​

​

MONITORS

ARCANOI

A Monitor can learn the following Arcanoi at initiate and common level

LIFEWEB           PUPPETRY          INTIMATION

Any other Arcanoi a Monitor  learns is common level only

​

Every wraith’s existence, at least in her initial Restless years, hinges on her connections to the living world. Early wraiths sought to understand or transcend their condition by studying these links. Understanding the bonds preventing Transcendence, reincarnation, or passage to a particular faith’s promised afterlife has always been a common goal. Over millennia of experimentation, scores of the Restless have rediscovered or spontaneously recreated Lifeweb, the Arcanos that grants awareness of a wraith’s ties to the living — and, with deeper study, enables her to affect both her own connections and those of other wraiths. Basic Lifeweb techniques focus on the links between a Monitor and her Fetters. Indeed, the uninitiated tend to think of Lifeweb as dealing exclusively in Fetters. Subtler and less common arts, however, allow the Monitor to peer deeper into another wraith’s existence, perceiving Haunts, mortal associates, and even the memories the Quick hold of the subject. Such insight can provide early warning of threats to the things a wraith holds dear or unlock the self-awareness necessary for the first steps toward Transcendence. It also can reveal an enemy’s most closely held weaknesses.

​

Guildmarks

Monitors never close their eyes. Ever. Some Monitors, enamored of their Arcanos’ symbolism, affect styles in which webs and spiders feature prominently. Older Guildwraiths find this gauche, if not a foolhardy taunt of the many Restless who hold prejudices against the Guild.

​

The Guild

The Monitors’ Guild has never distinguished itself by its claim to Lifeweb, but rather by the uses to which it puts its signature Arcanos. Like Lifeweb itself, organizations similar to today’s Monitors have arisen and disappeared repeatedly throughout Stygia’s recorded history. The modern Guild traces its origin to the early Byzantine Empire, when mortal turmoil reflected in the Shadowlands made it difficult for many wraiths to personally watch over Fetters scattered by the winds of change. The first Monitors offered their services exclusively to Stygian nobility’s upper ranks, but as the Guild swelled with apprentices, it eventually welcomed the oboli of the average wraith on the street. Access to Imperial society’s highest strata offered many opportunities. When combined with ever-increasing refinements of Lifeweb’s oracular arts, the temptation to intrigue proved irresistible to many Monitors. The Guild rapidly insinuated itself into every aspect of Stygian politics. A faction without a Monitor on retainer to blackmail its opponents or threaten their Fetters with destruction operated at a lethal disadvantage. From there, it was a short step for the Monitors to apply such leverage for their own agendas, abandoning their ostensible masters for the pursuit of personal or Guild power. In the end, the Monitors went too far. Centuries of duplicity, threats, and intrusion left them with few friends in the guildhalls and fewer in the citadels. Many Stygian officials took the Breaking as an invitation to escape blackmail or worse, and fugitive Monitors found every door barred to them. Those who escaped the forges remained on the run far longer than most other Guildwraiths. Even today,Monitors are a paranoid lot, as ongoing misdeeds and abuses of Lifeweb perpetuate their historical reputation.

​

Factions

Before the Breaking, the Monitors were a multifaceted jewel of treachery and plotting, with the occasional shining altruist or plodding tradesman standing aloof from the 100 shifting factions. Survival imperatives erased many of these differences during the years of flight. The modern Monitors’ Guild maintains few orders or established lodges, though members tend to coalesce around shared agendas, some of which they inherited from pre-Breaking factions. Mentors work to locate and Reap new wraiths and acclimate them to the Shadowlands, either to rebuild the Guild’s reputation through good works or to gain early leverage over fresh lemures. Marmarans carry on the Monitors’ unsavory tradition of political meddling, occasionally coalescing into short-lived cabals that dissolve in frenzies of backstabbing. Spinners try to stick to business, offering Lifeweb services and (rarely) instruction for hire. Tsuchigumo are Lifeweb-empowered petty criminals, running protection rackets on other wraiths’ Fetters or linking victims to Fetters that are about to be destroyed.

 

​

 

​

​