Anti-Paranormal Secret Societies, often shortened to APSS, are a modern administrative designation for the Wailwaan Yinnar (in Noongar, or Standard Aboriginal) or Hayvon Ovchilari (in Kurglasheprii, or Riverine Ferozen), both names roughly translating to Monster Hunters. This was, in fact, their original mission: to hunt down the dangerous Cryptid 🐲 and the maddening Eldritch Creature 👾 using unconventional means, including enlisting the aid of clevermen, a form of ancient Sorcerer, but mostly by human determination, human sweat and human blood. Their field operatives are denominated Secret Society Trackers, and are often recruited from the burgeoning ranks of the Adventurers.
These societies have existed for a long time. They claim to be the spiritual descendants of Ankotarinja, the First Man in the Dreamtime faith, and according to myth, he who taught the first Aboriginals how to survive in this continent and how to fight back against its horrors. Internal records from the most ancient of Secret Societies trace their origin at the late First Ankic Empire. Once, they cooperated with the Sorcerer and the Psychic, but ever since the Collegiate of Magicians' great betrayal which gave birth to the Great Magocracy, the APSS have added to their purpose the hunting down or conscription of independent sorcerers and psychics, partly as an ancient grudge, and partly for the safety of the continent. To make combat with the otherworldly, including spellcasters, the Societies have developed counter-magic. This discipline is meant to neutralise a spellcaster's (or an anomalous being's) capacity to use The Dreamspace in any capacity, and it extends to using programmed spells and spellbooks. Elite Secret Society Trackers who have specialised in counter-magic, and generally in combating human opponents, are known as the Witch Hunters.
One of the most important aspects of becoming a member of the APSS, and the primary objective of an initiation ceremony, is the Oath of the Masquerade. This ancient oath contains three simple points:
- I shall not divulge the secrets of our most sacred, just, and honourable brotherhood.
- I shall hunt down the monsters of the night, for the good of all of humankind.
- I shall die in the dark, so that men may live in the light.
The last point, despite being the most cryptic, is the basis of what is better known as the Masquerade, and it is a concern which has become official Federal Government policy through the Federal Special Research Division, with which the APSS have a close and cooperative relationship. It essentially means that the less the general population knows about monsters, magic, psionics, and the otherworldly, the better. FSRD psychologists theorise that the creators of this ancient oath arrived at the same conclusion as they did, but thousands of years ago: if the Masquerade falls, it could result in what academics hypothesise as a "Mass Paranormal Hysteria Episode", and thus, a period of general chaos.
In the age of the atomic bomb, that cannot be allowed to happen.