Kingdom of God: A Quest of Holy Revolution

When attempting to decipher the Mystery of the transmigration of the soul, one must first establish the basic principles of the existence of the soul. As revealed by Rip Tan Goo (see the Urumerlon Letters) the soul is the intangible animate force of the individual, joined to the physical body by God. As per the prophet Yuhwa (see Infallible Records of the Martyred Prophetess) the soul is uniquely created as an ineffable miracle of God and is inviolable save by the Creator. Furthermore Yuhwa revealed the destination of the soul to an afterlife where the deeds of the individual would be judged and the soul subjected to reward or punishment.

Rav Yatoni spent no small amount of effort in devising the doctrine of the endowment of the Patriarch, which led to the breach with Rav Obregas. The prophet Amalgast had delivered the most sublime and complete illumination of all the prophets. There seemed to be no room for his soul to be retrieved from a truly earned heavenly reward. No power on earth could call back or hinder the heavenly return of the soul for such power was within the province of God alone.

The answer he reached was based on the promise of Amalgast to "forever guide and illuminate the way for the believers" as he preached in the Third Sermon of the Hadit. The spirit of Amalgast then would, as an ineffable Mystery, always return to insure the Faithful would not lose their way. And with the structure of the Patriarchate organizing the whole of the ecumene into a single heavenly hierarchy this spirit must obviously surmount the summit thereof. The Patriarch would possess a portion of the Prophetic soul, lending that authority to his counsel and decisions made in behalf of the faith.

Rav Obrogras dismissed this as a self-serving innovation, lacking support from revelation or logic alike. However he was mistaken to do so, as the councils of wise men may bring illumination upon hidden or cryptic elements of revelation. God has not limited Himself to the prophets as a means of uncovering truths or else there would be 500,000 prophets instead of 5. And yet the Great Ravs made a mistake in that they reconciled the fallibility of the Patriarch as a man with the infallibility of the prophet by producing a split soul doctrine.

Instead to be consistent with revelation the soul of the Prophet Amalgast must be intact, unsullied, and whole. But for such a soul to literally possess the Patriarch would mean for the Patriarch to be truly infallible in both conduct and doctrine. This has clearly not been the case over long history. Forty Amalgasts would surely have led to the Apocalypse of Revelation by now!

So instead we must assume that the Patriarch remains only a man. A holy man, a wise man, invested with the immense power granted to him by the ecumene. But a man nonetheless, with his own intact soul and a character formed by his experiences and god-sent trials. Wherefore is the soul of the prophet then?

As with the visitation of the Angels and other servants of God make clear, the freedom of choice must remain to man. As such the soul of Amalgast the Prophet does not possess the Patriarch as some heathens think spirits possess idols. Rather the fully enlightened Prophet, who has put off his heavenly reward for centuries to guide his ecumene, must provide guidance. And subtle guidance is the order of God in the everyday, "who sends the wind that moves the sparrows so that the harvest might be made." It may be as simple as the Prophet's spirit guiding the conscience and reason of an enlightened Patriarch. One would need to be the Patriarch to know how such communication and guidance happened for sure.

But of course the soul of the Prophet could not be bound to a wicked man. This mantle of faith and guidance would be a reaction to the organization of the ecumene. The soul of Amalgast needs must be present with the Patriarch only upon his election and coronation, and conversely would depart a Patriarch whose flaws of character and wickedness threaten to lead the ecumene astray, to perhaps inspire the necessary correction in others...

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From the Doctrine of the Lapse of the Holy Spirit, a radical syncreticist publication that circulated in Nachivan following the passage of the Midnight Bull. Traces of Iconoclast, HaKhofshim, and Confessor influence are obvious but the author remains anonymous perhaps because of its central thesis that an unjust Patriarchy could be overthrown and that a Third Covenant could be established in its place.

All that was good, all that was fair, is gone.

