The Chosen
The Chosen
The Chosen are an organization of people who possess unusual powers and who have chosen to work together to influence events for what they believe is the betterment of the world.
The organization was founded roughly fifty years before the Under the Bus campaign by a group of Chosen who discovered one another through the development of their abilities. They believed that people with these powers were uniquely positioned to help others and that they could accomplish more by working together.
By the time of Under the Bus, the Chosen had grown to more than 300 members and had developed into a large, organized institution with military, historical, exploratory, recruiting, and political functions.
The Founders
The original founders were nine men and women:
Four of the founders—Jessenth, Angar, Stegner, and Serianne—were dead by the time the party learned the history of the organization.
The Traveler had left the Chosen simply because remaining with an organization was contrary to his nature.
Samos had also left the organization, eventually becoming the Priest-King and leader of the Church of Demmazon.
The remaining founders at the time the party was recruited were Effron, Eritrea, and Quentin.
Purpose
The Chosen believe that people with their abilities have a responsibility to use them for the betterment of the world.
Their stated purpose is not simply to fight monsters or other obvious threats. They seek to influence events on a much broader scale, including history, politics, exploration, and the development of communities.
This philosophy has led them to involve themselves in the affairs of governments and other organizations, sometimes without openly identifying themselves as the force behind those decisions.
That practice eventually became one of the major sources of conflict within the organization.
Divisions
By the time of Under the Bus, the Chosen had developed several specialized divisions.
Military Division
The military division is responsible for defending the Chosen and for conducting operations against tangible threats, including the orcs.
The Chosen maintained trained forces and a substantial armory at the Tower of Plinth. Their military forces also participated in the campaign against Trondhammen alongside the Knights of Demmazon.
History Division
The history division is responsible for collecting, preserving, and spreading accurate historical knowledge.
The Chosen believe that much of the world's history has been lost or distorted. Their historians therefore seek to recover what actually happened and make that knowledge available so that people can better understand the problems of the present and future.
Brother Tomlin was in charge of this division during the party's recruitment.
The division also contained researchers attempting to understand the origins of the powers possessed by the Chosen.
Exploratory Division
The exploratory division seeks to map the world and restore connections between peoples and places that were lost during the breaking of the world.
Brother Jayme was a member of this division.
The division also worked closely with recruitment, since exploration provided opportunities to discover people who might possess Chosen abilities.
Recruitment Division
The recruitment division seeks out new Chosen and attempts to bring them into the organization.
Eritrea was identified as the master responsible for recruitment.
The party itself was recruited through this division, with Jayme initially sent to find them and bring them to the Tower of Plinth.
Political Division
The political division attempts to influence the leadership and government of towns, cities, and nations.
Quentin headed this division.
The division's methods could be subtle. Rather than openly ruling a community, the Chosen sought to place themselves in positions where they could influence the decisions being made.
This approach eventually became controversial even within the Chosen.
The Chosen Powers
The origin of the Chosen's powers was not known.
The organization knew that some abilities were shared among multiple Chosen, but individual Chosen could also develop unique abilities. Neither the Chosen's historians nor their researchers had discovered a reliable pattern explaining why some people possessed these powers and others did not.
The organization therefore treated the powers as a phenomenon to be studied as well as a responsibility to be used.
The Chosen were also capable of detecting one another through their abilities. Some individuals had developed this ability more extensively than others.
The Tower of Plinth
The headquarters of the Chosen was known as the Tower of Plinth.
Despite its name, it was not actually a tower. The name referred to the institution itself. The Chosen's headquarters was a fortified complex built inside a mountain.
The fortress had originally belonged to Correries and his allies before their rise to godhood. It had been commissioned by the nobleman Ethan Dowtry, a friend of Correries, and later became associated with Ulanthar. It was eventually captured by adventurers, including Otheron, and later served as a staging ground for allies of the good gods during the war surrounding the Fall of the Age of Wonders.
After the gods were banished, the fortress was abandoned and eventually forgotten.
The Traveler discovered it many years later and offered it to the newly formed Chosen as their headquarters.
By the time of Under the Bus, the complex contained:
- An armory
- A large training area
- A substantial library
- A scrying room
- Living and working areas for the Chosen
- Facilities for research and other organizational activities
The fortress was also heavily protected by the Chosen's secrecy.
Recruitment of the Party
The party was initially contacted by Jayme, who was sent to recruit them.
Jayme was deliberately vague about the organization and its purpose, initially telling the party only that they were special and that his master wanted to determine whether they were worthy of joining.
After bringing them to the Tower of Plinth, Effron had Brother Tomlin explain the history and purpose of the Chosen.
The party subsequently agreed to join.
As part of their initiation, each received a Badge of the Chosen, a crystal brooch made from the laser-absorbing crystals used by the Chosen. The badges provided a limited ability to absorb attacks from laser weapons before the crystal was destroyed.
The initiation ceremony also placed each new member under a magical geas. The geas prohibited them from revealing the location of the Tower of Plinth or information that the Tower considered restricted to Chosen.
The party was not initially given a complete explanation of everything the Chosen could do or everything the organization knew.
Secrets and Manipulation
The Chosen's greatest weakness was also one of the central philosophical disputes within the organization: they believed that influencing people without their knowledge could be justified if the resulting decisions benefited the greater good.
This practice was strongly opposed by Samos.
According to Samos, the Chosen manipulated people behind the scenes, causing them to believe that decisions were their own when they were actually the result of Chosen influence. Samos believed the organization should be more open about its activities.
The Chosen's own account was different. Their explanation was that Samos had become too extreme and radical and had been asked to leave.
Samos instead claimed that he left voluntarily after the other founders rejected his objections, taking other Chosen who agreed with him.
The campaign therefore provides two conflicting accounts of Samos's departure, without establishing that either account is the complete truth.
Samos and the Church of Demmazon
Samos eventually became the Priest-King and leader of the Church of Demmazon.
His history with the Chosen remained important even after his departure.
When the party entered Samos's city, he recognized them as Chosen and attempted to convince them that their organization had been manipulating and deceiving them.
He also revealed information that the party's own recruiters had failed to explain, including the existence of a magical connection that allowed the Chosen to use the scrying pool at the Tower of Plinth to monitor their party leader.
Some of Samos's followers were themselves former Chosen or people possessing Chosen powers.
This created a particularly dangerous situation for Chosen traveling through territory controlled by Samos and the Church.
The Party and the Chosen
The party's relationship with the Chosen became increasingly complicated over the course of the campaign.
At first, the organization appeared to be a secretive but benevolent group dedicated to using extraordinary powers to improve the world.
Over time, the party discovered that the Chosen withheld significant information from them and had used their powers to monitor them without clearly explaining what they were doing.
The party consequently became increasingly suspicious of the organization.
This did not necessarily mean that the Chosen's stated goals were false. Rather, the campaign demonstrated the danger inherent in an organization that believed it was justified in making decisions for others because it knew what was best for them.
The party's later encounter with Samos forced them to confront this issue directly.
Legacy
The Chosen were one of the most influential organizations to emerge in the aftermath of the Fall.
Their members possessed powers whose origins remained mysterious, and their organization attempted to address threats on a scale far beyond that of a conventional adventuring group.
At the same time, their willingness to manipulate events from behind the scenes created serious ethical problems and eventually contributed to a major division within their ranks.
The Chosen therefore occupied an unusual position during Under the Bus: they were simultaneously an organization genuinely attempting to make the world better and an organization capable of violating the autonomy of the very people they believed they were helping.
