Background
In this adventure, you will assume the role of a secret enforcer for the Ascetic Order of Bliss in Bitterness, a cult of psychic adepts dedicated to the improvement of body and mind. You are either a high-ranking member of this organization or an outsider with a reputation for impeccable discretion. As such, you have been selected for a delicate task which, if what you've been told is true, will protect not only the Ascetics' deeper secrets, but also the safety of an entire region's populace.
This adventure is for BeoPere.
The Ascetic Order of Bliss in Bitterness
Exoterically regarded as a commune of benign eccentrics, the Order bears a (self-imposed) mantle as protectors of deleterious occult lore. Believing that knowledge is intrinsically important, the Order attempts to disseminate that information which can be put to benignant ends while preserving, under close guard, recondite information which might prove dangerous in the hands of the public. Instead of destroying this information, the Order's doctrine holds that today's apocalyptic revelation may be tomorrow's salvation, wherefore dangerous data are preserved for posterity; further, history reveals that, just as a skilled medic fashions antidotes from fatal venom, so laying bare the causes of atrocity and disaster may illuminate the solution thereto.
The Ascetic Order of Bliss in Bitterness consists of rigidly hierarchical, absolutely self-sufficient communes united under the rule of a remote, clandestine council. It is not commonly known who has a voice in this council or what, if any, internal structure governs it. Decisions about what texts and artifacts should be kept where are conveyed via sending and other forms of long-range communique, often encoded. It is believed that the council members may themselves conduct their abstruse functions via semi-constant psychic contact.
