Order of the White Peacock

The Order of the White Peacock was a 19th and 20th century secret devil-worshiping cult based in the mountains of the Sung Plateau. In parody of the Peacock Angel in the Yezidi religion, the Order's symbol was a white peacock. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

Among his accounts of the War in Heaven, Patient Y recalled exposing a grand conspiracy of a White-Peacock-worshipping cult made up of fictional entities and real people who acted as "Reps". (PROSE: Pre-narrative Briefings)

Starting in the 1890s, the Order began propagating itself through fiction, becoming less of an actual cult and more of an archetype: that of the stylish oriental villain. The Order reached the general Western public through characters such as Fu Manchu and Ming the Merciless. By the 1930s, in part due to some manipulation by Faction Hollywood, most symbols of evil in American film were derived from totems of the Order. (PROSE: The Book of the War) The White Peacock Syndicate included both the White Peacock Arms Company, run by Fu Manchu's son, and the Peking Panda Parts Company. (PROSE: The Beasthouse)

By the time of the Cold War, the actual Order was nearly non-existent, but it meta-physically survived through American fear of communist China. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

Starting in 1948, the Cult of the White Peacock began annually meeting at the Peacock House in Jersey every Lent. Their meetings remained unobserved until 1963, when Emmanuel stayed at the house during Lent and was driven insane and marked with a spiral scar on his right hand. He spent the rest of his short life drawing Dadaist depictions of the Enemy's many forms. The Cult's meeting was disturbed again in 2010 by filming of the Great House Challenge. (PROSE: A Choice of Houses)

Behind the scenes

 * Taxonomically speaking, the order of the white peacock is, a Latin-derived word similar to Gallifrey.
 * Early drafts of The Brakespeare Voyage featured the Order of the White Peacock in a major role.