Officially, there is no Inquisition. 

Not since Parousia,† some years ago, when it was officially dissolved in celebration of the Lord's return to her people. That the disbanding of a group supposedly in service to the people should be deemed a celebratory gift says much of that group's reputation.

Firlund's Office of Secrets classifies the group as terrorists, militants fed by the shadowy depths of the Alagórian state. The State itself insists they are disbanded. The Church of Aveth mimics the State's sentiment, yet continues to laud the group's deadly achievements.

The people of Alagór are of divided mind concerning the Inquisition. To many, the public assassination and covert disappearance of apostates†† and heretics is a terrible fact of faith. To others, it is a cornerstone.

The hunting Inquisitor, of shining greatsword and flowing chiaroscuro robe, is a supremely evocative image. It is one from the formative lore of Aveth. While most call it Inquisitor, Executioner, Terrorist, the truly pious know it by another name: Angel.

Angels

Since its inception by the Church some centuries ago, the faithful Inquisition has made a mission to attain this holy authority. Since no angel yet walks the world, Inquisitors believe it falls to them to assume the holy aspect; becoming, momently, angelic executioners.

Assumption of the aspect is the Inquisition's most cherished ritual. It is a solemn arming ceremony. A worthy Inquisitor is first bathed in holy water, smudged with sacred vapors, then dressed in the livery of their task. This sacred armor, fixed with prayer slips sealed with wax, is then draped in the voluminous black and white of angels. ‡ A sacred blade is retrieved from its cloister, taken to hand. The Inquisitor, thus armed, is unleashed. In pursuit and execution of their target, they are as the angels. Few will recall the experience. ‡‡

These angelic assassins are widely known as Inquisitorial Executioners. Sightings of their holy violence‡‡‡ inform most folk's image of the Inquisition. Even in the faithless, they can instill an awful, stunned reverence. These killers are far from the Inquisition's only operatives, however. 

The appearance of an Inquisitorial Investigador inspires near the same holy dread as an angelic assassin. These sly and eloquent detectives perform the inquiry for which their group is named.

Before the group's political dissolution, an Inquisition Investigador would make no subtlety in their work. Often, they'd introduce themselves from the church pulpit, towering Executor in tow. Such an introduction would often yield fearful answers and finger-pointing, even before inquiry commenced.

Nowadays, investigations are more covert. The name of the Inquisition is no longer bandied about. It is used in a measured manor, if only to inform an appropriate level of fear. Fear is warranted, for, after an inquiry concludes, an Executioner's blade is never far behind.

Parousia

Since its official dissolution following the return of Aveth, the Inquisition has, rather than going to ground, merely become more vicious. While public executions have become more infrequent in the streets of Alagór, covert and broader Coastal operations have increased aggressively.

Nary a week passes without a brutal assassination claimed by the Inquisition. The targets are mainly extranational: A Firlish magician slain, her hands severed. §  An Emperoussin theologist, fed lye. A Belvirinian philanthropist, starved to death in his own locked cupboard.

Rumors say the Inquisition's recent aggression is a product of direct guidance by the returned Lord. Others rebuke this. They point out that the Lord has not descended from her mile-high minaret since her return. Instead, they say, these extranational brutalities exist to draw focus from a more subtle, more insidious plot within Alagór.

Rumors of such a plot are spoken only to trusted ears. They say the Inquisition has engendered a plot to remove Aveth from her minaret cloister. Not to depose her, but rather to free her; for they believe the Lord is a prisoner of her own people.  

To do so, the Inquisition will rely not on the brutality for which it is known, but the inquiring secrecy for which it is named.

Author's Note

"I'll write a short something on the Inquisition, maybe 1.5k words," said the author. Nary did he know the magnitude of this lie.

In my games, the Inquisition came about as a reaction to players desiring a "cleric" class. Since, it has been a formative faction. There was once a months-long affair devoted to serpents and strange Inquisitorial missions which culminated in Parousia. These days, I sometimes set up Dishonored-style assassination missions for a team of Inquisitor characters. Makes a weird campaign type nicely removed from venturing. Might make a related campaign for the Office of Secrets, too (maybe some spy-versus-spy affair in opposition to the Inquisition.)

