Lexicon/EmptyMouthBrotherhood
The Empty Mouth Brotherhood
Shataina, Maiden of Mercy, Lady of Legends, tells the tale:
The Lady Blooming Violets came up with a number of impressive and useful rituals, even previous to the erection of her famed Citadel of Ebony Torrents. As she grew older, these experiments took a vicious turn, and she began to develop crueller and crueller spells, creating her Citadel and gaining a black reputation in the last years of her life. One of her (comparatively) less terrible rites was adapted by the last leader of the Deliberative, Lord Ivory Testament, and used to create an elite corps to serve the increasingly wicked and self-absorbed aims of that corrupted body.
The Empty Mouth Brotherhood comprised thirteen members at all times. The ritual which was passed upon them granted them the ability to listen in on any conversation, anywhere, at any time -- at the price of three of their other senses. All members in the Brotherhood's short history were blind and lacked tongues; most had their sense of smell sorcerously stolen, but one, Discerning Seeker, elected to have his hands removed instead, and his skin's nerves utterly deadened. He was the most well-known of the Brotherhood, often referred to as "The Testament's Bloodhound" (but only, of course, in highly secret and encoded missives).
The mute, scarlet-cloaked Brotherhood wore dark crimson-tinted spectacles and went everywhere accompanied by a personal complement of two Dragon-Blooded bodyguards clad in red jade armour: a frightening spectacle indeed. The ritual which empowered them required that they be mortals originally, and that they be willing; most did it out of either lust for personal power or a desire for wealth and security for their families (for the Empty Mouth Brotherhood was granted a sizeable stipend, and indeed had many means of gaining extra money on their own). Ivory Testament also passed a law fifteen years into the existence of the Brotherhood which enabled him to require gods who had sinned against the Divine Law to Endow a newly-created Brotherhood member. In this way, he ensured that the Brotherhood was also made up of God-Blooded. He would also have made them small gods, if he could have, and continued forcing the greater gods to grant them further control over Essence; but the first time he tried, it negated the empowering ritual, and he was left merely with a minor spirit who was blind, mute, and lacking in sense of smell. (This spirit, who named himself Metaphysical Vision, went on to some prominence before his permanent destruction during the Usurpation.)
Even the Exalted hated and feared the Brotherhood, for they had the protection of the Deliberative, and although they were bound always to tell the truth, this did not stop them from slanting it to meet their own ends. They were close to invulnerable, living as a group in the impenetrable Manse Ishkaja, whose grounds spread for miles; the entire place was sorcerously protected and patrolled by dozens of guards, and the Brotherhood took turns bearing the Hearthstone, which granted them even further powers.
The Brotherhood was utterly exterminated during the Usurpation, mostly by the Dragon-Blooded, but some by vengeful Celestials whose plots they had foiled (or whom they had unjustly implicated).
References:
~ Shataina
See also Shataina's other Lexicon entries
