4. Notable Factions of the Mystic World
1) The Advisory Council
Possibly the only faction in the magic society that can be seen as the governing body of all Wizards and Familiars and all things supernatural, they Were formed back in the Dark Ages. A time when the number of Lost Ones and Evil Wizards were at an all times high. Someone eventually decided that the way of Magic is interfering too much with how mundane people lived, and they set out to correct that mistake once and for all.
Their group and edicts remain unchanged to this day. By keeping the world of magic and mundane separate, and limit the interactive between the two to an absolute minimum, they successfully nurture both society to blossom without interference from the other side of the coin. Though it is never officially stated, most Wizards will follow their lead and listen to their edicts as laws. They are also in cordial relationship with every major powers and governments in this world, who recognize the benefits of keeping the unstable factor of Magic out of daily dealings.
The Advisory Council is exactly that, a council of experienced Wizards, world-weary Familiars, mundane who are wise to the ways of Magic, and other intelligent beings who even for their inhumanity is still a part of the world. Through negotiations and debates they strive to always make correct decisions that, while might not be always good and just, will still benefit everybody to the maximum extent possible.
Apart from the Council, there are also sub-branch of the Order: The messengers who send out the will and edicts of the Council. The sages who research and advance the lore in their giant underground library. The Monster Busters who take care of magical situations. And the dealers who interact with the world powers, find and help new Wizards and Familiars, and eliminate the evidence of magic in the mundane society. In scale of martial prowess they are only slightly behind the Winterbornes, but their prestige is such that on a pinch other neutral factions would probably help balance the scale.
The current central leaders in the council are: Amat, a Transcended Wizard over a millennia in age. His Familiar The White Dragon Qu-oh. Losanna, Queen of the Fair Folks. Manchalis, a frail old man and Lost One. And finally, Eric "Fatso" Friday, a used car salesman in Manchester and probably the smartest and happiest man alive.
2) The Winterbornes
Actual master of the world in every way but name, the Winterbornes were once a small, struggling family that almost didn't make it past winter so many centuries ago. But one day during a futile foray for food, the youngest son of the family found a Lion, prowling in the snowfield alone.
Now the Winterbornes are the head of a mega-industrial, whose business reach every corner of the world and is involve in every type of business imaginable, and whose powers rival those of the top nations in this world.
It was all because of the Lion that become the true head of the family, so many years ago. By swearing fealty to it, they have gain an ally whose power is simply beyond nature, and who is smarter and more shrewd than the most devious moneychanger. Following the word of the Lion who call himself Extinguis, the Winterborne family has nothing but amazing luck.
For Extinguis, this is but a chance meeting that turns out to be more profitable than he ever imagined. An entity that exist long before the rise of civilization, from a simple predator he became one of the first Familiars in mutual partnership. Then as the days go on, began to understand more and more of the hearts and minds of those frail weaklings that, impossible as it might seemed, had managed to climb high up the food chain. By hoarding power because it is in his instinct to do so, he switch Wizards like old rags and keep on learning and devouring, until one day when he discover that he is on the path to Transcendence.
He Fell, intentionally, because he had no interest of ever leaving this world: He only wanted to own it.
Over the millennia he did many things: Helped the downfall of a great empire and the rise of a religion, and then abandoned it all to a bleak Dark Age because it got out of his hands. Became the pet of kings and subtly affected them to become power-hungry despots. Killing weaker Wizards and Familiars to devour their powers. On that snowy morning he was just planning on a quick snack, but then he saw the potential in young Winterborne, and then the saturation of potentials in the Winterborne family in general, the idea of unlimited Wizards for his personal use, forever, just popped into his head.
Now he literally owns almost a quarter of the world, can get anything he wants, and is so powerful that even The Advisory Council have to listen to him.
And right now he is just about to take more.
The power of the Winterborne comes from both mundane and supernatural: The peacekeeping service they offer means they can maintain their own standing army. Their industrial-complexes keep the army equipped with the best equipment, and both above- and underhand dealings to all walks of life give them multiple solutions to solve any problems. In the area of magic, Extinguis enforce a strict selective breeding programs to all his minions and offspring, just to maximize the birth of children with potentials. It is so successful that he now has a sizable, devote followings of powerful Winterborne offspring and Lion Familiars at his beak and call. Without mentioning his perfect Lion Physique, Extinguis by himself is already a powerful Wizard/Familiar enough to give even Amat of the Advisory Council or Greene of the Wild packs trouble, and they already represent the highest echelon of Wizards in the world. The most dangerous part of Extinguis though, are his schemes and plotting. Some of his schemes can last for centuries, and might be hidden under layers and layers or truth and lies that most of the times it’s hard to be sure if he is the one who started it in the first place.
3) The Wild Pack
The relationship between a Wizard and a familiar is an extremely close one, yet there are some people who can go beyond even that. The Wild Pack is one such who choose to abandon the world of humanity, and retreat into the forest the live as their Familiars do.
While most of them bear no ill will towards the Human world, they no longer miss the trappings of human technologies. Running wild with their packs, wearing only handcrafted shirts and leggings, living under the stars and be as their Familiars be, they are the few humans who really become one with nature. For them the outside world and the dealings in the magic circle in like a dream of yesterday, once remembered but soon forgotten.
