Editing 7th Sea (section)

===Others===
A number of other secret societies and non-governmental organizations exist in Theah as well.  Most of them have some unique player options squirreled away in there.

* '''The Vaticine Church''' used to be a super-cool version of Catholicism, 100% supporting scientific progress as "uncovering the puzzle of creation" and only trying to exterminate the kinds of magic that literally come from Hell and actively erode reality to let demons in. It has been led by three prophets at different points in its history, with a fourth prophet's arrival signifying the end of the world. Unfortunately, between the disappearance of the last Pope/Hierophant (whom Le Empereur ''totally'' didn't murder by literally pushing him down some stairs), the inability to pick a new one thanks to the disappearance of Montaigne's cardinals (whom Le Empereur ''definitely'' didn't have kidnapped so his nation would have no gods before him and sorcery), the disastrous Objectionist revolution, and the Sun King of Montaigne breaking away to proudly reveal that his nation still has its sorcery and intends to rule it forever as a nation of evil magic, their better elements have fallen on hard times.  The current dominant power are a bunch of shitty hypocritical fuckwits called the Inquisition who're actively trying to kill all scientists, burn all books, and hasten the end of the world, with the other factions unable to unite to stop them as they undo the work of centuries in brief years.  Their internal combat styles are the mostly-obsolete Rossini school of polearm fighting, used by the Hierophant's personal bodyguards, and the Swords of Solomon school that uses a weapon and shield to be a more effective bodyguard.
* '''The Sidhe''' are eldritch horrors and sea-dwelling creatures. A.k.a. Fae, and not exactly the nice fairytale sort. Some of their kind were actually made playable in the Avalon sourcebook, which was expanded upon in ''The Sidhe Book of Nightmares'' supplement for the ''Swashbuckling Adventures'' label; this kind is mostly associated with (obviously) Avalon.  They have a very large number of powerful, practical advantages out of the gate, but cannot gain drama dice, and thus, cannot ever gain XP or advance.  There's a thick subplot about ancient wars between Sidhe and Syrneth, the latter being, so to say, more evil (and are most likely the walled-off evil with whom Bargainers dealt for the noble's magic.) But honestly, it is such a [[skub| skubby]] mess of storytelling, much of which later writers abruptly dropped, that it is better left forgotten.  They are hypocritical sadistic monsters who enjoy torturing, abusing, and generally parasitizing humanity, but the authors have a great deal of unearned sympathy for them and so we are supposed to as well.  Notably, their tight ties to Avalon involve a great deal of intra-court politicking that we are supposed to be invested in, even though the only change from the eventual winner will be one of degree rather than kind.  Also, the book outright instructs DMs to make them immortal and basically unbestable in contests of combat, so as to present players with challenges that need to be out-thought and otherwise beaten creatively, and to hunt down and slaughter or worse any PCs who don't play along and be good sports about them, but this has the unfortunate side effect of making the advantage and items meant to fight them practically useless and ensuring the race as a whole will forever be beyond the reach of justice.
* '''Explorer's Society''' are an organization dedicated to the exploration of various uncharted territories of Theah, including the alien ruins of the weird precursor civilization.  This may or may not be a terrifying and horrible idea, depending on how you feel about being chewed up by a [[Tomb of Horrors| deathtrap of a dungeon]], only to hand over what turns out to be a primitive nuclear device to a mad scientist.  Their two schools are the Shield Man, a combat school ''entirely'' focused on improvised weapons and quick thinking, and Syrneth Tinkering, a completely non-combat school with some school-based mechanics revolving around repairing, refuelling, and potentially even merging or recreating Syrneth devices.
* '''Sophia's Daughters''' are a secret society of prostitutes said to have more connections throughout the world then any other. Their sourcebook revealed them to actually be an entire society of Mary Sue half-sidhe women who are beautiful and immortal and have unique magical powers. One of those powers is ''literally'' the ability to tell whether a character is a Hero, Villain, Scoundrel, or Henchman, which is just as powerful as it sounds. Also has a broken-as-fuck assassination school that revolves almost entirely around the use of bodice-daggers to poison enemies who can't even notice you doing it.  It was [[derp]].  They are in neck-deep with the Sidhe, and even unleashed the setting's equivalent of the Black Death for supposedly-justified reasons to prevent the destruction of the barrier, but just as the writers have a great deal of unearned sympathy for the Sidhe despite their being parasitic, sadistic, psychotic, hypocritical monsters, so too do they have sympathy for these, their human pawns, so we are also supposed to find ''them'' sympathetic.  Admittedly, in a very Die Kreutzritter sort of way.  Speaking of which...