Archdeacon Dabami cannot find satisfaction in even the little fine things that once so contented him. The taste of a fine bureka, the aroma of well-brewed tea, the texture of an ancient manuscript, can no longer inspire that moment's delight and peace that God once granted him. Even this day, so brilliant, sun shining, winter banished by hot winds, the chamber of the Palace of Mushad so well-aired, its gilded bulls glittering in dawn's early light, seems a dull and uncut jewel. The Throne of Guardians, kept empty since the Ravs vanquished the last of that venerable order and granted Harasdad's glory as the home of God to that second-rate border town, is no longer the wondrous thing he once fantasized about sitting upon, but an austere chair of dusty stone.

For this miserable day of the 22nd of Tebet Dabami has dressed poorly, only opting for lesser satins and silk robes taken from lesser suppliers, and preferring not the ostentatious and heavy gold that he once held. His creaking back cannot lift up the necklaces that press on him, and these days he cannot even find a thrill in embroidered gilded leaf. Accoutrements and accessories his father would have whipped a penitent for adorning him with are now his mourner's garb. He is at least happy that is a practice he has ended, though his penitents have grown unruly enough in the wake of the vile heretic's bull that in his worse moments wishes he had found the cruel old nine-tails.

Archdeacon Revano, sitting across, is in better spirits, and Dabami cannot fault him. It is indeed a victory to have gained support of High Ataman, and the first that they have seen. But to what end, and for what business? Origination, this mad dream of Archdeacon Beselsevi, has brought them all to ruin. Komandir Reganan, the sharpest of them all, has been buried underneath his splendid barrack, and the Sufgar standards scattered by sheep and that baseborn Sen, the pagan calling himself the Patriarch's own son. The other trueborn pagan son now loots and pillages the sacred soil of Sufgar as he did Raditakan, and the fragments of the glorious Tetrarchy of Sufgar standards are powerless to stop him. This disgusting, smelly man who comes before them, this titanic oaf who dared spit upon him in the Sanhedron, this welp of low cunning, to have him be their savior - it is an affront to God.

All of this could have been avoided. The Patriarch was well-secured, cloistered within the web of ritual arranged by the Order of Silence and the faithful within the Mothguard. That hussy of an abbess forcing him to forget his duty who had been was a problem, but one that could have been taken care of. The schismatic imps summoned from just exile could have been culled as easily as the diseased beasts of a herd, if only the Sanhedron had been tamed and made to work as they had tamed the second and the first. And indeed it had been working! But then the Ischak geriatrics had become excited, and Beselsevi saw a chance to birth his dream, and then the Gilded-Eagle had been plucked by a pack of half-pagan idolaters and their appointed blaspheming witch-princess, and it was the nightmare of the third sanhedron again...

The gilded doors open and a barrel on trunk legs storms in.

There is the High Ataman, entering to claps and ovations to the chamber. But although Dabami stands, he does not clap but glare, and when their gazes meet the beast has the temerity to smirk, cold red eye winking. Still he remembers as he wiped the spit, when those eyes faced Dabami with intent demonic, and he almost feared for his own life...

But to Dabami's relief, the bull knows his place, and his steedeater is an ally, not a foe. Impolite though he is even now, checking his pocket-watch as he is addressed, too stupid to comprehend Beselsevi's allusions and brilliant aphorisms drawn from the deepest histories. Revano mutters that they overfeed their livestock in Gushanaram, and Dabami has to laugh. It truly is a savage country, and so poorly treating of its witches - to imagine treating penitents that way makes the archdeacon shudder. Dabami even spots a few of the bull's own men, mingling at the back, near to the doors. Underfed reeds all, with dumb expressions, lazy and indolent postures - one catches Dabami's own eyes and, in a grave insult, does not lower them, even has the temerity to smile. He would have rapped the ears of his son for such manners, if his boy was not so sweet.

