The Poor Fellow-Magi
of Oldcross House

“The entirety of human history can be characterised by our general misuse of powers we do not and cannot understand.”

Oldcross House

"You’ve heard the rumours of Oldcross House. Nesting in the Pillars of Ishgard, it hangs in a cloud of myth and superstition, like the one about the room filled with light or the labyrinth of winding corridors that stretch far beyond the foundation’s reach — that eat you if you lose your way. You’ve heard how its many doors can open at strange, impossible angles if one merely provides the right key, if one has learned how to move sideways. Or how certain rhythms and sounds become codified in its laws, become sacred or profane — some redacted, others censored, others required. Maybe you’ve even heard about the Vicar of Oldcross and his Council of Sophia — the collection of great, mystical minds that determine the aged society’s inscrutable direction?"‘But have you seen them,’ the children ask with jack-o-lantern grins and eyes that shine like stars. They weave a fairy tale populated with strange, abhuman shapes — stooped, shambling between windows. They spin the thread back and forth, round and round and coughing all the while. A pair of young, romantic seminarians overhearing their tales, pick up that thread next and talk about bodies twisted by sin, by too much knowing, by knowledge it was never built to bear— but they’re just children, they say, and only children give stock to such fantasies, isn’t that so? Isn’t it?"

An Overview

The Poor Fellow-Magi of Oldcross House is a role-play project created to represent the ‘little guys’ in a secret, fraternal order (genderless) and occult society that takes inspiration from historical hermetic groups (ex. Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn), Bethesda's Dishonored series, House of Leaves, Remedy’s Control, and a dash of the SCP Foundation thrown in for style.It maintains the legitimate (if somewhat clannish and exclusive) cover of the Oldcross Theological Society, an ecclesiastical organisation in Ishgard with close ties to the defunct Holy See and the current orthodoxy, which meets at Oldcross House to allegedly discuss theological interpretations on canon religious law and the will of God, all while smokescreening their eclectic goals as a cutthroat, brutally-ambitious, magocratic society devoted, not to God, but the hoarding of occult knowledge and cosmological mysteries.As a hallmark of hermetic orders and contrasted against the more modern, secular organisations of aetherology that one might find in the likes of Sharlayan, it retains a deeply-ceremonial, ritualistic sense of pageantry and tradition.

Flavour & Atmospheric Guidelines

  • Lore-adjacent, not lore strict. Although the Order is anchored in the lore of Hydaelyn, the writers behind its creation value creativity, artistic license, and flexibility. We still prefer to participate in stories rooted in the world of FFXIV, but given some of the subject matter explored by the very nature of the guild, occasionally our love of worldbuilding and headcanon might not sit well with more staunch fans.

  • You are a Little Guy. The writer behind Oldcross tends towards horror over traditional fantasy, and as such atmosphere and tone is quite important to me! You can be a pretty accomplished wizard, but the Sophists at the top are NPC’s of incomprensibly powerful and near-inhuman wizards you’ve probably never seen and the same goes for much of the upper echelons. We will be inhabiting the lowest rungs of the society, and as such, 'power level' should be kept to mortal limits (caveats for entities), and knowledge should be scarce and frustrating to find.

  • You are a fellow, not an employee. Oldcross is a secret society, not a business or military, and as such is a semi-non-hierarchical system. It has its leaders and ranking members, but you most likely don't have a supervisor or someone regularly giving you orders. You can come and go as you please. No one cares so long as you aren’t spreading their secrets. Ultimately, though, there are a lot of powerful, cutthroat wizards here, and if a ranking member directly tells you to do something, although you can 'technically' ignore the command by the rules of the Order, there’s a fair chance they will not make that a fun experience for you.

  • You want to be here (probably). The vast majority of members desperately want to be part of Oldcross. You bled through your trials to get here because being in the Order means you stand shoulder-to-shoulder with some of the brightest, sharpest, most well-connected and powerful wizards in the known world. That said, there are always exceptions to this, and some people do end up indebted in some way and are forced into servitude by someone. Usually, though, there would be no reason to bring this person into the Order.

