Cabals and Covens

It isn’t illegal per se to be a sorcerer in Eversink, but sorcerers create Corruption, and that’s very illegal. Sometimes chained-in-a-cage-with-your-hands-and-tongue-cut-off-overhanging-the-harbor-until-you-die illegal. So powerful Sorcerers often have their minions in Eversink run errands for them, and they flex their political muscles behind the scenes. The Sorcerous Cabals cleave together for mutual protection and power, and their representatives guard their interests without (usually) having much sorcery themselves. 
Cabals tend to inspire paranoia. No one knows who could be a sorcerer and who isn’t. Neighbors turn each other in, and the Church Inquisitors come a-calling. Are the Inquisitors sorcerers themselves? Are church officials? How can one tell? And if you have crossed them, how could you possibly hope to survive? 
Cabals are tightly organized but keep their secrets from other, rival cabals; memories might even be erased to ensure that sorcerers can’t remember more than one or two contacts in their own organization, just to keep the cabal safe. That said, when someone shows up on the Sorcerous Cabal’s list of enemies, word is somehow passed from member to member and the enemies don’t survive particularly long. 
Sometimes confident (or politically well-connected) sorcerers act as figureheads and guild spokespeople, attracting the attention and ire of the inquisitors, hoping to shine so brightly that their fellow practitioners can sneak past in the shadow. It’s all about misdirection and power. 
Two primary traditions exist in Sorcerous Cabals: those who learned their sorcery from the teaching of forgotten demons or small gods, and those who learned it from the ancient and forgotten lore of the Serpentine snake-folk. They differ considerably; in particular, cabals centered around small gods and demons tend to take on the characteristics of those entities. A cabal who learned their sorcery from a small god of deception, for instance, will have different traditions than those who learned their sorcery from a small god of rot and decay.

Those who have made pacts with foul spirits and those who have forbidden knowledge