The Order of the Blackened Denarius

The Order of the Blackened Denarius is composed of Fallen angels bound to thirty silver coins. These coins, said to be the payment to Judas Iscariot for betraying Christ, permit the Denarians to possess mortal hosts. Denarians are old, powerful, and very dangerous entities. They have rampaged across two millennia of history, opposed only by the Knights of the Cross.

The Denarians are led by Nicodemus. Nicodemus has possession of those denarii not currently in use (or captured by the Knights of the Cross), and he passes them on to suitable targets for corruption. It is suspected that his ultimate plans involve bringing about the Apocalypse.

Freeholding Lords

Under the Unseelie Accords, powerful individuals are permitted to be signatories. These are the Freeholding Lords.

Dragons, scions, and even old gods fill the ranks of the Freeholding Lords. In the view of the supernatural nations, they are arcane “city-states.”

Marcone’s Mafia

John Marcone is the first “pure vanilla” (i.e., non-supernatural) mortal to have signed the Unseelie Accords as a Freeholding Lord.

The majority of Marcone’s forces are mortal criminals who are somewhat clued-in to the supernatural. A small number are combat-ready mercenaries, unfazed by weird magic shit. Marcone also employs at least one magical contractor (see Sigrun Gard) for magical protection and information-gathering, in an attempt to understand supernatural issues.

It is likely Marcone will assist the White Council, at least in a limited fashion, against the Red Court in the course of the Vampire War. (Interestingly, most of his major conflicts have been against the Denarians and the Black Circle.)

Harry: Marcone confounds me. He’s criminal scum, no debate there. But, on occasion, he does something so…right, that I need to pause and consider. Damn him.

March continues with the Outsiders and the Circle, in two weeks.

General old world order, setting

Faeries

The Faerie fall into two rough divisions: the Summer Court (the Seelie) and the Winter Court (the Unseelie)—though there are various wyld powers in between these factions. Neither major Court is absolutely “good” or “evil.” Trying to assign each a moral stance vis-à-vis mortal perspectives is just dumb.

Each Court has three rulers: the Queen Who Was (the Mother), the Queen Who Is (the Queen), and the Queen Who Is To Come (the Lady). The Mother holds vast power, but she is beholden to the natural order and thus takes little active part in the rulership of the Court. The Queen holds a substantial share of power and uses it to rule. The Lady holds the smallest portion of power, but she also has the most freedom of action, the closest access to the mortal world, and the most ability to act independently.

Some of the fae prefer hanging out in the mortal world to spending their lives in the Nevernever. (Even the sidhe—see below—visit the mortal world on occasion, but they don’t spend that much of their time there.) This may be because humanity offers various fleshly pleasures (such as pizza), or because the fae in question needs to interact with humanity or nature in order to fulfill its purpose.

HARRY: Like how Lea feeds on blood and power from artists and poets, and grants inspiration in return.

While the Summer Court and the Winter Court are locked in their customary rivalry, the Summer Court has offered mild assistance to the White Council in the course of the Vampire War.

Sidhe

Among the faerie, Sidhe is a state of being that is somewhat political and somewhat biological. A sidhe has all of the abilities of their faerie type, raised to greater heights of power. They are the aristocracy of Faerie, and this mindset must be considered (no matter which Court—or no Court—they are associated with) when dealing with them.

Sidhe Knights

Sidhe Knights, the champions of the Courts, ensure the balance between the Courts of Faerie. While the Faerie Queens cannot kill anyone who isn’t attached to their Court through birthright or bargain, the Knights can. The Knights can also act in affairs not directly related to Faerie, making them the primary outlet of the Faerie Courts for intrigue in the mortal world.

This relative freedom is, of course, enabled by the fact that Sidhe Knights must be mortal—i.e., human.

March brings us the Order of the Blackened Denarius and the Freeholding Lords.

See you then.

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The Red Court

The members of the Red Court are inhuman creatures inside human shells; their true form is a thing of warped flesh and twisted bone. While they can maintain a pleasant and even beautiful human appearance, under stress they show their real nature: half-bat monsters drooling black venom and stretching long angular limbs out to seize their victims.

