Assassins of Ghoresh¶
Contested
This page is named in the open question Age of the Black Hand.
The Assassins of Ghoresh, the Brotherhood of the Black Hand, are a secret guild of killers, thieves, spies and brokers who have ruled the mountain kingdom of Ghoresh through proxies for about a century. "The brotherhood does not strictly limit itself to assassination, though assassinations are what it has become famous for. In addition to murder, they accept contracts for procurement, blackmail and enforcement," and it runs "a successful protection, racketeering and thievery business in many countries and cities" (S545). It is organized as a body: one Hand, four Fists, and below them Gloves, Fingers and Rings.
Also called: the Black Hands (S372, S548); the Brotherhood.
History¶
"The brotherhood has been a significant regional organization for at least 150 years. It's exact origins are unknown, but by all accounts its influence over the Kingdom of Ghoresh became absolute almost 100 years ago" (S545). The gazetteers tell how: "Over a hundred years ago, they overthrew the nobility of a small kingdom in the mountains just west of Dunmir. They inserted themselves into the power structure there, and have ruled the area ever since." The people of Ghoresh lead ordinary lives as farmers, smiths and ranchers, "however, the guild of assassins controls the area at all levels via proxies. They use the towns as a base from which they carry out their work across Numenia" (S548, S372).
Dunmir has tried to root them out "on a few occasions, and has had some short-lived success at conquering the old kingdom of Ghoresh. However, holding the area has proven to be very difficult, and several Dunmir kings have been assassinated shortly after successful invasions, making future kings very reluctant to take up the task" (S372). Elsewhere, "attempts to root them out in most places have seen limited success. The brotherhood has no qualms about assassinating officers, magistrates, nobles and even kings to send the message that they should be left alone" (S545).
"At the height of its power, the assassins of Ghoresh were actually led by an Augur, which used his auguries to further his own power and determine the best way to carry out impossible-seeming assassinations" (S536). The Augurs are a hidden bloodline of seers; the same source credits a secret circle of them, the Ghorvallian Conclave, with orchestrating the First Great Mage War (see Order of Agalon).
Organization¶
"The leadership of the brotherhood is a tightly guarded secret, but it is known that there is a single authority figure known as the Hand. Below this figure are the Four Fists, which each controls a different aspect of the organization" (S545). Each Fist has a local representative in every area, the Finger, who governs the members assigned to that Fist there and passes down the Fist's commands. Fingers in one place coordinate only a little, at their Fists' direction; "generally for significant coordination to occur across branches of the organization, it must go all the way to the Fists." The structure keeps its members blind: "A member will never have met a Fist, and often never have met their local Finger either unless they are a Ring."
| Rank | Role (S545) |
|---|---|
| Hand | Head of the organization, with "the tie-breaking vote on all council decisions and veto power over all contracts." |
| Fist | Head of one of the four branches. |
| Glove | Part of a Fist's regional hierarchy, the go-between with Fingers. |
| Finger | Local head of a branch. |
| Master | An elite member who reports directly to a Finger without reports of their own: "some assets are so valuable that Fingers like to keep them in their own pocket so to speak." A Ring's best members are often made Masters when their Ring is promoted to Finger. |
| Ring | Leader of "a dozen or so members", who "generally no longer takes on many assignments themselves, but takes a cut from each of his/her members." |
| Member | A full brother or sister, who knows their Ring and can propose contracts through them. |
| Initiate | "A less-than member who is only aware of their Mentor." |
Members address one another by their Fist: "Masks, Knives, Brother/Sister of the Spider or Coins" (S545).
The Four Fists¶
Fist of Masks¶
The information branch. Masks sometimes "use disguise and subterfuge to get information directly. Most of the time they are handlers of a network of informants who don't necessarily know who they are working for. These informants may be blackmailed, threatened, tricked or simply paid to hand over information." The Finger of Masks sifts what comes in for opportunities and passes the best upward, or to other Fingers by dead-drop at the Fist's command (S545).
Fist of Knives¶
"Members of this organization are what most people think of when they hear about the Assassins of Ghoresh. They are the thugs, killers and assassins who attack, rob and murder for the organization": true assassins, stealthy and ready for a fight, alongside thugs who are only the latter. The Knives receive every contract that requires a killing and many covert contracts likely to end in combat.1 A contract may specify the means of death and whether it is covert, with no calling card, or overt, with a card or message left behind. "Covert killings are often delivered by arranged accidents (falls, drownings), or by illness (poison)" (S545).
