How do Cliomancers reap Major charges when the entire world has already been explored? Be there when someone finds someplace old and forgotten.
The Explorer’s Club is another cabal that spun off of Dougan Forsythe’s orignal Cliomantic cabal. Unlike the War Dogs, this cabal is of a somewhat more recent vintage. Eschewing Jean St. Claire’s dangerous skullduggery, Michelle Fitzgerald opted to insinuate herself into institutions of higher learning in the late 1960’s as a means of locating ‘new’ Major cliomantic sites with much less risk of being running afoul of international spies or being executed for treason (she’d heard of St. Claire’s death by lead poisoning).
The logic was inescapable to her: after all, who had found the Nazca lines now written of so extensively? Archaeologists. Who had located Tutanhkamon’s tomb? Archaeologists. Priam’s palace? Archaeologists. The key, then is to watch the archaeologists, historians and relic dealers and swoop in on the site of next big discovery before (or, preferably as) the public learns of it.
Her patience paid off in late 1973 with a trip to Hadar, Ethiopia. Austensibly there to authenticate the discovery by Donald Johanson of the world’s most complete fossil hominid, Michelle was able to reap a Major charge just as the intellectual and public furor over australopithicus afarensis> began. She immediately used it to edit the world into so that she had been born into a great deal of wealth.
Needless to say, recasting herself as the sole heiress of a mining fortune with a great interest in funding archaeological research freed up a great deal of her time and considerably eased further quests for Major charges. Her newfound wealth and expanding ego also caused her to amass a small coterie of followers, allies and students throughout the 70’s.
These followers learned from her the importance of networking, and so have developed symbiotic relationships with various intellectually-minded adepts and avatars. Avatars of the Chronicler and the Scholar are almost a given, but the Explorer’s club also has extensive contacts with avatars of the Merchant (through the highly competitive and illegal relic trade). Alexander Konstantin, a Bibliomancer as well as a Merchant avatar, was an unusually high-ranking member of the Explorer’s Club considering that he was not a cliomancer. Avatars of the Pilgrim have occasionally associated themselves with the Explorer’s Club as well, though usually only while questing for a specific site.
Members of the Explorer’s Club typically ensconce themselves in or near prestigious institutions of higher learning with powerful and prestigious Archaeology of Classics departments or with famous museums and typically have access to one or more Significant sites simply by being at that particulary hoary and famous location. Michelle herself walks the Stations of the Cross every day on her way to work at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, for instance.
Founder Michelle Fitzgerald is still around, by the way, working dilligently at her job in the Acquisitions department at the Israel Museum. Though she is actually in her 90’s, she appears to be a well-preserved 45 year-old.
This is my companion piece to ‘War Dogs.’ I figured it emphasises the essentially scavenger-like mindset of Cliomancy while providing a nice contrast with the more active War Dogs. I may do a third cliomancy cabal, though I haven’t considered what it might be, yet.
This would be a perfect excuse to get to some Indiana Jones hyjinkery.
I like it a lot. The Wardogs are more badass (which appeals to certain sensibilities of mine), but this is just as clever.
Following the logic, the third one could be a group that somehow creates artificial historical sites. Not replicating existing ones, just 1984-style nonmagickal retconning.