The Red Court has great influence in international finance and politics, manipulating mortals through their narcotic venom, as well as mundane bribes and influence. The core of the Red Court power is based in South America; they have strongholds throughout that continent. Addicting entire communities to their venom, they treat mortals as livestock.

The Red Court is ruled by a King. Various aristocratic bloodlines advise and intrigue with (and against) the Red King. The high nobles of the Red Court are very powerful and very inhuman. A few of these aristocrats maintain a semblance of civilized behavior through strict personal codes of honor—but most of them don’t, instead reveling in their power.

Apparently, the Red King has been planning a war with the White Council for years. Only recently has he been given a pretext to attack. Interestingly, the Red Court seems to have gained a tremendous amount of information on magic and the White Council that they didn’t have before. Despite these advantages, the current war with the White Council is occupying much of the Red Court’s time and resources.

Red Court Allies

For its part, the Red Court is using ghouls in the mortal world (as well as demons and Outsiders in the Nevernever) against the White Council. It is also trying to bring the White and Black—and possibly the Jade—Courts in on their side to help fight the “mortal freaks” (as wizards are termed). The White Court is neutral (due to infighting and a recent major setback), the Black Court is very small, and the Jade Court is very mysterious, so they haven’t joined the Reds quite yet.

The White Court

The White Court are psychic vampires; they live off the emotions of others, to the extent that they can drain other people to death. They can feed off various different emotions and use that energy to empower their supernatural abilities. White Court vampirism is hereditary (not infectious).

There are a number of Houses in the White Court jockeying for power and status—Raith, Skavis, and Malvora are the most powerful. Lord Raith is the current White King. In conclave, White Court members speak ancient Etruscan.

HARRY: The real power behind the White King is a total secret.  Daddy Raith isn’t all the man he used to be.

Though the Houses are divided in their opinions on the overall White Court response to the Vampire War, the White King has called for diplomacy. This, of course, has led to even more internal division.

The middle of February brings faeries.  Lovers beware.

See you in two weeks.

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Vampires

The Vampire Courts are some of the most pervasive, widespread groups of monsters out there. Fortunately for the other supernatural factions, they’re riddled with infighting and discord, frequently feuding with each other, and they require rigid levels of protocol and diplomacy in order to function at all.

In practice, the Black Court is drastically understrength when compared to the White and Red Courts (this can be directly blamed on the publication of Bram Stoker’s Dracula). The potency of the Jade Court is unknown—a wild card in the deck.

The White and Red Courts hold a lot of power in the modern world. The White Court has infiltrated the media (in particular, pornography and fashion), while the Red Court has worked its fingers into politics and finance. The complicated rivalries dividing each Court means that a Red Court vampire who’s currently up against a White Court rival can often find another White Court vampire who’s prepared to make a temporary alliance against this mutual enemy—and vice versa, of course. In a way, this benefits the rest of the supernatural world, as the Vampire Courts tend to keep each other’s numbers down.

The Black Court

Black Court vampires have all the vulnerabilities that are described in Dracula: holy items, holy water, garlic, fire, running water, and so on. This has left Black Court vampires rather thin on the ground. The ones who have survived are the old, powerful ones, who have the intelligence and the capabilities to avoid public attention and to protect themselves from other supernaturals.

The infrastructure of Black Court vampires is unknown. It may be that, post-Dracula, they are too fragmented to have any hierarchy at all. Their relations with the other Courts are tenuous, as the other Courts have them at a disadvantage and know it. There’s also the problem that Black Court vampires use up the local mortal population when feeding far quicker than the Reds or Whites do; this causes frequent disputes over territory between the Courts.

The Black Court frequently uses “Renfields”: humans who have had their wills broken and been fortified by black magic to act as bodyguards, minions, and cannon-fodder.

The Black Court is not involved in the Vampire War as a cohesive whole, though the actions of individual Black Court vampires have certainly played a part in the conflict.

The Jade Court

There are few details available about the vampires of the Jade Court. Even the other Vampire Courts don’t seem inclined to discuss it. It’s based in Asia, where it is well-entrenched and well-hidden. Either its members are more interested in staying out of the public eye than gaining influence, or they already have so much political and social influence that petty intrigues are no longer significant.

