Hellfire Club

This page is about the Phase 2 incarnation of the NPCs. For other uses, see Hellfire Club (disambiguation).

PHASE 2

Hellfire Club
Portrayed by various
Known Aliases:	Emma Frost (White Queen), Sebastian Shaw (Black King)
Affiliations:	Independent
Socked By:	various
Introduction:	Paradise Lost

The Hellfire Club is believed to be a social club, originated in 17th century England, and now located in a number of chartered clubs around the world, catering to high society. Once a bastion of the British colonial empire, the Club is now seen as a decadent exercise in anachronistic excess; a symbol of exclusivity and connections to the cream of society. However, its lavish galas and parties hide the true aims of those who comprise its Inner Circle and mask a complex history of influence, corruption and manipulation at the very highest level.

History

The Hellfire Club is a social club catering to members of the social and financial elite. Secretly founded by members of a secret cabal, the club is an offshoot of John Dee's Invisible College, established sometime in the sixteenth century. Similar to the Royal Society, but with an interest in the arcane and demonic spheres, the club gained a strong cabal of influential members, to the point that it was forced to hide behind the disgraced guise of other clubs to avoid being targeted by political or religious enemies. In the 18th century, the club used pawns like Phillip, Duke of Wharton and Sir Francis Dashwood to distract those who had heard whispers of their studies, instead sending them to drunken orgies and satirical farces of religious ceremonies. However, as the true club began to recruit the best from their fake counterparts, some of the attitudes began to seep in, changing the mores and focus slowly.

Over the years, secret chapters were begun, mostly following the trade routes of the empire, although occasionally making in-roads into the traditional grounds of other societies in Europe. By the mid-19th century, the Hellfire Club was able to shed part of its cloak of secrecy, transforming itself into the public eye as more of an exclusive social club. Wealthy men and women would maneuver for an invitation to one of their elaborate parties, and membership was considered to be a significant honour. The various chapters undertook a period of re-organization, eliminating small and mismanaged chapters, and laying out the court structure which survived up until September 2015.

Today, the Hellfire Club is seen as an anachronistic institution from an imperial past; barely noticed or known about by the public, only as visible as a thousand other private clubs and societies which occasionally provide quiet charitable support or fundraisers. Its private nature allowed very little access to the media, and as a result, it enjoyed the status of being functionally invisible.

New York

Following M-Day, the New York Hellfire Club had to reimage itself in order to protect its mutant members and an uneasy truce was struck between Black and White Courts.

Note: While roles which are marked "Unnamed" technically have a person occupying them in order for the Court to operate, the individual hasn't been named. They are Schrodinger's roles. The White Court roles, at the least, should be considered open to any character interested in joining the HFC. Black Court roles are subject to the "no PCs as villains" rule.

White Court

	Court	Role	Name	Description	PB
	Inner Court	White Queen	Emma Frost	Leader of the White Court, Emma is cunning, manipulative and intensely protective of her people.	Charlize Theron
	Inner Court	White Rook	Unnamed	Coordinates intelligence gathering	PB: TBD
	Inner Court	White Knight	Doug Ramsey	Ever loyal to Emma, Doug maintains his role as her Knight, acting as her personal security.	Ryan Phillipe.
	Inner Court	White Bishop	Hope Abbott	Recently promoted from White Herald following her machinations as part of Humanis Honoribus Amicis.	Shelley Hennig
	Outer Court	White Squire	Unnamed	Works with both the Knight and the Bishop in the areas of body guards and publicity	TBD
	Outer Court	White Herald	Unnamed	Works with the Bishop and the Rook in areas involving favours and secrecy	TBD
	Outer Court	White Sentry	Unnamed	Works with the Rook and the Knight coordinating operations and addressing threats	TBD
	Junior Court	White Page	Unnamed	Appointed to assist the Knight	TBD
	Junior Court	White Witness	Unnamed	Appointed to assist the Rook	TBD
	Junior Court	White Chatelaine	Unnamed	Appointed to assist the Bishop	TBD

