Bleak cabal

You call us the Madmen. But we're saner than any of you. We how the multiverse makes no sense, but we don't run around trying to convert it into logic or anarchy. Nor do we spurn our brethren for realizing there's nothin! to what we say, like so many other factions do (that is the point, after all). All you so-called leaders - your people have become my people because of your rigid angers; you've rejected your comrades, and they've come to the Cabal.

Public Agenda

Oddly, of all the factions in the Cage, Bleakers are arguably the most charitable. Why do they like to help others? Some no doubt find relief in caring for sods worse than they are; a few Bleakers even suffer from messiah complexes and want to save the world from madness and death. But most just figure that by doing good works, they’ll come closer to finding the true meaning that lies within. And besides, expanding the faction’s presence and influence in Sigil is never a bad thing.

History

Ever since the faction was horn more than nine centuries ago, acceptance of the Bleakers has waxed and waned according to whichever philosophies had the biggest toehold in Sigil at the time. During periods of intense recruitment by other factions, when a factol would try to boost his 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 iump 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.
Although the Bleakers had (and still have) some desire to mold others to their way of thinking, the very nature of being Madmen defeated them. 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. The Gatehouse is an asylum that serves as faction headquarters for the Bleak Cabal. . Most often, this madness lingered until merciful death.
The Grim Retreat, as the Bleakers came to call the strange illness, struck each time their faction numbers swelled to quickly. the factols and other highups within the bleak Cabal were frequently the first victims, leaving only inexperienced members behind to take the reins. Today, after the Cabal‘s focused on achieving inner peace, they got the highest factol turnover rate of any faction. (Several ex-factols are said to be still alive and functioning - if those terms truly apply to the insane - in the darkest cells of the Gatehouse.)
Although modem-day Bleakers still contract the Grim Retreat now and again (mostly because of the pressures and tensions of living in the teeming City of Doors), the faction’s learned a thing or two about mental health over centuries. The success rate of patients’ recovery is now quite high. The faction also ~es to keep the number of Bleakers stable, currently maintaining a registered membership of some 10.000 beings in Sigil, though a considerably large population inhabits Pandemonium (the Madmen’s primary plane of influence]) Lhar’s been factol for approximately three years now, and he’s determined to maintain the policies established by the previous factols - mostly because they seem to work. It’s been over 30 years since a mass grim retreat and the voluntary commitment to the mad bleaker wing of the gatehouse has dropped dramatically


More than a century ago they opened up an almshouse in their faction headquarters, helping to care for the poor and lost. It still operates today, along with small kitchens throughout the city. These places of safe haven open to a body in need of a warm or creed. And if the sod happens to be a Bleaker, he and his cutters can get a cot in a back room for a night. The Fraternity of Order, the Harmonium, and the Mercykillers all view such concern for the welfare of the city‘s poor with something other than a compassionate eye. These lawful factions’ve had their run-ins with the Bleak Cabal in the past and they’re suspicious of the Madmen’s motives
those who work at the kitchens are content to simply dish out food, but one Bleaker in particular’s quite well known for always having a joke or a good word to pass on - which is probably why other faction members think he’s gone over the edge. Fact is, his real name - if he ever had one - has long been lost, and folks just call him “Addle-pated,” or “Addle” for short.

"Life's a bitch and then you die."

Type

Political, Faction / Party

Alternative Names

Bleakers, Cabal

Demonym

Bleakers

Leader

Lhar

Location

The Gatehouse

Controlled Territories

• The Gatehouse

Notable Members

• Lhar