The Hallow Masks

A shadowy network of thieves and spies. They operate as a resistance movement disguised as a criminal enterprise, seeking to undermine the Iron Pact by any means necessary.

• A resistance cell using illusion magic and subterfuge
• Operate from the Warrens and in plain sight as beggars, priests, or traders

The Hollow Masks are not a monolith. They are a fractured, memory-burdened resistance movement with deeply divergent beliefs about freedom, identity, and how to fight the Iron Pact. These differences have led to the rise of splinter cells—cooperating only when necessary, often distrusting one another more than the regime.

HOLLOW MASK SPLINTER FACTIONS

1.  The Lantern Circle (Idealists / Restorers)

Goal: Restore the truth, rebuild pre-Pact culture, and awaken memory without bloodshed
Methods: Espionage, artifact retrieval, encoded memory-teachings, subversive art
Leader: Sister Aelri – former civic cantor, rumored to have flawless memory pre-dating the Pact
Base: Rot-temple beneath the Whispering Warrens, guarded by mirror-wards

"The Pact may own the future, but we remember what was true."

Rivalries:

• Consider Burned Chain anarchists too reckless
  
  
• Distrust Black Echo operatives for using forbidden techniques
  
  

2.  The Burned Chain (Anarchists / “Truth Through Ruin”)

Goal: Dismantle the regime’s structures, violently if needed—burn the lie so truth can rise
Methods: Sabotage, bombings, fireglyphs, false-flag attacks on scrying towers
Leader: Ravos Venn, a former Steel Warden turned executioner of tyrants
Base: Shifting underground weapons caches and reclaimed sewer outposts

"Truth is a pyre. We are the match."

Rivalries:

• Call the Lantern Circle "storytellers pretending it’s not a war"
  
  
• Have assassinated Hollow operatives who leaked ops to avoid civilian casualties
  
  

3.  The Black Echo (Memory Cultists / Psionic Dissidents)

Goal: Fracture the regime’s mind-control network by corrupting memory infrastructure
Methods: Psychic corruption, dream seeding, emotion glyphs, psionic viruses
Leader: Mother Thass, former Clerk of Memory gone rogue after her own brain-split
Base: The Mind Reef, a living glyph-node sunk beneath a collapsed Veilworks tunnel

"If you can’t kill the tyrant, corrupt the memory of his birth."

Rivalries:

• Viewed as dangerous by all other cells, especially after a failed “neural chant” caused a riot of mind-blanked innocents
  
  
• May be secretly infiltrated by Inner Rectitude experiments
  
  

4.  The Forgotten Stitch (Sympathizers / Insider Subverters)

Goal: Quietly re-seed compassion and humanity from inside the system
Methods: Shelter networks, forged identity scrolls, guild infiltration, subtle sabotage
Leader: Calyne Rau, a guild matron believed dead after a purge, now operating under several identities
Base: Disguised as domestic guild quarters and souphouses in Ashclaw

"We patch memory with mercy. One life at a time."

Rivalries:

• Refuse to collaborate with Burned Chain or Black Echo
  
  
• Smuggle resources to the Lantern Circle, but insist on anonymity
  
  

5.  The Unnamed Pack (Lycan-aligned freedom cultists)

Goal: Destroy the regime that hunts them, protect the blood-bound who live beneath
Methods: Guerrilla raids, curse-borne sabotage, blood-oath binding, ritual fury
Leader: The White Maw, a feral highblood who never removes her Hollow Mask
Base: The Flesh Root Den, within the deeper Whispering Warrens

"We wear no names. We are memory without words. We howl, and you remember fear."

Rivalries:

• See all other cells as “civilized ghosts” clinging to lost systems
  
  
• Feared even by Burned Chain; considered barely allies at best
  
  

 INTERNAL TENSIONS & COLLABORATION

They only work together when:

• An Inquisitorial purge threatens all layers of the Warrens
  
  
• A high-value divine relic is discovered
  
  
• A defector or child is at risk from Rectifiers
  
  

 Summary: Hollow Mask Faction Breakdown