The Compact and the Conclave
Ever-tumultuous Eugene and Springfield are known as a powderkeg of Awakened infighting. The problem here isn’t the lack of a strong Hierarch — it’s the presence of two of them.
In the 1930s, the Runic Compact claimed all of Eugene for itself. Dominated by the Silver Ladder, the Runic Compact consisted of just a few cabals – mostly Silver Ladder and Mysterium – who tended to the Mysteries in Eugene. Then, in the 1960s, a young cabal of rabble-rousing Silver Ladder upstarts rebelled against the Runic Compact. They fled to a Sanctum in nearby Springfield, allying with a small Free Council cabal they found there. A year later, they claimed the formation of the Orchard Conclave, a new Consilium named for the hazelnut orchards where the two cabals met to hammer out the details of their new gathering.
It was only a short time before the two Consilii, antagonistic to one another from the beginning, came into conflict. The last forty years of history have seen a series of conflict that rises and then quickly falls as elements of the two Consilii clash and are then forced into an often-dissatisfying resolution in order to avoid outright warfare between the two Awakened courts.
Even the old divisions – the Compact in Eugene and the Conclave in Springfield – has given way over the years as cabals that claim territory in one area or the other are swayed away from their original Consilii, or when one or the other group makes inroads into the other’s territory, stealing away Hallows, Sanctums and other places of importance. These days, both Consilii are split relatively evenly between Eugene and Springfield; there are simply Compact parts of town, and Conclave parts of town.
Over the past decades, the Silver Ladder element in the Runic Compact has given way to a strong Adamantine Arrow presence, and though the Orchard Conclave was originally seen as a bunch of upstarts with Free Council leanings, the two Consilii are undeniably Pentacle Consilii on the verge of war with one another these days. Indeed, the Free Council tends to act as intermediaries between the Compact and the Conclave. They have been careful to avoid angering either side, though; when a pair of Free Council cabals suggested taking advantage of anarchist elements in the city and eradicating both Consilii in the 1990s, they were wiped out in an unheard-of moment of solidarity between the Compact and the Conclave.
The Runic Compact
• Hierarch of the Runic Compact: X.
The Orchard Conclave
• Hierarch of the Orchard Conclave: X.
