Gorlovich's Ring
= Gorlovich's Ring

Function: Insurrectionist activities
Area of operations: Russia, chiefly St. Petersburg
Active: 1864 - 1887
Leader: Sergei Gorlovich
Strength: Approximately 1,000 agents
scattered throughout Russia before disbanding

On the streets of St. Petersburg, dozens of citizens took up arms against the Enlightenment every day. The Russian people were not sheep, and they had not yet been fully indoctrinated with the Enlightenment's propaganda the way most of Europe had. Their hostility was fierce, constant, and extremely disorganized. Once the Enlightenment caught up with them (and they always caught up), they reeducated these wayward citizens and set them back on a righteous path… provided the insurrectionist didn't die in the process.

Sergei Gorlovich saw this, and understood. He knew a handful of pebbles thrown at a window would clatter harmlessly and fall without leaving a mark. Cement the pebbles into a ball, however, and the window would shatter. His comrades had the drive to destroy the Enlightenment, but without direction they would never leave a mark. Sergei knew he had the power to unite them, and that's what he set out to do, just after his twelfth birthday.

Not everyone with the desire to fight the Enlightenment could fathom Sergei's methods at first. Those who joined his cabal, particularly when it started out as a ragtag street gang of children Sergei's age, often complained that the missions he assigned them were not significant enough. Vandalizing Enlightenment buildings by night wasn't exactly commensurate with burning down a factory that made steam armor, for instance. Those who were given tasks that did not meet their standards of consequence made their dissatisfaction known.

Sergei would brook no friction among his agents, and insisted that it was all part of the plan. No one knew what the plan was in its entirety—not even Pavel Baronov, Sergei's second in command and the unofficial enforcer of the Ring. Sergei passed out assignments piecemeal and kept the complete formula (if he really had one) to himself.

Over time, however, it became clear that Sergei's system was paying off. His seemingly insignificant actions were chipping away at the Enlightenment's grip on St. Petersburg. Moreover, Sergei's agents brought his structured form of anarchy to villages and cities beyond St. Petersburg, and new bases developed across Russia. Through the first ten years of its existence, Gorlovich's Ring spread like roots beneath the Enlightenment's pavement, gradually forming cracks that threatened the stability of the regime.

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