The Cuckoos are the most thoroughly defeated faction in the Lands Between's intellectual history, the heretic order who seized control of Raya Lucaria from within and were, at their height, masters of the academy of glintstone sorcery. Their armour identifies the philosophy : the Cuckoo Knight Armor description records the emblem and the attitude both. 'Armor worn by Raya Lucaria Academy knights. Its left breast is emblazoned with a peering cuckoo, whence came their name. Perhaps the bird's shrewd gaze is an expression of their refusal to be mere servants of the academy.' A cuckoo lays its eggs in another bird's nest ; the Cuckoo Knights laid their movement inside the academy's institutions until the institution itself was theirs.

Their attempt to break Caria fell short. The Cuckoos of Caria Manor monument records their grave : 'The resting place of the contemptible Cuckoos. Lost in the siege of Caria Manor.' After the academy's heretic faction tried to march on Caria itself, almost certainly to depose Rennala and the Carian Royal House together, the Carian Knights and the manor's sorcerers cut them down. Their distinctive Cuckoo Glintstone, in the Glintstone Craftsman's Cookbook, is named in retrospect as 'faux sorcery, such as it was called' : the Cuckoos' attempt to manufacture, from cheaper minerals, the same magic the Carian dynasty had a monopoly on. Even their craft was a forgery of the line they tried to overthrow.