Category:Twelfth Officio

"Life is short, and art long, opportunity fleeting, experience perilous, and decision difficult."

Officio Summary

The Twelfth Officio Assassinorum stores records of Witches, Magical Girls, and information related to both. Aside of that, they also create many Witches from their own comrades and collect their Seeds to fight the Entropy.

Around 70% of Juunibey's contractees turn into Witches. He also likely creates the most contracts of all incubators, with not many of the girls staying around for long.

Officio At A Glance

Numbers given below are the approximate standings at the time of the quest. Note that a full Squad has a dozen people in the 12th, and that a few squads are mixed. Only certain girls, either with potentials fit for a given task, or detrimental to teamwork, will be made operatives of their own.

• Officio Nickname = the Recorders (originally), the Witchmakers (lately)
• Location = Prague
• Specialty = Record keeping, research of Witches and magic
• Incubator = Juunibey
• Current Warmaster = Jarmila Holá
• Disposition and Distribution = ~700 Magical Girls (Warmaster, Equerry)
  • 300 combat classes
    • 100 Eversors (8 Squad Leaders, presently overseen by Warmaster)
      • 50 dedicated Witch hunters (4 Squads)
    • 150 Vindicare (12 Squad Leaders, Rank Leader)
      • 50 Blaster Vindicare (4 Squads)
    • 50 Callidus (Rank Leader)
  • 400 home staff
    • 350 Vanus (15 Librarians, Chief Librarian)
      • 100 Lexicanum (in training)
      • 100 Scribes (working in the Archive)
      • 100 Gathreres (usually abroad)
      • 50 Scriers and Seers
    • 50 Venenum (5 Apothecaries, Warmasters Aide)
    • No Culexus

History

The Twelfth came into being from an older organization named The Cult of Black Rose, which contained the sum of Juunibeys contractees prior to the Officio system. It's mostly uninvolved in worlds affairs, aside of the occassional skirmishes with the Fourteenth, the occassional Gatherer sent to another Officio or place to gather information for them, and the occassional Callidus trying to sneak in.

Twelfth is historically an extremely loyalist Officio, serving the First first and foremost. It's no wonder than Incubator work is still being done more or less the old school way, while other Officios have already moved on to more 'humane' approaches.

Officio Organization

Location

Since as long as anyone remembers, the Officio spaces had been located underground - Formerly, under Prague's Faust House, though it recruited from all of east Europe.

The Big Fish event had changed the positions of most of it, closer to the National Theatre, though the Librarius couldn't be moved. As the Incubator's courtesy, there are now many more entrances into the underground open all over the city than before, but only the Officio employees would know the trick of how to get to the Archive's gate.

Existence of the 20th alone creates much paranoia, and heavy security measures have been put in place to prevent intrusion. Sadly, even with a pair of Rank Leaders that can see and pass through walls respectively, it doesn't seem that a lot of Callidus get caught.

While not inside of the Archive, the Fencing Hall used for Eversor spars, a shooting range used by the Vindicare, and a laboratory used by the Venenum are located elsewhere under the city surface. The combat classes, however, usually live above the ground, while the Venenum go sleep into the Archive.

The Officio consists an outer Archive which is mostly a maze of bookshelves. Within it can be found a large dining hall with the kitchen, several lecture halls, lodgings for five hundred magical girls, the Administratum which mostly consists of cubicles, several Silent Rooms of various purposes, and a gate to the Librarium.

The Librarium is itself a set of Silent Rooms, made to be settable as needed from within, mostly serving as workshops of the Librarians. There is surprisingly few books in there, only taking up three of the rooms.

The end of the corridor contains a long lift into the Librarius, also called the Hall of Sleep by some. Its contents are anyone's guess, but most agree that the Love Potion must be stored in there.

Hierarchy

As always, everyone has to listen to the Incubator. The addition of the Librarian rank may create some confusion, however.

The Officio largely splits itself between the inside and the outside. The combat personnel and home staff only interact a little, and their jobs shouldn't intervene. If they should, the person under whose jurisdiction the matter falls has the higher rank.

