[X] A Printing Press Covenant, to spread the word of God far and wide beyond the boundaries of the temple [Institution Added: Black Sheep Covenant, which will allow far more rapid spread and outreach of the sect].
[X] On Extinguishment, and the Potentiality of Juror Liberation [Advance Doctrine to Tier II].
[X] The Serenaphim Exhibit. At Yatoni Temple, ONE DAY ONLY, COME and SEE the most spectacular fossilized remnants of the lizardly TYRANT ANGELS of yesteryear, found with the greatest advances in natural theology and fieldwork, with special words by Elder Kardon Hadi of the Low Priest Chamber! THESE ARE THE BONES HIDDEN BY GOD!
[X] Join the Schismatic marches, and show solidarity with other radicals.
We need a press, absolutely. We've got to get our foot in the door of peoples' awareness in the crowd of competing schisms and ideologies popping up. I'd like to have more guns in case, but that's not the immediate need. Likewise, Extinguishment is unique and populist among our doctrines and we should follow up on that strength. The march vote, though, I'm more interested in making connections to other radicals than populism - I want us out there, but not watered down.
The Serenaphim is just because I want to see dinosaurs.
[X] A Printing Press Covenant, to spread the word of God far and wide beyond the boundaries of the temple [Institution Added: Black Sheep Covenant, which will allow far more rapid spread and outreach of the sect].
[X] On Extinguishment, and the Potentiality of Juror Liberation [Advance Doctrine to Tier II].
[X] Grand Parade. At Karogen Academy, observe the most HOLY parade of the White-Gold and Pale Horse Standard, hosted by the DASHING Elder and Komandir Akabar Morsi! HUSBANDS BEWARE! MARCHING BAND, POLO, and THE MOST GRAND CANNON-BLASTS IN ALL OF VASPUKARAN! Come and be deafened, or save your ears and lose your SOUL!
[X] Join the Pugilist marches, and march in religious unity with your own schism.
Against his chest he cradles two tablets, labeled 'debt jubilee' and 'free silver'. Kenturah says to Esther in a speech bubble: 'holy sister, I can handle this one!'
THE DREAM IS COMING ALIVE FOLKS
PREPARE FOR A #SILVERSWEEP
[X] Elder support and daycare, to support the young and old of the sect and pave a way for the world to come [Institution Added: Home of Mitzvat, which will increase fervor by reinforcing the sect's commitment to its past and future].
[X] On Extinguishment, and the Potentiality of Juror Liberation [Advance Doctrine to Tier II].
[X] The Serenaphim Exhibit. At Yatoni Temple, ONE DAY ONLY, COME and SEE the most spectacular fossilized remnants of the lizardly TYRANT ANGELS of yesteryear, found with the greatest advances in natural theology and fieldwork, with special words by Elder Kardon Hadi of the Low Priest Chamber! THESE ARE THE BONES HIDDEN BY GOD! You guys are all boring, I wanna go to the museum!
[X] Join the Popular marches, and be among the broad sweep of the people.
[X] A stockpile of concealed firearms, to protect disciples from danger whilst they do their holy work [Institution added: Six-Shin Shooters, armed sect disciples ready for a Nachivan street fight].
[X] On the Rites of Women, and our state of bondage [Create new Tier I doctrine].
[X] Join the Schismatic marches, and show solidarity with other radicals.
In the midst of debate, Sister Ryvka leaves the room and returns with her rifle.
"This is the tool of freedom," she says, holding her sacred weapon high, "and we will need it to remain free. What will the Jurors and High Priests do when we cannot be ignored? Should we have a printing press, they will smash it. Should we have a beautiful temple, they will defile it. Should we have a home for the young and the old they will be chased into the streets. If they try to take these from my sisters, I will pull the trigger, and they will hear the tongue of God."
"Many will say we can wait to secure our guns until we are threatened. We are already threatened, and I will not let a new printing press or church or home go undefended for a day when they are ours, and I say the same for every woman under god: let each of us defend our lot even as we rip every holy inch of rite and freedom from those men above."
The Holy Sister glares across the assembled with her one good eye, "The Flood was a tragedy because it did not have eyes to pick the wise from the wicked, but God, in His wisdom, has left me one of mine. We are to be a new Flood, a Flood of the Lowly that will part around the innocent and lash only at the Godless," she gesticulates wildly with the butt of her rifle, holding it steady despite the weight of the mechanism, now pointing it in the rough direction of the Synod, "And I say we crash first against the gates of the Godless on High. We march with the rest of the Lowly, not with Iconoclasts or Pugilists or Confessors, but with Rebels, as is our duty before God."
At the moment Printing Press and joining the Pugilist March are leading strongly. Extinguishment is ahead of women's rites by 5 votes, and there is close to a three-way tie between Serenaphim, Grand Parade and Carnival of the Pillars, in that order.
