> [!infobox|wikipedia] > # Order of Ravens > [![[Codex/Assets/Factions/Order_of_Ravens_small.webp|cover hsmall]]](Codex/Assets/Factions/Order_of_Ravens.webp) > ###### Faction Information > Attribute | Details | > ---|---| > Type | Faction | > Category | Criminal & Intelligence Network | > Allegiance | Anti-Empire (formerly neutral) | > Leader | Identity concealed | > Base | Decentralised network of Nests | > ###### Status > Attribute | Details | > ---|---| > Status | Active | The **Order of Ravens** is the preeminent criminal and intelligence network of [[Valtorra]] — a continent-spanning brotherhood of thieves, spies, and mercenaries bound together by a single shared symbol and a code of silence kept unto death. For centuries it sold its talents to the highest bidder and bent the affairs of nations to its own quiet profit. When the [[Valtorran Empire|Empire]] rose and declared open season on its nests, the Order shed the neutrality it had always prized and became the sharpest blade of the resistance, running agents into the Empire's inner circles and lighting the fuse on rebellion wherever it could. ## Purpose & Goals The Order exists to move what others cannot — secrets, contraband, and people — through a continent that has grown increasingly hostile to all three. For most of its history its only loyalty was to itself: it manipulated markets, courts, and rivalries for advantage, took no side in Valtorra's wars, and survived precisely because it could not be counted on by anyone. The Empire changed that calculus. With the [[Hand of The Empire|Hands of the Empire]] hunting Ravens to the grave, neutrality became a luxury the Order could no longer afford. Today its aims are openly anti-Imperial: to gather intelligence on Imperial movements, to deny the Empire the unchecked consolidation of power, and to keep alive the rebellions that might one day unseat it. It pursues those ends the way it always has — through leverage, infiltration, and patience rather than open battle. ## Structure & Leadership The Order is a cellular network rather than a chain of command, built so that no single capture can unravel the whole. Ranks are earned and authority is deliberately compartmentalised: - **Grand Raven** — the Order's supreme leader, whose identity is concealed from virtually every member, including the Nest Fathers. The Grand Raven appears obscured even in the rare direct meeting. The fewer who can name the head, the harder the body is to behead. - **Nest** — a local chapter in a city where the Order keeps a presence. - **Nest Mother / Nest Father** — the leader of a local Nest. - **Talon** — an elite operative; the inner circle of a Nest. - **Raven** — a full member. - **Fledgling** — a new recruit, still proving their worth. Membership is for life. Operatives stay until death or quiet retirement, both to preserve their craft and to protect the Order's secrets; execution is sanctioned for any operative who becomes a danger to the network. Orders from the top reach each Nest through fixed drop points whose locations are known only to the Nest Father — a system designed so that the chain of command never has to expose its first link. ## Known Nests The Order keeps Nests in cities across Valtorra. Each operates with near-total local autonomy, knowing little of the others by design. | City | Status | Key Figures | |---|---|---| | [[Order of Ravens — Val Miriel\|Val Miriel]] | Active | [[Thaddeus Karr\|Thaddeus "Ravenwing" Karr]] (Nest Father), [[Lia]] | | [[Darmouth]] | Active | [[Ella Sable]], [[Uric Graad]] | | [[Camaar]] | Active (unvisited) | Sera "Nightshade" Velora, Valerius "Blackclaw" Draven, Leona "Sparrow" Voss | | [[Val Aran]] | Active | Unknown | | [[Val Solis]] | Active | A hidden refuge and hub for Ravens who must disappear | | [[Val Noren]] | Abandoned | — | ## Operations - **Skyreach intelligence (Darmouth).** Ella Sable was captured attempting to steal the schematics of [[Skyreach]] from the Darmouth Lawmaster's office; Uric Graad and the party broke her out, and the intelligence was carried onward toward Camaar. - **The Bastion heist (Val Miriel).** The Val Miriel Nest broke into [[The Bastion]] and made off with sensitive Imperial documents — a clean operation until the Fledgling Lia broke from the plan and attempted to assassinate [[General Varan Brado]] without sanction, an act that helped spark the Val Miriel riots. - **The Val Luminor rescue.