Micah's Question

Founded to carry on the quest of New Dunston's most famous explorer, Micah's Question is a faction known for its fearless exploration of the praetermundus. Constantly finding new pockets, the members of Micah's Question search the cracks of the world with an uncanny passion.

Internal Structure

Anyone willing to follow the word of Micah is allowed to be a member of Micah's Question, meaning that they're willing to explore anywhere at anytime. Not that the Faction has been too strict on that. They do, after all, let members take breaks when they're too injured to move. In fact, the faction doesn't even formally organize explorations. Each member is allowed to explore as they please, with only one restriction. They cannot be a team leader until they finish basic survival training and second for another member during an expedition. Once that's done they're allowed to lead their own teams. Team leaders are expected to recruit from within the faction first for any project. They are, however, allowed to look outside the faction if they believe it is needed, and even encouraged if the safety of the expedition is in question.

At any given time most of the faction is outside of New Dunston on one project or another. Of those that are around one is chosen to be Caretaker of the faction estate as well as to speak for them in the Chamber of Commons.

The faction is rather small but very wealthy. Their sale of artifacts, gates and pockets keeps their future projects well funded. Most of the faction could retire after a few explorations, but people don't join Micah's Question to make money.

Relationships with Others

The members of Micah's Question get along well with quite a few other factions. They have an open alliance with the Keepers of the Lost and House Somerset in that they operate a public library for the people of New Dunston. Angleterre and House Slattery have a healthy relationship with the faction and it is quite often that an expedition has a member of one, or both, Houses included.

There are few factions that have a problem with Micah's Question, though the members have very little respect for House Enfield.

History

Micah Enfield was one of the first members of House Enfield born without their infamous ability to communicate by touch. The Enfields would never officially throw someone out, but they treated young Micah so poorly that he felt he had no choice but to leave. Micah wandered around the region for several years, and the few people who cared eventually assumed that he was dead. When he reappeared in 1841, he told his family that he had found a new pocket in the Grim. Much to their regret, they let an incompetent, and somewhat jealous, cousin deal with Micah. The poor cousin accused Micah of lying and tried to claim the prestige of finding the pocket for himself. Micah sold the land to the Shawnee and never set foot on the Enfield estate again.

Over the next twenty years, he was presumed dead several times but continued to reappeared and disappeared, always with some new revelation of interest--a new territory, a new area of woods, or information about some place no one else had managed to enter. He also managed to accumulate a small following of admirers in the city. At first, Micah tried to ignore them. Over time, he gave up and talked to them. Eventually he even allowed a few of them to come along on some of his trips. They learned some of Micah's tricks for finding and surviving in the unexplored praetermundus. Rumors has it that some even learned what Micah was looking for. Some may have even learned why.

In 1910, Micah led an expedition of six people into the sewers. Considering his fame, it wasn't until 1915 that the usual speculation of his demise began. Most of it was shouted down by his most fervent admirers. In 1919, a single member of the expedition, severely injured, came back to New Dunston, and babbled incoherently at his rescuers for a few minutes before dying. The next year, one of Micah's most devoted followers, Margaret Thorp, gathered his followers and founded Micah's Question.

Margaret and other devotees of Micah's have carried on his tradition for the past eighty-seven years, making Micah's Question one of the more successful factions of New Dunston. Some even claim that they were behind Enfield being kicked out of the Chamber of Lords. They did make some interesting discoveries around that time and it's well known that the other members of the Chamber of Lords were given remarkable deals on these finds.