Secret Societies of Athas - Eazim Taghia

Secret Societies are simply societies that conceal their activities from outsiders. The Veiled Alliance and the Order are two major examples of secret societies on Athas. Even the Merchant Houses can be considered secret societies, in some aspects, because they hide many of their activities from others. Other secret societies can, and should, exist in your own games.

Secret Societies have ratings based upon their wealth, influence, size, and secrecy. All of these ratings, except for size, has a rating of one through twelve. One is a low rating and twelve is a high rating. The ratings may change for each of the city-states and various settlements.

The ratings are to give the dungeon master an idea of how powerful a secret society is. Although, if a dungeon master wishes, they can roll a d12, to determine if the secret society is capable of an action. For example, if a dungeon master thinks the secret society would want to hire a band of assassins, to take care of a group of meddling adventurers, the dungeon master may roll a d12 and consult the secret society's wealth rating. A roll lower than the rating is a success and the secret society is able to afford to hire the assassins.

Wealth is how much money the secret society may call upon to meet their ends.
Influence is how much pull the secret society has on the local government.
Size is the number of members and employees the secret society has. Employees may not realize that they are working for a secret society.
Secrecy is how well the society remains hidden from the common people of a city-state or settlement.

Below is an example of a secret society.

Eazim Taghia
Tyrian Secret Society
Wealth: 10
Influence: 9
Size: 12 members, 32 employees.
Secrecy: 10

After the death of Kalak, a lot of once powerful people in Tyr found themselves far less powerful and far less wealthy. They despise the new government and seek to return to the way things used to be. They seek to accomplish this by resurrecting the Tyrant of Tyr himself.
Eazim Taghia, which is Tyrian for Great Tyrant, is mostly made up of former templars and a few nobles. Many of the members continue to work within the Tyrian government. However, many of them thought things would go back to the normal, after Kalak's death, and were caught off guard when that did not happen.
The main goal of the Eazim Taghia is to resurrect Kalak. However, they are not above making the lives of those who killed Kalak miserable. Their goal is to seek out a powerful magic user to bring back Kalak, but finding someone powerful enough, who does not have a vested interest in seeing the Tyrant stay dead, is proving very difficult.
The members of Eazim Taghia meet bi-monthly, but have ways of arranging emergency meetings. During these meetings, the members wear masks, full robes, and use false names. Every member knows every other member, but Eazim Taghia fears eavesdropping, magical, psionic, or mundane. These meetings are held to update the other members on their progress, or to target anyone who continues to encourage the democratizing of Tyr.
There is no official single leader of Eazim Taghia, but everyone recognizes Dyan Syda as the head of the group. Dyan sits on the Tyrian council and appears to be nonchalant about his position. In reality, Dyan uses his allies on the council to push the agenda of Eazim Taghia.
Dyan Syda is a tenth level psioicist, telepath, and has recently begun studying defiling magic. He believes, with this new power, he can resurrect the Tyrant of Tyr and return to a better time. Dyan is evil and does not care about anyone, but himself and his noble house. 

Working for Eazim Taghia

Eazim Taghia may agree to hire adventurers for missions involving destabilizing the current democratic structure of the Tyrian government. This might include organizing raids against Tyrian client villages, orchestrating a protest against the Tyrian government, orchestrating a protest against democratic laws, or assassinating the enemies of Eazim Taghia. Anything that causes chaos in the city, will assist the government in solidifying control, as people will call for order to be restored.

Working against Eazim Taghia

Although the exact organization is well concealed, it is known that there are certain nobles and templars that would like to see Kalak, or another tyrant, reappear. Some noble families and the Veiled Alliance would like to oppose this. The adventurers may be hired to drive off raiders near Tyrian client villages, act as a guard force within the city, or as bodyguards for pro-democratic nobles. Anything that the adventurers can do to keep the peace or support democracy, is in opposition to Eazim Taghia.

If the adventurers work to interfere with Eazim Taghia too often, they will be targeted for assassination. Eazim Taghia always hires assassins anonymously and it should prove extremely difficult to discover that a secret society is behind the assassination attempts. A group of adventurers could trace the assassins to a single noble, or templar, member Eazim Taghia, but it is extremely unlikely that noble, or templar, would divulge the existence of the secret society. 

If a member of Eazim Taghia betrays the secret society, they will be targeted by the remaining members for death. The lone individual will not be the only one targeted, but their families and allies as well. It is unknown if this is enough of a threat, as no member of Eazim Taghia's loyalty has been tested.