White Cult
The White Cult is a resistance group operating in Avelax which has a reputation for ruthlessness and amorality. Even most members of other resistance groups take issue with the Cult, feeling that they do as much damage to innocents as to the onirarchs, and that in perpetrating such atrocities it may turn people against the resistance in general, and hurt the overall cause. Such antagonism does nothing to deter the White Cult, and in fact many of its members take pride in the fact that other resistance groups oppose them, feeling that it shows that the White Cult members are the only ones with the courage and willpower to be willing to take the drastic measures that will be necessary to bring down the onirarchies once and for all.
While the name of the Cult may imply religious overtones, in fact the Cult as a group holds no particular religious beliefs. Certainly individual members may choose to worship gods, and the White Cult does nothing to discourage this, but it does nothing to encourage it either, but the Cult as an organization neither affirms nor supports any god or doctrine. Apparently the Cult's founders chose the word simply because of its connotations as something against normal society, and potentially dangerous. The reasons why it is called the White Cult are more obscure; some Cult members have claimed that the white represents bone, and by association death, but this may very well be a post hoc invention.
Organization
Like most such resistance groups on Dadauar, the White Cult is organized into a number of different cells, most members of which are familiar only with the other members of their own cell and have little knowledge of any Cult members outside them. In the case of the White Cult, the cells are known as "covens", in keeping with the group's nomenclatorial theme. Covens are grouped into larger assemblages called "synods"; the leaders of each coven will generally know the leaders of the other covens within the same synod. The overall leader of the White Cult is known as the Hierophant; the Cult is secretive enough about the Hierophant's identity that it isn't even certain whether there is a single Hierophant or a number of individuals working together. The Hierophant does occasionally appear before other Cult members, but always in a white hooded robe, and speaking in a modified voice.
Outside the standard hierarchy of the Cult are certain individuals known as Inquisitors. Each Inquisitor reports directly to the leader of a particular coven or synod, and usually knows no other members of the White Cult—nor do any other members of the Cult know him. The Inquisitors deal more in stealth and subterfuge than other Cult members, and are sent on missions of particular delicacy or difficulty for which their unique talents suit them. They also act as the Cult's internal police, seeking out and silencing any dissent or deception within the ranks of the organization.
History
Though the White Cult is not forthcoming about its history, apparently less because it feels the need to be secretive about it than because it just isn't interested in preserving it, there are some facts that have been reasonably well established. The Cult seems to have been originally founded two hundred years ago in the eastern part of the Free Republic of Avelax, in the city of Pellers in the district of Mehenna. There were three founders, two brothers named Anavern and Blache Garen and a friend named Jioni Nane, who started by wreaking a little havoc on their own before attracting followers to help them. All three of them were very young when they started the Cult—Nane, the oldest, had just turned seventeen when the Cult was officially founded—and few of their initial followers were much older than they are. Still, as the organization showed success—and as its founders themselves aged—it began to attract older members as well. Charismatic and adaptable, the three founders kept considerable power in the White Cult throughout their lives. According to some rumors, Blache Garen serves the Cult still as some sort of undead being.
In any case, within the founders' lifetime the Cult had already spread throughout most of the FRA and made inroads into K'eng and T'in. With its increased power, however, the Cult accumulated more enemies and more resistance to its activities, which no doubt slowed its growth somewhat. Still, over the next century or so, these further solidified until the Cult had enough members to be a force to reckon with all over most of Avelax.
Tactics
While other resistance groups may cause considerable property damage, and many have no compunctions about killing the onirarchs and their servants, the White Cult goes far beyond them in specifically seeking to do as much damage and death as possible, fighting the onirarchies through terrorism and wanton violence. Collateral damage is, to the White Cult, a meaningless concept; no price is too high to pay to thwart the onirarchies. In order to destroy a building important to the onirarchs, the Cult will not hesitate to attack an entire block and kill thousands of innocent citizens. At times, in fact, the Cult specifically focuses on killing civilians, to deplete the onirarchs' workforce or just to show that the Cult is serious. This, however, is rare; more often the deaths of innocent citizens are a mere side effect of the Cult's actual goals. Still, whether intentional or just consequential, the deaths caused by the Cult are just as lamentable.
The Cult's main tools are those of death and destruction. They favor explosives, to devastate both life and property, but they have also resorted to poisons, to acids, and to more unusual means and magics. Nothing is taboo to them, if they can find a way to use it to discomfit the onirarchs; members of the White Cult have dabbled in pall magic and dealt with mares and bengorres, and at least once summoned a huge deep ooze into the center of a major city.
Recruitment
Though some people with antisocial tendencies seek out the Cult on their own (and run the usual risk of being discovered and eliminated by agents of the onirarchs first), the White Cult does aggressively work to impress new members into their ranks. When someone comes to the attention of a Cult leader who seems disaffected with the onirarch and to have the sort of violent mindset the Cult finds useful, Cult representatives will abduct the prospective member and invite him to join their ranks. While the "recruiters" give the impression that the enlistee has a free choice, however, in reality anyone turning down the Cult's offer will be immediately done away with, usually killed but in some cases possibly petrified or otherwise transformed, or translocated to some distant place, according to the Cult members' whims.
Those who do accept the Cult's offer and are inducted into the organization's ranks are initially kept on a tight leash, sent out on missions of destruction under strict supervision, and usually with enchantments placed to make sure they can be quickly eliminated at any sign of betrayal. Only on the successful completion of a number of tasks will a new member be trusted, or as trusted as any members of the White Cult trust each other. The number of missions necessary to reach this status is not fixed, and depends on the nature of the missions and on just how the other Cult members feel in general about the new recruit.
Relations
The White Cult has no shortage of enemies. Even most other resistance groups consider them a danger perhaps on par with the onirarchies, and of course the onirarchs hold them in no more favor than they do any othe resistance group. They fare no better among the common folk, to whom the Cult, if it's known at all, is feared as a bogeyman that may strike without reason or warning and kill or worse. Indeed, so nearly universally loathed is the Cult that on occasion, when one of its schemes has come to light, onirarchs and resistance groups have called a temporary truce and worked together to stop them.
Nevertheless, the Cult is not entirely without support or allies. A few other desperate resistance groups, or individual members of other groups, do aid the Cult, perhaps not entirely in favor of its methods but rationalizing that any enemy of the onirarchs is an ally of theirs. Some wealthy individuals have funneled money to the Cult for similar reasons. Even some onirarchs have secretly supported the Cult, either in the hopes of directing them to do more damage to rival oniriarchies, or on the theory that the Cult's extremism will turn the populace against the resistance in general and hinder its operations. Taherin, in particular, has often abetted the Cult's operations for exactly these reasons, and has a fairly elaborate structure in operation to assist the Cult with its work. Perhaps the most powerful individual allies of the Cult, however, are two gods, Ovalka and Qian, who approve of the Cult's work, and sustain the organization both through the gods' servants and in rare cases directly.