In the early days of the Board, a war raged
between two cultish factions: D&B and D&M. At the height of
their conflict, they threatened to tear the very fabric of the
previously peaceful Board asunder, and it seemed as if the Goddess had
turned Her back on Her followers. Then, from out of nowhere, came a
porcupine with a dream of peace, a dream that he evangelised as much as
possible and so drew many to his side, including numerous Oldbies who
had grown tired of the constant warring. The Quills, as they were
known, grew in strength until they were amongst the most powerful
factions in the Board of the time. Then came disaster, in the form of
Hell’s attack on Mohaborad, a force against which no reason could
prevail. After that disaster, the Quills were shattered, Urban
disappearing into the wilderness and the membership dwindling to a few
hardcore members. Within the last few years, however, the Quills have
had something of a renaissance, their leader emerging from the
wilderness as mysteriously as he went, sending out a call for
recruitment that brought the young and old of the Board flocking to his
side. Cheerfully embracing the new era of the Board, the Quills
reorganised itself, opening new departments and creating sub-bases in
the Board’s outposts Comicside.
From its inception, the Quills
have had a foundation in a set of core principles and beliefs, set out
by its founder and adhered to by all members. Amongst the most
fundamental of these is the belief in a balance of Order and Chaos;
that though Chaos is naturally detrimental to any culture or
organisation, too much Order can be a bad thing as well, suffocating
free expression and the like. Other principles are more focussed on the
organisation itself, such as its enforced neutrality and non-aggression
policy, or its modus operandi of deployment only when an incident has
been detected and they have been allowed to enter into negotiations or
have been invited to do so.
In its latest incarnation, the
Quills have drawn on the resources of their suddenly enlarged numbers,
and diversified into a number of different sub-departments. Prominent
amongst these is the new R&D section, which has taken advantage of
the vast resources of their new home base on the Funky Horror and the
influx of new Quills, who tend to be quiet and studious in disposition,
to set up a number of research laboratories, producing non-lethal
“peace weapons” and improving or inventing new means of communication
and translation. Alongside it works the Medical department, seemingly a
useless appendage, as the Board solution for anything crippling tends
to be a painless death and a quick spin through the RESPAWN system.
However, in the past few years, Diabolic and other, similarly aligned
forces have begun the development of diseases and afflictions which
remain beyond death and require more specialised treatments, which the
Quills are happy to assist in the procurement of. More specialised are
the PR and Militant departments, the former of which was set up to
handle the sudden influx of Boardies after Urban returned and deal with
requests for aid. The latter is mostly made up of those Quills who
appreciate the fine art of Warthreading and are generally only called
upon if the Quills as an organisation come under attack. Aside from
this, all Quills are, at base, mediators, no matter what department
they belong to.
The new resources provided by the now-global
span of the Board’s activities have meant that the Quills have been
able to set up outposts in most of the Board’s bases on the face of the
planet. In each, their work is subtly altered by circumstance. The
Quills hut in the base in the ruins of Mohaborad, for example, serves
to keep an eye on the tensions that might grow due to the wyrdness of
the place and its proximity to the site of so many major battles and
rivalries, both before the fall and during it. On Nemo, the few that
are willing to do so attempt to soothe the hostility between the Green
workers and the Board. In the subterranean warrens of London, it is the
suspicion between the proponents of Old Magic and New Tech that provoke
problems. Throughout all this, the Quills retain their core duties of
mediation and negotiation, wherever in the world they are sent.
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