Night's Hand

The Night's Hand are a faction in the Highlands well-known for being enigmatic and frightening. They purposefully avoid making themselves known and those wishing to join must be directly contacted by those within it. They were once extremely well-known and feared but have since delegated themselves to the shadows after a mass inquisition centuries prior.

History
The Night's Hand had originally began as a Moonborn cult that revered the Moonborn deity Tinbredhil. As such, many of their practices focused around magic that was frowned upon, like blood magic, necromancy, and divination. At the height of the Night's Hand's influence and renown, a large-scale inquisition swept the land, and many members of the Night's Hand were captured, tortured, imprisoned, or killed. Their meeting places and temples were the subject of the inquisition's hunt for years, each one being ransacked as they were found, either by happenstance or by torturing someone into revealing the locations. It is believed by some that the cult was abandoned by its leader, as she had mysteriously disappeared just before the cult was toppled.

Current Timeline
At present, the faction is comprised of a few members and has one meeting place largely intact. It is lead by Felusi. The Night's Hand still contacts its members directly if they wish to join, but recruitment hinges on the potential member presenting something of knowledge in order to be accepted, be it a spell tome or alchemical breakthrough. For this reason, thieves and assassins are capable of joining as well as mages and academics. The contribution is required to maintain plausible deniability in the face of yet another potential inquisition, so that the Night's Hand may pass for a simple academic college or mage's guild to an outsider.

Some newer members prefer the Night's Hand use its connections and resources to become a faction purely interested in the pursuit of unconventional science, while older members support the Night's Hand returning to its roots as a religious cult. Some would even prefer it become a thieves' guild or assassins' sanctuary instead.