Often the Seers’ best leads on magical Artifacts or knowledge come from the Pentacle mages. Because their enemies spent so much time to recovering lost knowledge, the Seers devote many resources to monitoring Pentacle activities and movements in the hope that they will lead the Seers to the treasures.
Seer mages regularly scry on their Pentacle counterparts, hoping to learn about plans to recover lost knowledge.
Whole pylons exist whose sole role is to watch Pentacle cabals and provide information to the order about what the Pentacle knows and what they plan on doing about it.
The Seers also utilize Sleeper resources to keep tabs on what the Pentacle mages are doing and where they are working. Mundane techniques like traffic analysis — the studying of movements or communications — can often provide the Seers with a wealth of information about what the Pentacle mages are planning, especially when combined with magical divination techniques.
Of course, the Pentacle mages are aware of the Seers’ habits through past experience and will often do whatever they can to prevent the Seers from learning anything. Scrying spells are often traced back to the casters, so the Seers have to be exceptionally careful to ensure they remain hidden from the Pentacle mages sight.
If the Seers learn that the Pentacle mages are close to uncovering lost knowledge or Artifacts, then they often summon incredible resources to prevent their enemies from succeeding. Senior Seers will often call in favors from other pylons to summon enough Seer resources to be able to either beat the Pentacle mages to the treasure if possible, or to attack them and take it from them if they cannot.
Regardless of the actual plan, the Seers know they need to move fast once the Pentacle starts to move, as there is only a limited window in which the Artifact or knowledge is in the open. If they do not move quickly enough, the Pentacle mages are usually able to get the item back into hiding in their own Athenea, and safely out of the Seers hands.
Many senior Seers place a high degree of emphasis on the disruption of Pentacle plans. The rewards for success in such missions are usually high, and many Seer careers have been advanced by taking an Atlantean Artifact from the hands of the Pentacle orders at the moment of victory.
However, the penalties for failure are often severe, and many Seer careers have been ruined by failing to stop the Pentacle mages from acquiring an Artifact.
The Seers place so much emphasis on recovering Artifacts before the Pentacle that they often encourage Seer mages to sacrifice their own lives to ensure that the mission is a success.
Despite the relative scarceness of Seer mages, they are worth less
in the greater scheme than an Artifact; an Artifact has much more potential to do more damage to the Exarchs and their plans than a single Seer mage has to help them. The Exarchs can always provide the order with a new mage to replace the ones that die in the service of the order. This is particularly true of the lower-ranked members of the order, who are most likely to receive an order that may be tantamount to suicide
However, the Seers are taught not to just throw their lives away needlessly. If the order cannot recover the Ar-tifacts themselves, then it is acceptable to destroy them by whatever means is possible. The Seers believe that if they cannot have the Artifacts, then no one can. The use of Sleepers to destroy the Artifacts through disbelief is often highly recommended in such cases.
Because of this encouragement, the penalties for com-ing back from a mission empty-handed is often worse than death: numerous stories abound of Seer mages having their souls torn out by furious superiors. Seer mages often try to avoid these missions whenever they can because they know that such things can either make or break their careers as Seers, if not their lives.
Praxis: Destroy the Pentacle
A magical cold war exists around the world between the Seers of the Throne and the Pentacle orders. Neither side really has the upper hand, although both sides like to claim that they do.The Seers believe they hold the real power within the Fallen World because they have the power of the Exarchs behind them, while the Pentacle maintains it has the upper hand because they are not slaves to the will of some unseen overlords.
However, neither side has yet managed to muster enough resources or magic to destroy the other. Over the past several millennia, the conflict has raged across the globe, with many thousands of mages being destroyed in the process, along with untold masses of magical knowledge and Artifacts.
Still, the Seers of the Throne consider destroying the Pentacle orders as one of their three primary missions and many of the order’s members devote their lives to helping bring about the complete triumph of the Exarchs and their mortal servants. Few of them are naïve enough to believe they are going to see the goal completed within their life-times; after all, if the struggle has been continuing since the Fall of Atlantis, it is sheer foolishness to believe that it is going to be concluded in the foreseeable future.
The Seers believe that, given the chance, most of the Pentacle orders would like to recreate the Celestial Ladder and take back the Supernal Realms from the Exarchs. Most of the Pentacle mages rail at the lack of magic within the Fallen World and the fact that the amount of magical power in the world decreases every year.
There are exceptions to this rule; the Guardians of the Veil sometimes form unwitting allies for the Seers in the struggle to prevent the Pentacle mages from trying to bridge the Abyss. In many ways, the Guardians and the Seers are
much closer in their thinking than the Guardians are with the other Pentacle orders. Even more strangely, much of the direct peaceful contact between the Seers and the Pentacle usually involves a Guardian mage.
