Dissolution of the Brotherhood of Thought

The Brotherhood of Thought

The Final Dissolution (LY 2163)

Click here to read the original account of Rheinhold Vasco

By Hermann Vasco

When my father defected from the corrupt Brotherhood of Thought more than twenty years ago, he did not expect to live more than a month or two. To his good fortune and our own, he was mistaken.

Sir Rheinhold Vasco, Knight of the Order of the Wyvern, revealed many dark and important secrets about the Brotherhood of Thought to the outside world. More importantly, he shared those secrets with people who could take action against the plots and schemes of the Brotherhood. Their majesties, Queen Anissette and King Drake, made quite sure that resources were brought to bear against the Brotherhood before, during, and after the War of Falling Stars. This year, 2163 years after the founding of Landers, it is my happy duty to report that the Brotherhood of Thought has finally been defeated as an organization.

This was truly a feat of epic proportions, consuming many lives and countless krugerrand. Many were the heroes who have fallen to bring this goal to fruition. For the memory of my father, who did eventually give his life that others could live free, I dedicate this account.

History of the Brotherhood of Thought

The Early Years

The Brotherhood of Thought began as a secret society of Kraanicher nobles and intelligentsia in LY 2105. Their cause was to not only advance the purity and strength of the Kraanicher race, but to gain control and rulership of Jaastenland. Their ultimate aims were to subjugate lesser races and to destroy half-breed abominations, like half-elves. They had the advantages of wealth, influence, and power, but they could not openly advance their aims due to the political climates in Smeisserand and Kyriabor, and because there were problems with demons and kenku on the borders of both nations.

Masquerading as a charitable society, the Brotherhood established enclaves and conducted recruiting and fundraising activities. It promoted the cause of science, logic, and rationality in all things. Brotherhood scientists were able to make great strides in eugenics, psionics, and advanced sciences. These discoveries were used for the advancement of the organization, rather than the benefit of society at large. Public opinion was manipulated quite carefully to make the organization seem like a harmless group of leading citizens interested in helping to create a more peaceful, rational society.

By LY 2130, the Brotherhood was infiltrated by devils. Presumably, these were first summoned to do the bidding of the society's leaders. They eventually grew in prominence to become behind-the-scenes advisors of the most important people within the Brotherhood. They may have also placed disguised devils in high membership positions and done away with key figures, assuming their places by magic. Under the influence of the fiends, wizards used blood magic rituals to obtain research results or facilitate the creation of new slave races.

A Kraanicher creed is reliance on oneself and one's own abilities, placing no faith in any false higher power. The devils pushed this even farther, advancing the cause of ignorant atheism. While atheism holds that there is no such thing as a great god or creator, the diabolic atheism fomented within the Brotherhood of Thought downplayed even the existance of true ethical and moral principles. The only true constraint on action should be what would bring successful advancement of self and the race. The moral and ethical alignments of the Outer Planes were arbitrary classifications in this scheme, and there was no such thing as soul or spirit.

Truly, the goal of the devils was to create non-belief so that they could damn more souls to oblivion, this somehow serving their own ends. The Kraanicher Church of Pure Flame collaborated with this philosophy and helped recruit members to the Brotherhood. It also funneled money and information to the senior members of the organization, helping it grow to a strength like that of a private nation in its mountain enclaves.

The Middle Years

The Redcloak War in Northeastern Smeisserand marked the beginning of a turning point for the Brotherhood of Thought. After the Scarlet Legion relinquished its claims in LY 2138, King Wulfram enacted rather sweeping reforms concerning class status, personal freedoms, and relationships with demihumans. This destroyed twenty years of work by the Brotherhood in Smeisserand overnight, and heightened the already precarious position of the king.

King Wulfram was not a full-blooded Kraanicher, but a half-blood byblow of the old king. This was completely incompatible with the ideals of the Brotherhood and the Kraanicher cause of racial purity. He won the crown in a duel for succession against his younger half-brother, and the druidic council proclaimed his right to rule. His military leadership and charisma won over the military class and kept him securely on the throne, even as the plots and machinations of the noble houses tried to unseat him. King Wulfram was simply so great a leader and so successful in battle that the Brotherhood had little influence on him. This, of course, made him the Brotherhood's greatest target.

