Ancient Sijan's necropoli have served the dead since before the fall of the Old Realm. Their libraries conceal ancient secrets, including no small number of tomes filled with sorcerous lore. It remains one of the oldest and most well-organized bastions of mortal magicians in the world. The longevity of the Order can be attributed in no small part to their disinterest in the world at large. They are the servants of the dead, and the affairs of the living seldom concern them. When the living intrude upon the interests of the dead, The Morticians' Order sends the Grim Seekers to deal the perpertrators.
Grim Seekers maintain intelligence connections between the living and the dead guardians of Sijan's necropoli and occasionally hunt down graverobbers and other defilers who escape the city. To a lesser extent, they mediate disputes between ghosts or act as emmissaries to the Deathlords. Most belong to the Deadspeaker Observance, but any whose talents are of use to the Grim Seekers may be asked to join their ranks by the leaders of the Observances. While they are still the servants of the Order and the dead, the Grim Seekers often have a little more freedom than the rank-and-file members of the Morticians' Order.
The Morticians' Order maintains three academies within its walls devoted to training newer members. Two of these are devoted to teaching the skills required of Funerists and Mortwrights. The third, much smaller, academy instructs would-be Deadspeakers, including instruction in Necromancy, and all its students are magicians of at least some small skill. These academies welcome any who wish to learn to tend the dead, though those found to be unreliable, disrespectful of the dead, or otherwise unfit for the Order are cast out immediately. The Academy of Noble Speakers with the Dead is the most discriminating of the three by far, and only those who have served in the Order for at least a decade are permitted within its walls.
Common Favored Abilities: Awareness, Investigation, Lore, Martial Arts, Occult, Resistance, Stealth, Survival
This is far from a united organization. Rather, it is a blanket name for the more than four dozen small, secretive orders of magicians in the Scavenger Lands. Only one member in ten rises high enough in a House to be given access to magical knowledge. The others serve the House in any other capacity their talents and the needs of the House dictate - as spies, soldiers, burglers, merchants, servants, and so forth - in hopes of one day becoming apprentices to the magicians of the House.
Twenty of the Houses operate primarily in the Hundred Kingdoms (a loose collection of a hundred or more petty kingdoms located east of Sijan; see Scavenger Sons), often acting as advisors to local rulers and sometimes advising war on a neighbor less because of the risk it poses to the petty prince and more because it is the stronghold of a rival House. Like the Hundred Kingdoms themselves, it would take a decade to describe the intricate webs of alliances, rivalries, and betrayals that make up the relationships between the Houses, and it would be well out of date by the time it was completed. House Mesalegata, best known for its command of elemental magic, has thrown its lot in with the Seventh Legion and taken up residence in Lookshy. Sixteen other Houses have their base of operations in Nexus, and their constant intrigues, raids, and occasional open turf wars have resulted in many members being banished by the Council. Eight of the Houses act as advisors to the noble houses of Calin (located on the penninsula north of Lookshy; see Scavenger Sons). Greyfalls serves as the home for House of Scarlet, a sturdy supporter of the Realm known for its earth, water, and wood magicks. Three Houses operate mostly in the Marukan Alliance (in the southeastern Scavenger Lands; see Scavenger Sons). The remaining two Houses are either migratory, well-hidden, weak, and no one knows where their center of power is located.
All the Houses' histories are measured in centuries, if not in millennia. Many trace their lineage all the way back to the First Age, and a few of those claims are less unbelieveable than one might think. Each House has strong opinions about how magic should be learned, used, and taught, and they are universally very careful about who they take as apprentices. They police their own fiercely to eliminate those who betray the House's precepts. The membership of each of the Houses ranges from a dozen to nearly a hundred magicians, not including apprentices, guards, and servants. Combined, the Houses have about 2,000 full members.
Common Favored Abilities: Craft, Linguistics, Lore, Medicine, Occult, Socialize
The Immaculate Monks are respected and feared for their sharp minds and terrifying martial prowess, but the Exalted are not the only members of the Immaculate Order. The Students round out the ranks of the Immaculates, and while they will never learn to channel Essence the way their Dragon-Blooded do, their knowledge of the "lesser styles" makes them formidable among mortal warriors. In their appearance, dress, and behavior, Students are almost indistinguishable from the Immaculate Monks unless forced to carry out the Blossoming of Sorrowful Violence, upon which it is clear, first, that the martial arts they practice have little in common with the Fivefold Dragon Methods and, second, it far outstrips what a normal mortal should be capable of doing. The Exalted Immaculates and even its mortal practitioners regard this superhuman skill as the product of rigorous discipline and sincere devotion to the Immaculate Philosophy.
The Students of the Immaculate Order are nearly as old as the Immaculate Philosophy itself. Its members consider themselves lesser members of the Order. They obey its precepts, follow the commands of its abbots, and remain humble practitioners of the Immaculate Philosophy. A number of the most skilled Students are selected to teach martial arts and other forms of meditation to mortal Postulants and Acolytes. Some few accompany Immaculate Monks on missions of various kinds or are chosen by Itinerants as clerical assistants or scribes. Under duress, this mortal entourage serves a second purpose as bodyguards. Only a mad fool dares attack an Immaculate Monk. Only a lucky mad fool lives to tell the tale of such an attempt. The Immaculate martial artists are feared wherever they go, so it should come as no surprise that even a mortal trained in their ways should learn some remarkable, if utterly mundane, combat skills. Those few Students who have mastered the lesser styles of the Immaculate Order and have been forced to use their most advanced techniques in front of witnesses have given rise to the rumor that the most skilled mortals among the Immaculate Order even learn to harness Essence to a lesser degree.
Common Favored Abilities: Archery, Dodge, Endurance, Martial Arts, Melee, Resistance, Thrown
This is the largest public academy of mortal magic in the East, boasting more a hundred professors and three thousand students between the thirteen schools. The Schools consist of twelve different academies of magic, each dedicated to the study of a particular path of magic. Most applicants are turned away, and those who are admitted are charged a stiff tuition for their education. Some academies - the five elemental schools and the Schools of Benemancy, Divination, Enchantment, and Wardamancy - welcome hedge magicians and even barely-literate apprentices. Others - the Schools of Thaumaturgy, Conjuration, and Malomancy - only admit graduates of one of the other nine academies. The Twelve Schools do not teach Necromancy, and anyone discovered practicing it, whether student or professor, is dismissed immediately and never again admitted to any of the Twelve Schools. Rumors of a thirteenth school are flatly denied by the administration.
Classes meet for two months at a time, followed by a month of field study. Students are allowed a genuine break from academic pursuits for the five days of Calibration. Students require no fewer than two years to complete a school's program, and most demand four or more years of study. No one may study in more than one academy at a time, but graduates of one school have an easier time gaining admission into another. Past and present students are allowed inside the substantial academic libraries of those of the Twelve they have or are attending. While no spells are available in these libraries, a wealth of other lore is.
The Twelve Schools are only two centuries old, and no small number of magicians from smaller and older academies regard them and their graduates with contempt. These critics grudgingly admit, however, that nowhere else in the Threshold is it possible to study so many different paths as at the Twelve Schools of Great Forks.
Common Favored Abilities: Bureaucracy, Craft, Linguistics, Lore, Medicine, Occult