THE POWERS · THE NORTHERN REACH

The Stillwater Order

Ascetic monks and the unarmed player's door — the one faction whose answer to a grasping, collapsing world is to want nothing, owe nothing, and so be beholden to no power. In years when every other power is bought, the Order is the only voice no one can buy.

Be still water; let the world's storms pass through you, the Order teaches. While the houses scheme, the companies sell their swords, and the desperate grab for whatever's left, the Stillwater monks empty themselves of want until there is nothing in them for fear or greed or grief to take hold of. They take no side and own almost nothing, which makes them everyone's conscience and no one's ally — the only people who can tell House Vandahl or the Gaunt Ledger the truth to their faces, because they want nothing those powers can give or take. They fight with empty hands and a calm that unnerves louder men. Their hardest discipline is keeping their own: brothers who go chasing the power they renounced are how the Order loses people to worse things.

KIND

guild

PLAYSTYLE

monk

HEADQUARTERS

The Stillwater

LEADER

Master Oén of the Empty Cup

Connected

The StillwaterPLACE · The Order keeps the monastery above the Karth.Master Oén of the Empty CupCHARACTER · Oén is Master of the Empty Cup.The Stillwater StanceCONCEPT · The empty-handed discipline they teach.The Wright's ShardITEM · Their answer to the relic is to want nothing it offe…The Wandering CupsFACTION · The mendicant road wing.The DrownedFACTION · The heresy born inside the Order.

Type Fields

kindguild

playstylemonk

skillsMartial Arts, Acrobatics

headquartersplace.the-stillwater

leadercharacter.master-oen

joinableyes

relic_stancerefuse — want nothing the relic or any power offers, and none of it can move you

cellsthe Stillwater proper (meditative masters), the Wandering Cups (mendicant teaching monks), the Drowned (a heresy of brothers who went chasing the power they swore off, and were lost to it)

signature_techniqueconcept.the-stillwater-stance

ranks{"name":"Cup","unlocks":"the Empty Cup discipline's first lesson; a mat at the monastery; Unarmed basics"}, {"name":"Brother","unlocks":"the Stillwater stance; Unarmed & Acrobatics training"}, {"name":"Stillhand","unlocks":"Athletics training; walk the roads as a Wandering Cup"}, {"name":"Master","unlocks":"face the echoes and stay empty; master the stance"}, {"name":"Empty Cup","unlocks":"the wayshrines; teach the stance to others"}, {"name":"Deepwalker","unlocks":"sit a vigil where the echoes ring loudest"}, {"name":"Tarn-Walker","unlocks":"the cold-tarn rites; the monastery's inner court"}, {"name":"Wave-Stiller","unlocks":"still a roused echo by presence alone"}, {"name":"Still-Lord","unlocks":"speak for the Order to any of the five powers"}, {"name":"The Tideless","unlocks":"want nothing the world can offer — the one hand that can call any power to account"}

goalsMaster the self past the reach of fear and want, Owe nothing to any power, Keep the Order's own from being lost to what they renounced

valuesemptiness, discipline, independence

axis_profile{"ambition":0.4,"mercy":-0.5,"method":0.3,"tradition":-0.2}

disputes{"name":"The Master's Bed","summary":"Master Oén is dying and will not name a successor — the refusal itself is a last lesson nobody at the tarn agrees on the meaning of. Some brothers hold the Order should choose by vigil, as it always has; others whisper that Oén means for there to BE no next master, and that the whisper is either enlightenment or the Order's death.","sides":["choose by vigil (the Order continues)","honor the refusal (no next master; the teaching walks out on the roads)"]}, {"name":"The Cup and the Road","summary":"The Wandering Cups walk the Vale and teach; the tarn-brothers keep the monastery and the long vigils. Every hard year the road-wing grows and the tarn empties a little more — and the old brothers ask what an order that owes nothing owes to a world that is drowning.","sides":["the road (the teaching belongs to the drowning world)","the tarn (the stillness is the teaching; spend it and it's gone)"]}

All Relationships (16)

located_in

→The Stillwater — The Order keeps the monastery above the Karth.
→Highbridge — The Still Room — the org keeps its capital seat at Highbridge (TownLore seating edge).
→Siltmouth — The Stillwater Order keeps a seat/branch at Siltmouth.
→Dustmere Hollow — The Stillwater Order keeps a seat/branch at Dustmere Hollow.
→The Underbridge — The Stillwater Order keeps a cloister in the Underbridge.

leads

←Master Oén of the Empty Cup — Oén is Master of the Empty Cup.

references

→The Stillwater Stance — The empty-handed discipline they teach.
→The Wright's Shard — Their answer to the relic is to want nothing it offers.

member_of

←The Wandering Cups — The mendicant road wing.
←The Drowned — The heresy born inside the Order.
←Brother Wick — An Order monk.
←Sexton Arnu — Arnu is a Stillwater Order sexton.
←Brother Cael of the Wandering Cups — Cael took the Stillwater vow of wandering three years ago and has walked the roads since, teaching the empty hand and worrying about his own wanting.

enemy_of

←The Drowned Fangs — The Fangs drown travellers the Stillwater monks would shelter; the Order names them the drowned-water's worst children.

expressed_in

←The Five Elements — The Stillwater Order is Water stilled — the flowing made still, not stopped but calmed to its most receptive state. The empty hand is Water that has stopped trying to cut.

owns

→The Still Room — The org's Highbridge seat: The Still Room.

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