To this end, all unranked Magical Girls are technically equal in rank. Neophytes will be socially assumed to respect the badge-wearing magical girls in their squad, just like those will have respect for an individual operative - but none can order each other around.

• Inside the Archive, though, and regarding its matters, all the unranked Vanus outrank the unranked combat classes. Outside of it, especially in a combat situation, all the combat classes outrank the Vanus. This notably includes even the Gatherers, who actually leave the Archive. Similarly, regarding the matters of patient treatment, a Venenum is considered one rank above others, but she will have to listen on the battlefield and around books.
• A Squad Leader and Apothecary are equal in rank. They outrank both the combat classes outside, and the Vanus in their own work. An Apothecary outranks the Squad Leader in a hospital, and a Squad Leader outranks an Apothecary on the battelfield. (There is no middle rank of Vanus, nor are there Callidus squads)
• A Rank leader and a Librarian are equal in rank, outrank all under them everywhere, and have the same relationship between each other that the unranked do.
• The Warmaster and the Chief Librarian are equal in rank, outrank all under them everywhere, and have the same relationship as well.

Recruitment

"Freedom and life are owned by those alone, who conquer them each day anew."

The girls of the Twelfth are of mostly slavic descent, and thus can more or less always understand each other - though the transferees give it some diversity. Juunibey recruits everywhere from the German border to westermost parts of Russia. The Balkans are territory of the Fourteenth, though.

A new recruit from a combat class is a Neophyte for three months. If they are still alive then, they will be officially accepted as a part of their squad, and granted informal rank of a squaddie, though they would be already working with a squad long before that. Due to the policy of karmic streams, most of any given squad are always going to be Neophytes.

As an indicator, every magical girl of 12th that has finished the training owns a badge with a rose crest. This badge is awarded by their first direct superior, upon completing their three or six months of service. The first direct superior would be Squad Leader if they work under them, Rank Leader if they are to work alone, Librarian if they were taken as an apprentice, or the Chief Librarian if they were not. In practice, only about a hundred girls in the combat classes actually own it, and less than half of the whole Officio does.

The reason for that is 12ths policy of karmic streams. Prague is an artificial karmic high point, and the flows are unstable there. To a girl with weak will, a sudden change of metaphysical gravity can have fatal consequences.

A very important piece of foreign politics is, that all foreign Magical Girls are discouraged from entering the city at all, unless they have at least three years of service. A spontaneous Witch-out is a very real danger, should someone enter cluelessly.

To put it plainly, the accumulation of grief in Prague, especially above the ground, is slightly quicker than elsewhere. Worse yet, it comes in bursts, whenever a girl is grazed by the karmic stream. High level of mental discipline is required to limit or negate this effect. Girls who don't reach it become Witches, the other side of the 12ths end product.

The girls who survive for three months, even with standard Grief Seed allotment only, are then taken off surface duty, will not be considered Neophytes anymore, and will be assigned elsewhere. They also recieve an aforementioned rose badge from their squad leader, of the color of their Soul Gem. This badge actually represents the person's focus on some aspect of themselves, which allowed them to carry through. This is the mystical foundation of the Riddle of Witch Flesh.

That aside it can be assumed that the older combat class girls of 12th generally either have exceptional Soul Gem capacity, don't use much magic, have their minds very on point, or more of the above.

All recruits are expected to finish basic education, and Vanus are required to. A part of the basic training is the trial of storytelling, which mostly consists of the recruit being forced to read books. The goal is for their superior to gain a bit of insight into them, and separate the potential problematic elements into the Cult right as they come. The materials for them to read would be chosen mostly from their stated favourite genre, and will end up being downer stories, to instill understanding of a person's limits. This would make the girls often a bit more nihilistic, and perhaps weaker towards the city if they aren't already motivated somehow.

Venenum are almost all used to their fullest, since they are considered a somewhat rare asset. Vanus are also exposed to much less reasons to fear for their lives than the combat classes, though some nevertheless. Every Vanus is made to work in the Archive doing basic paperwork for a year, and come into familiarity with its workings. Vanus in training are called Lexicanum.