The king had appointed a foreign woman, not even a Kraanicher, to the position of Baroness of Voyreem in LY 2138, at the close of the Redcloak War. At the time, this was a trivial event, notable only for the king's political shrewdness in placing a Landish noble in charge of what had become a minor Landish-dominated barony. Lady Anissette DuKott was a swordswoman of some skill, and a merchant leader of extreme wisdom and persuasion. The policies she enacted led Voyreem to a place of prominence in the northeast within a mere three years. She was made Countess as the border territory was pacified and settled. Voyreem, once an unnoticed and unexciting river crossing, grew into a wealthy and prosperous trade center. Lady DuKott's diplomacy with the elves and declared equality of races drew independent thinkers to her cause. Her sponsorship of freeswords and "adventurers" also gave her a special edge that no other noble posessed.

Several of these adventuring companies had encounters with the agents and outposts of the Brotherhood of Thought in the north and on the Frontier of Smeisserand. They returned with stories of the Brotherhood's evil practices, slave races, and technology. Lady DuKott and her officials took note. About this time also, Lady DuKott wed the Landish Archmage, Sir Drake Hedgerton. The well-known sterling character and penchant for action of the archmage was surely noted by the Brotherhood with alarm, as was his magical and technological power.

The Brotherhood put in motion a grand plan. In one sweeping campaign, they would depose King Wulfram, take control of Smeisserand and Kyriabor, destroy Lady DuKott and the archmage, and turn all races of Jaastenland against the half-elves. This campaign was planned and rehearsed for two years before it was in readiness. Finally, the assassination of King Wulfram by the infamous Adriana the Black launched the plan.

The Short-lived Conquest of Jaastenland

Lady DuKott was placed in a position where she would have to declare support for the regency of Prince Florian, a spoiled and biddable tool of the Brotherhood, or break with Smeisserand. The Brotherhood hoped that she would rebel, thereby giving them the open excuse to remove her from power and have her killed. This plan went forward properly at the same time that the Brotherhood framed half-elves in Kyriabor for a poison gas attack on the Kyriaborean Senate. Everything was in readiness.

However, the Brotherhood could not perhaps have foreseen the effects of Lady DuKott's diplomacy on her neighbors. They elected to stand with her in rebellion. Further, the valiant deeds of freeswords and spellcasters like Dark Schniedar, Jann Wenner, Uta the Wanderer, Dirk Walder, and others turned the tide of the campaign instantly against the Brotherhood.

While Prince Florian pursued an ineffectual campaign to retake the "rebel provinces," the adventurers of Voyreem were sponsored by Lady DuKott, now Queen Anissette, in a war against the Brotherhood of Thought. This was greatly aided by several important defectors from the Brotherhood. One, Rheinhold Vasco, brought evidence that the devils controlled much of the organization's policy and leadership. Public opinion was easy to turn against the Brotherhood with this information, and it let adventurers and the Crown understand the nature of the true threat they faced.

Master Gransol was another defector. A master psion of the Brotherhood, he helped stop the Blood Magic rituals that would have destroyed Sir Drake's magical defense of Voyreem. He stayed with the forces of Voyreem until the War of Falling Stars was nearly over, then disappeared.

Master Valdemar was a crucial figure in the early and later battles against the Brotherhood of Thought. He escaped the Brotherhood with information about the dangerous Mindwalker Knights and their powers. He then turned these powers against the Brotherhood, helping to win the War of Falling Stars. He also established the Order of the Guardians, or the "White Hats," as they are known today, and trained its first members. This order of psions is sworn to the service of the Crown of Lebensbrüke, and was instrumental in the final defeat of the Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood had been dealt several serious defeats within two months of Queen Anissette's declaration of independence. They had lost three enclave strongholds, more than twelve regiments of troops, more than half of their armored war cavalry, and several senior leaders. At this point, the Sky Golems struck, throwing the world into a greater peril—the War of Falling Stars.

After the War of Falling Stars

One of the first attacks of the Sky Golems was against the central Enclave of Black Mountain. Its concentration of advanced technology had drawn the attention of the Sky Golems and tagged it for the first wave of bombardment. Much of the Brotherhood's leadership and command structure was destroyed in a single instant that morning. Other attacks on Elantra, and later Aelizon and the other cities of Jaastenland, gave the Brotherhood challenges that interrupted their consolidation of power and war against Lebensbrüke.

Meanwhile, news of the diabolic infiltration and influence of the Brotherhood had already made its way back to certain members of the organization. Many grandmaster psions and powerful wizards had kept a skeptical distance from the devils, anticipating this sort of treachery. While those who were under the influence or control of the devils fought for their lives against the Sky Golems, the "Hidden Cabal" assassinated and destroyed the internal threat from Hell.

