Dorromee Ado, Grand Scholar, the Central Guilds, Tarnath

Kalkix 53, SP~5,021

Most GERC members agree that the Wyrd Division is a little… off. Almost every member of the Division has transcended at least one Barrier in Shadow. They study Wyrd energy, a corrupted version of one or more of the fundamental Six Energies that make up the world, with some application to more practical, applied areas like automaton development.

Wyrd Energy is a bit of a riddle, as no one is quite sure what it is. Some researchers argue that it’s a true “Energy” in the capital “E” sense of the word: a fundamental building block of the universe. Others argue that Wyrd is actually a breakdown product from extraplanar umbral interactions with pentEnergetic superstructures.  …which is to say, in layperson’s speak, that they think Wyrd is what happens when Shadow degrades Energies on planes other than our own, then those degraded Energies leak back into our plane. This would explain the strange ways in which Wyrd sometimes imitates other Energies; maybe this is because it has little remnants of those Energies left in it, small scraps that in some faded way imitate what they used to be.

As a case in point, the Wyrd Division works with the Materials Development Division and the Energetic Experimental Group to develop automaton technology – the technology that powers machines to move, work, and (to an extent) think without the benefit of Spirit, Body, or Mental. Perhaps this is because the Wyrd that powered them is a kind of chewed up version of these Energies. Maybe this is why Shadow can wield some small control over these machines.

The current head of the Division is Kemmfaut Lap-Kep, a wellyn who has achieved the remarkable feat of transcending three Barriers in each of the six Energies. One of her eyes has a bright purple iris, while the other is completely white, with no iris or pupil at all. She has no tongue – she speaks in Quen sign language – and scars cover her face and body. Stories abound throughout the GERC of how she came to be this way: was she born with those eyes, or were they the result of some strange ritual? Did she remove her own tongue, or was it taken from her?

Dorromee Ado, Grand Scholar, the Central Guilds, Tarnath

Harmon 27, SP~5,022

Voices are the GERC’s diplomats, as well as their experts in linguistics and culture. The Voices are the smallest GERC division, with only a scant few dozen members; their skill set requires an extent of training that many other divisions don’t. This begins with linguistics – Voices almost invariably have Barriers in Mentarch, Soman, and Charismatic. Mental allows them to memorize a vast number  of languages, while Body allows them to modify their vocal tracts and mouths to pronounce sounds specific to different races: the Dwarven vvo, the four sibilances of the Crawn language Szastak, and more. They then move to cultural training, learning the fine-grained nuance of cities, kingdoms, and tribes up and down the continent. Emotion comes in later on, when they are trained to protect themselves against Energetic persuasion and to read others – but never using Powers to convince others.

This last point is particularly important: Voices swear a strict oath never to directly influence anyone through Energetic means. This means they can broker agreements – from trade agreements to truces between nations – while maintaining the trust of all parties that they are using nothing more than their words. They will also know if someone else tries to influence the agreement.

Most accounts agree that the Voices began with the diplomacy of Drawnwyn, the daughter of perhaps the most influential single figure in Tamarra’s history – Emperor Samron, who began with good intentions and went absolutely insane. Drawnwyn trained Garrett Taborlain, the first “Guild diplomat” in her time on the throne. Garrett went on to train future generations of diplomats, and the GERC began funding their linguistic research in the early 4900s. By SP~4940 they were officially folded into the coalition. Because of this coevolution, though, the Voices maintain some purposeful distance from the Guilds in order to reinforce the idea of their neutrality.

The current head of the Voices is Vissaz Nezl, a crawn Mentarch/Soman who spent years as a spearman in the crawn army before defecting to the GERC. Nezl ardently believes that war is never a foregone conclusion, and that with the right communication any conflict can be averted.

Dorromee Ado, Grand Scholar, the Central Guilds, Tarnath

Tasz 4, SP~5,021

Like it or not, the MDD is known best for the flashy minority of what they do: the development of Energetic items, anything from Power-imbued stones to a diving sphere that can transport travelers thousands of feet under the surface of the ocean without being crushed by the pressure. They do create some truly miraculous items, to be sure, but their impact on the day-to-day life of Tamarran citizens has been vastly greater in their development of new materials for weapons, construction of homes, and so on. The MDD is singlehandedly responsible for the buildings in Tarnath that are stable at nine or ten stories, for the ability to produce steel cheaply and quickly – for any number of small things that most people use every day without even noticing.

