The faction began during the Ashfall Winter, when the old capital collapsed under siege, famine, and a wave of coordinated fires set by unknown hands. Three survivors became the first Lantern Triad: Ilyra Voss, a metal-scrap smelter who could not bear to see citizens starve; Rector Halden Marr, a disgraced tax clerk who knew every warehouse ledger in the city; and Nesh Kael, a smuggler who could move anything through blocked streets. They forged the Lantern Oath in a cellar lit by a single oil lamp and promised to keep the city from falling to warlords, profiteers, and zealots. Their first victory was not military but logistical: they reopened grain routes, bribed two enemy captains into silence, and turned a riot into a festival by distributing lamp oil, bread, and rumor. That triumph made them indispensable. The watershed moment came twelve years later during the Night of Twelve Bells, when the Triad chose to sacrifice one district to save nine others. The choice ended the siege, but thousands died and the faction learned its defining lesson: it would preserve the whole by condemning parts of it if necessary. Since then, every generation has argued whether that was a necessary sin or the beginning of their moral rot.