The Order of Shrouded Augurs
Their spot in the Solari Capital was disrupted when they began to prophesy events that would occur in the Era of Reckoning, thousands of years in the future, and offered options that the Solari could consider to change their course and try to fix them before they happened. Specifically to do with the Shattering of Gholurai, which stretched down the Western Coast of Zimura and was on of the Solari's largest trading partners at the time. The Solari Council became disturbed at the content of their prophesies and banned from the Temple of Karna, and from prophesying in the Holy Quarter. In disbelief, the order still went into the city and ran small meetings and offered divination readings from an abandoned home in the Commoner's Row of houses that borders the Beggar's Alley. The elder Oracle allowed this to happen (her vote could have veto'd the idea altogether) with the condition that one of the sibyls kept an active and open crystal ball or other scrying device between the camp and the house. They agreed and continued to do business out of the house to support the order, now cut off from the Solari and rejected by many of the people they once thought were friends and community members.
One day, while hosting a reading, a few of the sybils were caught in the house as some of the more zealous city residents set fire to the home. There was even question of whether or not magic was used to accelerate the fire. A total of 12 houses were burned or damaged and needed to be rebuilt as a result of this, but the sibyls and the woman inside who was seeking their guidance, were able to escape. They jumped out a back window into the backstreet that led into the Beggar's Alley. The other sibyls saw this through the Sensory window into the house and abandoned their camp, leaving everything behind, all of a sudden.
The women all jumped into the water and swam for as long as their bodies could take them, and ended up in The Invisible Tides. This is where the story varies depending on who is telling it:
- Some say that a few of the sibyls died of drowning while swimming through the Invisible Tides, and the survivors dragged their corpses to a cave, where they found and made a deal with powerful sea hags to bring their friends back, but they were all brought back and transformed into Sea Hags themselves
- Others say that all of the sibyls began to drown in unison as the Invisible Tides swept over them. As they all began to fade, they collectively, as insivisuals, prayed to Oasis, the god of the Sea, to save their lives for a life of service to the Sea. The God ensured this was happening by turning all of the women into sea hags, who would never be welcome anywhere but the sea. Followers of Oasis generally shun this idea.
- And still others claim that the sibyls took turns drowning one another in ritual murder, one by one cursing one another and turning them all into Sea Hags
There is one common thread though - the entire order was turned into a large coven of Sea Hags!
The girls, now hags, swam for another 50 or so miles until they came across an empty and fertile island. Word got back to the Archipelago that the Order made it to the island, but the hags felt they had little to worry about with their new mastery of the water, and the fact that they would get so little visitors since they were now living out in the Invisible Tides.
The island that became their new Holy Site and home was known as Oracle's Rest. The hags mostly kept to themselves after finding the island but the Order of Shrouded Augurs fell apart at that point. They all lived in isolation and began studying their own forms of magic to try to increase their own personal power. The readings they performed individually remained secret as trust issues ran rampant throughout the island and broke apart the connections they had as humans.
Word eventually got out from a Voyager Ship that sailed through the Invisible Tides and saw some of the Sea Hags that they had been cursed or made a deal with an evil force to be transformed. The citizens of the Solari Keys and the Archipelago were concerned, but the Solari Council opted not to do anything for years. Adventurers would try to seek out contracts with the Solari to take care of the problem, but were always turned down and allegedly never offered a reward. Eventually, the Solari Navy proposed and passed the mission in quiet to take out the Sea Hags and clear out Oracle's Rest.
They left on the first night of the New Moon and ambushed the hags: both the island and the coastlines; any tidal caves, caverns or mines, bridges, and camps. They burnt down everything and threw gaseous grenades in the tidal caves and caverns while polluting the water so they were suffocated no matter where they went. Many people believe that the hags cursed the island with their dying breath and to this stay, the curse is still alive and well.
The island is now known as Sibyl's Blight and is regarded as cursed even though this event happened thousands of years ago. It is not marked on most maps because the vast majority of people do not want to encourage visitors there or visit there in the first place. It is also a known and avoided place by sailors, who believe it is bad luck to anchor boats within its waters. There have been sailors who rested there on long voyages from Zimura, but there ships were sabotaged and they ended up stranded on the island and dying there.
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