  • You can stomach oppression and injustice. Order magi often make use of oppressed species and populations such as sigrots (a kind of arcane-focused subspecies of goblins), golems / simulated life with advanced sentience, and… each other. Ritualistic experimentation on these people also occur.

  • In defense of secrecy. To the general public, the Order does not exist. The body of scholars headquartered at Oldcross House is certainly not an arcane or occult order, but instead a theological society that discusses canon religious law and the interpretation of god's will, nothing more. Postulants are extensively vetted before working through a series of harrowing trials for months just to join the organisation properly, and their secrecy is further enforced by their ruthless 'Doormen.'

The 'Atelier' Conceit

As the Order at Oldcross is far vaster than we could hope to cover in the scope of a role-play project, we are instead focusing on a unit of political power within the organisation known colloquially as an 'atelier,' which is when a person reaches the rank of Knight Philosophus and begins wielding real political power and begins to attract flocks of magi seeking protection and advancement.As a member of the project, you are one of the many fellows who's potential has somehow caught the eye of Knights Philosophus Solomon Page, and have been invited into his atelier with all of the fellows beneath him. This creates an immediate, instant connection for all characters to each other, and if the project grows large enough, I will most likely promote more Philosopha and thereby create more ateliers. This should suffice for now, though. You may read a quick bit of details about your... unusual Philosophus below.

Ser Solomon the Gold

Or Saint Solomon the Redeemer, said sneeringly, with rolling eyes and clicking tongues. He tries so hard to be so good. To give the fresh-faced magi of Oldcross House a chance to try and choose goodness. Too bad, his heart and soul is already stained enough it can't possibly keep another's clean.

Personality & Traits

Arcanima prodigy, but are demonologists meant to be this adorable; will talk your ear off about his interests if you let him; prepare for the deep inhale before he answers even simple questions; prone to wanderlust and uncovering secrets best left buried; oscillates between being a wet noodle; and unexpectedly competent; quietly thinks he’s hot shit (finger guns); protective of his arcane ‘intellectual property’; very driven and passionate but tries not to step on anyone on the way up; sometimes he gets tunnel-visioned; and sometimes things break.Mother is the exarchos of a Sharlayan island; Calamity trauma; likes to keep busy, always finding new projects to work on, rarely stays in one place for any time at all; spent his childhood in warzones so his grasp on morality is skewed, sketchy, and tenuous at best; maybe he never left - in heart, in bones; maybe that’s why arguments leave his hands shaking for hours or why it feels like he’s trying to kill you during them; subtl obsessive tendencies; curiosity will one day kill this cat; he knows this, and he's weirdly fine with it; “everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks on it.”

Quick Facts

  • Occult prodigy with an unhealthy interest in demonology and has a hellish knack for ritual.

  • From a respectable Sharlayan family; his mother is the Forum-appointed Exarchos (governor) of an island in the Northern Empty.

  • Is a graduate and scholar from the Admiralty Academy of Arcanima & Natural Philosophy, where he studied 'Mathematics of Universal Structure' and 'Metaphysical Architecture & Sacred Forms.'

  • Was 14 when the last Calamity hit (mid-20's now), which saw him and his friends enlist in military free companies at the time, cutting his teeth on the arcane in a sundered world.

  • Freislerian Custodialism. Elitist belief that the arcane should be reserved for the best & brightest.

  • Arcane Territorialist. The equivalent of castle law nuts for magic, believing that a wizard should be the sovereign of their 'tower enclosures.' After all, 'since spellwork tends to alter the laws of physics in my domains, I see no reason why it shouldn't alter the laws of the land, too.'

  • Neopractics (Demonology). Ask him about this. Tl;dr: demons are cool, their cultures are fascinating, and they themselves are extremely dangerous and you should not ever try to befriend them.

The 'Goodheart' Doormen

Doormen are the specialised fixers, assistants, agents, and general boogeymen that exist outside the usual structure and primarily serve to keep the secrets of Oldcross... secret; although they technically only answer to the Council of Sophia, the august body that controls the Order's overall direction, the Sophists themselves don't go particularly out of their way to protect them.Solomon Goodheart, a premier Sophist on that council, is the godfather of Ser Solomon Page (it's how his parents chose his given name), and so has a distantly-vested interest in his success. As such, the Doormen specifically in Goodheart's pockets are the ones that players will most likely be dealing with if at all.