[X] A Printing Press Covenant, to spread the word of God far and wide beyond the boundaries of the temple [Institution Added: Black Sheep Covenant, which will allow far more rapid spread and outreach of the sect].
I myself intend to take these pamphlets and go door to door with them, reaching out to our neighbors and giving them physical reminder of our message is a powerful act indeed.
[X] On the Rites of Women, and our state of bondage [Create new Tier I doctrine].
For anyone who says that I was thrown down too many times by our sisters in arms, I disagree! But, if you were to say I've listened to those same sisters, I would ask you to explain what better course there is to follow.
[X] The Carnival of Pillars.
Such animals and wonders! And who said that the Spiral of Truth does not also involve the beasts of the land? Those great bones of old are glorious, but we cannot spend too much time thinking of what was, lest we forget about the now!
[X] Join the Pugilist marches, and march in religious unity with your own schism.
As I understand it, the battle of Good against the Evils may be about to turn literal any day now! And I have no interest in being stuck trying to keep glass-jawed High Confessors on their feet!
Scheduled vote count started by Cetashwayo on Apr 9, 2022 at 1:28 PM, finished with 53 posts and 33 votes.
[X] A Printing Press Covenant, to spread the word of God far and wide beyond the boundaries of the temple [Institution Added: Black Sheep Covenant, which will allow far more rapid spread and outreach of the sect].
[X] The Serenaphim Exhibit. At Yatoni Temple, ONE DAY ONLY, COME and SEE the most spectacular fossilized remnants of the lizardly TYRANT ANGELS of yesteryear, found with the greatest advances in natural theology and fieldwork, with special words by Elder Kardon Hadi of the Low Priest Chamber! THESE ARE THE BONES HIDDEN BY GOD!
[X] Grand Parade. At Karogen Academy, observe the most HOLY parade of the White-Gold and Pale Horse Standard, hosted by the DASHING Elder and Komandir Akabar Morsi! HUSBANDS BEWARE! MARCHING BAND, POLO, and THE MOST GRAND CANNON-BLASTS IN ALL OF VASPUKARAN! Come and be deafened, or save your ears and lose your SOUL!
[X] The Carnival of Pillars. At the Park of the Pillars, BOTH PARENTS AND CHILDREN WELCOME, a delightful carnival to RAISE THE SPIRIT and EASE THE SOUL hosted by the Elder Tessel Tori High Priestess and Abbess Superior of the Order Marina. FOOD AND GAMES FOR ALL, PUPPET SHOWS and a MENAGERIE OF BEASTS! Admission free for all souls!
[X] A stockpile of concealed firearms, to protect disciples from danger whilst they do their holy work [Institution added: Six-Shin Shooters, armed sect disciples ready for a Nachivan street fight].
[X] Elder support and daycare, to support the young and old of the sect and pave a way for the world to come [Institution Added: Home of Mitzvat, which will increase fervor by reinforcing the sect's commitment to its past and future].
[X] A refurbished and beautified Temple, to sanctify the Mekdash and elevate the souls of its congregants [Institution added: Mekdash HaKhofshim, which greatly strengthens discipline by reinforcing the traditions of the sect].
[X] A refurbished and beautified Temple, to sanctify the Mekdash and elevate the souls of its congregants [Institution added: Mekdash HaKhofshim, which greatly strengthens discipline by reinforcing the traditions of the sect]
[X] On the Sanhedron as a light among the nations [Advance Doctrine to Tier II]
[X] The Serenaphim Exhibit. At Yatoni Temple, ONE DAY ONLY, COME and SEE the most spectacular fossilized remnants of the lizardly TYRANT ANGELS of yesteryear, found with the greatest advances in natural theology and fieldwork, with special words by Elder Kardon Hadi of the Low Priest Chamber! THESE ARE THE BONES HIDDEN BY GOD!
[X] Join the Pugilist marches, and march in religious unity with your own schism.
[X] A refurbished and beautified Temple, to sanctify the Mekdash and elevate the souls of its congregants [Institution added: Mekdash HaKhofshim, which greatly strengthens discipline by reinforcing the traditions of the sect]
[X] On the Sanhedron as a light among the nations [Advance Doctrine to Tier II]
[X] The Serenaphim Exhibit. At Yatoni Temple, ONE DAY ONLY, COME and SEE the most spectacular fossilized remnants of the lizardly TYRANT ANGELS of yesteryear, found with the greatest advances in natural theology and fieldwork, with special words by Elder Kardon Hadi of the Low Priest Chamber! THESE ARE THE BONES HIDDEN BY GOD!
[X] Join the Pugilist marches, and march in religious unity with your own schism.
