Dark Brotherhood / HAILSITHIS

The Dark Brotherhood is a guild of professional assassins which historically possessed considerable influence and power, but has since disappeared from all know records. The leader of the Dark Brotherhood was the Night Mother, but now that role has fallen to Ausar the Vile.

Like any organization, the Dark Brotherhood has some rules that all members must abide by, though the demand to adhere to them can vary with the leadership. These interrelated rules are the Five Tenets: members must never dishonor the Night Mother, betray the Dark Brotherhood, disobey or refuse to carry out an order from a superior, steal the possessions of a Dark Brother or Dark Sister, or kill a Dark Brother or Dark Sister. Breaking one of these tenets invokes the Wrath of Sithis, which, it is rumored, is not just a turn of phrase.
The Brotherhood worship the God of the Void – Sithis. However, they see their murders as more of a business, viewing their duty through the lens of economics rather than religion and honor.

The leader of the Dark Brotherhood is the mysterious, elusive Night Mother. Some stories suggest that the current Night Mother is the ghost of the first, who became the wife of Sithis and murdered their five children in his honor. Others say that the title is merely an honorific given to the current leader. Regardless, the most well-known and infamous method of acquiring the services of the Brotherhood is by performing the Black Sacrament, a profane ritual that purportedly allows those who perform it to be heard directly by the Night Mother. The ritual involves stabbing some actual body parts (including a heart, skull, bones and flesh) within a circle of candles using a dagger rubbed with the petals of a Nightshade plant while whispering the plea, “Sweet Mother, sweet Mother, send your child unto me, for the sins of the unworthy must be baptized in blood and fear”. Next in the command hierarchy is the mysterious Black Hand, which is composed of a Listener and four Speakers. The Listener, of course, listens to the Night Mother, and relays her orders to the Speakers, who then dispatch a Brother to make specific arrangements and carry out the murder. Their identities are kept well-hidden, even within the organization.
For much of the Brotherhood’s history, they have had a special relationship with the Xi’An, who form a special sect within the Brotherhood known as the Shadows. Any Shadow who lives to come of age is accepted into the Dark Brotherhood as a full member. If a Shadow deserts the Dark Brotherhood, the penalty is death. Around 2500, however, the tradition apparently died out.

In 2362, the Dark Brotherhood was revitalized when Ausar the Vile forcibly took the mantle of Listener. Unfortunately, no other information is know of Ausar, other than the few sightings of him from 2364, 2630 and 2944, have confirmed that it is the same exact person. The reason for his longevity is unknown, as all agents sent to discover his secret have never returned. It is suspected that Cryo Sleep and other experimental medicine are sustaining his lifespan but no one knows for sure.

[Exert from Siris’s “History of Unorthodox Mercenary Organizations”]