qan'Endhra

D&D 3e (3.0/3.5) Rules

by The Gnome

...or The-[...]-Not-Really-Secret-yet-Discreet-[...]-Gnomish-[...]-Guild-for-[...]-Safe-Knowledge-[...]-etc.

Entry in the 2006 Nexus Organizations Contest.

History

In the early years of the Age of Might, Gnashim, a Gnome that was not far from being considered as a Mad Gnome, member of the Archivists Guild and quite a powerful wizard (a renegade as any other Gnome mage has ever been), founded a committee that later became known to outsiders as qan'Endhra.

He claimed to have found a lost tome written by an unnamed founder of Mount Nevermind, a wizard and archivist like him, and though suspicions were issued about the authenticity of the document, no one was ever able to prove that he forged it.

The book's subject was to draw the attention of Gnomes to the dangerous nature of many pieces of knowledge, from some devastation spells to theories dangerous to the stability of any society, the gnomish one especially.

Agreeing with the book completely and thinking that something was to be made to protect the world, he founded a committee for book editing, in order to suppress dangerous knowledge, true of false, from the pages of many books.

He was joined by a handful of followers who were converted to his philosophy (that quite went against mainstream gnomish thought), and they began a methodical work of research, judgement and editing throughout the libraries of Mount Nevermind.

The Committee later became a Guild of its own, one of the tiniest ones, and though it is not considered by its members as a secret organization, they made arrangements to go unnoticed in the midst of the quite arcane Gnomish Guild Regulation System.

It was when the Guild decided to extend its activities to the whole Ansalon that it was given the nickname qan'Enhdra by an Elven co-worker, a name that many members of the Guild reject because of its unfair meaning to their eyes: "the Liars' Guild", but that is in use among the few outsiders who know of the Guild's existence, as it is radically shorter than any name the Gnome give to it.

Goals/Motivations

Today the goals of qan'Endhra have not changed, and its ultimate goal is still to make the world a safer place by restraining and eventually eradicating potentially dangerous lore, anywhere they can act.

The process of an action (this is the official term inside of qan'Endhra) is clearly defined and goes through a few precise phases:

• Each member of the Guild, leading its own personal actions, makes a research work to determine the next piece of knowledge he will try to suppress. A gnome's mind being somewhat tricky to outsiders, it is no surprise that goals may vary from the destruction of a rare destructive spell to altering the color of Huma's socks on the night before his confrontation with Takhisis.
• On a regular basis, and especially when a matter is deemed important and urgent enough, the committee the gnome belongs to meets, and the importance and pertinence of every potential new goal is debated.
• If the goal is accepted, the gnome conducts his action. Depending on its nature, he may recruit co-workers outside the guild at this point, some of them being members of other races.
• Means used to edit a book vary from a member to another, but simply tearing a page off or censoring a line with black ink is deemed unprofessional. Some may use magic to erase the incriminated lines, and then rewrite them with care and a harmless content, some may use magic all the way through the process. Others may take months to unbind the book, find the good paper and precise original ink, and reconstruct the pages down to the slightest stain. It is to be noticed that the philosophy of qan'Endhra is to suppress only the dangerous content and that destroying an entire book must only be done when no other choice can be made. As strange as it may seem to some, a qan'Endhreon values knowledge above all.
• Historical researches in libraries are also conducted, often in combination with divination spells to determine and locate any other copy of the book that might exist, for a job must be done entirely and seriously.
• When a job is over, a task that might take years, the Gnome goes back to step one, trying to find another threat to eradicate.
• On every step of the process, they act in the scientific, methodical way of their race, the only way for them to be able to announce with pride to their peers that an action has been successfully conducted.

Headquarters/Areas of Influence

Although it was born and is still seated in Mount Nevermind, qan'Endhra now has spread to most of Ansalon through its abroad Committees. Those are not that many and do not cover the entire continent, but are quite mobile and through the centuries virtually every part of Ansalon has been covered by one or another Committee.

There are a few places though were they have no or little influence, to their greatest frustration, as these places are strategic places to their eyes. The few times when qan'Endhra ever edited a book or spellbook from a Tower of High Sorcery, it was in coordination with a wizard who always used them as much as they used him.

The only place where no action was ever possible is the Great Library of Palanthas, always under the watchful eye of Astinus or his Aesthetics. The fact that it's the biggest library on Ansalon is not unknown to the Guild, and qan'Endhra regularly tries to come up with a plan allowing it to conduct its actions there, with no success at all so far.

