The Tale of Jaen Light-Bearer and Siad Wild-Walker
The Holy Order of the Justice-Seekers is one with an unusual provenance in the society of the True People. A relatively recent innovation following their adoption of a public justice system, the Justice-Seekers are a small, close-knit group of spirit-shamans brought in to investigate the circumstances surrounding the creation of a restless spirit. Restless spirits are notably quite difficult to placate once they've spent any amount of time free from their corporeal bodies, usually requiring the participation of the individual responsible or an explanation of the circumstances in question in order to send them on their way.
This means that, in addition to flawed rituals and tragic accidents, the Justice-Seekers often find themselves investigating a culturally and socially fraught subject: murder. While True People justice often revolves around compensation for the victim or their families, the dead need only closure and generally cannot be laid to rest otherwise. Therefore, given that the spirit is generally unable to identify the source of its own demise, the Assembly tasks one of the Justice-Seekers with investigating the circumstances surrounding the death, uncovering the truth, and laying the facts before the public.
As relatively rare encounters who are often surrounded by a certain mystique and drama, the Justice-Seekers make excellent sources of instructive and entertaining tales for the True People to share amongst themselves. The most popular of these often include a stirring denouement in front of the local Assembly or even the Great Assembly itself, where the Justice-Seeker reveals their findings and confronts the culprit. Of those who enjoy these justice-stories, there is a schism between those who prefer the highly dramatized versions that take liberties with historical events, and those who prefer a straight no-detail-spared retelling of what happened.
A justice-story with one of the most variations in True People society, represented as both dark comedy and uplifting tragedy, is the Tale of Jaen Light-Bearer and Siad Wild-Walker. Jaen is a middle-aged, grizzled figure, still hale but worn by life experience, while Siad is a younger, more energetic person full of exuberance and naivete. The unlikely working relationship between the two has made them recurring characters in a number of derivative spin-off tales, but the original tale remains the bedrock on which those stories rest.
In brief, the retired Justice-Seeker Jaen is sitting down to dinner one night with a fine venison stew prepared for them by a comely young widow when their finely-tuned spiritual senses pick up a presence nearby. When they focus their sight, they discover a deer, staring at them disapprovingly. More specifically, staring at their stew disapprovingly. Jaen quickly realizes that the deer was unjustly slain without the proper rituals, and is demanding justice in the human fashion.
Here, the tale diverges based on the intent of those telling it. The comedic version plays heavily into the twisted humor of the spectral deer looming over Jaen, chivvying the reluctant shaman along through the story, while the more tragic versions play into the heartbreaking loneliness of a deer-spirit left to wander the living world, stuck between its past and its future.
While Siad is a much happier figure than Jaen, their portrayal varies substantially between pure comic relief and the untamed avatar of the wild world contrasted with the more balanced Jaen, who maintains a straight face throughout. Some radical retellings even include a kind of summer-autumn romance between them, though this is not substantiated by the strict histories of the event itself.
Following a harrowing and twisty path, the two eventually uncover the source of the murder. In the original history, the responsible individual is a hunter who has grown sloppy and unconcerned with their placatory rituals, and is more interested in achieving productivity at the cost of harmony with nature. Later versions involve scheming Merchants, uncaring Mechanicals, and/or other more esoteric villains, including a 'modern' version depicting League of Strength slavers as the ultimate cause.
Regardless of its interpretation or how it's retold, the Tale of Jaen and Siad remains a notable favorite among all ages, both for its educational message on the importance of the spirit world and for its enjoyable partner dynamic.
In recognition of this work, a boon in the form of additional lore:
While the rigorous methods of verifying facts and their training to emphasize rote memorization prevent errors and exaggerations from creeping in, Historians do love a good story told for entertainment value as much as the next person. Indeed, Historians are often called on to recite poetry or novels, so that the illiterate masses may be enlightened by the works of the literate few. Their oral performances are an art form in themselves, arguably the pinnacle of the spoken word, both a chance to show off the skills of the Historian herself and an opportunity to entertain the crowds. In recent times, the proliferation of illusory magic has led to a new form of art, the Vision. "Visionaries" are those skilled in crafting illusory images and weaving them together to tell stories. At the most basic level, storytellers will simply use illusions to augment the narrative, displaying key moments in the narrative. The most elaborate, and those performed by the most talented Visionaries working in teams, resemble fully immersive experiences, where characters adventure through realistic settings and encounter fantastic beings.
Murder is rare in the League, but not unknown. Since the focus of the League's justice system is on those harmed and the murder victim is of course beyond help, it falls on the community to give the family support, ensure the victim's spirit is at rest, and to deal with the murderer. In every case the murderer must undergo ritual cleansing to purify their soul of the stain left by their act. In some cases, usually crimes of passion, the family is able to forgive the murderer and they are allowed to continue living as normal after their period of penance. In other cases the family may demand the murderer be removed from their community, in which case they are usually given a new home removed from the family and sometimes bound by a magical oath forbidding them. In the most extreme cases where the murderer is determined to be an ongoing threat to the people around them, measures are taken such as house arrest or even exile. There are streets in some major cities where the inhabitants are reformed criminals or those under permanent watch.
@ScottishMongol Can I clarify what effect partially completing a tech has? Eg, if we put 2 points into magical healing, and then go to war, would we receive some benefit from the progress, or would its effects only come into affect if completed?
You don't get the benefits until it's fully researched.
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