless. They believe in giving up your name and identity completely, magically and ritually erasing the creature's previous existence, working only to become nothing and no one, healing the minds of many in the process.
Role in Sigil
The Bleak Cabal's headquarters is the Gatehouse, a fortress of healing and respite in the Hive Ward. Bleakers offer sanctuary to anyone in need, notably to those afflicted by planar mala-dies. The Bleak Cabal's philosophy puts them at odds with the Fraternity of Order, Harmonium, and Mercykillers: if there's no meaning, there can't be order.
Factor Ezra the male bariaur monk leads the Planar Refuges. This group oversees the almshouse, helping refugees and the homeless, and ensuring the operations of the soup kitchen and shelters across Sigil run smoothly. While stoic, he is a very caring man.
Factor Tyvold the female drow paladin oversees the Orphanage. She knew unconscionable horrors in her childhood and chose to embrace them, working now to ensure that no child in Sigil feels the pain of what she went through. She believes that pain makes one stronger, and anguish should be treated, not ignored.
Nameless Factor. The rumor is that her name was once Aquila, a githzerai born in the Abyss, as her adventurous mother was attempting to escape through a collapsing portal. The demons raised and abused her. She suffered for much of her early life from madness from the Abyss. She, however, found a new mechanism of coping. On her twentieth birthday, Aquila shed her name, becoming the first Faceless, and left the Abyss. Her past was erased, and who she was was gone. Her logic was sound to many Bleakers, and her group of Faceless grew as she used a ritual to erase pasts to cure many of the Grim Retreat. This erasure is magical, destroying the Truename. Today, she can be found dressed the same as many other Faceless, wearing plain dresses that completely cover the body, with a hood over the head, and a white cloth covering their face.
"We peel ourselves that we're individuals. You and We, we're no different underneath. There is no purpose in anything, and that includes identity
Faction History
The Bleak Cabal was founded about 1,000 years ago and has maintained a fairly quiet existence since. Sure, it participated in some riots 160 years ago, and the faction war 10 years ago... But who's counting those?
During periods of intense recruitment by other factions, when a factol would try to boost their numbers for some scheme or another, the Bleak Cabal's numbers would fall to the point of almost nonexistence. But in time, the other factions' numbers swelled and grew ungainly. When attitudes eventually shifted and some other philosophy came to the fore, folks'd all jump on the latest bandwagon.
At the end of all these cycles of up and down and up and down, many members would renounce their vows, seeking freedom in the nihilistic approach offered by the Cabal - that the multiverse made no sense. Thus, the Bleak Cabal regularly became the single most powerful faction in the Cage; every few hundred years, its point of view prevailed throughout most of the city.
Every one of these cycles has ended the same, though. See, when their numbers increased, so did the pressures and tensions of dealing with the loss of belief.
Particularly stressful was the influx of new members, for many of them hadn't yet found the peace and acceptance notable in older Bleakers. And when the Cabal's ranks became glutted, the tensions became too much for older faction members. Many went truly insane, fleeing Sigil or retreating into the depths of the Gatehouse. Most often, this madness lingered until merciful death.
The Grim Retreat, as Bleakers came to call their strange illness, struck each time their faction numbers swelled too quickly. The factol and other high-ups in the Cabal were frequently the first victims, leaving only inexperienced members behind to take the reins. Even today, the Cabal has the highest factol turnover rate of any faction although Factol Lhar continues to impress with how long he's been Factol, though it has been nearly sixty years since the last grim retreat.
The Almshouse was opened just over a century ago and has proven to be one of the most actively used wings, often overflowing with the poor, homeless, and refugees.
Factol: Lhar
Headquarters: Gatehouse, Hive Ward
Aligned Plane: Pandemonium
Members: Consolers, healers, nihilists
Epithet: Bleakers
Faction Attire: Bleakers dress in gloomy, drab color schemes. Frayed clothing and weather-beaten gear are common.
Allies: Doomguard, Hands of Havoc, Heralds of Dust
Comments