Intelligence Agencies

 

The Council of Gaelan

The Council of Gaelan is a network of strategists, spies and irregular combatants who were first formed in late 709 by King Gaelan of Golanicja for the purpose of gathering and acting on intelligence that might protect the Kingdom from betrayals such as the one by the Ursan Matriarchy that occurred earlier that year. The Council served effectively for the entire Imperial Era, conducting intelligence and counter-intelligence operations and developing best practices for the recruiting, training and utilization of spies and irregular combatants. The Council even remained loyal to the Golanicjan royal family in exile even beyong the dissolution of the Kingdom - perhaps until 1202 or 1203 when attempts to reseat the royal family were undeniably futile.

During the period of uncertainty between 1199 and 1202 however, many members of the Council of Gaelan leveraged their contacts (and sold whatever secrets they could to the highest bidders) while attempting to reconstitute an operational intelligence group. In 1205, city officials from the emerging city states of Kovstepevi, Dumi, Coal Harbour, Citadel and others, along with senior officials from several large Organizations agreed to from a shared intelligence council. While each city state and group maintained their own intelligence group, a new group using the name the Council of Gaelan was formed to serve as a clearing house for information critical to the common secruity of eastern Golanicja.

The Council of Gaelan does not answer to any individual state or organization, but works to act in the interests of all of its member groups in central Golanicja. It has a mandate not to traffic in the secrets of those member groups, but most suspect that the Council has its own agenda.

The Fellowship of Feathers

The Fellowship of Feathers began as a pair of dovecotes enabling messages to be sent from Golanicja to Tulosz. One was on Trovocano Island, northeast of Kovstepovi, and one was in the town that grew to become the city of Resounding in western Tulosz. The ability to send messages by bird back and forth between Kovstepvi and Briunida in only a few days was inestimably valuable - valuable enough to expand the network across both continents, and eventually around the world. From humble beginnings, sometime between 200 and 100 BCB (Before the Chartering a Briundia) the organization grew to become not just a messenger service, but a critical security service - guaranteeing secure communication within and between different powers, organizations, and nations.

The Fellowship of Feathers is, by a matter of principle, independent. They will deliver messages from anyone, to anyone, and while they cannot guarantee the delivery of the messages - birds carrying important messages sometimes just die, or get lost, or get killed by predators - they can guarantee security, for a price. By using various magical means in combination with their network they provide secure communication, and by vigorously promoting loyalty within thier ranks, they maintain unmatched internal security and confidentiality. No one in the organization has ever been suspected of abusing their access, no one in the organization has ever been known to betray the confidentiality of a patron, and the few people in history who have sought to compromise the Fellowship's communication network have all been caught quickly and subjected to terrifying public execution, with their families and friends ruthless purged alongside them while the powers that be have smiled and nodded.

Many consider the humble Fellowship of Feathers, with their librarian-like birdkeepers in their small stone towers full of wooden cages, to be among the most powerful and feared organizations in all of Tear.

The Ministry of Music

See also the Magical University

Following the discovery of Senecian treachery in the attack on the Tuloszian naval convoy in 712, there was a quiet, but bloody purge of senior officers in the Senecian military who were deemed to have failed to protect the secrecy of the operation. To ensure such a failure would never happen again, in 713 Empress Lucillia III ordered the formation of a Ministry of Truth that would oversee the selection and training of charlatans, spies, con artists, illusionists, performers, grifters and cheats of every imaginable sort. This essentially nationalized the creation of culture and propaganda, the training of an elite intelligence cadre, and the formation of a magical defence force under a single initiative. At the behest of her advisors, the Ministry of Truth was promptly renamed as the Ministry of Music to obfuscate its purpose.

The Ministry was placed under the direction of Brigata Inverno, a codename for an individual whose identity was never made public. Between 713 and 722 over two dozen schools scattered all across the Senecian Archipelago were absorbed into the Ministry. Most of these schools were magical colleges, but several of them were colleges of the arts; including colleges that focused on music, dance, theatre, and other performance arts. More surprising, however, was the direction to reform the schools around a paramilitary structure, with a strong emphasis on discipline and hierarchy, and service to Empire. The first years of the Ministry were difficult, with many students and instructors leaving, but things quickly turned around, and the Ministry of Music began churning out some of the best intelligence officers of the Imperial Era.

The Ministry of Music focuses on training students who are politically savvy, improvisational, creative, charismatic and fiercely loyal. Their magical instruction focuses on the Illusion, Divination and Evocation magic, though there is also a special College, the College of Furora, in the shadow of Mount Furia that is focused on achieving the highest levels of mastery of the College of Destruction.

Following the collapse of the Elven Empire in YEAR, the Ministry of Music ceased to exist as a Ministry in the literal sense, but the collection of Colleges that composed remained loyal to one another. With the dissolution of the Elven Empire, and other nation states around the world, many Ministry alumni who had infiltrated powerful organizations simply offered their services to new masters and continued their work. With so many powerful and influential connections available to them, in a time of such profound turmoil and transformation, the Colleges of the former Ministry took advantage of the shift in the flow of intelligence, and of the wealth and power that accompanied it. Thus, the Ministry of Music was able to retain its overall structure and continue functioning autonomously, while keeping their antiquated name for the sake of tradition.