Keepers of the Revel
Sitting in a gloom lit by a single candle, the masked and robed figures shuffle into the room. Some are tall. Some are short. Some are round. Some are thin. They are all different, yet they are the same... those that organize and run the city from behind the scenes.
In the City, the classes do not mix. There are strict rules about the interaction of peoples of different strata. Even with some changes in the law, the social conventions have not changed.
The City has a carnival, quite a famous one all told. There are faires, parties, parades, shows, more parades, music, and did we mention parades? It is a week of revelry and impropriety before the setting in of the Holy Seasons. It has been custom here to join the carnival in mask and costume for nearly three hundred years. Some people will spend most of their year's income on a costume, so they can be percieved as 'high class'. This allows people to be free of their social constraints, allows for free mixing of the classes, and a much needed release from social pressures of The City Society.
The Keepers of the Revel are the organizers. They meet, masked, through out the year to plan and schedule the events. (It just does not do to have two nobles have parties at the same time). They organize their guild and church groups, keeping them on track so things go off flawlessly. Some keepers, while on Keeper business, wear masks and costumes; though it is often an open secret who is and isn't a keeper. Yet there are more keepers than one might suspect. Some are quite secretive.
In recent times, The Keepers have gotten more and more involved in city politics. Since the Keepers represent any number of groups in any number of social layers, they have influence well beyond the mere princely law. Working together they can make changes, mostly for the good, in the city.
Recently, they have become 'king makers', determining who will become guild masters, be allowed merchant licenses, and even who will succeed the city Prince. They will take steps to ensure that they keep their recently aquired power. Sometimes the steps will be quite slippery and dangerous and people get hurt.
Inspiration for image
The image is no longer in the gallery. It will come back when Strolen version 2.1 comes up.
http://www.strolen.com/forums/album_pic.php?pic_id=82
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? Responses (4)
I can imagine the PCs being ordered to investigate this group by the reigning Prince,who wants it's machinations uncovered.
There are tons of uses for this organization. That is one of them. You could be hired by the Keepers to do things. The Keepers could take a more illuminati bent and really begin to run things behind the scenes. They could branch into espionage, or demonology or any number of other esoteric subjects. Really, the group is ripe for the usage.
Or it could just be a bunch of party planners and all these rumors of their great king making power is just that... rumors.
This might be mainly a utility sub for creating plot hooks but I still feel that the execution falls on the bland side and could be improved upon.
A good bit to toss into a city. Image is still missing in this sub.