The Red Circle

As the ships that fled the calamity of Metropolis crashed towards hundreds of worlds, most only remained intact because of the Circle Mages aboard. Using the Old Ways, they kept their people alive and quickly became the leaders of many of the distant settlements.

The term Red Circle refers to both the governing body of large swaths of unaligned planets and star systems inside both the Renge and Great Frontiers and to the peoples therein. More of a collection of societies with a common culture than a group or a nation-state, the Red Circle was founded by survivors of the Exodus following the destruction caused by the Great Calamity. The ancestors to the Red Circle used their knowledge of the Old Ways to escape the tombs their disabled Exodus ships had become. With the Old Ways, what some call magic, the mystics and spellweavers of the age guided the frightened peoples from the doomed drifting hulks to new worlds, worlds they could live and thrive on. Using the goodwill earned, the mystics and spellweavers gained the respect and authority absent of typical pre- and post. The Circles led, the warriors defended, and the communities thrived. The Red Circle further rose in prestige, dominating the socio-cultural landscape.

Because of the disparate nature of Circle Society and territory, its culture is not unified by nature and design, but it does have a few commonalities. It is matriarchal, predominately ancestor worshiping, and in some shape or fashion, it firmly believes in the Old Ways that predate the Exodus, the First Metropolitan Golden Age, even the founding of the Metropolis. At the heart of the culture of the Circle is the use and practice of magics and a form of spirituality. This is viewed by others as superstition and delusion, or as some form of unknown Quantum Channeling, but to any Circle member or even primal warrior, the Old Ways are real. Over the millennia, this leadership has waxed and waned, but has never faded in this new society. All societies in Many Metropolis exiles regard themselves as members or followers of the Circle.

Each subgroup inside of the Red Circle is self-governing and largely autonomous. The Red Circle, made up of wise women and powerful wielders of the Old Ways, are selected from the general population in whatever the manner the people decide. Meetings between all members of the Circle are unheard of, and most Red Ladies, as the governing body prefers to be called, take an advisory role. They are placed in all major or minor powers in Circle space with their only goal to be useful to their embedded group and the society of free peoples. This usefulness has ended wars, often before they begun, promoted trade, predicted droughts and other natural phenomenon’s, ended famines, and facilitated transportation across the stars in a manner unknown to the rest of the Reknown-Galaxy. The respect given to the Red Ladies of the Circle has been repeatedly earned by the group.

The Circle’s guidance and mastery of the mystical Old Ways has also allowed far more primitive and poorly industrialized societies to challenge interstellar empires of the likes of the Renge Hegemony, the Metropolis and even the Mainyu.

Subsidiary Organizations