Members of this heroic network have every reason to hate their parents. Among the Dragon-Blooded, it is expected that parents adopt and care for all their children, even those resulting from liasons with mortals who also fail to Exalt. Most Dragon-Blooded take this in stride, but some ambitious members of the Thousand Scales pressure these unwanted children into service as assassins, burglers, and spies, quietly hoping that they will either die or make themselves useful.
The majority of these accidental assassins fail when sent against an Exalt. Many of those who succeed are caught soon after and are disowned and possibly executed shortly thereafter. A handful, though, usually more as a result of luck than because of any skill on their part, kill one of the Chosen without the crime being traced to them. It is these that the Black Sheep Alliance seeks out and recruits - not out of any appreciation for the difficulty of the task but because they know from long experience that it is usually only a matter of time before the ensnared mortal is given another impossible task. Nothing pleases a Black Sheep more than seeing a Dynast torn between disappointment and amazement.
Since its founding slightly more than four centuries ago, the Alliance has provided its members with training and a venue where they can meet and form alliances with others like themselves. In return, members are expected to keep the Alliance's secrets and occasionally perform services for its inner circle. Usually, these entail stealing supplies, plundering libraries, or occasionally killing a traitor. To maintain its secrecy, the Alliance does not offer direct assistance to its members in accomplishing assigned tasks. It accepts only those unExalted children of the Dragon-Blooded who have succeeded in tasks intended to kill or completely discredit them. Most of these are illegitimate children, but others are rebellious or incompetent mortals who have earned the wrath of their parents.
The Alliance encourages members to form Brotherhoods who provide mutual assistance to each other. When one is given an impossible task, they all help to accomplish it. Brotherhoods are usually made up of 3-8 members of approximately equal skill. They are fiercely loyal to each other, providing the promised aid even if the target of an assassination is a blood relative. While part of this results from their friendship, there is also a very practical motive behind it. If I do not help you kill my cousin today, there is no reason why you should help me kill your cousin tomorrow.
Black Sheep do not spend every waking hour planning and executing nefarious deeds. Since the Dragon-Blooded do not want to make public their true intentions toward their children, they arrange for them to inhabit minor posts as bureaucrats, tutors, or simply personal servants. They are permitted vacations in the country, are brought to parties, and are accorded the full affection expected of parents toward their children. Appearances are everything in Dragon-Blooded society, so Dynasts often treat their unwanted children with great kindness and tenderness in public. The whole purpose, of course, of this charade is to make it clear to everyone that any misbehavior on the part of their child is not a reflection on them, as well as to be certain the mortal's true occupation never comes to light. It goes without saying that it is not uncommon for a member to die at the hands of one or both of her own parents in a mad attempt at patricide.
Common Favored Abilities: Archery, Awareness, Larceny, Occult, Stealth, Thrown
The Guardians are primarily an urban phenomenon, since cities tend to have an abundance of both innocent people and powerful men eager to exploit them. While individual Guardians tend to work alone or in small bands, there is a certain commaraderie that exists between them. After all, while their methods vary, their goals are essentially the same. Guardians form an almost united group in some cities, but in most, their alliances are generally circumstantial and temporary. It is certainly not unknown for individual Guardians to come into direct conflict, such as when the family of a vigilante's victim asks another vigilante Guardian to avenge their loved one. There is also friction between Guardians who seek legitimate legal recourse and those who take the law into their own hands as vigilantes. The former occasionally feel compelled to bring the latter to justice, and that hardly encourages the two to work together often.
The Guardians' methods are almost as numerous as the Guardians themselves. Some patrol the streets of their haunts, ever watchful for signs of trouble so they may stop exploitation before it happens. Many Guardians provide aid to those who have suffered injustice or hardship, hunting down the perpetrators, whether they charge clients for this service or refuse payment, work through official channels or resort to vigilante-ism. A few Guardians attempt to reform villains one way or another. Those Guardians who are not so prone to violence or extreme cleverness are often relegated to the role of comforting victims, whether as counselors or healers.
While a number of Guardians consider themselves too busy to train an apprentice, most are eager to add new blood to the ranks of local heroes, especially since so much Guardian blood winds up on the streets of the cities they protect. These apprenticeships tend to be hands-on, with the prospective Guardian assisting the mentor on her missions. It does not take long to separate the men from the boys during this period of apprenticeship. Many decide the danger and constant exposure to human suffering is too much to bear and give up. Others are killed before they are ready, whether in a heroic but stupid altercation or by enemies of the Guardian who seek to get at the mentor through the student.
Guardians who are wealthy enough or who learn to make a living from their vocation (whether by charging clients or robbing their victims) often work full-time as heroes. Most, though, take up other occupations to fund their efforts. Those who own businesses or fear their funding will be cut off (or their loved ones threatened) if their enemies learn enough about them often go by a pseudonym while on the streets and/or wear disguises or clothing that conceal or distract from their true identity. These efforts are not always successful, of course, but they aren't completely futile, either, and the practice is common enough in a few cities that most thugs and small-time thieves will flee when a man or woman in funny-looking clothes appears out of nowhere while they are precipitating some act of unkindness.