Shiro Yoshimo of the Knights of the Cross had some interactions with them, and it is possible that Ancient Mai of the White Council has some contacts in the Jade Court (or at least knows the protocols for dealing with them).

The Jade Court’s lack of participation (so far) in the Vampire War is a relief to the White Council.

Other Possibilities

The White, Red, and Black Courts are reasonably public in the supernatural world, at least. The Jade Court is more private, but is known to exist.

So what’s out there that isn’t known about? Could there be powerful vampires with different hungers and vulnerabilities who have managed to keep themselves so secret that nobody knows about them? Is there a Blue Court? A Green Court? A Purple Court?

Maybe. Nobody knows.

There are too many vampires to cover all at once.

Meet more of them in two weeks.

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Spoilers ahead!

If you haven’t read up on the series, you’ll hear a few surprises below. If you have, it’s all old hat.

Knights of the Cross

The Knights of the Cross were founded to counter the Fallen angels who make up the Order of the Blackened Denarius. They protect the freedom of the mortal soul. To that end, they aid any mortals under the oppression of dark forces and try to help that person to win freedom from the darkness.

When a Knight meets a Denarian, he is supposed to offer the Denarian a chance to surrender his coin and repent. If the Denarian hands over his coin and asks for mercy, the Knight has to accept this and let him go, giving him a chance at repentance. (To be fair, there have been cases where this has worked and the ex-Denarian has genuinely repented, in one case actually becoming a Knight of the Cross himself; see Sanya.) If the Denarian says no, it’s time for a bit of the old choppy-choppy, slashy-slashy.

While primarily founded to thwart the Denarians, the Knights are usually willing to tackle other evils, should it be God’s will (“winning free of the oppression of dark forces” covers a lot of ground). Knights of the Cross are often Christians of some stripe, but a virtuous and faithful heart is more important than conscious belief in a theistic faith. After all, God believes in them, whether or not they believe in him in any particular way.

There are three Knights of the Cross at most, and sometimes there are fewer. Their tokens and their burdens are their three Swords: Amoracchius (a broadsword), Fidelacchius (a katana), and Esperacchius (a saber), each incorporating one of the three nails that pierced Christ’s hands and feet on the cross.

At the moment, there is only one Knight; Sanya, wielder of Esperacchius. The most recent wielder of Fidelacchius, Shiro Yoshimo, died at the hands of Nicodemus, the leader of the Denarii, during Nicodemus’ plan to use the Shroud of Turin to unleash the Black Death in a worldwide plague. More recently, Michael Carpenter, wielder of Amoracchius, was critically injured in a (successful) attempt to recover the Archive and John Marcone from the clutches of the Denarians.

Both of their Swords are at present in the custody of the wizard Harry Dresden; neither has yet been passed to a new wielder.

The Knights are quite simply and purely Good Guys. They do the right thing, and they risk their lives to do it. Armed only with a holy sword, (divine?) serendipity, some mild support from the Catholic Church (and, arguably, the angelic hosts of Heaven), and God’s blessing, they face down the forces of Hell, dragons, ghosts, the Vampire Courts, and anyone else who requires it.

The Knights—especially Michael Carpenter—were drawn into the Vampire War due to the personal and professional ties they developed in recent years with the wizard Harry Dresden. (Some feel that this involvement may be related to the Knights’ overall mission as well.)

In two weeks, Vampires.

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White Council Allies

Aiding the White Council in the Vampire War are several allies: The Fellowship of St. Giles, the Venatori Umbrorum, and several individual temples and monasteries in the Far East. The White Council has also benefited in the Vampire War from the occasional assistance of the Knights of the Cross and the Summer Court of Faerie.

The Fellowship of St. Giles

The Fellowship of St. Giles is a refuge for the desperate, for people who have some kind of darkness within them that has eaten parts of them away. All of them are trying to hold onto their humanity by turning that darkness back upon those who would harm mankind.

The Fellowship has developed magical tattoos to control their members’ hungers. These allow the half-vampiric members of the Fellowship to enjoy the advantages of their supernatural abilities while maintaining a modicum of control and choice. However, they aren’t perfect; extended use of supernatural abilities returns the member to the mercy of those monstrous hungers. For this reason, the Fellowship usually works in pairs or teams rather than singly.

