Jhastogars

Jhastogars are specialised Varagan sorcerers dedicated to monitoring and investigating unregistered sorcerers throughout the Varago islands.

Jhastogar means searcher in an ancient Varagan dialect.  Their origin dates back to the era of the Qhlifat — the dictatorship system of governance prevalent in early Varagan history.  Qhlif Jhabnit Vhralyet considered any sorcerers not employed by the Qhlifat to be enemies.  Thus he commissioned the jhastogar guilds to hunt and kill such sorcerers.

After the abolition of the Qhlifat, the Consensus of Lords devised the registration system for sorcerers and employed the jhastogars to track unregistered Varagan sorcerers via their energy signatures and capture them.  Over the centuries they perfected their skills and refined their methods.  They learned from the priesthood how to bind a sorcerer’s powers and this is their most common method of dealing with offenders.

The guilds purport to be separate and distinct from one another, but in truth they are branches of the same organisation.  The whole network of guilds is presided over by a Master Sorcerer known as the Grand Master of Jhastogars.  This is an elected post which lasts the lifetime of the Grand Master.  On his passing, the Consensus of Lords is convened and elections are held.  Votes may be cast by members of the Consensus and the jhastogar guilds.

The jhastogar guilds operate via a series of lodges.  Each lodge has a Lodge Master whose duties are similar to other Guild Masters.  The jhastogars train in pairs as apprentices and are bonded to their partners via intricate proximity spells known as loyalty bonds which prevent them from being separated from each other while performing their duties outside the lodges.  If one partner dies before the other, the remaining partner gets reassigned to another single jhastogar and they have to spend several months training together before they are allowed to leave the lodge.

In addition to their loyalty bonds to their partners, jhastogars are also bonded to their lodge at the commencement of their training.  They usually serve at the same lodge for their entire lifetime.  In the rare event of a transfer to another lodge, the bonding from the old lodge has to be severed and the transferring jhastogar can then be bonded with the new lodge.

Each lodge is connected to all the others via a network of sorcery bonds and crystal-powered communications pathways.  This enables rapid dissemination of news throughout the whole organisation.

Inside the lodge, jhastogars wear dark grey robes similar to those worn by members of priestly orders.  They also wear mesh masks to cover their faces and only remove them for performing ablutions, eating, drinking and sleeping.   

On outside missions, they wear grey jumpsuits and full body armour.  They carry an array of weapons, including daggers and poison dart-guns.  This weaponry is mainly for show, since they prefer to use sorcery to subdue rogue sorcerers.

Most jhastogars encourage their sons to enlist as apprentices.  They also go on regular recruitment campaigns when not engaged in hunting missions.  Some newly qualified sorcerers volunteer to train as jhastogars.

The jhastogar guilds and lodges rely heavily on outside informants to apprise them of any unauthorised persons practising sorcery.  Informants are paid generously for providing evidence.  Regular informants are regarded as covert employees on the guild payroll and sworn to secrecy.  One-off or infrequent informants are paid on a piecemeal basis.