The Foundations are organized groups of geniuses within The Peerage, created to help fellow geniuses find people much like themselves and to prevent them from losing their minds from isolation and being picked up by the Lemurians. The Foundations are fueled by the Peerage's constant stream of mad research. This flow of data toward the genius offers two benefits: an additional favored Axiom, chosen from among the foundation's two Axioms of focus, and a grant, a special technique that the foundation offers its members.
They were first established in 1814 at the Conclave of Troy to gather all the known geniuses in Europe and Arabia away from the impending threat of Lemuria. There, free geniuses organized into new Foundations: The Invisible College, the Brotherhood of Artifice and Mechanism, the Children of the Demiurge, and the Cartographic Order of St. Christopher the Undeceived, along with a dozen smaller groups, which united to form the Peerage. In time, many foundations were renamed, reestablished, even disbanded, with newer foundations taking their place. Today, there are five major Foundations available to any genius:
The International Union of Artifice: Famous for their Mad Engineering program, it is the both fastest growing and poorest foundation and is the first foundation to actually start unionising.
The Fellowship for Manifest Direction: Famous for their Mad Psychology program, their foundation house the most socially capable geniuses and they often plan world domination.
The Center for Circumferential Navigation: Famous for their Mad Physics program, they are most recent group to join the Peers and were originally an underclass of Lemuria, but they've since earned their place.
The Reformed Society of Progenitors: Famous for their Mad Biology program, they have recently recovered from a bloody purge caused by the revelation that many of their members were Illuminated.
The College of Scholastic Theory: Famous for their Mad Philosophy program, they are the oldest Foundation and are in an understanding with The Free Council, one of the 5 Pinnacle Mage Orders.
Foundations are powered by the Mania given to them by their members and are fairly lenient on membership, though one prevalent rule of every Foundation is that a Genius must not be Unmada. Groups that are not large enough to be recognized as a foundation are called Programs. The largest program currently existing is the the Ten Thousand Fans, and it is only one closest to becoming an actual foundation.