During this time, their trance and skills are studied. Should they prove exceptionally apt in some way, it's likely that a Librarian will choose them as a part of her personal retinue for her project. This carries the highest possibility of the girl eventually being made into a Librarian herself, though Librarains must have at least five years of service as a general rule.

Otherwise, the girl will generally manifest one of the four common forms of Vanus trance:

• The trance which allows to see the future, leading the girl to become a Prognosticator.
• The trance granting astral vision, leading the girl to become a Seer.
• The trance allowing perfect memorisation and perception, leading the girl to become a Gatherer.
• The trance allowing her to effectively work with text in some way, leading the girl to become a Scribe.

Should a girl prove extremely uncooperative, or perfectly inept, she will be reclassed into a combat rank, and sent to the surface. It doesn't matter much if she has no gift for that, either. If her character is terrible, abrasive, for example, if she picks fights in the library, she may be sent into the Cult instead.

Lastly, it's very common for Magical Girls to transfer to the 12th, and it's very uncommon for them to transfer out. It's basic practice for Juunibey to buy out competent Vanus from other Officios, and sending a problematic member of a combat class from your own Officio to the 12th is a fairly simple way of getting rid of them forever.

The Twelfth mirrors the Seventh in a way. While Seventh accepts gifted girls and helps them develop, the Twelfth accepts incompetent ones, and at least tries to make Witches out of them.

By Rank

Vanus

Vanus are the backbone of Twelfth, making up over half of its employees. They do several jobs, mostly split among the Gatherers, Seers and Scries, and the Scribes. They also have the elevated Librarian rank, in somewhat high numbers.

Gatherers travel the world as paperwork clerks, but also in order to interview people about the Witches they fought. They sometimes ask about notable Magical Girls, or events as well. It's not an exception that they ask about something the Officio would rather not have known.

Gatherers are often disliked in other Officios, treated as inspectors in the likes of Tenth, considering much of the information will be easily accessible by the First, or the lack of willingness to give it, anyway. A rumor also goes that they have kleptomaniac tendencies, and even steal mugs.

Seers and Scriers have the obvious sets of abilites, and work together so much that they are considered one and the same. They can dig up information the Gatherers can't if necessary, but most of their everyday work consists of tracking down Witches for the combat classes to kill.

Scribes, of course, manage the actual Archive. The section they do their work at most of the time is called Administratum, contains many cubicles within the Officio's stone walls, and, due to the amount of material they have to work with, achieves a level of bureaucracy that is completely baffling to an outsider. Sending someone to actually get something from there is a popular form of punishment.

The Librarian rank is somewhat rare in all the twenty Officios, and only the Second is known for having them as well. The Tenth has a Librarius rank, which is mostly the same.

A Librarian is a venerable Magical Girl, with a wide range of magic skills. They handle magical artifacts, and work as safekeepers and confidants for secret projects, or loreminders. Librarians are usually considered a higher rank of Vanus.

It seems that the Librarians of Twelfth are overwhelmingly different ranks which only had been reclassed to Vanus later, though - and similarly, some of the Second's Librarians are Vindicare.

Venenum

In study of the Love Potion, Panna discovered several magical concoctions that most Venenum can make. Venenum of 12th don't only heal, but also create tools. They are considered somewhat shoddy and uninspired in their work by the 13th, perhaps because of Panna being a strict teacher, beating their oddities out of them.

---

Maidens And Gallants

"Swords don't go with dresses."

There exists a wide split between the combat classes of 12th, and the internal workers, since Vanus are so important. For this purpose, the Callidus are considered a combat class, because they spend most of their time outside the Officio.

This split even goes down to appearances. Vanus and Venenum typically wear feminine clothing, and can afford to keep their hair long and untied, since their somewhat more peaceful life allows it. On the other hand, the combat classes tend to be more tomboyish and practically dressed, and will have more masculine clothing and costumes.