This is the army that is meant to save the wise men of God? How much Dabami would pray for even a company of legendary Rav Karogen's lions, or Ataman Yovan's silver-swords. But these men will have no trouble being butchers, and that at least will suffice. There will be plenty of reaping to be done, as the plateau savages would so put it, and Babarakis to be swept away. Archdeacon Yulrego had a particularly impressive encylical on this, published not ten days past, that the synod absorbed itself in reviewing for near to week - that the Patriarch and the Malek are the same in action and in words, and both pretend at kingship even as they invite whores and squalling babes into the pristine abode of the holy Amalgast.

"And that is why - that is why, High Ataman, we must reveal our strength urgently, and smite the non-believers to the south, and east, and even north, to sweep away those former lords who subjugated you so cruelly!"

High Ataman Burs chews stupidly on something, and still carries a sheathed saber at his belt. What wild disrespect to show his hosts, Archdeacon Revano mumbles, but Dabami frowns. He should have been stripped of the saber on entering the chamber. Where are the guards of the Trilobitic Jury? With relief, he sees one standing at the door, his spectacular feathered four-cornered hat bobbing as he gesticulates with the excitement of his chamber. A truly fine specimen, especially compared to the chittering and lifeless husks beside him, who merely nod along with imbecile smirks or outright ignore him.

Beselsevi finishes his speech, approaching Ataman Burs warmly. He at least still has the same skill at oratory he has always had, the same excellence which propelled him to pass the examination without effort. When they had been yeshiva boys, Dabami rightly treated him with envy, but he could not bear to follow his father's advice and poison him sick before examination - he was of such esteemed lineage, and of such diction, that he could not bear it.

He used what he has prepared on that upjumped rector in his class instead.

Clearing his throat, Burs, speaks up. "You mentioned strength. To show it." Does the brute truly not understand? Did not the Ravs face more terrible odds? The strength referenced is the same strength of Sufgan in desperate straits, as it written 'even if no armies avail me, so long as God is by my side I am as strong as iron'. Can he truly not have read such a simple passage from the Analects? Do they teach nothing in that country but how to build a witch's stake?

Archdeacon Beselsevi is the model of propriety though, so much more patient than Dabami would ever be, and that is why for all of his dreams he is the best of them. "Of course, for there is strength in God beyond armies, beyond flesh, and beyond body, and it is that we do possess."

Ataman Burs nods once, and approaches Beselsevi. "Do you feel strong?"

The room goes still. Some put their hands up to their mouths. Others gasp. Dabami inhales air. His filthy hand, placed on the shoulder of the Archdeacon.

And still, Beselsevi persists, tries to back away, but Burs only grips harder. Beselsevi's mouth quivers, he looks about for guidance, and then tries to push Burs off, but the behemoth does not budge, motionless. The smile and stupid grin on his face is gone. It is replaced by something...something wrong.

Something evil.

At last, Beselsevi resorts to scripture, quoting something simple that might dissuade the dog's bite. "Let he who is impure, and touches he who is pure, be so punished. High Ataman, release me at once - !"

Burs grips harder, and when he speaks it is without his old lazy demeanor. "Unctious cur, rank spoon. Let the wicked in God's Kingdom be gripped with the hand of justice, and their bones be crushed in the claw of oblivion."

Beselsevi is shaking. Several Archdeacons scream. Dabami swallows hard. That is from Wedada's commentaries on the sayings of Amalgast. That is not simpleton's scripture. That is not an idiot's knowledge of the classics.

Beselsevi, brave and bold, persists. "Let the men of the high priesthood, determine the laws, so that the wise and the righteous may so rule." Archdeacons bob their heads furiously, and Dabami's fingers dig into the bench in front.

Burs snorts, and with his other hand, slips it behind Beselsevi's neck. "Incurious cretin, charlatan of holiness. Let away the curtain of the law, to reveal the wolf from the sheep, and hunt with abandon those who inflict upon the flock the crime of blood and carnage." Beselsevi yelps in pain, both as the echoes of bones popping echo and because of the expert quotation of Tologda's mystic texts, word by word, with even proper metre. Archdeacons shout for mercy, while others shuffle in confusion, unsure of what is going on.

