Threats from Outside
From Shadow Academy
On an almost daily basis, the Shadow Academy faces what it considers "mundane" threats - rampaging ghosts and demons, vampire nests, werewolf attacks, even the occasional alien invasion - are all considered "just another day's work" for the Shadow Academy's Operations Branch.
There are, however, some threats to the balance of the two universes that are so insidious, so well hidden and so far-reaching that their presence is a constant threat to the purpose and aims of the Shadow Academy. These hidden conspiracies - sometimes known as the Invisibles - fight a nearly endless war with the Shadow Academy, seeking to destroy not only Earth itself - but everything that the agents of the Academy hold dear.
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[edit] The Reptites
Intelligent reptiles are not unique in either the World of Light or the Nether-Realms, but the Reptites are truly a force to be reckoned with. Their point of origin is unknown, and all that is known is that they have extremely advanced technology and a burning hatred of humanity. To date, they have attempted several times to invade Earth, each time seeking - apparently - to terraform it into something they consider more habitable.
[edit] Megami, Incorporated
Megami is one of the world's largest corporations, with divisions producing everything from pharmaceuticals to computers to video games. With its base in Tokyo, located very near the Shadow Academy itself, Megami puts forward the image of a powerful, responsible corporation, but it is an entity that the Shadow Academy watches very closely, for deep in Megami's halls, their research teams are developing new technologies, new innovations often, it is believed by the Academy's leadership, far in excess of the wisdom that they apply to their use.
[edit] The Illuminated Brotherhood
The Illuminati is a conspiracy that spans the earth and, some say, the entire World of Light - for their symbols have appeared on distant alien planets that humans haven't even dreamed of. Their true goal is occluded, but it is known that they seek to reach the Tower of Light, where they plan to usurp its control of Universal Order and, the Shadow Academy presumes, rule the World of Light. TO that end, they have carefully infiltrated the governments of the worlds that they exist upon, seeking to control the local populations through ignorance and fear while they plot their ascent to godhood.
[edit] The Outsiders
These strange Fiends - for Fiends they are, born of the primal Chaos in distant eons - have no bodies. Instead, they are shadows and madness given form as thoughts and whispers, and they travel the universes, taking the minds of the weak-willed and using them for their own inscrutable purposes. The worst known Outsider incursion occured August 15th, 1988 in Japan, in the small village of Sirenoshu, where 400 people - their minds infected by an Outsider known as the Whispering Plague - committed mass suicide after ritually sacrificing twelve travelers kidnapped from the nearby highway.
[edit] The Mekaware
When Chaos first touched the World of Light as the Ancients passed into Chaos, choice was born, and with the first choice was born the first of an infinite variety of dimensions that exist parallel to one another, connected by tunnels of quantum energy that those who study them know as "Coils". In one such reality, a race known as the Mekaware arose and developed technology which allowed them to tunnel through the Coils, and so they began the conquest of these other realities - implacable and inexorable as they pressed their invasion forward. Now, they have come to our reality - which they believe to be the "true reality", where the Tower of Light spoken about in their legends exists physically, and they seek it and its power with a fury that little else can match.
[edit] The Crimson Court
The Crimson Court has no plans for domination or destruction, its members care about only two things - temporal power and wealth. It's memberships spans the World of Light, a hundred worlds worth of criminals and monsters working to spread their influence and wealth. Though their operations on Earth are still small, they are led by a truly powerful individual - the infamous vampire Dracula, who has been steadily expanding operations for the last four centuries, though his efforts are often curtailed by agents of the Shadow Academy, with whom he has something of a love-hate relationship.
