Of The Astral Knights of the Prophesied Shield, and Others

Dave, the owner/curator of Abulafia, has put me onto one of his own favourites, the Secret Society Title Generator - and through it, the Secret Society Name Generator. I love this kind of stuff: the names alone that these programmes generate are enough of a spark for somebody to base an entire campaign around. Because how can you resist a game centering on a sinister cult called The Military Alliance of the Radiant Game? Or The Celestial Students of the Vile Winter? Or The Brazen Kinship of the Second Legend?

I think it's because such names immediately give you a whole set of ready-made hooks, which in turn proliferate into other hooks and from there into an entire campaign concept. The Celestial Students of the Vile Winter, for example: Who are these students and why are they 'celestial'? What is the Vile Winter? Do the students study the Vile Winter, or are they merely of the Vile Winter? If they are studying it, why are they doing so? And so on.

I like to think of the Celestial Students of the Vile Winter as a cult of worshipers of a long forgotten family of demigods. These ancient, faded evils inhabit the far North Pole, living deep beneath the pack ice and the glaciers, waiting for their chance to extend their cold fingers back over the globe.

By studying the stars and other celestial bodies, the Students hope to predict the onset of the next ice age, when their gods will return to usher in a new reign of frost across the earth. For various reasons they expect that the time is coming soon - some say within 13 years, others within 27, others within 101 - and they have to bring about a state of readiness in the lands of men for this second coming - by whatever means necessary...

Jasper De Verne
Questor of the Unfathomable Tides and the Arcane Bloodline
Sergeant-at-arms of the Community of the Mind
Celestial Student of the Vile Winter

Level 12 Magic-User

STR: 9
INT: 17
WIS: 13
DEX: 8
CON: 13
CHR: 15

Jasper De Verne is one of the most powerful and influential members of the order of Celestial Students; he is one of only eight Sergeant-at-arms of the Community of the Mind, and one of only two Questors of the Unfathomable Tides and the Arcane Bloodline. This makes him privy to some of the most closely guarded secrets of the group.

He is chief amongst that clique of Students who believe that the Vile Winter is coming sooner rather than later. By his predictions and observations of the star fields, he thinks it may only be three years away. He believes that quick and decisive action must be taken so that the order can be in the proper position to welcome in the new era. What this decisive action is, nobody knows except for Jasper and his coterie of followers.