The fighting classes of 12th are usually seen as inferior to those of other Officios. The main reason for that is that at any time, the personnel is mostly made up of fresh recruits. The higher ranks that had managed to resist the city would either become Squad Leaders, land a job underground, or would be sent into a smaller cell off the Officio in the countries to the east. In the last case, they would then suppress Witches in the area, and help the Incubator with recruitment.

---

Eversors

Eversors of 12th tend to weigh towards Witch hunting over other areas of work. They also serve as guards in the underground once they become older, since they have the least chance of causing damage to the environment should a fight break out. If they wouldn't be fit for that, they may be sent to work abroad.

Vindicare

Vindicare fill more mundane roles of moneymaking. Protection, escorting, transportation, or assassination are all considered Vindicare jobs. There is also a specialist rank named Blaster Vindicare, which consists of offensive elementalists, girls wielding magical blasts, and other such directly destructive magic. Those are used as Witch hunters. They are also strongly discouraged from ever using their powers outside of a Barrier, due to the collateral damage they tend to cause.

Callidus

Callidus mostly fill the function of making the Officio money in shadier ways, and countering other Callidus that would attempt to sneak in. They are crouching eastern slavic suburban cliches, impossible to tell from any other person in a tracksuit. They like to squat at fairly high vantage points, however. If they do this in numbers, other classes like to call such a group "a murder of Callidus".

Culexus

There are no Culexus in Prague, though Juunibey had wished to acquire one since decades ago. There is a running joke in the Archive, saying that it's "obviously because you need to make a nice wish to be a Culexus, and this town only has assholes".

Officio Culture

"Blessed is the mind too small for doubt."

Discourse And Secretiveness

Discussion is bread and butter of the Twelfth. No topic is banned, as long as it doesn't contain classified information. The important result of this is that, at the end of the day, everyone has to listen to their superior, but nobody will be punished by the system for stating their opinion, provided they are polite enough.

The Archive has a special hall for discourse, reminiscent of a lecture hall in an university.

At the same time, the Officio has a complex system of data classification. All documents are stamped with the officio crest, and a letter:

• S: To be sent to the First immediately.
• A: Incubator and select confidant only.
• B: Incubator, Warmaster, Equerry, Warmaster's Aide, or Chief Librarian only.
• C: Only Librarians, Rank Leaders, and above.
• D: Squad Leaders, Apothecaries, and above.
• E: Free to read for anyone, but must not leave the Archive.

An unmarked file is free for anyone to take - those are generally plain books of no great value. As long as they wouldn't be communicating information to a rank too low without permission, all Magical Girls are allowed to say whatever they want. This has a strange effect, where girls that would overly talk about the lethality of surface duty or other such grim topics might be ostracized on account of spoiling everyone's mood.

Talking in implications is a very common practice to circumvent the classification system. This sometimes causes a situation where a Magical Girl has to choose between acting on her illegal knowledge, or facing punishment.

If someone would be accussed of having knowledge he shouldn't have and could not have figured out by any means, it's still possible for a higher rank to claim them as a confidant. This only works one rank down, however. Of course, it also results in creation of cliques and circles within the society.

Magic Research

Skill in magic arts is highly valued in the Twelfth. Dedicated training of it is very costly though, especially in terms of Grief Seeds, and only very highly ranked girls, or girls with great potential, would be led to experiment.

It is still encouraged to share simple spells whenever possible. Someone who reaches high rank and shows great aptitude will be eventually tasked with writing their knowledge down. While this can be hard to work with, due to differences in understanding of magic's nature between the writer and the reader, magic affinity being very rarely shared among Magical Girls, and the few universal spells tending to be very sub-par, the tradition has been in place for more than half a century, and many such books exist today.

The Vanus live much longer than the other classes, and can get to study these much easier if they wish to, but they don't get to use them in practice very often. A Vanus like that would also rightfully fear that if it turned out she can indeed learn combat magic, she would be instead made into a Blaster Vindicare, and sent on surface duty, with all the grim implications that carries. This is not an issue for the Librarians, who are all very skilled, and not in danger of being forced out of their warm spot. Then again, most Librarians did not start as Vanus, either.

