Society of Sensation
The Sensates have recently become embroiled in a factional split over philosophy; due to the increasing influence of the Order of Being within the ranks of the Sensates, there is now a significant subset of the faction who are on the verge of breaking away from the Society.
Philosophy: Truth is found in experiences.
Headquarters: Sigil (The Sensorium)
Nickname: Sensates
Majority Races: Humans, Chaonds, Tieflings, Gnomes
Majority Classes: Fast Hero, Charismatic Hero
Factol: (Still working on NPCs)
Alignment: Any non-lawful
Prominent Members: (Still working on them)
Philosophy:
How do you know something? How can you tell the difference between truth and lies?
You can't rely on the word of others, as the truth is distorted by agendas, fabrications, mistellings, and mistranslations. Truth, then, can only be found by the individual, because the individual experience is the only thing that can show the way to truth.
This is what the Sensates as a whole agree on; from here on, disagreements render the Sensates into two sub-factions.
One group believes that the way to truth is only shown by experience, rather than being. It is something ineffable; integral to the experience, but outside it. Truth is the realization of knowledge, rather than something that can be directly experienced through the senses. It requires the senses to learn, but is not something of them.
The others, more directly influenced by the Druggies, believe in something slightly more direct; they believe that the reason the truth can only be experienced is that truth is experience. That which the senses feel is that which is true. The world outside the senses is simply a lie. Being deprived of sensation is to them, literally being deprived of the truth of the universe.
Recent History: The beginnings of the faction's troubles largely began when one of the more philosophical members of the faction managed to get himself essentially temporarily deprived of physical sensation after a trip to the Lower Planes about 20 years ago. He was in search of a rare herb that when ingested, would have given him some unusual hallucinations, which he was intending to record in a mimir. During the time that he was senseless, he came to the conclusion that there was no world outside the senses, as he could not determine any part of his condition with any degree of reliability.When he managed to recover his senses and make his way back to Sigil, he gathered other like-minded Sensates to his cause, swayed others, and began trying to take the factol-ship.
He has currently been unable to do so, being resisted in his attempts by the more conservative members of the Sensates and the current factol. As a result, he has been working those supporting him heavily, and is preparing to leave the Sensates should it prove effectively impossible to gain the factolship, with the intention of making himself factol of a breakaway sect. He is being supported clandestinely by some members of the Revolutionary League, but they intend to double-cross him if he manages to take the factol-ship of the Society, or the sect he is planning on creating.