Black Court

	Court	Role	Name	Description	PB
	Inner Court	Black King	Sebastian Shaw	A powerful industrialist, Sebastian Shaw is a dangerous and cunning opponent. His mutant status is a tightly-kept secret and since M-Day and the death of his Rook in jail, he has grudgingly admitted things have to change, and in the area of mutant welfare, at least, has agreed to a truce with Emma.	Jason Isaacs, socked by Cai
	Inner Court	Black Rook	Unnamed	Coordinates intelligence gathering	TBD
	Inner Court	Black Knight	Unnamed	Right hand and protector of the Black King	TBD
	Inner Court	Black Bishop	Harry Leland	An esteemed Manhattan businessman and a full partner with a controlling interest in Shaw Industries. A heart attack in 2007 has significantly weakened his position, but he remains as Bishop, a modifying influence on the excesses of his King.	Sydney Greenstreet, socked by Sam
	Outer Court	Black Squire	Unnamed	Works with both the Knight and the Bishop in the areas of body guarding members and publicity	TBD
	Outer Court	Black Herald	Unnamed	Works with the Bishop and the Rook in areas involving favours and secrecy	TBD
	Outer Court	Black Sentry	Unnamed	Works with the Rook and the Knight coordinating operations and addressing threats	TBD
	Junior Court	Black Page	Unnamed	Appointed to assist the Knight	TBD
	Junior Court	Black Witness	Unnamed	Appointed to assist the Rook	TBD
	Junior Court	Black Chatelaine	Unnamed	Appointed to assist the Bishop	TBD

Former Members

• Friedrich Von Roehm - Black Rook: a mutant, killed in a police cell when his image inducer failed and his position within the HFC was unable to prevent his arrest.

• Julian Keller - White Squire: on a leave of absence.

Details

Following M-Day, it became obvious that things had changed for the New York Hellfire Club with the death of the Black Rook in police custody. Where formerly just citing his position with the Club would have seen him on his way, the fact he was a visible mutant in post-M-Day New York meant his position meant nothing. Faced with this new threat, White Queen Emma Frost and Black King Sebastian Shaw came to a reluctant agreement and restructured the NY HFC according to old lines. Part of the agreement was there would be no Black Queen and no White King - the existing 'royalty' would rule alone, in order to provide balance.

The Black and White Courts were still, in most things, in a certain state of opposition. There were only certain things, primarily to do with mutant affairs that they joined together to work on. Part of the reason that they chose to do this, was that the world had changed since M-Day; despite the fact that they had quite a lot of influence in business and politics, all of the members of the HFC had to be considerably more careful about being outed as mutants. The Black Court, particularly as they had neither telepaths nor magic users to cover their tracks, were much less inclined to any overt use of powers in public or in front of non-HFC people they had to leave alive. They also couldn't just throw money and influence at problems they wished to mutually solve; anti-mutant sentiment was so strong that they couldn't simply make things go away or change. For example, they might have been able to convince politicians to go a certain way to softening anti-mutant laws etc but they were unlikely to have sufficient influence to overcome the political liability that would come from a politician being seen as a strong mutant sympathiser.

So, as part of that lessening of influence, they had fewer senators in their pockets - a few influential ones, who were very loyal to the HFC for a number of different reasons, but the Courts couldn't simply let those Senators know what they wanted and expect it to happen. They had to do a lot more work to get the results they wanted, so they expended the need for favours more carefully. In terms of business, they still had a LOT of money and a LOT of influence - but this was also the area where Black and White Courts were primarily in opposition. Frost and Shaw also remained business rivals, so they didn't tend to work together much in terms of undertaking Court activities through the business sphere.

