Black Wreath

Faction Type: Outlawed Religious Cult (Infernal)
Patron Deity: Elilial (Queen of Demons, Goddess of Cunning)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil (as held by the Pantheon faiths)
Status: Hunted heretical organization, operating in secret across the Empire
Leadership: A mortal High Priest of Elilial — Embras Mogul

Overview

The Black Wreath is the secret cult of Elilial, the fallen goddess who rules Hell as Queen of Demons. Its members are warlocks and diabolists who draw on infernal power through pacts with demons, and who venerate Elilial as their patron. To the Pantheon faiths, the Tiraan Empire, and the common folk of the world, the Wreath is the great bogeyman of the age — a network of demon-worshipping heretics whose very name is invoked to frighten children and to explain catastrophes.

The Wreath has no public face and no open temples. It exists as a clandestine web of cells scattered throughout the Empire, its members hiding among ordinary people and revealing themselves only to one another. Because Elilial can grant her worshippers a form of divine stealth that renders them difficult for the Pantheon's gods to perceive, the Wreath is exceptionally hard to root out, and it has survived millennia of persecution by the combined faiths.

Note: The serial reveals a great deal about the Wreath's true character and aims later in the story; this note is restricted to what is publicly known in the world and to the early-book reputation of the cult. See the GM-only material for the rest.

Goals and Mission

As publicly understood, the Black Wreath exists to:

Serve Elilial — to spread the worship of the Queen of Demons and to advance her interests in the mortal world.
Practice infernal magic — its members are warlocks and diabolists who summon and bind demons, forge demonic pacts, and wield infernal power. This practice is precisely what the Pantheon faiths condemn as heresy.
Survive and recruit in secret — because its faith is outlawed and its members hunted, much of the Wreath's apparent activity consists of staying hidden, protecting its own, and quietly drawing in new adherents.

The cult's deeper purposes are a matter of fearful rumor among the public and are not openly known. (See Notable Details and the GM material.)

Organizational Structure

Internal hierarchy

The Wreath is led, on the mortal side, by a High Priest of Elilial. The cult is otherwise a decentralized network of cells rather than a single visible hierarchy, which makes it resilient against infiltration and decapitation. Members operate with considerable independence, coordinated through the priesthood and through Elilial's own direction.

Membership

Membership is drawn from those willing to take up infernal magic and demonic pacts — overwhelmingly humans, who are the most willing of the mortal races to make such bargains. Members wear ash-gray robes when gathered in their own rites; a working warlock of the Wreath is marked, to those with the sight, by a sullen reddish aura, with bound demons visible at their side. Outside of their gatherings, members live ordinary concealed lives. Exposure carries the constant threat of imprisonment, injury, or death.

Major NPCs

Embras Mogul — the mortal leader of the Black Wreath, styled the High Priest of Elilial, though he prefers to be called simply the cult's mortal leader. He has dark brown skin and homely features that contrast with the dapper white suit he habitually wears, and he far prefers talking to fighting.
Bradshaw — a Black Wreath warlock active in Tiraas.
Vanessa — a Black Wreath warlock active in Tiraas.

Practices and Observances

The defining practice of the Wreath is diabolism — the summoning, binding, and use of demons, and the forging of pacts that grant infernal power. Its warlocks draw their strength from Hell, the source of all infernal magic.

Elilial grants her chosen a form of divine stealth, allowing the faithful to move and act while remaining difficult for the Pantheon's gods to detect. This gift is central to the cult's survival and to the dread it inspires: a Wreath agent may be anyone, anywhere, unseen even by the gods who hunt them.

Rites are conducted in secret and in their characteristic ash-gray robes. Beyond this, the cult's internal observances are hidden from public knowledge.

Bases of Operation

The Black Wreath maintains no public temples or headquarters. It is, in the words of those who hunt it, everywhere — a dispersed network of hidden cells operating throughout the Tiraan Empire, including cells in the imperial capital of Tiraas itself. Its true gathering places are concealed, and its strength lies in dispersion rather than in any single seat of power.

Notable Details

Relationship with the Universal Church and Empire

The Black Wreath is the archetypal enemy of the Pantheon faiths. The Universal Church regards it as a heretical demon-cult and counts its suppression among the gravest duties of the faithful; other cults of the Pantheon take active part in the fight against it, treating the Wreath as a shared foe of all who serve the gods. The Tiraan Empire likewise treats Wreath membership as a capital matter, and Imperial forces hunt the cult alongside the religious authorities.

To the common populace, the Wreath is the great heresy and the great terror — demon-worshippers blamed for dark events and feared as a hidden danger lurking within ordinary society. It is, by Elilial's own cult's reckoning, one of the most stereotyped and reviled organizations in the world.

Current tensions

As a hunted, outlawed faith, the Wreath exists in a state of perpetual conflict with the Church, the Empire, and the broader Pantheon. Its members live under constant threat of exposure and death, and the cult's survival depends on secrecy, dispersion, and the protective stealth granted by its goddess.

Sources

https://tgab.fandom.com/api.php?action=parse&page=Black_Wreath&prop=wikitext&format=json&formatversion=2
https://tgab.fandom.com/api.php?action=parse&page=Elilial&prop=wikitext&format=json&formatversion=2
https://tiraas.net/cast-list/
https://tiraas.net/2015/06/29/6-18/