* '''Die Kreutzritter''' are even more spoiler-tastic than most of the rest of these, but think Christian versions of the Hashishin/Nizari and you'll be in the right ballpark.  Allegedly killed to a man centuries ago, they actually went underground, with the Hierophant's blessing, and operate as secretive assassins, spies, and guardians who always fake their own deaths before joining.  They did this because they uncovered ancient precursor artifacts that allowed them to discover the Barrier, and sorcery's effect on it, leading them to abandon national ties and swear to defend all humanity.  Use a special shadow magic that's super-potent and synergizes well with their school, but permanently marks users in a way that makes what they are obvious to everyone in the know, which is admittedly few.  Are in a constant war not only against the forces of demonic corruption in the world, but with insane undead members of their own organization that have lost their humanity to shadow and are (currently) still trapped in the other dimension they access with their shadow powers.  Their school is an awesome assassination school revolving around double-wielding stilettos and eventually causes them to gain a bulky Fear rating.
* '''The Knights of the Rose and Cross''' are a swashbuckling version of the Knights Templar, and the historical kind rather than the fictional kind. They're awesome, heroic people fighting the good fight against evil, and have the fewest skeletons in their closet compared to the rest.  Unfortunately, one of them is that they are thoroughly penetrated by an evil super-duper secret society, though they are less of a catspaw than they could be since their Grandmaster has a conscience and they aren't very centralized.  Their biggest secret is The Secret: that the Third Prophet the rest of Theah acknowledges is was a fraudster, and the ''true'' Third Prophet taught them mankind's inner power, which doesn't need sorcery.  (This is ''barely'' a spoiler; an extremely cursory reading of the Player's Handbook makes it clear how much of an aberration the Third Prophet was. And he helpfully founded the Inquisition, just in case you needed more convincing.)  Unfortunately, their sword school is trash and most players can literally buy a better version of its master benefit as an advantage at character creation.  And not an expensive one either.
* '''El Vagos''' are a support network for Castille's home-grown local hero, El Vago, that dashing Zorro wearing a Spanish-styled ''V for Vendetta'' mask, one with growing reach across Theah.  Founded to counteract the dark forces of Montaigne and the Inquisition, they are easily the most benign of all secret societies here, using heroic means to heroic ends.  While their founder and the original El Vago is indeed that dashing nobleman from the Castille section, hitting high enough rank reveals the spoiler that there's actually many members who wear the mask of El Vago at different times, letting all of them maintain plausible deniability and also adding to his mythical aura.  Unfortunately, most modern compilation-album character-building documents just flop that one out there for all to see, so it's one of the more-well-known spoilers.  Their internal school, El Punal Occulto, revolves around the use of a fencing weapon and a spring-loaded hidden knife in the hilt or the off-hand, for wince-inducing pommel strikes.
* '''The Rilasciare''' are anachronistic anarchists and pro-democrats who want to make away with the social order and free the peasantry from the shackles of the nobility. Depending on who's writing them at the moment they're either a bunch of bomb-throwing idiot stereotypes or a valiant, ancient order who knows more than all of the rest of them. Either way, they were the ones who exterminated Zerstrong for good, and more power to them for taking out ''that'' trash.  Their Vipera ex Morsi fighting style is a perfectly-good assassination double-stiletto school in a crowded market, with a focus on building up penalties even on missed shots and dirty fighting.
* '''The Invisible College''' is made up of adventurer scientists out to save science from the clutches of the Inquisition by being generally awesome.  Unfortunately, they are thoroughly penetrated by an evil super-duper secret society using them for their own ends, one of which is the horrific pursuit of Blood Alchemy.  They teach the Bonita fencing school, which emphasizes defense and escape rather than actually winning fights.
* '''The Swordsman's Guild''' is an organization dedicated to the finer points of dueling and swordsmanship across all nations.  They keep all the different swordmasters in all the different national styles from losing all their accumulated knowledge in a frenzy of honor-duels for rank via a few basic common-sense regulations.  Many schools offer the non-zero benefit of free membership, those which don't must buy it as an advantage to gain membership.  And it ''is'' a non-zero benefit; having that pin marks you as a man to respect and fear across the continent.
* '''Novus Ordo Mundi''' or '''NOM''' do not exist, aren't an Illuminati whose leadership is entirely composed of a council of the most-powerful and morally-warped supervillains of each nation and most secret societies, don't secretly run or at least have a hand in the better part of the world, corrupting and polluting all good things they touch in an effort to buttress and secure their own power as they grab always for more, and I wouldn't worry about it. They aren't in any of the resources intended for players, and definitely aren't mentioned exclusively in GM-only sections.  Also, they ''definitely'' don't have the best knife-based assassination school in the game, surpassing even the Mortis school of Die Kreuzritter, at their disposal as the exclusive privilege of the greatest assassin in the world and a few of his most-trusted protegees who all do their bidding and mostly try to stop them murdering each other.  That'd be pants-shittingly scary.