Monitors Guild
"I could try to tell you about the gossamer strings. I could say that I see the fragile web that crosses a thousand thousand times over the shroud, but that doesn't really matter to you. The good news is that your fetters keep you here. The bad news is that your fetters keep you here."
Every wraith requires a fetter to exist for long in the shadowlands, and every fetter is a connection to the mortal world that must be protected. The Monitors are a guild that studies and safeguards the connections wraiths have to the mortal world. This duty and mastery takes many forms, as fetters are not simply anchors and tools, but deep emotional bonds and sentimental attachments. As such a monitor not only looks after the physical energy connection, but the psychological one as well. For this reason, they are very effective councilors and their unique insights are often said to be vital to resolving fetters for the purposes of transcendence. Their unique insight to these bods to the mortal world make them naturally good reapers, and many of the guild chose to actively pursue this profession along with their guild duties.
Monitors as a guild are sought after by those who would see their fetters strengthened or to have new ones made, yet they are not as vital to the running of the underworld as guilds like the Artificers, Pardoners, or Masquers and as such they hold less power than other guilds. Still they are not to be trifled with for as easily as a monitor may strengthen a fetter or create a new binding, so too can they sever those connections. For this reason those who show an exceptional skill in this area are required to join the guild on at least a cursory level so that they can be themselves monitored. Monitors teach their art rarely and only to those who they are certain can be trusted, for should a rouge practitioner of Lifeweb go un-accountable, they could quite easily cause great amounts of damage.
A good monitor will extol the virtues of anchoring ones self upon a strong lasting foundation, and yet that same monitor can probably preform a soul pact. The soul pact is an agreement between a wraith and a mortal that binds them together. It is usual done as payment for some form of service the living would ask of the dead, and in a way it serves to mark those who have been claimed for the afterlife. While those who have undergone the soul mark have no more or less chance of becoming wraith, it is amazing what the expectation of such a bond can do to a mortal as they face death. In general mortals as fetters are considered unstable at best, and while they often have the strongest emotional attachments, their vulnerability to sudden death (and therefore destruction of the bond) is indeed great in these dark times.
Lifeweb consists of the arts of Splice Strand, Sever Strand, and Soul Pact. These arts and indeed this guild is largely based more on roleplay than on the potency of their arconai. While every wraith requires a fetter to affect the realm, they start with 2 of them and losing them is rare. Still, should wraith find themselves without one, the Shadowlands can suddenly become very difficult. Taking this arcanoi is something a player should not expect to get a lot of use out of, yet when the need is there, it's presence is invaluable. This being said, the roleplay potential for a monitor is vast as each and every fetter has a story, and every story has an issue or burden to be resolved.