The Seers of the Throne cannot afford to let the Pentacle orders get any stronger, as it would put the Exarchs’ rule at risk, as well as putting their own privileged positions in jeopardy. The Seers need to maintain their current roles to maintain the current status quo.
If the Pentacle orders were to gain too much power, they may find themselves in a position to interfere with the Seers work. At present, the Seers are able to hide much of their influence from the Pentacle’s sight, allowing them to continue to manipulate the Fallen World for their own gain. Should the Pentacle mages be able to gain more power, they may be able to find a way to narrow the Abyss, which would ultimately end in more Awakenings.
The Seers need to keep a close eye on the Pentacle’s interests.
By watching what the Pentacle mages do and who they talk
to, Seer mages can get a clear picture of what their targets are planning, especially if they use magic to supplement the mundane intelligence gathering.
If the Seers are able to divine what the Pentacle mages are working on, they have a much better chance of being able to either disrupt those plans completely, or perhaps even subverting the outcome so that it benefits the Seers and the Exarchs, rather than the result that the Pentacle mages were looking for.
This is not always possible; more often than not the Seers are not able to completely disrupt the Pentacle’s plans. However, any spanner they can throw in the works is often beneficial as it means that the Pentacle mages are not able to complete their plans as successfully as they would have otherwise been able to. Keeping a close eye on the Pentacle operation means that the Pentacle mages need to devote time and energy to keeping things hidden, which often means they do not have as much time and energy to devote to bring the plans completely to fruition.
Wherever possible, the Seers need to interfere with the Pentacle’s plans as subtly as possible. Seer resources are often spread too thinly to be able to launch a full-scale frontal as-sault, and doing so would often raise too much Sleeper interest, particularly if the plan is taking place in an urban area.
Instead, the Seers need to be careful when disrupting Pentacle operations. By carefully manipulating the Pentacle thinking, it’s possible for the Seers to get the Pentacle mages themselves to derail their own plans.
One of the Seer’s favorite tactics is to find out when par-ticular Pentacle mages are going to be meeting, and then find a way to detain one of them, so that a Seer mage can go to the meeting instead, posing as a Pentacle mage. In this way
— particularly if the Seer knows enough about the Pentacle plans to be convincing — the Pentacle mages will willingly hand over information or even magical knowledge to the Seers. This tactic can backfire spectacularly if the Pentacle mage suspects something is amiss and is able to penetrate any magical disguises that the Seers are using. However, the fact that most mages are paranoid about sharing too much information means that they are often willing to believe the worst and this is a weakness the Seers can exploit.
By carefully monitoring what the Pentacle mages are doing, the Seers of the Throne can often determine what their enemies are currently working on. If they can do this in a timely matter, it’s possible for the Seers to start feeding the Pentacle false information that will either disrupt their plans, or even lead them to outright failure.
If the Pentacle mages are doing research, the Seers will often create false evidence and get it into the Pentacle hands, or they will let slip that they know something about whatever their enemies are researching. By tying up valuable Pentacle resources chasing false leads, the Seers can either grab the object of the Pentacle’s searches for themselves, or they can just cause enough disruption that the Pentacle plans fail to come to fruition.
Subverting the Pentacle order contacts, both in the Awakened and Sleeper worlds, is a priority for Seer ma-ges. Convincing Sleepers that a Pentacle mage is a threat is often easier than turning mages against one another, although the latter is by no means impossible, especially with carefully planning.
Lies and rumors are relatively easy to start, particularly if they come from an anonymous source and have a degree of truth about them. The Seers have found that taking an existing story and providing a person with a different interpretation of the same facts is often all that is required to let the pessimistic side of the listener’s mind take over and conjure the worst possible conclusion.
Technology provides a means for Seers to interfere with Pentacle mages. By spoofing electronic communications, they can convince their targets that messages can come from trusted sources. In some cases, the messages do come from the machines of trusted sources; it’s just that the Seers were controlling the technology at the time the message was sent.
Digitally or even magically fabricated evidence is also highly useful to convince a target that something else is going on.
The Seers of the Throne highly prize spies within the Pentacle orders. These turncoat mages are usually the great-est resources the Seers have for learning what the Pentacle orders are doing. As it is in the Sleeper world, information from an inside source is an exceptionally valuable resource when keeping tabs on your enemies.
The risks for a Seer spy are enormous. Mage orders are notoriously paranoid to begin with, so anyone who betrays those secrets is going to be severely punished if they are caught, particularly if they are caught by the Guardians of the Veil.
However, with the power of the Exarchs behind them, the Seers can often make extremely tempting offers to Pentacle mages. The Seers normally target mages who are disgruntled with the order politics, or ones who bear grudges against other mages. The Seers will offer to help — usually through Sleeper intermediaries, but occasionally directly
— often doing the target mage favors to convince them of their “honesty”. If the target mage takes the bait, they are slowly lured into revealing more and more secrets.
