Amethyst Order

The Magisters of the Amethyst Order embrace the Purple Wind of Shyish, practicing Cessationary Thaumaturgy. This term was adopted in the Articles of Imperial Magic specifically because using the term “Necromancy” would have been ill advised and somewhat inaccurate.

Symbols & Appearances
The Scythe, the Hour Glass, the Amethyst Skull, the Thorny Rose.

The colour of the robes worn by Amethyst Magisters is deepest purple, though many wear jet-black. Magisters of this Order often carry a razor-sharp scythe instead of a staff, yet this scythe is not of the unwieldy variety used for harvesting wheat, but is instead an elegant object designed for combat and as a symbol of the Magister’s Order. The belts of Shyish’s Magisters are often hung about with bleached Human bones that symbolise the transience of life. These bones are often carved with occult runes and the various emblems of their Order, like the hourglass and the thorny rose; symbols by which the people recognize them.

Regardless of how they looked when they joined the Order, the austerity of life at the Amethyst Order and the hours of study assure that all initiates become lean and pale before very long. All members of the Amethyst Order and its associated Order are clean-shaven from their scalps to their toes—they are as hairless as bleached skeletons.

Overview
The Amethyst Order is among the most introverted of the Orders of Magic. After the Shadowmancers, the Brethren of Shyish is the most successfully secretive organisation in the Empire. This serves to increase the public’s already considerable fear of Shyish’s Magisters.

No other College can match the austerity, asceticism, and discipline of Shyish’s Magisters, not even the Hierophants of the Order of Light. As Teclis impressed upon the first Magisters of this Order three centuries ago, their magic rests upon the line most easily crossed by short-lived Humans, a line that once crossed can only lead to darkness, suffering, and misery. The Brethren of Shyish (as they call themselves) hold the power of life and death in their hands. With a gesture they can squeeze a man’s heart inside his chest so that he dies of seemingly natural causes, or they can delay his death almost indefinitely. They can cause a man to wither and die in a matter of moments, and the greatest of them can even steal his soul and lock it away if they so please.

The most experienced Magisters of Shyish become minor avatars of the magical paradigm that they have embraced and so have no fear of endings and are completely fearless of growing old or dying. To the young and new Magisters of the Amethyst Order after the Great War, Teclis stressed the level of caution and responsibility with which they must practice their magic. The more they would learn about the nature of death, the greater the control Shyish will grant them over it and the greater will be their temptation as shortlived Humans to delay or even escape their own inevitable end. As with any of the strands of Magic, embracing Shyish over a long period of time can extend a Magister’s life considerably (in fact especially with Shyish), but still the temptation to turn to the Black Art of Necromancy, intentionally or otherwise, is a distinct one for more inexperienced Magisters of Shyish. So it was, and is, that the Amethyst Order is utterly ruthless towards any initiates who draw upon Dark or Black Magic. Whether they are corrupted or not by their action, they will be expelled from the Order as soon as their actions come to light, and then they will be obliterated so that not even dust remains.

Along with their extremely careful selection process for initiates and constant indoctrination and supervision of apprentices, it is very rare for a serving Amethyst Magister to go renegade. Four times in the last two centuries the Lord Magisters of the Order have banded together to hunt down and kill one of their colleagues. When these hunts were conducted they were done so in utter secrecy. No one knew or suspected what had happened; not the witch hunters and not even the Shadowmancers of the Grey Order. Each time one of their Order turned traitor, the Lord Magisters of Shyish have pursued and persecuted them with unparalleled relentlessness and absolute intolerance. They covered all traces of the traitor’s crimes, destroying his works and eradicating all memory of him. Robbed graves were filled and buried before anyone could notice, mysterious deaths were blamed upon natural causes or common footpads, and the sudden death of houseplants, ivy and even moss across whole city quarters were blamed upon early frosts or some unknown parasite.

Whether the chase took days or years, none have escaped the combined wrath of the Lord Magisters of the Lore of Death.

Yet these measures are only fitting to the crimes they are designed to combat. Renegades from the Order of Shyish can become powerful in the arts of necromancy. Although spiritual corruption seems to represent the most obvious threat of Shyish’s Magisters to those outside the Order, the greatest threat from the Magisters of the Amethyst Order comes from the threat of morbidity and madness. While the Magisters of many Colleges have their eccentricities, the madness of an Amethyst Magister is a truly terrible thing—and a more likely occurrence than moral or ideological corruption of an Amethyst Magister.

Though he is unsure and cannot prove anything, Magister Patriarch Reiner Starke of the Order of Shadows believes that the massive defensive counter strike from the Bright Order that destroyed the area around the Bright Order eighty years ago might in fact have been initiated by magic wielded in a confrontation between a deranged Amethyst Magister and the Lords of his Order. Whether this can be proven or not is not Starke’s interest, and besides, he would never speak his suspicions even if they could be proven. The Bright Order is proud and combative, and he suspects that the Order of Shyish is more deadly than even the Magisters of the other Colleges expect. He will do nothing to risk prompting a war amongst the Colleges. Altdorf would certainly not survive it.

Duties & Contracts
The Amethyst Order is expected only to garner Imperial armies with battle Magisters as and when the need arises. Local authorities and very wealthy families who live and operate around the land once known as Sylvania in north-eastern Stirland often seek to employ Shyish’s Magisters. Such is the malignancy of that dying and warp-dust saturated land that many people believe the dead rest uneasily in their graves there, and Vampires are said to stalk the night. True or not, the skills of the Amethyst Order are highly valued by the desperate, the paranoid, and the terrified, and the Magisters view it as their sacred duty to undo all the works of necromancy and dark magic.

Source

 * Warhammer Fantasy RPG 2nd ED -- Realms of Sorcery (pg. 110-114).