They rarely gather in groups, as most prefer to run with the pack their Familiar belongs to. But there still is a certain structure of authority: Everyone looks to Greene, a Transcended One who's been in the wild for so long that sometimes people can't understand half the English he use. A few other old hands are also scattered around ready to help out. In environmental-related situations they usually would not go violent immediately, but they will talk things out with any potential logger and try to reason out a mutual solution. Firestarters though will be treated with maximum hostility. Being a member of the forest, they are also in good relation with intelligence other than the Familiars.
Even when their numbers are small, on an individual level they are still quite powerful, and there are more Transcended Ones from the Wild Pack than any other factions.
4) The Synthers
Fact is: Nobody knows much about the Synthers.
And also: What little people know is bad enough to never get involve with them, ever.
They seem to be the Wizard's answer to luddites: Extreme Human-Supremacists who aggressively hate every kind of magic or technologies that doesn't follow their strictly defined codes.
And they hate animals, and see Familiars and evil mutants, or the spawn of Satan coming to lead the devoted astray.
Without Familiars, humans are not meant to use Magic at all. Yet amazingly, the Synthers find a way: Midnight rituals fill with mostly senseless gibberish plus large helping sex and violence, where extraordinary amounts of mind-altering substances are used without a care. But the worst of the worst is: Instead of animal Familiars, they use mentally unstable or borderline-intelligent human beings as magic conduits, and put them through hellish tortures to bleed the maximum amount of magic from their bodies to the last drop.
Their victims don't usually survive the ordeal, but they will prolong it for as long as possible.
They are vampires of magic, of the most evil, diseased kind.
The only cult that is actively hunted by The Advisory Council, over the years they have developed their own system of hiding and tracking down potential supernatural. Usually gather in hidden basements, presumed "Locations of Power", and madhouses where they gather most of their victims, they fight their "Crusade for Humanity" by hunting down and killing lone Familiars whenever they have a chance.
The leader of the Synthers is "Mighty" Joe Stanley, a mild mannered, plain-looking man who always dress in comfortable marine-blue business suits and thick glasses. Only when he is making one of his speeches when his passion and dedication on the destruction of all the "Evil Ways" show his true color.
Strangely enough, Stanley is the happy owner of two white normal Labradors, nobody has ever seen him perform magic, and his aura is for some reason unreadable. All the heavy works he leaves for his lieutenants, Bobba and Jumbo, two burly men and individually expert in magical curses and explosions.
5) The Dolittles
This is the pet lover's club, the Garfields and Johns of Wizards. Loosely organized, with no official ways of recording its members, their emphasis seems to be just "having a talking pet is cool" and that's it. Other than the barest of Task spells they almost never do much of any magic, but their Annual Talent Show/Grooming Workshop is an event that few Wizards and even some Mundane pet owners in the know will give an arm and a leg not to miss.
On the other hand, their advice on caring and problems with Familiars are better than even those of the Advisory Council's. This little fact is the lifesaver for many beginning Wizards/Familiars, so much that the head of Dolittles, Madame Mira Agnes, is the one who gets owed the most favors in the Magic circle.
Their motto is: "I love my Familiar. You should too."
6) Transcended Ones and the Lost Ones
Transcended Ones are animals and wizards who, after years of study and practice as well as use of highly complex arcane rituals, manage to go beyond their innate abilities and constrains to merge as one, in order to become true entities of magic. There are not many Transcended Ones around, as it requires exceptional amount of skill and not just a little luck to become one. Also the further they go, the less they resemble beings native to this world, until at the end when they gain the ability to go beyond fundamental laws of nature at will, almost all of them will leave this constrictive shell of a world to seek out higher enlightenment.
Great beasts form old lore like Leviathan, Kraken, Yatagarasu, Yacumama, Tiamat, Dragons, The Chinese Serpents and Kirin seems to be some of the Transcended Familiars recorded in history.
And then there are also Beasts and Humans who, while seeking the ways to Transcend beyond, had followed the wrong path and become fallen and lost. No longer a part of this world but still cannot escape its entrapment, they are driven insane and all their original passion now become pure and simple hated for this world and everything within it. Manticores and Spinax, Griffins and Gorgons and Tao Tie and Yamata no Orochi. The legendary monsters in the old lore are all once normal humans and animals just like everybody else, but twisted by misuse of magic. Strange appearances that science cannot explain and most dismiss today there are tales of the Mothman, of Jumping jack Flash and even the Sasquatch as myths or hoaxes.
There are many ways to become Transcended, but even more pathway lead to the fallen Lost. None of the few methods recorded seems to work though, as the pathway to become Transcended is highly personalized and must come from the core of one's self. No matter the method, it will take centuries of dedication to even discover the first step to the path, and the vast majority of wizards and familiars out there are just not interested in this anyway, as they are already more powerful than most everybody else in a sense, and most of what they wish for is already achievable with the amount of power they wield right now. Still, from time to time there will be a couple or two who gets interested, and in rare cases that means the birth of a new Transcended One... or a new monster of the Lost. Either ways a source of enormous powers that might help or harm the world and all life on it.