[X] A Printing Press Covenant, to spread the word of God far and wide beyond the boundaries of the temple [Institution Added: Black Sheep Covenant, which will allow far more rapid spread and outreach of the sect].
[X] On Extinguishment, and the Potentiality of Juror Liberation [Advance Doctrine to Tier II].
[X] The Serenaphim Exhibit. At Yatoni Temple, ONE DAY ONLY, COME and SEE the most spectacular fossilized remnants of the lizardly TYRANT ANGELS of yesteryear, found with the greatest advances in natural theology and fieldwork, with special words by Elder Kardon Hadi of the Low Priest Chamber! THESE ARE THE BONES HIDDEN BY GOD!
[X] Join the Pugilist marches, and march in religious unity with your own schism.
Tears of an Angel
Pugranasi Minyan
Ischak Circle
Thousand are the fallen leaves of Ischak's children, thousand are the fallen tears of Ischak's mothers, and thousand are the miseries of its material affliction. The land of ten thousand years, older than Amalgast, older than Babarak, older than Harasdad, has been scheduled to die by the order of lesser men wearing the traditions of the faith as a wolf wears wool. The people of this place whose lives once held sacral meaning are now the detritus of the plateau to be swept away by the whirlwind of the future that has named them obsolete.
Unless.
There is a vision of a world where justice is meted from the high upon the low, and all obey their masters with the reverence of a herd. A world in which the mouflon is subordinate and eager, and the high priest is generous and kind. There is a reality of a world where the mouflon sobs in their subjugation, and the high priest cracks the lash that holds them low. And then, kept obscured, kept hidden and kept down below, whispered and not dared exposed, there is an idea of a world to come, where no lash is held, with no high and low, and where the wicked all fall down.
Vaspukaran has forgotten the commandments, and so has forgotten God. But the people of the Ischak are the faithful people. The people of the Ischak are the pious people. They remember Him, and his commandments, and his justice and his prophet and his reverent ones. And they remember that when the God that gives is rejected by the evils of this world, in his place will come the God that takes.
It is by the hands of the avenging angel that His will is done. It is by the hands of Metamoa, the angel of the judgment of the sinners who break the backs of the righteous and force them to starve and beg for bread. And Metamoa is the patron angel of the Ischak, the home of Pugilism's first embrace, the first revolt, the first explosion of the people outwards to bring down the sky. And she is also the angel of the moas, and the angel of the eagles, and above all, the angel of the final judgment: apocalypse, and death.
20,000 of the Ischak's finest, strongest, fiercest men and women gather in Pugranasi communion, a village whose free souls wanted nothing but to till and toil. It was destroyed by the hands of a deacon who would rather profit from the flocks of his sheep than protect the flocks of his congregation. The baba who had urged the people supplicate themselves, is a dead woman slaughtered by the jurors she said that they should trust. The brothers and sisters of the village, scattered to the wind, died in soul as well as body the moment their world was made oblivion.
Only one daughter of Pugranasi yet survives, and she is who the 20,000 are come here for, as this is her wedding day. Not a wedding to a man, and not a wedding to a boy, but a wedding to a land. A great effigy of Ischak, called Boros after the brother of Amalgast, the most heroic of the peasant soldier-boys. Boros is brought forward, and all see his antlers made of pitch-black ironwood, and his grinning skull of a great eagle, and his coat of woven sheep, and his feathered moa cape, and the wicker of his body, weaved by elders imbuing it with a sacred powers. Boros is fifteen feet tall, and the icon of the plateau, but it is his wife that all are watching.
Maryam Vashti is the Ischak's daughter, and now she will be the Ischak's bride. The sharpest, the most intelligent, the wisest, the kindest and the fiercest of them all, at twenty-five she puts her elders all to shame. It is she who gathered up the communions and bound them in the blood of a shared covenant. It is she who gathered intelligence in Nachivan and Arhan, who warned them ahead of what the fat priests planned. It is she who prepared their strategy, and it is her inner circle that have prepared to execute the will of metamoa.
She is today a beauty not of jewels and ochre and myrrh, but of fine wools and feathers, a mother's, not a machine's, work. A cloak of eagle feathers plucked from the haakwai giant eagle that she downed, and a coned hat simple but sturdy and well-made. Her modesty is her great virtue, for none can doubt that she is not their queen, and not their princess, but the simple prophet of their own redemption. She is well-kept, and some admit vain in her attention to keeping pomade in her hair, but that only makes them adore her more. She is no God or Goddess, she is no Patriarch, but a reverent messenger of God, on this earth to mete justice upon evil.
And she echoes out to all the gathered people, and says to them: God's reverent ones are now his revenant ones. Our lives are not tragedy, the closing of a story, but a coming climax. Today I take my greatest vow, not to a man, not to a priest, not to a master, but to the land to which I give my love. If we will die, we will die standing our feet, and if we live, we shall not live crawling on our knees. I swear myself to the scythe, of the field, and I swear myself to the scythe, of the apocalypse.