Fist of Spiders¶
Spiders are "those with excellent sneaking and thieving skills but who are not suited to confrontation, combat and killing. They specialize in classical thievery, burglary and cutpurse." Many Knives "look down upon Spiders as those who were not skilled enough or were too squeamish to become Knives", though some Spiders take covert killings with little risk of a fight, "poisoning merchants, commoners and the like" (S545).
Fist of Coins¶
The Coins are the brotherhood's sales force, bank and estate office. They find and court customers, write the contracts and take payment; they provide "money, budgets and wages to the other fists"; and they manage its lawful holdings, "land, titles and incoming bearing properties." The Fist of Coins "is often referred to as the Second Hand and is in line to become the next Hand. In turn, this position is always filled from one of the other 3 Fist positions. This means that a member that starts as a Coin can never be a Fist" (S545).
Guilds and Leagues¶
A Guild is "a Finger and their organization that puts down roots in a particular location," with the advantage of local knowledge and infrastructure. Work too dangerous for a local Guild goes to a League, "a mobile and dispersed organization" whose members keep "deep covers as merchants, traders, mercenaries, nobles or other people with reason to travel frequently. They travel to a location, perform a job, and leave sometime thereafter." If a League agent is caught, the local Guild is untouched. Leagues also work where the brotherhood has no Guild yet (S545).
Customs¶
Contracts¶
Only the Coins know who the customers are. A member is told when a contract falls on a relative or friend, and may buy it out at the contract price or take first refusal. A customer whose contract has been bought out must escalate to a bound contract, "typically negotiated for 10x the price (min around 100k)", which "cannot be bought out except by a Fist" (S545).
Assignments¶
Members on assignment keep regular scheduled contact with their superior and check in at least daily. A missed contact means a member is presumed compromised, and the brotherhood moves at once to change drop sites and covers. Captured members often keep reporting until rescued, and a rescue can be as simple as teleporting them out and changing their identity, "the member will of course be charged a fee for any efforts required to rescue them (which will be taken out of their pay)" (S545).
Secret names¶
On induction as a full member, a brother or sister receives the name by which the brotherhood will know them; "the use of any other name within the brotherhood is forbidden" (S545).
Appearance¶
Members' faces are often altered by magic when they change covers, so that "deep covers can be changed and potential leaks to be plugged up with minimal damage. When a member is first initiated, they leave behind their original appearance when they gain their first cover" (S545).
Magic¶
Every member of the brotherhood is trained in at least the rudiments of wizardry. "Many are bound to demons to gain spellcasting ability, and very few possess the natural talent"; Spiders and Coins in particular rarely use magic beyond their first training (S545).
The Seal of the Brotherhood¶
The Seal is an invisible tattoo worn by every initiate. It hides the bearer and everything they carry from magical detection and scrying, masks their true nature behind "a plain and uninteresting aura", and lets them speak mind to mind with their superior (S545).
The Mark of the Brotherhood¶
The Mark is the members' signature: an invisible sign, readable only by the brotherhood's own Sight or by true sight, carrying the maker's name, rank, Fist and a short message. It "contains an encryption which causes the mark to appear differently according to the viewer", so that a forgery fools only the forger, which "makes it almost impossible to forge." Members may demand one another's mark at meetings, and leave it on stolen goods, delivered information and dead-drop sites. To the Sight, marks glow by Fist: "blue for Masks, red for Knives, green for Spider, yellow for Coins" (S545).
In the Fifth Age¶
The name outlived the kingdom. The Sancturi campaign's plot outline lists "The Legacy of Ghoresh", whose "Old Cliff City of Ghoresh is a dangerous place, scattered with Hollows, Bandits, Witches and Monsters" (S133). In the Proturan Campaign, a pair of assassins, a Wood Elf master and her human apprentice, were sent into the ruins of Anoth-Urulien "by a rival (another Proturan High Councillor, ?? … which will NOT be revealed)" of Eksuru to destroy her expedition; "they might try to recruit the party to the brotherhood", the Assassins of Ghoresh (S057, repeated in S054-S056).
Gap
No source names the Hand, any Fist, or the Augur who once led the brotherhood, nor says what became of its rule over Ghoresh between the Age of Magic and the Fifth Age.
Earlier accounts¶
The 2014 gazetteer (S548), its 2015 copy (S499) and the compendium (S372, S384) call the organization "an ancient organization of assassins whose original origins are unknown"; S545, whose text dates from 2014 and was copied in 2018, gives it "at least 150 years" of regional importance instead.