Gravediggers
The Gravediggers
For nearly 300 years, on and off, there has been a cabal in the Boston area using a bronze ouroboros as its calling card. Killing has been its business. If any Awakened know for certain whether or not such cabals trace a straight line of descent from master to student, they are not saying. The most recent such fellowship to operate locally is known as the Gravediggers. Like their predecessors, the Gravediggers answer to the Consilium and address threats to the stability of Awakened affairs in a discrete but permanent fashion.
It is said that membership in the cabal requires all manner of oaths, as well as elaborate induction ceremonies. Further-more, it is rumored that an induced near-death experience is the final test for prospective members, and that failures watch as impotent shades as their corporeal forms are destroyed by magic. Most Awakened doubt such rumors, dismissing them as part of the Gravediggers’ carefully crafted mystique. In whatever case, they must certainly be good at their jobs, as two members of the cabal are empowered to act as Sentinels for the Consilium, and all but one of the rest are often brought along on the Hierarch’s “martial errands.”
Sanctum: Windham Manor
Sanctum Size •••••; Hallow ••••
Windham Manor is perched on a sea cliff in Gloucester. A network of caves extends beneath the house, carved into the rock by millions of years of tides. A sprawling graveyard is located at the back of the property, overlooking the water, but it is almost completely overgrown. The house itself is badly in need of repair in a number of places, with the roof sagging here and there, and water leaking into some of the upstairs rooms. Footfalls from no Earthly tread are often heard in the night, pale lights sometimes dance among the graves and the roar of the ocean in the caves below occasionally sounds like tormented moaning, especially on moonless nights.
Windham Manor’s Hallow (a 4-dot shared Hallow) is found in the sea caves, which are accessible from the dank, dripping recesses of the house’s basement. The progress is treacherous, and no light gets down there (save perhaps for that carried by unquiet spirits), so those seeking to harvest Mana must bring their own illumination. In the depths of the caverns, black salt crystals, infused with tass, grow with almost unnatural swiftness on strangely carved and half-submerged altars of unknown purpose. In recessed shelves, beneath a great, corroded bronze ouroboros, rest a number of human skulls, each of them belonging to a member (whether by blood or by marriage) of the Windham family. Carved into each skull is a pattern of sigils, a cipher that has been passed down through the generations, that, translated, constitutes the Gravediggers’ library (Ancient Horrors of the Sea, Hauntings, Local Conspiracies, Old New England Families).
Notable Members
Hydra - Consilium Councilor
Eve - Consilium Sentinel
Hades - Consilium Sentinel
Other Links
Return to Boston Mage
Return to Adamantine Arrow
Return to Boston Cabals