The recent appointing of Umika Misaki as the Chief Librarian has seen great advancement in this area.

The Love Potion

The Love Potion is trademark magic of Panna Vászon. It's a sickly sweet smelling pink fluid based on an extract from the magical black roses she could create. It had been in use since long before the Offico's inception, and large quantities of it remain stored within the depths of the Officio, even after her death.

The potion is applied by letting a Soul Gem soak in it. Since there exists a slight disconnect between every Soul Gem and a body, poisoning or intoxicating a magical girl is otherwise difficult. It can be dosed to some degree, with some careful users prefering to only dip a few drops on the gem instead.

Afterwards, the girl experiences an emotional high, and a great increase in her magic power, at the cost of accelerated generation of grief. It is not addictive in the least, but the power stemming from it may be. It could bring talented unranked girls straight to the Warmaster level, in special cases - though prolonged survival at that point requires the attention of a specialist Venenum. The potion only provides power, too. It can't make anyone skilled.

Needless to say, it's competent use assumes very careful handling of the corruption levels, and is typically a death sentence for any a fresh recruit. Extended use of the Love Potion eventually diminishes the soul itself, like a strong drug would a human body, and the user will have an increasingly harder time resisting the impulse to Witch out.

Every girl in the Officio is free to ask for the potion, and they usually do if they feel their abilites are inadequate for the the empowered Witches of the city, or any assignment they were given.

Tools

Both the Eversors and Vindicare often use concoctions prepared by the Venenum, in order to improve their performance, or fill in blanks in their skills. The effect of ones enhnanced by the Love Potion is much stronger, but has very dangerous and usually fatal consequences. Foreign Evesors are likely to view such practice with scorn, calling 12th's Eversors berry monkeys and such.

Healing potions are also very much a tool at their disposal, though their effect is limited, and innate healing ability is preferable. Some of the Venenum and Vanus may be capable of preparing different tools, such as scrolls and magic wands usable by anyone, but only the potions are used widely.

Basic Officio policy is that these should never fall into civilian hands, and they often have some sort of a trigger that gets rid of their magic properties should they leave the vicinity of a Soul Gem. Despite that, they can be somehow found on the black market, at very high price.

Info-cytes

Info-cytes are tools that very recently came into wider use in the Twelfth. They are circlets which contain a small computing device, and directly interface with a Vanus's Soul Gem or brain, to enhance her results.

The original piece, resembling a VR helmet, is made by the Fourth Officio, though it had been now outfitted with bits of Incubator technology, and changed quite a bit since then.

A combat prototype called Puretide also exists, but it's usually seen as very faulty.

Ideology

Fires Far

A way of thought propagated by the recent Warmaster. Helping the Incubator create an energy surplus has always been an imperative, but only she made it into a school of thought, and a merit.

Human emotions are deceptively powerful, considering the small lives they are contained in. Jarmila teaches that, no matter how grim their everyday lives might seem, each Magical Girl is indeed larger than life. The amount of energy contained within a Grief Seed is so immense, a Magical Girl might literally become a small star after her death. Thus, the practice of both killing Witches and accepting the fate of becoming one yourself is, romantically, called "lighting the fires far". Each small carnage of emotions contained within a Magical Girl, no matter how vain it may seem to them, can serve to prolong the world's life, and keep the universe warm.

Jarmila further teaches that it isn't the case either that emotion is everything, and should be depended on, since too much of it may break the vessel too soon, by unprecedented and thoughtless action. Basically, a balance of passion and order must be reached within oneself. This is a challenge she issues to all of her underlings.

Religious Disputes

The Twelfth has a long standing feud with the Fourteenth, not so much with the Second, about the interpretation of Book of Blessed Lady. Since the seers and prognosticators see Faust often, especially around scenes of death, they instead choose to interpret her as a grim reaper sort of a figure, though they view her with no lesser humility. The Fourteenth is somewhat angered by this notion.

The practice of keeping saints, the questionable lore concerning the First Knight, and the knights bearing names of famous Witches do not help to redeem this situation in the least. Neither do the territorial borders they share on the south, tendency of both sides to argue about pracally anything, or the lazy-appearing way of life the Fourteen leads, in contrast to the hectic and dangerous life in Prague.