SAMUEL HOWLER
NPC

The footman and chaffeur to the vicar of Oldcross. A Doorman among Doormen. There are few things that move in and out of the House without him knowing, and few undertakings by its magi diasporas that he couldn't find out.

ADELINE CROWE
PC

Mister Howler's informal understudy. She doesn't necessarily have his level of charm, but makes up for it in firm fairness and efficiency. Additionally, she's taken an active interest in Ser Page's current endeavours. She's often on the road.

THOMAS & EDNA DROWLEY
NPC

Thomas and Edna Drowley are a package pair of Doormen that act as yet another set of vicarage footmen. Most associates are unsure if their shared last name indicates they're siblings, married, or plain coincidence; they never correct people either way.

ISHME-ANU ILU
PC

Amdapori golem exhibiting phenomenal sentience (with some unusual 'quirks'). Not really a Doorman in any technical sense, more like their occasional helper since his design was built with tonal resonance in mind. Travels with Miss Crowe often.

The Council of Sophia

The Council of Sophia acts as the governing body of the Order and holds biannual meetings within Oldcross House’s Chamber of Magi. This following characters are NPCs, and due to the intense stratification and our emphasis on playing lower-ranking members, most characters will have never met any of them. Further details found on discord server.

SOLOMON GOODHEART

Solomon Goodheart acts as the public face of the organisation and supplies his official, Ishgardian title – the Vicar of Oldcross – to add legitimacy to their actions. Socially, he conducts himself with a kind, genteel nature: always eager to put those around him at ease and in good spirits with soft-spoken sincerity, and always ready to carry himself with the dignity of Oldcross – or to license the many dark deeds necessary to protect it.

HESTER HUXLEY

“I am what the magnanimous Monsieur Goodheart pretends not to be,” thus spoke Lady Huxley to her colleague, Ymbolet Pomeroy, when he asked her, quite sarcastically, who exactly she thought she was that set her above the rules. “That is to say, Monsieur Pomeroy, that I am a wizard– and a damn good one, and as a damn good one, I have learned what every wizard must eventually learn: you can be a good wizard, or a good person. Not both.”

ENGUERRAN CALVET

It is a rare few who ever come face-to-face with God, and that is perhaps a courtesy— one that Enguerran Calvet wishes had been extended to him. Instead, when his curiosity pierced the veil too deeply, it irreparably shattered his mind and left it as the fragmented state it still lingers in today. Only his routine gives him solace: overseeing the Oraculum of Lesions, listening to the pulse and hum of the House. It isn’t a safe place for people, but in some strange, unexplainable way, he says it feels like home.

LUCIUS GENTLE

Quiet and soft-spoken, Monsieur Gentle’s most noteworthy characteristic is the brass lionshead that he always wears, leaving many to question what he’s hiding beneath it. Beyond this, he is considered one of the more helpful Sophists if one manages to catch him out in public, revealing for anyone interested, an encyclopedic knowledge of aetherological rituals in pre-Mhigo Gyr Abania and their contemporary applications.

AURELIUS MAGNUS

Aurelius Magnus likens his tenure with the council to a child buying a new puppy: a Garlean with any magical ability at all is a charming, entertaining diversion, but like the child and the puppy, it’s one they’ll eventually tire of. He is a crotchety, dour perfectionist who finds magitek schematics more personable than most people, and whose origins as an aether-using Garlean remains a mystery to all.

YMBOLET POMEROY

As a knight of Ishgard, Ymbolet Pomeroy sets himself apart from most of his peers, both by nature and choice; he believes most of his peers are moral degenerates. The path that led him into the arms of the Order was the tired tale of the lawman willing to forsake his piety in order to more efficiently persecute wickedness, and one who never realised how he’d walked right into its jaws or how it’s been slowly digesting him for decades.

