The Silver Eyes

Dire is every hour the illithid continue to blight space and time with their presence.

~ Telas-Niah, Soulknife of the Bronze Tower

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Of all the power blocs of the githyanki, one is not opposed by any of the others. They do not dare. Whoever rules the githyanki, the Silver Eyes will be pulling the strings behind the scenes, that much is certain.

The Silver Eyes are made up of the foremost githyanki scholars, illithid hunters, clairvoyants, spies, assassins, and intelligence gathers from the Astral. They have that one commodity that every other power bloc most desires, knowledge. They make other power blocs’ armies move with choice pieces of intel, and often play one bloc off against another, watching and waiting to see which will emerge the strongest political force in the long term. Their primary goal, however, remains bringing maximum harm to the illithid and their interests.

The Eyes have no desire to take on the weary work of actually governing the githyanki, being much more content to influence githyanki society from the shadows. No power bloc can afford to alienate them, but neither do they truly trust the Eyes either. Each power bloc seeks to curry the Eyes’ favor, to learn from them as much as possible, and to restrict their access to the other power blocs. The Eyes, on their part, dole out their secrets to their own favored causes, and play the political game like nobody else can.

Though every power bloc wishes to control the flow of information from the Silver Eyes for their own purposes, the Eyes themselves do not see all the blocs evenly.

The Cult of Tiamat remains farthest from the Silver Eyes’ influence. ‘Power Slaves’ are distrusted by most githyanki, what can you expect from a society that builds towns on the corpses of dead gods? The Eyes are even more distrustful of the Cultists than average, seeing loyalty to a non-githyanki power as dangerous foolishness in addition to heresy. The Cult, meanwhile, has come to rely on its own intelligence network, which includes ties to the Baatorian networks.

The Silver Eyes take no official side in the split between the Ascendancy and the Heartforce, working with both equally. The Heartforce is strong, and should the new regime last, the Eyes want to be able to control it from behind the scenes. On the other side, many actually support the ascension of a new Queen Vlaakith, but they are also one of the reasons that there are three competing princesses. Unknown to most githyanki, the Eyes claim that all three Princesses of the Ascendancy have legitimate rights to the throne. The White Lady, the Young Heir and the Singer of Fire really are all directly descended from the royal line. Thus their claims are all legitimate and only a struggle for ascension can resolve the matter. The past few ascendancies were easily determined; Vlaakith CLV was destroyed, but being a lich arose again as Vlaakith CLVI, and then again as Vlaakith CLVII. This has not happened this time, though the White Lady claims to be Vlaakith CLVII, now CLVIII, the Eyes know differently. She is in fact a much less powerful githyanki lich who has never held the crown. Still, their researchers acknowledge she too is of the royal line, so has as much claim as the other, living heirs.

The Silver Eyes collect information about all the enemies of the githyanki, though they concentrate on the illithid. Still, they count among them many spies and double-agents fighting the War of Two Skies against the githzerai. Those Silver Eyes that favored peace with the zerth have by-and-large already left to join the Reconciliation, leaving behind those more anti-githzerai elements. The two power blocs can therefore be said to be in opposition, but so many double-agents and old contacts exist that it is not as simple as all that.

The actions of various Unifists are in fact guided by the Silver Eyes. If anything, they are underestimated by the Eyes and often seen as less-reliable proxies for Eye operations. The lack of cohesion in the Unifists is at least the Silver Eyes’ doing as much as their own, for many operatives like to rely on Unifists for their own pet-projects rather than entrust them with truly important missions.

In contrast, the Silver Eyes long for more influence over the armies of the Apocalytes. Residing on the prime-plane Incursion worlds, they are in more direct contact with the Illithid on a regular basis than any other power bloc. However, the majority of color pools, the most reliable remaining connection between the Astral and the hidden fortress-nurseries of the githyanki, are controlled on the Astral side by the Heartforce. The Heartforce demands the Eyes reveal their darks as the price of using the color pools, so the Eyes use more circuitous routes. Thus their contact with, and influence over, the Apocalytes is far less than they would desire.

The Silver Eyes’ contact with The True remains an enigma. The Eyes helped create The True by tracking down Gith’s sword. They remain completely silent on a possible return of Gith’s soul. Evidently, those truly in the know are not even sharing with other members of the Silver Eyes.