At last, Burs releases Beselsevi, who falls to the ground, clutching at his shoulder, tears forming in his eyes. Dabami whispers a prayer, but it is unheard, for naught a moment later, to escalating cries of 'shame' and outrage, Burs approaches the forbidden throne of the Guardians, sweeps away the dust, and...takes a seat, groaning as he does, as if it is a mouflon's hammock.

Archdeacons spit and shout, quote scripture, demand that he cease this at once, or just pray and whisper in their seats. But Dabami is now looking at the doors. The Trilobitic Juror is gone, and there are soldiers filing in. Dozens of soldiers. Many of the other archdeacons notice, and their shouting quiets down. Waiting for their silence, Burs clears his throat from the seat, and reaches out an arm. From the door, a soldier comes through, and carries something in his hand. Dabami catches a flash of a tube of purple and gold, and his stomach drops.

It can't be. No, not that, no -

Burs waits an agonizingly long time, slowly unsealing and unfurling the Patriarchal Bull. "By secret and sealed order of the Patriarch Amalgast the Fourtieth Santsarran, signed upon the 15th of Tislev, High Ataman Buman Burs is hereby vested with all and total authority in, if he should be so positioned, and if it is so inclined to turn against the Kingdom of God, in putting a just and final end to the heresy of Origination. In this capacity, he is granted the title Guardian of the West upon success, and granted the lands formerly of the Synods of Sufgar and Alanar, to be in his hands till such time as an inquisition is complete, and authority so returned, to a new and rightful council of elders and the Patriarch."

As Burs reads, he occasionally peeks up. He is smiling now, but it is not the stupid, good-natured smile of an ox, but the demonic slit of an executioner. And now Dabami understands why he has not seen the Trilobitic Jurors. God - they were, they were feasting and drinking the night before with Steedeater, but Burs said his men would not drink for they would campaign in the morning -

Against them. Oh God. Beselsevi stands up, and he sees that trilobitic Juror - he lies sprawled on the ground, blood leaking from a wound made in his head when they were distracted by Burs' sitting on the throne. And the doors are being barred. The doors are being barred and the chamber is being locked shut. There are more than a hundred soldiers, and they are all armed with rifles and with swords.

Archdeacon Beselsevi, on his knees, begs for the chamber. "By the light of God, please, you must - Harasdad is God's first city, the true eternal city, spared from the flood, you cannot -"

Burs shushes him. "O wise sage," he says in a sing-song tone, mocking, before his tenor drops to a dreadful booming low, "I am finishing what the flood started."

Beselsevi has nothing to say to that, so shocked is he - the great orator and judge is reduced to a pathetic whimper.

"But," Burs admits easily, leaning back into the seat of the holy guardians as if was of their blood, "It shall not be my choice. It is up to them." A point of his hand guides their attention to the soldiers at the back of the chamber. "Know their faces. Each had family in Nachivan, toiling away in factories, exilic Jurors one and all. And as per the juror tradition, they will decide your fate." He calls out to them, with a voice so booming that it seems to shake the chamber. "BROTHERS! What is your verdict, on these unspeakable beings who in their antique lineage stand athwart the flood of history?"

"GUILTY!" comes the enthusiastic and savage roar, in unison.

"And what is the sentence, for these guilty souls?"

"DEATH!" With just the same enthusiasm and agreement.

Burs sighs and shrugs, as if he has no control over this verdict, and puts his arms on the seat, straightening, filling up the throne that could almost seat two archdeacons with his bulk. Time seems to slow down. Dabami feels his heart beating in his chest, sees archdeacons trying to rush as the soldiers draw their sabers and scimitars. But he is struck immobile. Burs and him meet eyes again. And again, he winks.

And Dabami now remembers something that Burs whispered to him, when they were on the floor of the Sanhedron, after he had spit upon his face. Then, Dabami thought it a wrothful, boorish threat, but now -

"If I see you again, not even death shall be enough for you. Your punishment must be more severe."

