[Faction: The Nightwrights - Google Docs](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LD_wZhBMdNloY-I26neg9ydt0hH6rXY4h4qIYwqkPQo/edit?tab=t.0) ## History Centuries ago, when Cirumbran nobles held greater power over the masses, one such noble – Lord Varyn of House Wyndove – fancied himself a patron of the arts. He commissioned a troupe of performers, led by a brilliant bard named Lyras Nightwright, to compose a grand ballad in his honor. But Lyras was no simple player.  Beneath the glitter of song and silk, she led a circle of poets, spies, and thieves – all rallying quietly against noble excess. And Lord Varyn, in his hubris, never bothered to ascertain the background of Lyras and her troupe before inviting nobles and notables from across [[Cirumbra]] to his estate to hear the ballad he’d commissioned. If he had, Lord Varyn would have recalled that, decades earlier, House Wyndove called in political favors to oust Lyras’ father from a significant post in Cirumbran civil society, cascading the Nightwright family into ruin. On the night of the performance, Lyras’ troupe filled the noble’s ballroom with music while her hidden accomplices cleaned out his vaults and liberated dozens of Varyn’s indentured servants. When Varyn was finally alerted to Nightwright’s heist, he tried to call in any favor he could to see Lyras and her troupe executed. But whenever he tried to speak of the matter, no words would come. Indeed, Lyras’ song bound his voice to silence. By dawn, the legend of the Nightwrights was born – a guild that could steal not just gold, but reputations, hearts, and truths. Over the following centuries, the  Nightwrights grew into a network of performers, couriers, and thieves spanning western [[Ortana]]. They are part underworld syndicate, part cabaret society, part information brokerage. In Cirumbra, they masquerade as a performance consortium, managing clubs, theaters, and art houses where coded messages and smuggled goods pass in plain sight. Outside Cirumbra, the guild’s influence extends through bardic colleges and itinerant entertainers who gather secrets while charming the masses. As an organization, the Nightwrights are amoral but principled, seeing theft and manipulation as a restorative balance in a world of hoarded power. Their leader, known only as The Maestro, ensures that their targets are the wealthy, hypocritical, or cruel. The Nightwrights’ influence has ebbed and flowed over their centuries-long existence. They currently enjoy a tense detente with the Umbral Primacy as they recognize how the creation of the Grand Phylacteries has uplifted the masses, and the politicos of the Primacy have been known to employ the Nightwrights’ services. But as the years play on, many Nightwrights have become critical of the Primacy, seeing examples of how, they believe, the old hierarchies never really died. They simply adapted. The guild’s calling card is a single violet feather. Those unlucky enough to be visited by the Nightwrights’ brand of justice often discover the feather in raided vaults or left on their front porch after their reputations were assassinated. The Nightwrights merge theater, larceny, and political commentary, playing on their skills in both the bardic and clandestine ways of life. Members swear to the Nightwrights’ creed: “Where truth cannot be spoken, we sing. Where power cannot be won, we steal.” ## Symbol ![[nightwrights symbol.png]] ## People ```dataviewjs await dv.view("TTRPG/_scripts/dm-page") ```