Speak our name only in whispers, for we are at all times closer to you than your own jugular vein, though ye know it not.
Among the most enigmatic of Legacies is the Subtle Ones, mages who “do without doing,” who are “in the world but not of it.” Look for them and they are gone. Many doubt their very existence, but those who understand their ways can detect their influence throughout the world. Their names are not recorded by history, but much of history was written by them. Their faces may not be found upon monu- mental statuary, but most monuments are carved according to proportions devised by a Subtle hand. Though they heed no bounds and move by routes unknown, it is their pen that dictates where roads and borders are laid. To some they are skulking villains who dare not show their faces. To others they are the secret chiefs of the great conspiracy that brings the world to order. To themselves, they are simply the Subtle Ones, or the Ahl-i-Batin, the “People of the Inner Truth” who serve as the culture-bearers of civilization — not by bringing the world to order, but by bringing order to the world.
Batini magic utilizes sacred geometry to open the mind to divine reality. By studying the complexities of spatial relationships and proportionality, the soul can compose itself to harmonize with the world, and so compose the world. Subtle lore traces itself back to the architects and city planners of Atlantis, for whom sociology was no mere science but a magical art. They believed that a harmonious society that both sustains and fulfills all its members could be achieved through proper patterning of the space it occupies, engendering proper patterns of behavior in occupants. This social engineering concerned itself with everything from broad geographical plans to the minutiae of detail in art, music and literature. Every aspect of culture could be made to reflect — and so teach and encourage — greater social harmony.
The Subtle Ones exerted substantial influence in all the great civilizations of the world up through the European Renaissance until their power, obtained largely through the work of agents placed within major political and religious institutions, waned as secular society waxed. At present, the Subtle Ones are too few and scattered to enact any of their plans on a large scale, but have learned to keep themselves insinuated into the ever-changing administrations of mod- ern politics, mostly by seizing posts within the intelligence community. They also maintain a constant presence in the worlds of art, fashion, communication and education. From these positions they can control (or at least influence to some nominal degree) the excesses and vicissitudes of society at large.
Because the Subtle Ones are so arcane and secretive about themselves, their motives are often called into question by other mages. Their hand has been discerned in innumerable plots and intrigues throughout history, most notably in the Order of Assassins, a deviant sect of Ishmaelite Islam. From its network of impregnable mountaintop fortresses, this group dispatched highly trained operatives to extend its influence, from fanatically suicidal hit men to skilled and patient deep-cover agents. Some consider this sect to be the Subtle Ones’ crowning achievement, a spiritually inclined utopian society sustaining itself in the midst of a hostile social climate with a minimum of military force. Others see the Assassins as the very worst of the Subtle Ones’ work — secluded and insular, using murder as a tool to separate themselves from the outside world for an autocratic leader who claims overweening spiritual authority while commanding his mind-slaves to kill themselves as a demonstration of his power. The final words of the sect’s founder, the legendary Old Man of the Mountain, Hassan-i-Sabbah — “Nothing is true, everything is permitted!” — is often taken to indicate the deeply amoral identity of this Legacy.
In fact, the Subtle Ones do not hesitate to engage in acts that would be condemned by most spiritual traditions. The Ahl-i-Batin also employ a number of ascetic practices taken to potentially dangerous extremes, including fasting, flagellation and self-mutilation. Their long history of brainwashing, mind control and social manipulation is cause for concern as well. Among their other disciplines, they cultivate the way of the unseen assassin, and are not above using violence or a convincing threat of violence to achieve their aims. Thus, they can be said to wield considerable temporal power. The Subtle Ones do not consider themselves to be the masters of the world, but merely the goad-servants of human evolution, scourging mankind to drive it up the spiritual slope toward an eventual postulated universal Awakening.
As to when this will occur, the Legacy presents no clear answer. At present, the prevailing view is that too many secrets have been discovered (or leaked) to the Sleepers too soon, granting humanity a capacity for destruction in disproportionate excess to its current degree of moral development. This course presents a danger to the world as a whole, mages included, and so must be curbed by whatever means necessary.
Attainments
- The Subtle Dance
- False Presence
- Occlude the Mind