"I want Dabami untouched," Burs yells, "but as for the rest -"

Burs stands, walks forward to Archdeacon, still upon his knees, mouthing 'please', gripping desperately Burs' pants and trying to sloppily kiss his boots, and draws a revolver hidden in his jacket, aiming down.

"Kill them all."

On the 25th of Tebet, origination dies. An army entrusted to defend it, welcomed into its halls, turns into its executioner. High Ataman Buman Burs, invited into Harasdad by the desperate and naive originator synod, stripped of the more circumspect komandirs who were its organizational backbone, reveals himself to be anything but a friend. Carrying secret orders issued to him by the Patriarch granting him the authority to dispense with the enemies of God, and freed by obliteration to pursue any kind of process as generally accorded to the High Priesthood, Burs soaks Harasdad in their blood. For three days the men of Steedeater, well-fed and well-provisioned by Burs, treated for months with the highest honors despite their lowly place in the conquerer's caste, erect pyres and burn through the lineages of the city. Not just those obliterated, but their sons and brothers, any allied with them, and Harasdad's Trilobitic Jury, are put to the sword and bullet.

Remaining resistance collapses. Prince Narem, marching north and enraged that again his bounty has been stolen from, loots lower Sufgar for days to extract some value from the country, before Burs sends envoys to him advising that 'the little saber-cub should rush home to be with his good old tata, if he does not wish for I to send him there myself'. Prince Narem, normally hardly one to yield, agreed without reservation, and begins to withdraw. Burs, meanwhile, is not finished. Using his authority as High Ataman, he had near to 5,000 Jurors shifting to Gusharkan and then west.

On the 28th of Tebet they arrive in Pahaz, and finding the city undefended by the anti-originator Dogar Jury that protested Origination without taking up arms, capture and execute its Synod. They spare only those plausibly untethered to origination, and instead strip their position. In the place of the synods, Burs declares an 'apologetic axis' and 'repentant Sanhedron' composed not of an elected series of elders but appointed and trusted 'wise men', whilst he 'transitions Sufgar and Alanar back to the home of God'. He at least reinforces and underlines the Midnight Bull in its totality, and even delivers a warning to the Synod of Gusharkan: Do not allow pogroms again, or I will not allow you.

In Harasdad itself, the sole survivor of the massacre of the Great and Sufgar Synods, Archdeacon Dabami is branded with the 'mark of obliteration' on his forehead, apologizes for his sins, declares himself the 'Nameless One', and asks all remaining Originators to 'put down their arms and accept God's good light'. A few archdeacons and loyal jurors, still surviving, retreat to the Lekgolo thickets of cannibal-trees south of Asag, where they hope to continue what most see as a doomed fight.

The news reaches Nachivan with a mixture of elation and relief that the news of Burs' treachery was false, and that origination seems now finally vanquished where the night before it may have had a second surge off the back of the treacherous Ataman. God's Own revels in the turnabout, depicting the Patriarch as a beastmaster holding the leashes of a lion labeled Sen, a skeletal horse labeled Sarbadgar, a hunting dog labeled 'Morsi', a stallion named 'Noyan Kobatai', and a demonic bear labeled 'Burs' snappoing its jaws, all straining against his leash to pounce on a terrified group of huddling priests. A caption reads 'Don't worry, they only bite sinners!' The Sanhedron, however, in an attempt to finally end what it calls a 'cycle of uncontrolled and unholy violence', passes the Bull Protective to reinforce the rites of fair trial to those of all chambers. A firm supporter and notable orator for it is Massima Rachel, who speaking on her experience on the 30th of Tislev, says to acclaim that 'we who are God's children, have no right to seize the lives of our brothers and sisters without alignment with God's laws, and in a moral world, perhaps not even then!'