** A captured Raven was extracted from the dungeons beneath [[Val Luminor]]. She returned with word that full-blooded elves were being held and interrogated there — testimony that has since taken on a weight far beyond the rescue itself. ## Symbols & Iconography The Order marks the cities it works in with hidden ravens — small representations of the bird worked into stonework, signage, and chalk, easily missed by the uninitiated. To those who can read them they signal safe houses, meeting points, and dangers to avoid. Field codenames work the same way: earned naturally as an operative proves themselves and bestowed informally, a piece of the Order that hides in plain sight. ## History The Order was founded by [[Korvin Blackfeather]], its first Grand Raven, who unified Valtorra's scattered criminals under a single symbol after his legendary heist from a tyrant king — an exploit remembered as the **Raven's Flight**. For centuries the Order he built operated as a politically neutral power, manipulating societal dynamics for its own ends and never taking a side in the broader struggles of the continent. The rise of the Valtorran Empire ended that long detachment. The Hands of the Empire declared open season on the Ravens, and nests were driven underground or wiped out. Roughly fifty years ago, under the direction of the Grand Raven [[Ebon]], the Order shed its neutrality and became an active resistance — running agents into the Empire's inner circles, instigating uprisings, and working to keep the Empire from consolidating unchecked power. Ebon was the architect of the Dwarven rebellions of that era. The turn was never a comfortable one: neutrality was the Order's founding principle, and a cultural tension still runs through it between an old guard who would return to that stance and those who believe the Empire has made neutrality impossible. ## Relations - **[[The Finegolds]]:** A long-standing working relationship. Finegold caravans serve the Order as a smuggling route and an information network spread across the continent. - **[[Veiled Cubs]] (Camaar):** A quiet mutual respect — local, informal, and short of any formal alliance. - **[[The Green Gryphons|Green Gryphons]]:** Avoided. The Order steers well clear of them. - **Other rebel groups:** No formal alliances. The Order prefers independence and is wary of any entanglement that might expose the network. ### [[The Bloody Nails|Campaign: The Bloody Nails]] #### [[Session 03 - The Streets of Darmouth]] In Darmouth the party first crossed paths with the Order through Uric Graad, learning that the Raven Ella Sable had been taken by the Lawmaster while after the Skyreach schematics. #### [[Session 04 - To Free a Raven]] The party broke Ella Sable out of the Lawmaster's custody alongside Uric Graad, completing the Order's Skyreach intelligence operation and earning the Ravens' regard. #### [[Session 17 - A New Journey Begins]] Lia formally joined the Order as a Fledgling, beginning her uneasy apprenticeship within the network. #### [[Session 23 - Ruby Falls Goldmine]] Word reached the party that the Val Miriel Nest, under Nest Father Thaddeus "Ravenwing" Karr, expected them — and that a contact awaited them at the Val Aran Nest further on. #### [[Session 25 - The Chimera]] The Val Miriel Nest set the Bastion heist in motion, drawing the party into the theft of Imperial documents. #### [[Session 27 - The Wanted Dwarf]] The Bastion job turned on its head when Lia abandoned the plan to attempt the assassination of General Varan Brado, leaving Thaddeus to manage the fallout and the riots it helped ignite. #### [[Session 44 - The Elven Archmage]] Eryndor discovered the long-abandoned Val Noren Nest, a silent reminder of how far the Empire's hunt for Ravens has reached. ## Trivia - The Order's entire architecture is built around a single principle — that a network with no visible head cannot be decapitated. Every rank, drop point, and concealed identity exists to serve that one idea. - A Raven's codename is never assigned; it is earned and then simply starts being used, so that even the naming of an operative leaves no paper trail.