In 2020 that rivalry came to the fore at the annual Hellfire Gala, hosted in this instance by the Black Court. A former Club member had willed some valuable books to the Black Court, one of which contained pages from the highly rare Book of Cagliostro. Warned by Nicholas Harkness that X-Force would attempt to steal the book as a way of currying favour and being allowed to join the Inner Court, the Black Court called up Emma Frost and Doug Ramsey to accuse them of the theft, only for the tables to be turned with the book in the vaults being shown to be a forgery and the "real" book found in Harkness' hotel room. With the Black Court hastily backtracking their accusations, the White Court came out ascendent once again.

Paris Court

The Paris HFC focuses on magic the same way the London HFC focuses on antiquities and the New York HRC does on mutants. It is the home of an extensive magical library, housed in the catacombs below their headquarters.

Gold Court

	Court	Role	Name	Description	PB
	Inner Court	Gold King/Queen	Unnamed		TBD
	Inner Court	Gold Rook	Unnamed	Coordinates intelligence gathering	TBD
	Inner Court	Gold Knight	Unnamed	Right hand and protector of the Gold King/Queen	TBD
	Inner Court	Gold Bishop	Unnamed	Coordinates diplomacy	TBD

Silver Court

	Court	Role	Name	Description	PB
	Inner Court	Silver King/Queen	Unnamed		TBD
	Inner Court	Silver Rook	Unnamed	Coordinates intelligence gathering	TBD
	Inner Court	Silver Knight	Unnamed	Right hand and protector of the Silver King/Queen	TBD
	Inner Court	Silver Bishop	Unnamed	Coordinates diplomacy	TBD

Details

In January 2025 the Paris Court was plunged into upheaval While the election was to be held by the members of the Paris Court, the Lords Cardinal were asked to attend to provide stability, as the loss of full leadership in both courts was an exceptionally rare event. The Blue Queen of the London Court specifically was concerned that this might be an attempt to engineer a crisis to go after the Paris HFC’s famous magical library. X-Force attended the HFC-only event in various roles and were able to thwart an attempt to seize the library by Gold Court member, Trevor Fitzroy.

London Court

Red Court

	Court	Role	Name	Description	PB
	Inner Court	Red Queen	Jane Hampshire	Daughter of Sir James Ransom Hampshire, British engineer and mechanical designer, Jane has multiple degrees and knows multiple languages. She was raised to the position of Red Queen from Red Rook following her role in the Allumwandlung in Azure and Gules matter.	Chloe Annett, socked by Dex
	Inner Court	Red Rook	Unnamed	Coordinates intelligence gathering	TBD
	Inner Court	Red Knight	Unnamed	Right hand and protector of the Red Queen	TBD
	Inner Court	Silver Bishop	Unnamed	Coordinates diplomacy	TBD

Blue Court

	Court	Role	Name	Description	PB
	Inner Court	Blue Queen	Emma Steed	Steed, accomplished and intelligent, was unwilling to let previous Blue King Templeton leverage the power of the Blue Court to expand his own personal empire at whim, and is now the leader of the Blue Court.	TBD, socked by Dex
	Inner Court	Blue Rook	Unnamed	Coordinates intelligence gathering	TBD
	Inner Court	Blue Knight	Unnamed	Right hand and protector of the Blue Queen	TBD
	Inner Court	Blue Bishop	Unnamed	Coordinates diplomacy	TBD

Details

Following the deaths of both the Paris HFC Gold and Silver court leaders in a suspicious plane crash, the Red and Blue Courts of the London HFC reached out to the NYC branch to suggest that for the upcoming elections at the Paris HFC, they coordinate their efforts to avoid any issues. The Blue Queen of the London Court specifically was concerned that this might be an attempt to engineer a crisis to go after the Paris HFC’s famous magical library. Both Red and Blue Courts provided covers for members of X-Force to attend the event.

Plots/Events

Paradise Lost

Operation: Dewey Deceptional System

Humanis Honoribus Amicis

Operation: We'll Always Have Paris

Meta

Socked by: Various