But in the sect there is disquiet. In a sect meeting, Dvorah outlines that four events have happened now, since the 30th of Tislev, in contradiction. First, there is the illumination: the alliance of sects and Sanhedron, that bases its power on the law and the force of the masses, to liberate the people. Second, is the restoration of the Patriarch, who has promised to be a faithful guarantor of freedom, and is intent at least to limit portions of his power, and who seems at least a kind and virtuous man, unlike the dream-eater. Third is the 'great men' that the Patriarch has surrounded himself: the four horsemen of Noyan Kobatai, Varhan Sarbadgar, Prince Sen of Usral, and Akabar Morsi, and now this monster in the west, the High Ataman Burs. And fourth, there remains those high monopolizers of sacrament, as Oshana might place it, who still dominate much of the country. The fourth is in opposition to the first three, but the first three may not be in alliance for long.

And of especial concern, now that Origination is in total collapse, is what the sect will do. Until this point, HaKhofshim has been so absorbed with its growth and then survival that it has not had time to consider tactics and strategy. But in the coming months, tactics and strategy will be crucial, in navigating the dangerous web to come. In mid-Tislev, it was the sects under purge by Sword-Altar. On the 30th, it was Sword-Altar itself. On the 25th, it is the Originator Synods. Who is to come next? Will they perish in some counter-coup, or counter-reformation? Will their blood be next to be spilled?

The sect must deeply contemplate what it is to do now. Outside of Nachivan, in the circles, there remain enemies aplenty to focus energies on, and good and right doctrines to promote to the people still in bondage, such as the serfs of the south and those still oppressed mouflons tilling and toiling everywhere. These enemies wish nothing but for the deluge to be dammed, and for you all either to be slaughtered or exiled again, or be put under the yoke that has held you for a thousand years.

But within Nachivan, the commitments made by the Sanhedron and the Patriarch is a fine start, but nothing more. It lays a path but does not proceed onto the road to the world to come. So much is still to be done. The Patriarch may have an agenda, and it is sure that many of his prophetic fellowship do, too. But to do so means directing opposition to, and putting pressure on the Patriarch. A man who appears good, and has popular acclaim. And yet if he is simply assumed good, if he is simply seen as holy, will he not see himself infallible? Must not he and the Sanhedron, fine as many of its elders are, be confronted, even when it is unpleasant, to ensure that they remain upon the path?

The battle is over. But the war for heaven has only just begun.

Should the sect focus on expanding its reach outward and developing doctrines in opposition to the old order still alive in the circles, or direct its attention towards maintaining pressure and critique on the Patriarch and his Sanhedron?

Note that this choice will help define your general focus for the next three turns. If events overtake this, you can abandon whatever course you've chosen, with consequences for that. At the end of the three turns, will then have the ability to change course, depending on events.

Your choice will improve relations with sects and figures who are taking the same focus. It will affect but not automatically damage your relations with other sects and figures, dependent on the context and relationship you have with that entity.

[] Direct our attention to undermining the old order, and reaching out to those still under its unholy yoke [Improved relations with the sects of Ohr, Melecha, As Hahayiim, Yam Soph, and the figures of Sarbadgar, the Patriarch and the Sanhedron. Preferred option of Scourge of God].

At this stage, many sects are optimistic and interested in contributing to the new order, and have new institutions within the Patriarchal ministries to allow them to assert that influence. Their focus is outwards, and they funnel critical support to the Patriarch. The Scourge of God, with its Jurors, is especially eager to ensure solidarity within the mass jury against enemies of God. Some within the sect highlight especially that outreach to the south is essential at this stage.

[] Direct our attention to expanding the new order, and keeping pious those who purport to defend freedom. [Improved relations with Makabam, Kedesh, the Sailors Karaban, and Ma'on. Preferred option of Gunpowder Eucharist and Ravs of Labour].

However, there are a number of sects who wish to maintain the pressure on both the Patriarch and the Sanhedron, especially as some of them have either been left out of major proposals or have ambitions that were not totally satisfied by the Midnight Bull. The Gunpowder Eucharist is especially eager to preserve the militant legacy of the Storming of Vikrag and the Ravs of Labour to prevent the new Juror domination to turn into a domination over the toiling masses.