Factions
Heretics of Paineel
The dark Erudite splinter faction that founded Paineel. Necromancers, Shadow Knights, and Cazic-aligned clerics.
Heretics of Paineel is the evil-aligned Erudite faction that broke from Erudin during the Civil War of the Erudites and founded the city of Paineel on the southern edge of the Toxxulia Forest. The Heretics took the necromantic and dark-clerical traditions Erudin had attempted to suppress, structured them into a formal Cazic-Thule-aligned theology, and built a city around them — complete with its own arcane university, its own clerical training tier, and its own dungeon (the Hole) opened directly into the earth beneath the city.
The Heretics are the canonical home faction for evil Erudites — Necromancers, Shadow Knights, and the rare Cazic-aligned dark cleric — and the only stable foothold inside Paineel for any character who wants to bank, train, or run the city's quest content without aggro.
Lore
The Civil War of the Erudites split the Erudite people along theological lines: Quellious's tradition (Erudin) and the necromantic / Cazic-aligned tradition (the Heretics). Where Erudin formally exiled the Heretic faction, the Heretics in turn refused exile, withdrew to the eastern coast of Odus, and built Paineel in deliberate proximity — a permanent political insult and a constant reminder that the necromantic tradition had not been extinguished, only relocated.
Paineel is structured around the Heretics' core preoccupation: the study and use of necromantic art under Cazic-Thule's patronage. The arcane university trains necromancers and shadow knights, the temple precinct trains evil clerics, and the city's largest single project is the Hole — a vertical dungeon opened beneath the city floor as both a research site and a permanent open wound into the deeper death-content of the world. The Hole's deeper tiers connect to lore and content the Heretics treat as legitimate fields of study rather than threats to be sealed.
The standing fight between Paineel and Erudin is institutional and active. Erudin maintains a Heretic-hunter task force; the Heretics maintain a counter-network. For practical play, this means an Erudin-positive character cannot enter Paineel safely, and a Paineel-positive character cannot enter Erudin safely.
Why grind it
For evil-aligned Erudite characters, Heretics standing is the home faction — trainer access, gear access, banker access, and the Hole-tier task chains that don't appear anywhere else. Without Heretics standing, Paineel is hostile, and the Hole is unreachable except by porting in and rezzing through the trash.
For non-Erudite evil characters, Heretics standing is one of the cleaner Odus footholds and a useful adjacent faction for any necromancer or shadow knight who wants to expand their content beyond the Antonican capitals. The Hole specifically is a dense single-zone XP and loot source through the mid-tier and remains useful into the upper tiers for specific named drops.
Notable NPCs
- Paineel necromancer trainers — the city's necromantic progression contacts for evil Erudites
- Paineel shadow knight trainers — the dark knightly progression contacts inside the temple precinct
- Hole-tier task contacts — Heretic-aligned NPCs handling the deep-Hole quest chain hand-ins
- Paineel arcane university faculty — the senior academic tier governing necromantic research
- Senior Heretic clergy — Cazic-Thule-aligned priests handling cleric progression and city governance
Faction path
+faction
- Completing Paineel-aligned quest chains inside the city
- Killing Erudin guards and Erudin Heretic-hunter NPCs in specific quest contexts
- Hole-tier hand-ins to Heretic-aligned contacts
- Necromancer and Shadow Knight trainer progressions inside Paineel
-faction
- Killing any Paineel nobility, trainer, or Heretic-aligned NPC
- Completing Erudin-aligned hand-ins
- Aligning with the Quellious priesthood against Paineel interests
The Last Camp any-race-class adjustments
The Last Camp's any-race-any-class doctrine means a Half Elf Necromancer or a Dwarf Shadow Knight can grind Heretics standing and access Paineel exactly as a canonical evil Erudite character would. The Heretics' checks are faction standing only — race-flagged dialog from the Paineel necromancer trainers is flavor and does not gate trainer access, the Hole task chains, or the city's broader content. The Hole itself is open to any character with the standing and the level to survive it.