Disclaimer: The following document fragment is presented from an in-character perspective, it should not be taken as the truth of the setting.
Context: Previously I’ve presented lore explaining the two biggest magic guilds in the world. Today comes time for the third one. The primarily North-America based Arkham Institute. A tribute to one of my sources of inspiration. The history of this guild doesn’t bode well for its future. But that is how things are, everything changes over time, guilds come and go too.
In the modern age, the Arkham Institute stands as the third biggest Guild in the world. With only the Secret of Secrets and the Mofu boasting more active members as of the 2015 census.
However, the Institute finds itself in a very different situation than the other two guilds – in the next few years it may cease to exist. We are here to explore this situation and to examine the past, present and future of this Guild.
The Arkham Institute splintered off from the Secret of Secrets in the XVIII century. At that time, the latter was the biggest unified Guild in the world. The Mofu had not yet formed, and the East was still splintered between dozens of smaller organisations. The mages of America, primarily existing on the fringe of the Secret’s interests, to begin with, sought to form their own Guild, something more suited to their situation and newly developing culture.
The catalyst for this newly forming Guild became a cabal of mages called the Pentagrammaton, or ΕΦΑΣΔ. This cabal exists to this day, though it is currently more often referred to as Ephialside. We shall return to this. At the time, this cabal was both affluent and respected. The name itself comes from the five virtues the cabal allegedly adhered to (though as it often is, their actual conduct was far from perfect). Secrecy, prudence, fortitude, temperance and justice, or echemýtheia, phrónēsis, andreía, sōphrosýnē and dikaiosýnē, thus ΕΦΑΣΔ.
When the Institute structured itself, initially calling itself the Order of the New World, the Pentagrammaton embedded itself into the core of the Guild, essentially structuring it around the cabal. In the upcoming century, the Guild grew in number, finding its members among the mages intertwined with the intellectual elites of the young United States of America. It was during this time Arkham became their seat of power, or more specifically the University of Miskatonic. With the new headquarters for the Guild came a name change and by this time, the Pentagrammaton cabal no longer existed, dissolving into the organisational structure of the Institute.
It is as the Arkham Institute that the Guild managed to cement its place as the third-largest mage organisation, but also gain its reputation for being open-minded and flexible. Whereas the Secret of Secrets became lost in its own occult traditions and the bureaucratic rigour of Mofu stifles their progress, the Institute was largely free from either of the two extremes.
This period, lasting until about 1950 was the golden era for the Guild. Even though some controversy sparked from time to time about the publishing practices of the Institute. In particular, objections raised towards the lax standards of the publishing house, suggesting that it was willing to put to print tomes that would not be accepted in any “reputable” publisher. Though the Secret of Secrets represented a sizable portion of the critics, the most stalwart resistance came from within the Institute, from the older mages that dated back to its academic days, and in some cases, were members of the Pentagrammaton before it’s silent disbandment.
It’s difficult to pinpoint an exact date for when ΕΦΑΣΔ was revived, this time under the more modern reading of Ephialside, a butchering of the Greek letters from which the name Pentagrammaton came. This new incarnation of the old cabal wasn’t the old blood. Instead, it presents itself as a spiritual successor to the beliefs of the old organisation. It further claimed that the Pentagrammaton of old betrayed its ideals and that the Institute required reform. An examination of this movement at the time revealed it to be an eclectic collection of more senior mages and young initiates, in a way becoming a counter-culture for mages that felt the Institute was slowly becoming America’s own Secret of Secrets.
Since then, and into the 2000s the new movement and various similar counter-culture Cabals gained more and more power within the old halls of the Miskatonic. From the outside, this was perceived as a further drop in the quality of the publisher associated with it. More and more printed books were written by and for inexperienced mages, often presenting a sensationalised vision of the eldritch truths they spoke of. The Ephialside, though still present, became sidelined with various new movements and cabals destabilising the Institute from inside.
Thus in the 2010s, though the Guild itself has more members than ever before, its political and arcane power dwindles with each year of internal unrest. Many of the experienced and accomplished mages moved back to re-establish an alliance with their European roots and joining the North American branch of the Secret of Secrets. The Institute, now ran primarily by a young blood cadre struggles with its in-house affairs, as many different movements try to push it in opposing directions.
In the current situation, the next decade may bring two possible outcomes for the Institute. It will either remain a diverse and welcoming but internally fractured and politically impotent Guild, retaining its status due to the high number of young mages entering its ranks, or it will splinter. The latter possibility may reshape the political landscape of the whole world, pushing a different guild (most likely not one derived from the Institute) into the number three position. More importantly, however, such a change might give each of the conflicting forces within it, a chance to establish a firmer foothold and put resources towards their specific goals and aspirations.
These new Guilds should form from the strongest branches within the current Institute, of which there are three notable ones. The first is a group rallying around the ideology of Ephialside – a humanist movement of mages that has very strong pro-Norma leanings. The second is the Reconstructionist Movement – a loose but numerous collection of mages studying the lost American magical traditions. The third and most politically powerful potential splinter group would be the United Masonic Lodges.
However, in the end, in the case of the Institute falling apart, a large portion of its members will become unaligned or form small, insular guilds dedicated to their particular interests.
Further on, we’ll examine the history of each mentioned group in more detail.
Esoteric Musings... 