#147 Coven of Eels

Age: 190 years

Hidden or Lost?: Hidden

History: Power can be drawn from nearly any aspect of our reality, be it the moon, the land, a patron spirit, or even from other people. But some turn their nose up at the power drawn from the more unattractive wells. The swamp hags, filth shamans, and organ augers. So it was with some surprise that the lonely Coven of Eels became one of the most important arcanist groups in modern history.

It was none other than the decadent hedge wizard Ben Franklin, who brought the scattered witches and warlocks of the Eel school to worldwide prominence. A pathetic con man of a wizard, Franklin sought to find a shortcut to power, some way to become so frightfully incredible that none could challenge his dignity. In his quest for power, he became obsessed with harnessing the wild energies of lightning itself.

He knew he could never take it via honest means do the True Rule of magic: as above so below. Thus he sought to take the power from a different source, the small lightning of the common eel.

Franklin gathered a covenant of outcast magic users, each devoted to the rare power of those slimy, fanged sea worms, and together they discovered how to harness the power of their collective electricity. Ever the clever huckster, Franklin devised a nonsense tale of keys and kites, and marketed his newfound power as the wave of the future. He made sure that conduits for his electric power were built into the very fabric of society. And as electricity spread, the coven’s power grew. The ascendant Coven of Eels built a massive power plant as their new home, and there they fostered a giant avatar eel as the immortal vessel for their new god.

With global influence secured and their circuits threaded into every aspect of the modern world, no other coven or cult could challenge them. In the end, not even Franklin himself could control the coven he had created. Long-since immortal, the coven leaders eventually betrayed Franklin, severing his head and placing it on a sacred altar, to be worshiped as an electric prophet.

Today, the Coven of Eels continues to exert its eldritch power from its decrepit powerhouse. Other modern powers have diffused their control somewhat, but the coven’s connection to the Creature of the First Spark has given them a darker, more lasting power. Still guided by the deathless head of a founding madman.