The Riddle of Witch Flesh

The greatest of arguements led within the Archive. Simply enough, what should be the leading emotion in life? What can keep man alive? What is the best way to shield oneself from the world? What should one be like, in order for their Witch to reach perfection?

Answers differ. It's generally accepted that there are multiple that work, but none of them feel 'right'. The Riddle is really a device for the girls to reaffirm themselves often, along with their answer.

There is a claim that the original question was "What can change the nature of a man?", but it's quickly dismissed, since everyone knows the answer to that one.

The Cult of Black Rose

"We who have cast ourselves aside become fallen angels."

The Cult of Black Rose is a large organization of Magical Girls, spanning over most of east Europe. It used to have a thousand members before the Officio system, but is now down to a few hundred girls only.

It's a public secret that despite not being officially a part of the 12th, girls of the Cult remain Juunibey's contractees. The girls mostly come from the Officio as well, unless they were sent to the Cult right away. It also sometimes happens that a girl actually transfers into the Cult. Most of the girls within the Cult had been contracted from life situations and places that other Incubators may call opportunistic, and bad form - hospitals, mental wards, and orphanages.

The name comes from their use of the Love Potion, and imagery associated with Witching out. All elder girls from the Cult carry a black rose badge, similar to the ones accomplished girls in the 12th wear. Since the colored badge is normally associated with embracing a driving emotion, thus gaining a form of defense against the city, worshipping the black rose means embracing grief.

The girls of the cult Witch out ritually, on purpose. They also believe that there is a time and place for everything, though, and that there should be a journey leading up to their ascension first. In the meantime, they fill their needs as they see fit, and due to their nature, aren't scared of dirty work.

Somehow, most of the Cult seems to be made of Eversors and Vindicare. Mirroring the 12th's combat classes, they like to wear formal male clothes, especially old military uniforms, for costumes.

The cult's core members worship Alpha Witches, recently in particular the Witch Liliana, as an ideal. Since they intend to match her deeds themselves, they have been around much longer than others, delaying their final moments in order to gather as much karma to their person as possible. In doing so, they organize the lower members much like a mafia, tying themselves indirectly to no small amounts of suffering. This is of course profitable to Juunibey as well.

Despite their best (or worst) efforts, not one is known that would yet succeed in becoming an Alpha Witch.

The cult obviously has terrible reputation, but not such that it would be grounds for a purge. For one, they have the protection of an Incubator, and then, they aren't an outright terrorist organization, as some other Magical Girl cults may be. Their daily lives barely differ from those they would have in Eighth or Tenth.

Miscellaneous Information

• The wage of most of 12th's girls isn't high, since the Officio isn't very rich. The combat classes are paid relatively more, with the Officio claiming their account should they die. In a practice some find distasteful, the family is only refunded if the Girl had finished training (so, it usually isn't).
• Then again, the Officio provides lodgings and even food in the case of Vanus and Venenum, so those girls don't need a lot of money. This convenience often leads in them becoming shut-ins, despite them not being in any way forbidden from leaving for the surface in their free time.
• The Twelfth doesn't have internet access, all the places that do are above ground. This is mainly to increase security. There are some computers and printers in the Officio, but everything that even slightly matters is written by hand, stored in books, and cataloged. This leads some of the other Vanus to become e-café addicts.
• The Officio publicly disguises itself as a prestigious girls school. Eversor and Vindicare lodgings, if they don't choose to live on their own, are also disguised as school boarding houses. Juunibey also calls himself "Director Woland" when he's doing business.
• No smoking in the library.

Trivia

• The Twelfth Officio is analogous to the Blood Ravens space marine chapter in Warhammer 40000. In the same way, the Cult of Black Rose, which it used to be before the Officio system, is somewhat analogous to the Thousand Sons legion.
• Much of the Officio's looks and the principles are adopted from Revolutionary Girl Utena. The Cult would then be inspired by the Black Rose duelists.