The Fellowship is working with the White Council in the Vampire War, channeling information and helping out in combat situations. They have a particular hatred for the Red Court and will take any opportunity to strike back at them.

The Venatori Umbrorum

The Venatori Umbrorum are literally “hunters of the shadows.” Often characterized as “Masons with machine guns” or “Masons with flamethrowers,” they are an ancient secret brotherhood of people with extensive knowledge of academic (especially history and folklore), commercial, intelligence and counter-intelligence, financial, legal, and military issues. They possess an understanding of basic occult countermeasures. They are a larger organization than the Fellowship of St. Giles (possibly even larger than the White Council realizes). Unfortunately, they seem to lack powerful magical practitioners.

As allies of the White Council, they usually provide intel and analysis to the wizards. Since the start of the Vampire War, they have also participated in combat operations against the Red Court.

Himalayan Temples & Indian Monasteries

Not much is known about these allies of the White Council from the Far East. It seems that, while they have less overall mystic power than the (mostly Eurocentric) White Council, they do have a modicum of mojo, along with greater knowledge and familiarity with the supernatural threats in Asia (like rakasha and the Jade Court of Vampires).

The year ends, and we move on from the Council and its… friends.

The new year brings the Knights of the Cross.  See you in two weeks.

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The White Council

The White Council is a signatory of the Unseelie Accords and serves as the “supernatural nation” for all mortal wizardkind. It is composed of wizards from all nations, and the Senior Council (its governing body) ensures that most wizards in the world respect the Laws of Magic and disposes of the ones who don’t (via its Wardens; see below).

It maintains alliances with other occult groups like the Venatori Umbrorum, the Fellowship of St. Giles, and a few monasteries in Tibet and India.

Most wizards worthy of the name have come up through the traditional system: being apprenticed to a White Council member and joining the Council themselves as full members when they pass the trials of wizardry.

A White Council member gets a vote in deliberations and agrees to abide by its rules (including the Laws of Magic). A member is obliged to represent the White Council if necessary.

The language used in White Council conclaves is Latin. All members attending a full meeting of the Council wear a robe with a stole that denotes their rank (no stole for apprentices, blue for junior wizards, red for senior ones, purple for Senior Council members).

The White Council is governed by the Senior Council: seven wizards of age, skill, power, and knowledge. The leader of the Senior Council (and thus the entire White Council) is called “the Merlin.” They set policy by majority vote (usually of the entire membership of the White Council, but a Senior Council member can restrict matters to a closed vote of just the Senior Council).

The Laws Of Magic

The Laws of Magic are not the quasi-physics of how magic works; they are the practical regulations on mortal spell-slingers imposed by the White Council.

Simply stated, the Seven Laws are:

• One: No killing mortals with magic.
• Two: No transforming others.
• Three: No mind-reading.
• Four: No mind-controlling.
• Five: No necromancy.
• Six: No time travel.
• Seven: No seeking knowledge and/or power from Outsiders.

The Blackstaff

There are rumors that there is a secret White Council agent (authorized by the Senior Council) who is licensed to break any of the Seven Laws of Magic in those cases where the Seven Laws prevent the White Council from acting in a critical situation.

These are surely just rumors.

HARRY: Don’t be snotty, Billy. You already know more than most mortals.

Wardens

The Wardens are the guardians (and often executioners) of the White Council. They are responsible for policing both the White Council and the magical community outside it. A Warden is expected to protect mortals in his area, to be vigilant against supernatural threats in his region, to represent the Council in matters of diplomacy, to aid and assist other wizards who require aid and protection, and—when required—to strike out at the enemies of the Council. Think of them as “magic cops.”

All Wardens are battle-capable wizards of high skill and power. Warden security protocols are some of the best magical countermeasures in the world. They are trained in the use of wardhounds in this work, and they also have access to voluminous (if sometimes incomplete and out-of-date) dossiers on various supernatural players.

Their tokens of office are a plain grey cloak and a special sword—both serve as a sign of their authority, and the Warden’s sword is a puissant and useful enchanted weapon.

Subject to the Senior Council, they have their own Captain and are structured under regional Commanders. Regional commanders are in charge of security and operation for a large area (like, up to half a continent—though these current vast demesnes are certainly due to the current Vampire War; before this, four regional commanders normally handled North America alone).