FERULA WAITE

Age is a nebulous concept within the Council of Sophia. There are few who would expect the kindly (if occasionally crotchety), old Ferula Waite to be one of its youngest members, who still extends her life with their guarded longevity magic, but not her beauty as: "there is little room for being both a wizard and a young woman; no one bothers me now, and I can focus on my work." And no one would question the value of her work: a kind of kinetic magic, utilising bodily movement and dance, to bend, shape, and break reality all around her. She even has a dance studio and a number of promising protégés.

FALAN FILAN

An Ul'dahn magnate, member of the Syndicate, and ceruleum baron, Falan Filan is, like Magnus, an unusual black sheep among the council, and as such has built a long-standing friendship with his peer. Compared to most of the other Sophists, he sees Monsieur Magnus and himself as the only 'down-to-earth' folks compared to the rest who've 'cracked their skulls on the top of the ivory tower.' According to the rumours, he used to work for Godwyn & Smythe before things went south and has been a large source of the order's knowledge on their rival.

The Fronts & Faces

As a secretive organisation, the Order operates under a handful of far more legitimate aliases, including charitable foundations, bureaus of authority, and fellowships. Generally-speaking, any of these can be used for any of our magi at any given point to give a false reason for why they're conducting the work they are. It's best to use the one that makes the most sense to realistically be in the area / covering for the thing you're doing.

THE OLDCROSS THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY

The theological society officially headquartered at Oldcross, it has a long-standing tradition of soft-support for the Holy See and the orthodoxy while establishing itself as both an enthusiastic and compliant body of religious thinkers and astrologians working to debate and further their understanding on the will of God. As a front, this enabled their ability to search for arcane mysteries and secrets under the guise of witchcraft investigations and theocratic authority. Considering the Order's interest and emphasis on Oldcross House, the (led by Vicar Goodheart himself) is often unofficially considered the primary face and headquarters for the order as a whole.

THE PHIL. SOCIETY OF STANDARDISED GRAMMER & RHETORIC

An Eorzean guild with chapter-houses in each of the major city-states on the continent, the Philanthropic Society of Standardised Grammar & Rhetoric visits countless libraries (public, private, and personal) and provides scribe services to copy and make corrections (grammar and academic) as required. The front provides an explanation for travel and an excuse to thumb through libraries for hours on end, many that no one else ever gets to see. If there is a book there that Oldcross would want, they report it and after a long enough time has elapsed, someone will go 'retrieve' it.

THE BUREAU OF CULTURAL OBSERVATION AND PRESERVATION

Although Oldcross House is in Ishgard, many of its influential members are either citizens or who have vested interests in the knowledge capital of Sharlayan. The Bureau has close ties with the Bibliothec as a propaganda machine to ensure that proprietary and national knowledge and rhetoric didn't reach places they didn't want it to. The people behind its conception were either members of the Order, or favours to them, with its real goal to monitor for people trying to spread information on their existence, or knowledge that they'd rather keep to themselves.

THE GOODHEART FOUNDATION

A private, charitable foundation started by the Monsieur Goodheart, it raises money for and directly administers several boarding schools, orphanages, and academies to nurture underprivileged potential... while funnelling that potential into the Order, either through their research, or through recruitment.

THE WORSHIPFUL COMPANY OF DWIMMER-REEVES

Regulated and subsidised by the Eorzean Alliance, Dwimmer-reeves are one of its outsourced solution to arcane problems. Although their most sensational and therefore public reputation tends to be as witch-hunters and magi-jailers, the bulk of their work is quite dull and bureaucratic: going door-to-door to extensively catalogue and licence objects of power and certain, proscribed texts; delivering subpoenas or fine collection notices; and maintaining the sprawling archives that house both of these.

ADMIRALTY ACADEMY OF ARCANIMA & NATURAL PHILOSOPHY

Commonly shortened to the Admiralty Academy of Arcanima or simply 'Triple A' by its students, the Academy is a Lominsan institution of higher learning with close ties to the Admiralty's Navy, Mealvaan's Gate, and the Nymian Restoration Society. The wealthiest or most talented of Vylbrand's arcanist hopefuls attend Triple A as a far more rigorous, prestigious, and thorough understanding of arcanima. Although not a direct front to Oldcross, it provides sizeable donations to it via the Goodheart Foundation, and often uses it to talent scout prospective members.