Some Pentacle mages offer information willingly as a means of revenge against slights real or perceived, without realizing they are selling out their order. The Seers are always on the lookout for mages who, in a fit of rage are looking for an easy way to get revenge. By providing the mage with the resources or information he needs, the Seers can buy his trust, which they can later exploit.
The Seers of the Throne know there is as much tension between the Pentacle orders as there is between the Seer Ministries. Because of this, the Seers often work in an area to create situations that act like metaphysical hand grenades: things that different Pentacle orders will react very differently to based on their individual biases.
For example, a Seer pylon might deliberately upset the spirits within a city area, causing them to lash out at the lo-cal Sleeper population. When the Pentacle mages begin to investigate and attempt to settle the spirits down, the Seers can manipulate some of the local Sleepers to interfere with the Pentacle spell casting, thus causing Paradox. The local Guardians of the Veil attempt to punish the offending mages and they demand that the Mysterium release an Artifact from the local Atheneum to help solve the spirit problem. This in turn will annoy the Mysterium mages, who are loath to let any of their Artifacts out of the secure storehouse.
For these sorts of tactics to be effective, the Seers need to be intimately familiar with the local Pentacle power bases, and learn what the trigger points for each of the local orders are. This can often take years of careful observation and probing, but the Seers believe that the end result is worth the time investment.
The conflict between the Seers of the Throne and the Pentacle mages is perpetually fought in secret. The Seers want to maintain the Lie and keep the Sleepers ignorant of
magic’s very existence, while the Pentacle orders are afraid that Sleeper disbelief could invoke Paradox and widen the Abyss. Because of this, both sides try to keep any magical conflicts out of the public eye.
In most cases, this is not a problem. Most searches for Atlantean lore and Artifacts takes place in remote, largely uninhabited corners of the world. The few Sleepers in those areas makes it easier for the mages of both sides to work a little more openly, although the Seers still prefer to work from behind the scenes to disrupt the Pentacle plans wherever possible.
In larger, more populated areas, the risk of discovery is too great, forcing a much more subtle conflict. If magic is used in the struggle, it’s usually covert magic, so that the Sleepers in the area are not bludgeoned by impossible happenings. The risk of a Paradox creating an Abyssal in-trusion is often too great to make the risk of vulgar magic in a public place worthwhile.
Occasionally, an uneasy truce is declared between the Seers and the Pentacle orders in a particular region. This often happens in large metropolitan centers, where neither side has the upper hand. In cities such as London, the two sides dance around each other, but do not take action that could escalate into a full-blown mage war. Both sides know that the danger is too high should that occur.
This is not to say that the areas go without interactions between the two sides. The Seers will continue to monitor the Pentacle activity and continue attempting to subvert the Pen-tacle’s plans in that area. The Pentacle mages also continue to undermine the Seers control and work to narrow the Abyss.
In some very rare cases, the two sides will actually work together to oppose a common threat. Such periods of peace are usually only brought about by the most extreme circum-stances, such as a major Abyssal intrusion, or an extremely powerful Banisher working in the region. However, such cooperation never lasts long, and usually breaks apart as soon as the threat is neutralized. Both sides will try to use the break in hostilities to maneuver themselves into a more favorable position of power within the region, so they will have the upper hand once things return to normal. Communication between the two sides is usually through trusted emissaries, often Sleepwalkers, so that no magical compulsion can be used to interfere with the other side.
Convincing a Pentacle mage to betray their order and join the Seers of the Throne is looked upon very favorably by the order. While the Seers try to prevent Awakenings wherever possible, they realize that without new members, the order will collapse. Gaining new members by recruiting newly Awakened mages is one method, but the Seers are fond of working on a Pentacle mage’s beliefs until they learn that opposing the Exarchs is folly and giving in to the will of their Supernal overlords is really the only sensible course of action.
Ex-Pentacle mages give the Seers a better understanding of the internal workings of the Pentacle orders, as well as the plans of the Consillium to which the mage belonged.
Shortly after joining the Seers of the Throne, an ex-Pentacle
mage will be extensively debriefed so that the Seers may learn everything they can from them.
However, such mages rarely rise too far within the order, as they are never fully trusted by their new order. On occa-sion, mages have appeared to have surrendered their will to the Exarchs, and yet have been working as double agents for the Pentacle orders, hoping to destroy the Seers from the inside. It takes many years for an ex-Pentacle mage to earn even a moderate amount of trust within the Seers, and mostly they are relegated to the middle tiers of the order.
However, such mages rarely rise too far within the order, as they are never fully trusted by their new order. On occa-sion, mages have appeared to have surrendered their will to the Exarchs, and yet have been working as double agents for the Pentacle orders, hoping to destroy the Seers from the inside. It takes many years for an ex-Pentacle mage to earn even a moderate amount of trust within the Seers, and mostly they are relegated to the middle tiers of the order.