When the Red Plague arrived, most Kraanichers and the hardy slave races of the Brotherhood were unaffected. Even so, the conversion of technological power into magic and the worldwide surge of raw magical energy disrupted the Brotherhood's organization severely.

When Sir Drake returned from the moon in victory against the Sky Golems, the surviving leaders of the Brotherhood decided to abandon their current plans for conquest. Instead, they would rebuild their own organization and try again when they had grown strong.

However, Lord Valdemar and other freeswords and agents of the Queen harried them at every turn. The regrowth of the Brotherhood of Thought was to be done in the shadows, like slow-growing moss in the shade of rocks and trees.

The Shadow War

Without its advanced technology, the Brotherhood turned to psionics even more than before. Its labs for creating battleslaves had been destroyed and were too easy for Lord Valdemar's agents to find and capture, so the Brotherhood instead nurtured native Kraanicher talent.

Psionics can cloud the minds of its opponents, and the Brotherhood sought this state in which to operate. Its telepaths guarded against discovery and defection. They also planted suggestions and ideas into the minds of ordinary people, helping hide their activities behind a veil of complete secrecy.

The White Hats were initially few in number, but many loyal subjects of the Crown volunteered for the difficult training. Quite a few mastered the arts and swore to use them in service to the Crown and the people of Lebensbrüke. Lord Valdemar led and organized them in pursuit of the Brotherhood, discovering and stopping plots within Voyreem and the kingdom nearly as soon as the Brotherhood could hatch them. Reportedly, Sir Drake's great powers also made Lord Valdemar's job much easier, but this is mere speculation.

The Days of Terror

In the autumn of 2151, the Brotherhood launched its second and last great campaign to gain control of Jaastenland. It had been continuing its usual activities as a diversion to Lord Valdemar's forces while amassing strength in small groups of expert psions and espionage agents. On the 16th day of Harvest, LY 2151, more than six hundred leaders and officials of Lebensbrüke were assassinated in coordinated actions across the entire nation.

Simultaneously, massively powerful enchantments took control of Lebensbrüke's military and caused them to seize power for the Brotherhood. Voyreem itself was in chaos as fighting erupted in the streets.

As before, the actions of adventurers and loyal agents of the Crown turned the result from catastrophe to halcyon victory. The Brotherhood of Thought had exposed its members in these attacks, and Sir Drake quickly gave instructions and locations to companies of adventurers scattered throughout the land. Like avenging angels, the adventurers struck into the Brotherhood's psionic web, burning away strand after strand of control.

Sir Drake's White Magicians and White Knights fought with great valor to subdue the controlled soldiers without slaying them. Though many lost their lives in these battles, the morale of the kingdom held strong. Within two weeks, control of all of Lebensbrüke's armies was restored, hundreds of Brotherhood psions and Mindwalkers had been slain, and most of the slain citizens had been raised from the dead. In its last coordinated attempt, the Brotherhood of Thought was defeated.

The Final Blow

After this, the Brotherhood attempted to go further underground to escape notice and to rebuild again. Unfortunately, its ability to maintain secrecy while still conducting any effective action limited its success. The Brotherhood had already lost too many members and too much influence among the bulk of the Kraanicher people to recover. For the next twelve years, the Brotherhood merely held on to its ties with the Church of Pure Flame and trained new psions.

It operated in isolated cells so that Lord Valdemar's White Hats could not discover and uproot great sections of the organization at once. Using psionic communication to coordinate their actions, the leaders attempted to concoct another plan for domination.

Fortunately for civilized folk, the best the Brotherhood could do at this point was to try to "enforce" Kraanicher racial purity. They could not seem to muster a concerted effort to overthrow the existing order on behalf of their race. Most Brotherhood members pursued their own aims of wealth and power, putting the society's goals second. This is not surprising when one considers that they had to conceal their membership or live in hiding, with death sentences on their heads.

Lord Valdemar's agents continued to harry the Brotherhood wherever it could be found. In the summer of LY 2163, the White Hats located and raided three estates of Kraanicher nobles who had been identified as leaders of the Brotherhood. These raids marked the end of the Brotherhood of Thought as an organization. Information filtering out from other cells confirmed that the organization had splintered beyond recovery. Cell members might work with each other or go their own way. No longer would anyone claim membership in the Brotherhood or carry its banner. It had been effectively destroyed.