So that’s the White Council.  But what of their allies? In two weeks, find out.

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Supernatural Factions

Many supernatural “kinds”—wizards, vampires, faerie, etc.—are considered to belong to their own supernatural nation under the Unseelie Accords. (However, given the differences between the Vampire Courts, and the differences between the Summer and Winter Courts of Faerie, there are several separate ”nations” of vampires and faeries.)

Here’s a quick run-down of the major factions in play.

(For further details on the nature of each of these types of beings, see What Goes Bump in the Night. For discussions of specific individuals, see Who’s Who in the Dresdenverse.)

The Roman Catholic Church

While many priests believe in the Devil, only a handful have accurate information on the Prince of Darkness, much less the various Vampire Courts or the Faerie Courts. The general attitude of clued-in people in the Church is that anyone involved with the supernatural is either evil or sliding that way, with few exceptions.

A scattering of priests, monks, nuns, affiliated laymen and others know and stand sentinel against the darkness. Few of them have any real skill with magic, but some have particular areas of knowledge or individual alliances with supernatural factions. For example, the Knights of the Cross (though their calling comes from a higher source than any mortal religion) is strongly associated with a faction within the Church, which provides what support they can for the Knights.

Mortals

Mortals aren’t a supernatural faction per se. But they are both prey and a threat (especially en masse) to many of the supernatural nations.

HARRY: We’re talking mobs of villagers with pitchforks and flaming torches here.

While more-or-less clueless to the supernatural shenanigans happening around them, hordes of mortals roused to action can be a danger to the supernatural nations. Before the beginning of the Vampire War, calling mortal authorities into an arcane fracas was akin to calling in an airstrike. After the Industrial Revolution, with the wide availability of steel weapons, guns, and ever more deadly technologies, the mortal threat upgraded to “nuclear” (literally!). For the past three hundred years, the supernatural folk have laid a bit lower than they had in the past.

Unfortunately, opinions on the dangers of mortalkind seem to be changing. Recent Red Court attacks in the Vampire War have killed thousands of unsuspecting mortals in the Third World with impunity. Furthermore, the rise of the entirely mortal  John Marcone to the status of Freedholding Lord has had some sort of ramifications among the supernatural set regarding mortalkind—

HARRY: My take is that, all of a sudden, mortals are now an even larger threat than before.

—but what those are exactly is as yet unclear.

Other Mortals

Clued-in mortals , werewolves, scions, and hedge wizards (especially the members of the Ordo Lebes) all play fairly minor roles in the overall supernatural situation. Most often, they are simply prey, targets, or obstacles to the larger and more powerful factions.

Sorcerers are often catspaws and pawns for the darker supernatural nations and Freeholding Lords. They usually don’t have enough oomph to stir up “international” trouble on their own.

On the other hand, big-time necromancers (especially powerful ones, like the Disciples of Kemmler) are individually a sort of “banana republic” in the overall supernatural nations schema. Given their power and undead legions, they cannot simply be controlled as sorcerers are. They are loose (powerful) cannons, which must be jostled into position or squelched, depending upon the larger supernatural factions’ aims and goals.

In two more weeks, you’ll have the White Council to deal with.

Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

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There Is No Spirit Of The Law

The Accords were set up by one of the most notorious manipulators in the supernatural world; furthermore, the legalistic bent of the faerie mind, along with their important concepts of favor and debt, has a strong influence on the letter of the law.

Much like the Code of Hammurabi, everything is spelled out extremely clearly. Vicious as it seems to us in retrospect to claim an eye for an eye or a life for a life, it prevents one supernatural tribe from murdering all of another tribe in response to a single death or other faux-pas.

However, nobody’s going to respect “the spirit of the law” of the Accords, because there isn’t one. See above regarding Mab’s legalistic thinking (in gamer terms, she’s the consummate “rules-lawyer”). The supernatural nations all abide by the Accords, because the possibility of all-out mystical warfare is so much worse—as the current Vampire War between the Red Court and the White Council demonstrates.

