Esoteric Order

 

Esoteric Orders are usually secret organizations with strict requirements for acceptance. Very often these factions are occult groups operating covertly within other power structures, including within religions, governments or even within other factions. For example, a religious order might have a sect entirely within it that operates as a separate esoteric order, with or without the knowledge of the larger order it operates within. Esoteric Orders are generally focused on shaping or controlling larger movements of a faction, religion, state or even of society as a whole, very often in pursuit of subversive goals which might even include the subsumption or destruction of the larger power structure. While most Esoteric Orders are covert and/or illegal, some are recogized (even if their membership remains exclusive). These will very often formed as elite 'Social Clubs', often with a prestigious outward facade focused on charity or the pursuance of 'good works'.