The Keepers were once a powerful organization of scribes and scholars that secretly influenced the balance of power in the old City. Very few living today know of their existence, or their collapse several centuries in the past.
History[]
The source of the Keeper's magic was a series of ancient and mysterious symbols known as Glyphs, which in turn were infused with a mysterious energy now identified as the Primal. Their ancient ritual books allowed the Keepers to convert the Primal into usable energy, inscribed in various glyphs. With the City of their age in a state of constant conflict due to the warring Pagan and Hammerite factions, the Keepers made it their mission to maintain the balance.
But all power corrupts, and the Keepers were no exception. After enduring the return of the Trickster, followed by the Metal Age, the Keepers prophesied a third Dark Age, one that would result in their destruction. None at the time could have suspected that the enemy that would prove their undoing was the Keepers themselves. Having wielded the Primal for so long, the very guardians who had vowed to protect the balance of power had become slaves to its will. So devastating was the outcome of this revelation that the City itself was very nearly destroyed. In the end, the original Sneak Thief managed to activate the Final Glyph, which completely erased all Glyphs from existence, thereby cutting off the Keepers' access to Primal magic. With the link severed and the Keepers' power lost, the Primal returned to the earth, and the order eventually dissolved.[1]
Events of Thief[]
Traces of the original Keepers can still be found in the old and ruined places of the current City:
- Our Lady of the Iron Litany, a former Hammerite chapel, contains a hidden Keeper base under its ruins.
- The remains of the Keepers' base lie buried under the new City's South Quarter/Riverside district. The uppermost levels were taken over by Madam Xiao-Xiao and converted into a brothel known as the House of Blossoms. The madam is unaware of the hidden library buried beneath her home, but suspects there is more to the underground site.
- The enigmatic Queen of Beggars has a Keeper-like understanding of the Primal, and discusses the importance of maintaining the balance.
- This suggests that the Queen may be either descended from the original Keepers, or is the sole surviving member.