Perhaps the most notable of the MDD’s everyday improvements is the cross-continental hammool rail system that spans the Tamarran continent. Hammools are animals native to the Plains of Frestehal that have been widely used by both the guilds and some commercial transportation organizations for their use on the rails. They average about 30 feet tall and 20 feet across, with eight sturdy, pole-like legs and skin that looks more or less brownish-grayish until you get up to it and see that it’s actually covered with a layer of fine scales, each a subtly different color. Their stocky heads droop like a necklace between their front legs, only extending slightly beyond the rest of their bodies. Hammools are immensely strong, and rail-runners (as they are called) are shod with particular metal shoes that allow them to float with almost no resistance over the rails, and tack that reduces the weight of whatever they carry. This allows them to port tons of goods cross-continentally in a matter of days. This alone has revolutionized the way commerce works on the Tamarran continent. But hey, y’know, feel free to fixate on the cool fire-shooting wand the MDD made and ignoring the larger structural changes they’ve made, that’s fine.

The current head of the MDD is Kuma-nev-nev-Lanu, an ishiri Evoker from rural villages bordering on the icy wastes to the north. He is unusually short for an ishiri – perhaps 5’5″ – and quite stout. He is widely recognized as one of the best sculptors in Naldrin, where he now lives, and his ability to manipulate materials with Physic is perhaps even more masterful than his sculpting.

Dorromee Ado, Grand Scholar, the Central Guilds, Tarnath

Harmon 43, SP~5,022

The Energetic Experimental Group is the most pointedly – often abstractly – academic group of the GERC divisions. The EEG comprises Channels from every Guild, as well as a considerable number of non-Channels in clerical positions, and its top researchers are among the best and brightest on the Tamarran Continent.

The breadth of EEG research is wide; some groups cover practical subjects such as the discovery of new Powers and Power Effects, or new Effects to imbue into Energetic items. Other groups cover purely theoretical research; this includes the underpinnings of the Six Energies and how they interact in the world around us (what allows plants to be controlled by Spirit and bodies by Body, and where is the dividing line? Is it possible to control tree-gendered kamaris with either? Is there a theoretical limit to the number of Barriers one can transcend?). There are also groups that cover just… weird stuff:  what happens if you use telepathy on an Unkind Place? If you use Physic/Body to turn part of a tree into meat, could you control that tree with Body?

A good example of “out there” research is the Shadow Gate Network Project (SGNP), which started in the year SP~5,002 and continues today, twenty years later.  The project examines dimensional gates, which, connect two places in space that are some distance from each other, allowing folk to enter one side of the gate and immediately appear on the other.  But, what exactly is inside  the gate itself?  Is there actually nothing there?  Or, as many on the SGNP team believe, is there an Energy Realm outside of normal space that might itself be visited?  There is anecdotal evidence (actually quite a bit of it) about blink bats that enter a naturally occurring D-Gate, but do not exit from the other side for many minutes, or even hours or days.  It has been said that a number of these blink bats have simply come back out the side they entered, sometimes with a companion blink bat in tow.  Stay tuned as this group makes progress!

The current head of the EEG is Ipchirix Telek-iv-telt, a dwaheely Mentarch/Evoker from the mountains off the coast of the Rimgissel Ocean. While most EEG researchers agree that Ipchirix is a bit… odd, they also agree that she is phenomenally talented as a researcher. She retains vast troves of knowledge and connects information between disparate fields as deftly as a weaver pulls together threads.

Dorromee Ado, Grand Scholar, the Central Guilds, Tarnath

Kalkix 53, SP~5,021

The NGEI is an important branch of the GERC, but it is kept relatively quiet; while it is not an official secret, most people outside of the GERC have no idea it exists. The NGEI’s job is to study and classify the so-called “magic” performed by Sorcerers, and to track the various sorcerer sects that still exist scattered throughout Tamarra.

