Lords Of The Silver Twilight

The Lords of the Silver Twilight (known also as The Hermetic Order of the Silver Twilight or simply The Silver Twilight) was a powerful fraternal organization based in London, England. It held considerable influence throughout England and the United States. Its stated goal was the advancement of British interests throughout the world. Along with Zweihander, The Philosophes, and The Golden Cockerels, The Lords Of The Silver Twilight were one of four organizations that controlled world politics for the centuries before World War I.

The Dream of Nyarlathotep and the Foundation of The Silver Twilight
In the year 1632, the Outer God Nyarlathotep visited four people separately in a dream. These four: Carl Stanford of England, Hugh Carre of France, Johann Reuchlinn of Germany, and Valerian Malinin of Russia were among the most powerful magicians in Europe at the time. In this dream, Nyarlathotep showed the four a vision of the dark star Ghroth. Ghroth, Nyarlathotep foretold, would arrive on earth in about four-hundred years time, awakening the Great Old Ones slumbering on the earth. Unless humanity transcended, Nyarlathotep posited, they would be wiped out. Nyarlathotep then told the four magicians of a means to Transcend. First, they must find the Spell of Transcendence, an ancient Hyperborean spell that would allow the user to Transcend. Second, significant blood sacrifices would have to be made. Thousands of people would have to be sacrificed to the Outer Gods for the spell to work, their souls harvested immediately after death and stored inside great magical artifacts to be used when it was time to perform the Rite of Transcendence. The four magicians vowed to seek out the tablets, no matter what the cost.

Stanford immediately saw the implications of the dream. Thinking of the undertaking that lay before him, he began to plot different ways in which he might come across The Rite of Transcendence. After poring through the magical libraries in England, he began to see the size of the undertaking before him. In order to harvest the number of souls required for Transcendence, he would need thousands of people to be sacrificed. He realized that this was not an undertaking he could take on alone. Indeed, this was an undertaking greater than even the entire magical population of England could do alone. In order to achieve his goals, he decided, he would have to utilize the resources of the entire country, and in 1651, with the aid of fellow magician Anne de Chantraine, he set out to take control of the state.

English Civil War
At the time of The Silver Twilight’s formation, England was caught in the middle of the Third English Civil War, a bloody struggle between the Parliamentarians led by Oliver Cromwell and the Royalists led by King Charles II. For many years, the Civil War had raged on, and the Royalists were backed into a corner. Having lost major forts in Stirling and Dundee and most of his army in ensuing skirmishes, Charles II was on his last legs.

Stanford had long been a supporter of the Parliamentarian movement, not out of belief in any democratic ideals, but because he recognized the pragmatic benefits of checking the powers of the king. One man with immense power can dissent easily, yet institutions rarely rebel. So Stanford set out to create a system that would allow him to institutionalize government-- to ring his conspiracy in so many layers of bureaucracy that finding it out would be difficult and defying it, suicide.

To this end, Stanford set out to create a balance between the king and the Parliament that would give him absolute control while dividing individual agency into meaningless pieces. Thus, he would aim to protect both the king and the Parliament while rendering both meaningless. He already had established enough connections, both through smooth talk and force, to form a basis for control over Parliament, but the king was another matter.

The Monarchy
At first Stanford simply tried to eliminate the power of the king altogether, but when Silver Twilight member Oliver Cromwell became too powerful he decided he needed a new approach, one that provided various checks and balances so that no single pawn could become powerful enough to challenge the system.

To this end, Stanford intentionally sabotaged the reign of Cromwell’s son and heir Richard. He then restored the monarchy, staging The Glorious Revolution which placed Silver Twilight puppet Anne of Hanover and her husband, William of Orange, a Silver Twilight sympathizer, on the throne. The move served two purposes: to balance out the influence of Parliament on The Silver Twilight and to bring about peace with The Netherlands, England’s then-rival. Now, with control over both the Parliament and the Throne, The Silver Twilight could focus on accruing the necessary bodies for Transcendence.

Or so they thought.

War Of Austrian Succession
Overseas events were brewing that would embroil The Silver Twilight in a conflict that would help to decide its fate for the upcoming centuries, creating a rivalry with The Philosophes which would last for centuries. This was at a time when The Philosophes were in many ways at the height of their power, having infiltrated German politics and essentially ousted Zweihander from Prussia. Yet repeated attempts by The Philosophes to wipe out Zweihander once and for all met with opposition from the Austrian government. The matter would be settled in a war that would take eight years and thousands of lives to finish.

The Silver Twilight feared that the further expansion of The Philosophes threatened their ability to maintain balance on the continent. They also thought that the matter would be settled quickly, so they cast their lot with Zweihander and The Austrians. The war lasted for years, and ended with The Philosophes and The Silver Twilight digging their heels in the dirt, though little changed in the status quo between Zweihander and The Philosophes.

The Seven Years War And The Napoleonic Wars
This rivalry would continue for another violent century, smearing Europe with the blood. The Philosophes and The Silver Twilight would oppose each other twice more in The Seven Years War and again during The Napoleonic Wars. In the end, The Silver Twilight emerged as one of the most powerful players on the continent, but at the cost of a century of relative inactivity in the search for Transcendence.

Concentration Camps
The skeleton for The Silver Twilight’s Transcendence Programme was firmly in place by the nineteenth century, however. By 1822 England had its hooks in India, Australia, and various parts of Africa. For many British politicians, these colonies meant easy money. For The Silver Twilight, they meant something far more sinister: dispensable bodies. Over the course of the 19th century, The Silver Twilight created covert death camps in modern day Bengal, Sri Lanka, Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and South Africa. These camps saw thousands of deaths, the souls of the dead harvested into various artifacts that were scattered around the world after the fall of The Silver Twilight. These programs carried on for years until the dissolution of The Silver Twilight after World War I.

It was also during this time that The Silver Twilight established its American branch, The Hermetic Order Of The Silver Twilight, led by the magician John Scott, which would at its peak have close to two-thousand members, though it never came as close to controlling American politics as its British counterpart.

Fall of the Silver Twilight
These efforts eventually led to Britain's entry into the First World War on the side of France. Yet this represented the zenith of The Silver Twilight's power, and events taking place in the early twentieth century proved to be more than The Silver Twilight could handle.

Lords of the Silver Twilight

 * Anne de Chantraine
 * Carl Stanford
 * John Scott