Most of the members, even those based in Mount Nevermind are accomplished travellers, and they never fear to cross the continent for the purpose of their action.

Leadership/Organization

qan'Endhra is lead collegially by the Board of Committee Chairmen. The Board gathers once every seven years, and its purpose is to allow each Committee Chairman to report the actions of other Committees to its own. All Chairmen are equals in the Board.

Extraordinary meetings may occur, when a Committee has problems determining a new Chairman for instance.

Each Committee (a few dozen exist by the end of the War of the Souls) is composed of three to ten Gnomes. The Chairman is usually elected by the members, but the Board can appoint him in extreme circumstances, as well as it can decide the dissolution of a Committee, reassigning its members. Chairmen have the last word on difficult matters, but each member of qan'Endhra is considered to be the equal of all others.

The Committees meet at their members convenience, but usually more often than the Board, and as mentioned before, can meet quickly to decide to conduct an action or not.

Each member usually works alone, except on very rare occasions. However, it is not rare for them to ally themselves with members of other races or recruit mercenaries or thieves to accomplish their action.

Allies

qan'Endhra has no permanent allies, but as already mentioned, often relies on paying for external help and has quite a habit of trying to manipulate members of some well established organisations such as the Knights of Solamnia or the Wizards of High Sorcery to achieve its goals.

The choice of the method to use is left solely to the member in charge of the action.

When a member is helped in his task by some external co-worker, it can be to achieve a goal that serves them both, but some also accept to conduct an action in return for the help they've been given. Some mages asked qan'Endhra to make spells disappear from another Order's library, a few Solamnic have used the favor qan'Endhra owed them to erase all proof of an ancestor's misdeeds or villainy.

As an obscure and secretive but nonetheless official and legal Guild of Mount Nevermind, qan'Endhra can also count on the financial, political and diplomatic support of the Gnome nation, yet the very particular way of the Gnomes to handle these concepts, as well as the discretion policy of the Guild makes the use of such resources extremely rare.

Enemies

Enemies of qan'Endhra are as unclear and changing as its allies, except for the one and only structure that always stood between the Guild and its goal: the Great Library of Ages in Palanthas. Not only is the place inaccessible for them to conduct their actions, but it also owns copies of books that should have been edited for a long time, and the Aesthetics and their master are the only ones who ever discovered that books were edited by qan'Endhra. Aware of the fact and sometimes great travelers themselves, the Aesthetics are thus always looking to identify which books have been altered, and are trying to secure original copies in the Library, if not to restore the original content.

Occasional enemies usually are members of a group that sees a particular action of qan'Endhra as an attack to their own interests, but as the Guild is known by only a few, they often don't know of the action before it is taken, and even if they notice it and catch the qan'Endhreon later, they may never know that he was part of the Guild.

Membership

As the members of any Gnomish Guild, qan'Endreon are fully dedicated both to their Quest and to their Guild. What differentiates them from members of more "conventional" Guilds is that they often are mad gnomes or near to be considered so. Their approach of knowledge, though not incompatible with the general gnomish take on it, is at best a little twisted.

The thing that differentiates qan'Endhra from a classical Gnome Guild is its discretion. They often claim in front of strangers, gnomes or not, to be members of the Archivists Guild, and tell their allies about qan'Endhra only if they feel it will further their goals.

Members of the Guild indeed look like archivists and librarians to other Gnomes, and outsiders always have a hard time figuring out by his looks to which Guild a Gnome may belong, if they are ever interested in knowing it at all.

Finally, the Guild counts a greater proportion of wizards than any other, excepted those who dedicate themselves to the study of magic devices.

Joining the Organization

Only gnomes are member of qan'Endhra. They usually join it young, and are approached by members of the Guild that see possible members in them. Their Life Quests are always in relation with qan'Endhra's goals and usually blend with those as the purpose of such quests are almost always too huge to be conducted in a Gnome's life.

Costs and Benefits of Membership

As for any Guild of Mount Nevermind, admission does not require fees or a specific oath. The fact that a Gnome takes a Life Quest on is a proof of dedication that does not need to be questioned.

Members can look for any logistic help the Guild can provide, or the entire Gnome community through the Guild, as any other Gnome. Most members, if not Mad, are fairly fanatical, and they know it. As any Gnome, their primary reason to join a Guild is to have a place where to express and fulfil their Life Quest among peers, with the reassuring Guild structure preventing them from deviating from their goal, or that at least should do so.

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