A century ago, as the 4900s just began, the NGEI was on a course to eliminating sorcery completely, due to an extreme wing in Frestehal that was attempting mass extermination of sorcerers. Decades after this cultural genocide began, they had whittled the magic-using population of Tamarra to a fraction of what it used to be. The focus of the NGEI today is  almost entirely thanks to Landra Farrier, a human Charismatic who quietly opposed this extremist Guild-led extermination. Farrier argued that because the Sorcerers’ population was so well controlled, the Guilds would be better served keeping the small remaining population alive for study. Surely the “savages” could turn up useful Energetic knowledge that the “civilized” Guilds could appropriate for themselves.

Landra knew that if she was too vocal in her opposition to – as she repeatedly called it – “the obscene atrocities committed by the Guilds in Frestehal,” she could end up in prison, or worse. She spent decades of her life organizing and running a system of support networks and hiding places for sorcerers, keeping them one step ahead of the most extreme Guild factions. Farrier also occupied an important position within the task force set on eliminating the sorcerers, gaining her information from the inside.

Years later, the NGEI have kept the spirit of Farrier’s mission alive. They study magic-using cultures anthropologically and Energetically, gleaning what knowledge they can from them, but they also keep this information staunchly out of other hands – except, of course, for the watchful discretion of Acquisitions & Archival. While rumors say that the NGEI’s libraries include specific spells and rituals of some power, their most valuable assets are undoubtedly information. The NGEI has collected data – so the whispers go – on the inner turnings of the Law that lives in Naldrin, a kind of “law elemental” that arose as the result of centuries of bureaucracy so intricate that it became its own, vast, sorcerous ritual. They also have some information on the geography of continents that supposedly exist beyond the spines of the oceans – information which they may possibly share with the Sojourners. The locations of sorcerers’ tribes, or anything else that could be used to harm them, are kept under lock and key.

The current division head of the NGEI is Terma Lanchet, a human Mystic who is perhaps more beloved than any other division head. Her researchers have nothing but love for her; she runs a tight administrative ship, and manages to keep the RDG pleased with the non-growth of sorcerous tribes while assiduously avoiding any violence against them.

Dorromee Ado, Grand Scholar, the Central Guilds, Tarnath

Kalkix 53, SP~5,021

The Sojourners are a kind of meta-division within the GERC, a group that blends a touch of scout and cartographer with a dash of masochistic derring-do. They recruit from all other disciplines, Guilds, and fields of research so that they can effectively investigate all types of phenomena.

The Sojourners are named for exploration, and they use a variety of approaches. This can mean mapping out the continent, or accompanying other researchers to Strange & Far Away Lands. It sometimes means plumbing the depths of Ethem’s lung (one of the many “organs” that are responsible for natural phenomena across the hibernating creature that is our planet), going into the woods to find out who made that horse the size of a barn, or inspecting the strange Sorcerous qualities that seem to be embedded in the laws in Naldrin.

It is in large part because of the Sojourners that maps exist of the oceanic spines, vast tracts of turbulent Six-State Energetic “storms” that span unbroken from south to north in the oceans on either side of Tamarra. These spines have been Tamarra’s barriers to the known world for millennia, as they prevent any ships or other vehicles from passing them. The Sojourners constructed Energetic dampening vessels that allowed them to ride the (extraordinarily dangerous) outskirts of the western and eastern spines over the course of about one month.

The information that the Sojourners collected on the Energetic signatures contained within the spines are not a matter of public record, but they did release maps of the spines’ back-and-forth wendings as part of their public cartographic archives. Many people on Tamarra considered the spines the borders of the worlds, and why wouldn’t they have? But everything changed when the Nulentians attacked. This invasion of an unknown race from the seas to the east made a lot of people question their conception of what the world was – and that is a story for another day.

The head of the Sojourners is Lihanu, a heolas Mystic/Umbrist whose name translates to “The Half-Lit Moon.” While hsur* ageless heolas face would never show it, Lihanu is supposedly quite old – perhaps over 100 – and has traveled to a distant northern plateau beyond the Icy Wastes, a place known as Ethem’s plexus. Few have traveled to the plexus, but it is rumored to be a place where Tamarra meets with eight other continents.  If true, this might allow for travel to other parts of the world without having to circumvent the spines.

* The gender-neutral pronoun used for heola.