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* In her lifetime, genius inventor Adalace Guillotine created both the gunspring and the like-named guillotine, the machine which is today the Coast's chief deliverer of capital punishment.
** Frankincense, among its roles in Aveth mysticism, is thought to drive away älves.
*** Certain folkloric tales describe the touch of an älf as being ice cold. These are inaccurate. The touch of an älf merely tingles, such as to induce "chills." Their black blood reacts with the iron of human flesh, even by limited exposure.

† Parousia is the Second Coming of Aveth. Aveth is the faith and Lord of most humans within Alagór, the Coast's Southernmost nation of great scale.
†† Fortunately for the faithless, it takes a large and politicized act of apostasy to attract the ire of the Inquisition. Many non-Avethans live in Alagór. Only those who would challenge others' faith make targets of themselves.

‡ Avethan lore holds that angels hid their wings within cloaks and robes of black and white.

§ Practical magicians typically house the bulk of their powers in the transplanted bones of their hands.  

In recent years, a peculiar ague has struck the Coast. Its symptoms appear in the young, the different, and the restless. It has them fleeing civilization en masse, tempted by some sweet possibility in the dreadful wilds. This possibility, while fatally illusive, is no illusion. The cause of this fever is entirely real: Ancient gold.

Any given countryside will host its share of ruins. These are small pickings. They have long ago been plucked clean or deemed unworthy of attention. 

A land of plenty is another matter. A wilderness rife with tombs and ancient complexes draws the attention of banks, who in turn lure settlers and veritable armies of cutters to delve the earth. Once gold begins to flow,††† rumors of profit draw a crowd. A nowhere settlement becomes a venturing town. A town becomes a destination. A venture rush begins. 

Draum

To many, the venture rush is synonymous with a particular frontier: The rolling wilderland of Draum. ‡ This vast and knobbly plain, spotted with odd copses, granite outcroppings, and black bogs, was once the heartland of an ancient race of sorcerers.

Draum is a land rich in ruin. Every square mile of mundane scrub holds antiquity in abundance. Any old hill may be a barrow. Any standing boulder a portal tomb. Any hollow oak a hidden climb, a  deep gate into passages unknown for ages.

Many a ruin is yet alive, despite the mortal ages. The sorcerers‡ who once ruled Draum, the ancient Idrans, were both awful and ingenious in their art. Kept functional by churning gut-engines and hundreds of generations of purpose-made beast-men, Idran complexes are still guarded and alive. 

These non-ruins, still stuffed with dead sorcerers' wealth, are as valuable as they are fortified. A veritable army of cutters is often required to breach and clear the larger complexes. ‡‡ Only by the quick and fatal employment turnover generated by these large-scale raids can banks accept the massive, daily influx of cutters to Draumic venturing towns.

Parnock

Author's Note

††† Blood will necessarily flow, as well. Venturing is a ludicrously dangerous mode of employ.

‡ Sorcery is an art chiefly concerned with the recombination of flesh. Different ages of sorcerers manifested the art in different forms. The sorcerers of old Draum were partial to organic engines and human-animal chimeras. These expressions of sorcery are especially hard-wearing, and many are yet active some two thousand years later.
‡‡ Such large-scale ventures are known as raids. They are, even for cutters, an especially fatal form of employ. Only the temptation of profit shares inflated by massive casualties can tempt a cutter to sign onto a raid.
‡‡‡ Notably, vastly more folk enter the place than leave. The employment found at Parnock is often of a terminal variety.

§ Patronizing such establishments is a major activity in a usual cutter's life. A craving for utmost luxury and fine service strikes hard after a bloody venture.
§§ It is necessary to burn the dead, to prevent plague. If Parnock is ever to die before the tombs run dry, it will be by plague outbreak due to mishandled corpses.