Common Favored Abilities: Athletics, Awareness, Brawl, Bureaucracy, Dodge, Investigation, Martial Arts, Occult, Presence, Stealth
Dreams are mysterious and potent source of magic throughout the world, guiding the dreamer to her destiny and warning her of the dangers to come. The messages of dreams are cloaked in symbolism and shadow, and only a skilled diviner can piece together the true meaning of these sacred visions. The Dreamspeakers of the Haslanti League are the most renowned of these diviners, and those troubled by compelling visions often come to them in search of understanding. Dreams among the Haslanti are deadly serious business, and the Dreamspeakers carefully police dream interpreters for charletans.
Dreamspeakers take as apprentices only those whose dreams mark them for the vocation. While there is a unity of tradition and a sharing of mystical knowledge among Dreamspeakers, diviners generally operate independently, teaching apprentices personally. The Dreamspeaker tradition among the Haslanti is centuries, if not millennia, old, and they have accumulated a vast wealth of knowledge, most of which is preserved by oral tradition. The common people of the League trust the Dreamspeakers sincerely and would not stand for one to be molested by outsiders if it could be helped.
Dreamspeakers regard the waking world as a reflection of the magical world of dreams. What occurs in one is mirrored by the other, and what takes place in one is fated to take place in the other. As a Dreamspeaker grows more knowledgeable in the lore of dreams, she begins to recognize that the two are, in fact, intertwined. A sign or symbol with meaning in the sleeping world has the same significance in the waking world. To them, the world is like a lucid dream they can master by imposing their will upon it. Those still young in their ways scoff at such a strange idea, but few mortal sorcerers are as versatile and powerful as the Haslanti Dreamspeakers.
Common Favored Abilities: Awareness, Lore, Occult, Performance, Presence
This is not a single network, but a name used to refer to any network of wandering entertainers. These heroes tend to band together by geographic region and area of specialization. Roving Players in the North will have little to no contact with Players in the South, and Players who travel with circus folk do not generally associate with those who put on plays. But within the same guild, Roving Players have fairly regular contact with each other, trading news or occasionally forming temporary alliances between their bands in order to take on some monumental entertainment project, such as forming a vast orchestra or providing entertainment for a particularly wealthy and powerful patron. Such alliances between different guilds are rare, but not unknown. More than one circus has learned the value of musical accompaniment to their show. A number of storytellers have bolstered the interest in their tales by having players act out the scenes. The writing talents of a skilled storyteller can prove valuable to acting companies, as well.
While fat times breed alliances and even friendship between different companies, lean times quickly shatter them. Competition between guilds and even between different members of the same guild is fierce and shameless. Each troupe works to attract as many patrons as it can, even at the expense of other troupes. Ordinarilly, this simply means traveling more quickly, putting on the better show, and spreading the word about the troupe more aggressively, but during hard times, sabotage is commonplace, and open violence is not unknown. Fellow players are not the only ones the guilds ravage during lean times, either. Many players are not above theft and confidence games when it might make the difference between gruel and bread.
Players within the same troupe are a close-knit lot. They are family, friends, co-workers, and lovers all rolled up into one heaving knot. Joining a Roving Players' Guild is usualy as simple as following a troupe of players around who belong to a particular guild. The networks are usually so informal that calling them guilds is often a misnomer, and any entertainer who proves her skill to the satisfaction of another is usually treated as a member of the related guild.
Common Favored Abilities: Athletics, Larceny, Linguistics, Performance, Presence, Ride, Socialize
Common wisdom holds that anything can be purchased in Nexus, but it never promises that it will be easy. Admission into this network of renegade apprentices, traitors, and thieves specializing in magical goods is as simple as finding a meeting of the Exchange and swearing the oath administered upon entry. This is not as easy as it sounds, of course. The members of the Exchange meet once a month and never in the same place twice. At the close of each of these one-night meetings, the members determine where they will meet next. Before they are allowed into a meeting of the Exchange, attendees must swear not to reveal the location of the next meeting or admit membership in the Exchange to anyone, as well as promise to follow the rules of the Exchange. This oath is bound once by each of three powerful magicians. Those who break their vow, together with those to whom they reveal the secret, die or disappear mysteriously seven days after breaking the oath. Even those who learn of the Uncommon Exchange from one who has not taken the vow suffer this fate unless they attend a meeting before their demise and take the oath. At least one member has used this oath as a means to destroy several dozen enemies even though it meant his own demise. Those who miss a meeting sometimes forever lose contact with the Uncommon Exchange, since no one can reveal the location of the next meeting to them.
The Uncommon Exchange is a place to exchange artifacts and spells. Use of currency or any other medium of exchange is forbidden. Most of these goods were stolen, and quite a few would result in death for the new owner if certain people saw her with them, but every artifact or spell is exactly what the owner says it is. To lie about the capabilities of anything traded at the Exchange is to sign one's own death warrant, as it violates the rules of the Exchange. Ommision of details is perfectly acceptable, however.
Common Favored Abilities: Awareness, Bureaucracy, Investigation, Larceny, Linguistics, Lore, Occult, Stealth