Handmaidens of the Goddess

The Handmaidens of the Goddess, often referred to simply as the Handmaidens, is an elite group of shadow operatives who work for and report directly to the Pharaoh. They are often referred to as the Left Hand of the Pharaoh, because they enact her will in the less savory parts of Surket politics. Their role often changes and depends upon the goals of the Pharaoh, but one thing that has remained consistent is their skill as assassins and spies.

Formation
Officially, the Handmaidens have existed since Pharaoh Safiya at the founding of the Aquian Empire. At that time, however, they were handmaidens in the traditional sense, tending to the Pharaoh and acting as servants. It wasn't until the collapse of the Aquian Empire in 763 AA that they began to resemble what they are now. Finding herself in a dangerous and turbulent age, Pharaoh Minerva realized the need for a network of spies and agents to ensure her safety. While the Aquian Empire collapsed and city after city entered a period of upheaval, Minerva quietly sent her own handmaidens out to serve in the courts of her political rivals and councilors, gathering information and reporting it back. At the same time, she was using them to help increase her standing with the people of the city, knowing that stability was crucial to her maintaining her position.

By the time the Council of Surket could have acted and deposed Minerva, she had established herself as well-liked among the local populace and she revealed that her handmaidens had been spying on each of them. The Council was no longer in a position to depose the Pharaoh and declare Surket a free city, all because of the quiet and cunning use of the Handmaidens.

Since then, the Handmaidens have taken on a life of their own. They served Minerva in the years following the collapse of the Aquian Empire and helped to establish her as a figure in Surket in her own right and not simply as an extension of the Aquian Empire like she was before. For a while it worked, but Minerva's next challenge would come as she was dying. She had no children, and the collapse of the empire had thrown all sense of succession and lineage completely aside. When she died, it seemed that the title of Pharaoh, as well as the claim to the Aquian Empire and the Empire of Ozymandium, would die with her. On her deathbed, however, she declared one of her Handmaidens, a woman named Tyli, to be her adopted daughter and declared that she would inherit the title of Pharaoh and ascend to godhood. When Minerva died, Tyli took the name Tethys and declared herself Pharaoh. The Handmaidens all swore allegiance to her and she was officially recognized by the Council of Surket soon after, knowing well that the Handmaidens were still too powerful to be challenged.

Growth
The Handmaidens helped to secure the power of the Pharaoh and ensure that she survived during the early years after the collapse of the Aquian Empire, but as the decades passed and the role of Pharaoh became more stable, they began to take on some newer meaning. Because a Handmaiden always became a Pharaoh, they began to be seen, not as mortal gods like the Pharaoh, but as souls which had the potential for godhood. They had traces of divine energy within them that the Pharaoh could see and so she chose them to council her and act on her behalf, like angels. Eventually, when the Pharaoh was near the end of her life, the true divine nature of one of the Handmaidens will reveal itself to the Pharaoh and she will declare her as the next to ascend.

Being a mysterious and secretive group by its nature, the Handmaidens began to wear silk shrouds when meeting with the Pharaoh so as not to give away their identity easily. Many Handmaidens would not even see the Pharaoh in person except in specific circumstances. It has never been known exactly how many there are, which has led to paranoia by some councilors over the years. Their secretive nature has lent itself to rumor and folktale, with all sorts of stories being told over the years about them. They began to be seen as these sort of angels who serve a living god and dispense her will on Irdas instead of simply spies. Their religious connotations grew as they became more powerful, eventually being incorporated into the official Cult of the Pharaoh as saints and being revered within the Church of Aquias as conduits of the gods' will

Rules of the Handmaidens
While not much is officially known about the Handmaidens, there are some commonly known rules by which they govern themselves. For instance, they serve the Pharaoh, no matter who that may be and no matter what is asked of them. In this manner they are often seen as unswervingly loyal, though this has been contested slightly due to the recent succession crisis upon the death of Pharaoh Aliya in 1498.

They are only women and anyone who wishes to become a Handmaiden must be a woman. There are some stories of men who join the Handmaidens by becoming women through magical means. It is a common rumor among those who are rivals of whatever Pharaoh is in power at the time that she was once a man, though there is no evidence to suggest that a single Pharaoh since Safiya of Ozymandium has ever been a male at any point in their lives. It is possible, but the details surrounding many of these Pharaohs' lives are often hazy and clouded in folk legend and myth.

Almost without exception, Handmaidens are groomed to be what they are from a young age. Some are even raised from birth to become Handmaidens and serve their whole lives in service of the Pharaoh. A Handmaiden can be any age, though the title is usually reserved only for the most elite operatives that serve the Pharoah directly, and not the many individuals who serve in more auxilary positions as watchmen and servants of the Handmaidens themselves.

While there are no rules concerning families, most Handmaidens are unmarried, childless, and many are also orphans. The more attachments one has, the more vulnerable they are to exploitation and distraction. Some Pharaohs have had children, but no Pharaoh since Minerva has ever been married. There have only been three times in the 1200 year history of the Handmaiden Pharoahs that the title has passed from mother to daughter.