The Phantom Claw

The Dark Network

A shadow organization which was founded (according to best estimates) two centuries ago, and is comprised of an unknown number of cells spread throughout the realm.

It has operated in relative obscurity for generations- its objectives ambitious and ever-evolving; its methods brutal, but precise. Espionage, information brokering, assassinations, even full-blown coups d'états are just some of their more prominent enterprises on the Destrean world stage.

Originally conceived as a stateless safeguard against unchecked authoritarianism across the realm, sometime over the past century their purpose mutated into something far more sinister. Today, it is a veritable geopolitical superstructure which undergirds institutions and governments virtually everywhere across the modern world.

Deeply-Entrenched

Efforts to root out its corrosive, corruptive tendrils have been met with formidable resistance, even when moderately successful. Since operatives of a given cell are, by design, unknown to members of another, the effectiveness of state actors' tactics in pursuing them is highly limited. Many fear that, unless the yet-unknown central command structure of the organization is discovered, it will continue unabated in its exertion of control over social, economic, and political institutions, inevitably corrupting them beyond salvation.

Field agents under the Phantom Claw's employ have a small crystal planted in their neck upon gaining their rank. It is infused with a particularly gruesome cantrip, capable of ripping their throat out, should they become compromised and require termination. Only one captured operative has managed to avoid this fate thus far, by having the arcanium within the crystal drained using a specialized anti-magic tool, prior to the removal of the crystal itself.