Getting Screwed By the Letter Of The Law

In the ad hoc supernatural courts that judge these things, plenty of precedent has been established that there is only the letter of the law to protect you under the Accords, and each letter has a razor’s edge. It doesn’t matter what your sentimental excuses were, how many innocents were going to die, or that your true love’s life was on the line. If you break the Accords, then you are neck-deep in trouble.

The best thing that you can hope for is that your side will try to find some loophole to get you out of it, or work a behind-the-scenes deal to persuade the other side to drop their reasons for offence. Unfortunately, by far the most likely thing is that you’ll be served up on a platter with a set of apologies tied around your neck. There will always be people on your own side who will consider their own continued peace and safety far more important than your skin. And after all, what is one man compared to the prospect of supernatural war? These people may regret the political necessities, but that won’t stop them from gift-wrapping Accords-breakers and delivering them to the aggrieved parties.

At times, the letter of the law can actually be helpful. There are cases where people use the legalisms to their advantage. It is a clear and definite fact that someone who reads the Accords and plans their actions before doing something precipitous (like burning down a houseful of bad guys) is the person who is most likely to get away with it.

HARRY: You know, under the Accords, naughty children found on bridges are still lawful prey for trolls.

Tune in two weeks from now as we begin to delve into Supernatural Factions.

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Old World Order

Most supernatural factions have their own hidden histories, dark secrets, and personal beliefs on how much they have affected world history. Yet, they do tend go to some effort to make sure that mortals don’t even bother to start looking for their fingerprints in the first place. To the supernatural set, comfortable ignorance is what most of the world should enjoy.

However, some events and episodes of supernatural interference are well-established and can even be tracked by mundane humans.

Old World Organizations

The “supernatural nations” detailed below tend to follow an Old World aesthetic of manners and methods. This often means a Renaissance-era mindset in their approach to political issues. It’s as if they read Machiavelli’s The Prince and just stopped there.

Meanwhile, the philosophies and technologies of mortal-kind have advanced. In fact, you could say that the Age of Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution caught the supernatural factions with their pants down. The aftershocks of both are still being felt among magical sorts. The disparities between the rough-and-ready modern mortal outlook and the more courtly and traditional supernatural attitude frequently causes friction between the factions.

All that being said, however, the most important aspect of interaction among the supernatural factions is the Unseelie Accords.

The Unseelie Accords

The Unseelie Accords, devised by Queen Mab of the Winter Court of Faerie, are a supernatural cross between the Magna Carta and the Geneva Conventions.

The Accords recognize major magical factions as independent political entities (or “nations”) with the right to defend, protect, and avenge their members. Even “Freeholding Lords” are recognized: entities of power that do not necessarily represent an entire kind, just themselves and their supporters.

HARRY: Simply belonging to any supernatural faction is enough to get a nice set of enemies along with your metaphorical membership badge.

The Accords lay out an important concept: magical nations are responsible for policing their own. If they don’t do this, and let their people run willy-nilly, these activities can become a lawful grievance to another nation—even up to a justification for war. The Accords also lay out other rules concerning such topics as the treatment of prisoners (though the rules do little if anything to protect them), setting prices on ransoms or prisoner exchanges, laying out procedures for negotiations between hostile supernatural nations, the establishment of neutral ground, rules of engagement and territory, a basis for diplomacy, and so on.

Most importantly, the Accords establish several hard and fast rules that provide ancient (read: Old World) customs of hospitality and honor with the force of law. If any two things are regarded as concrete by the supernatural nations, it is: 1) the binding power sworn oaths; and 2) the obligation of a host to offer aid, comfort, and protection to her guests.

The Accords recognize that it is mutually profitable for the supernatural nations to avoid overt or large-scale conflicts; indeed, they provide a means of settling disputes between rival nations by means of a trial of champions—based on the Code Duello—presided over by a mediator. Any member of any nation can be asked to be a mediator, but the choice must be mutually accepted.

All in all, the Accords are extremely complex, and applying them generally leads to a lot of arguing rather than actually solving any problems (it is likely that this is what Mab intended). They work, however; conflicts are often defused by the lengthy legal discussions. The Accords are supported by all sides, mainly in order to keep things from getting worse than they already are.

We’ll talk more about the letter and the spirit of the law in two weeks. Stay tuned.

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