Faction name: Harper Alliance
Faction type: Clan
Status: Defunct
Alignment: Neutral to good
Some members of Those Who Harp could be identified by the magical silver crescent moon-and-harp pins they bore; but a Harper could otherwise be just about anyone from any walk of life. They were disorganized, secretive, and tended to have many lone wolves in their ranks. Most worked informally as solo agents who never banded together. Elminster (a founder of the Harpers) once differentiated the Harpers from other secret societies as the only group that "habitually worried about the effect of their actions on others." Senior Harpers tended to want to change the world personally, immediately if not sooner.
Others have called them "the meddlers of Faerun," and the comment was largely correct. All worked for what they saw as good (though individual Harpers often sharply disagreed on just what "good" was), and most did so in a style that involved deception, misdirection, and covert action rather than open conflict.
The Harper Code was simply stated but hard to follow: to work against villainy and wickedness, to keep folk free of fear and tyranny, to support law and order to gain peace wherever laws were just and fairly enforced, and to prevent extremes of power and influence and imbalances of wealth and opportunity.
In following these aims, Harpers did whatever had to be done without thought of personal pride or comfort. They policed themselves (traitor Harpers had to die), were free to rebuke and disagree with other Harpers, aided other Harpers without hesitation or thought of cost (or expectation of payment), and tried to record and preserve the past, accumulating written lore for all.
Some Harpers preferred to work actively in cooperation with other Harpers, following a hierarchy and long-range plans. That faction was based in Twilight Hall, in Berdusk, and led by the half-elf bard Lady Cylyria. Others preferred to subtly manipulate events behind the scenes, practicing politics amid great secrecy. Khelben "Blackstaff" Arunsun was the most powerful of these, and he and his followers were often abrasively at odds with the other Harper branches. The third sort of Harper prized independent adventurers acting more or less as secret agents. These agents were led by Storm Silverhand in Shadowdale, aided by her sister Dove Falconhand and Elminster.
In the Sword Coast North, Cormyr, and the Dales, most common folk saw Harpers as heroes; in Amn, Tethyr, and Calimshan, they were considered no better than the Zhentarim and other sinister cabals.