And then come out the proctors of the Ischak, and then come out the babas of the Ischak, and then together they unleash a bellow, an ululating roar, and put to their lips the ram's horn of sacred proclamation, and from its endless, reverberating blast, held until its blower collapses blue from the exhale of their breath, is a single, unmistakable, and irresistible call:
The declaration of a people's holy war.
Ghosts Long Dormant
There is a spectre haunting Vaspukaran - the spectre of pugilism. Long thought tamed or exorcised, its most radical proponents driven to the fringe of respectable and holy schismatic opinion, it has become a curiosity. The thunderclouds of reformation, as they start to form, have always been thought to be those of the other schisms. Always-adaptable Amalism, the chameleon of faiths. Always-redoutable Iconoclasm, relentless in its survival as a challenge to the strong. Always-articulate Confession, holding domination over the realm of letters. Pugilism, so old, so outdated, so tied to the land, so simplistic in its demand for a leveling of the strong and weak, could not possibly pose a significant challenge to the edifice of orthodoxy.
That was before the Rising of the Ischak. The March of Seventy-Thousand Fists, joined not only by the HaKhofshim and Ma'On, but the conservative and martial arts oriented Ghadim, is the first warning sign that the old words of the Pasan Ghadi and the Opernani Myriam are not fables of a different age, but deeply resonant and timeless traditions. This march swells well beyond what its organizers hope for, as thousands upon thousands of laborers of the city of Nachivan gathered in solidarity with those who might have been their fathers or their mothers when still they had been peasants.
The cultural memory of the minyan communion, not erased totally by the passage of time and the grinding of industrial gears, has been kept alive through the carrying of traditions like the samovar tea-time or the spring festival of Vladwane, adapted for the urban environment. The literacy of the peasantry, and their ability to make their voices heard means that the separation between them and the toilers of the factories is less than the great Jurors and the High Priests, who themselves had mostly cut their ties to the countryside a generation earlier and cannot comprehend.
And you are among those marchers, and you make your way through the city, through the western Navel, flying high the Six-Shin Aluf that has not been flown within the city of Nachivan since uprisings older than the Second Sanhedron. And you, who are the most radical, the smallest, the poorest, of all the Pugilists there, draw eyes who have not seen you before. The women of the Convent of the Gunpowder Eucharist, their cheeks stained with powder, the Jurors of the Scourge of God, who slap their backs lightly with the lashes of their own repentence, and the wandering assortment of hooligans, and sports fans, and hardened former penitents, lean, and mean, who fought their way from bondage, cannot be hidden from the watching crowds.
Predator and Prey
The Jury of Nachivan is visibly discomfited by the presence of the Scourge, and some of their line, gathered in a grim unbroken row, protecting the House of Creation from the errant attempts at looting or sabotage, their bayoneted rifles poised against their shoulders, fine cloaks aflutter in the afternoon rain cannot resist but to yell: traitor. And Akov, from his place at the scourge's head, the veteran spit on by his own komandir, turns to them with wild eyes, and calls back, and the Scourge calls back with him: apostate.
It is close to a riot, defused only by the komandir of the Jury who does not wish to incite a fight now. There are rumors that they are calling for help from other Circles, reaching out to juries and standards who might bolster their numbers. The White-Gold Standard of Kedarkan and the Pale Horse Standard of Perusan and their komandirs are both a nightmarish alert to the Jury of Nachivan that the old good feeling, the old fraternity, the old alliance, that might have once existed between the sections of the juries, is not just gone, but teetering at the edge of outright dissolution.
The Jury of Nachivan's role in the manipulation of the pensions of Jurors, and its support of the Great Synod which has denied compensation and redress for the scams run by many of the elite Atamans and Komandirs, has snapped the chain of obligation that held back these wild dogs. All that keeps them back is the cold logic of predators who know that if they strike at the wrong moment they will become prey themselves. The Jury of Nachivan, meanwhile, has done so well for itself, has so pilfered the wealth of the city through its factories and its direct levies of gold from the Patriarch, that it has inadverdantly turned most of the See and the Exarchates against it in an irreversible, and increasingly volatile way.
It would not be enough to shatter the fear they hold on everyone within their grasp, however, if not for what happens next.
Eagles Falling
Ataman Edalfani Kenaman is an old boy's boy. The young leader of the Gilded-Eagle Standard has never fought a military battle, and has never shot a gun save for ceremonies and the occasional shootout with highland Ischak bandits. Elected more for his financial acumen, he has made sure all of the peers of his standard are well-cared for. He, like most of the jurors of the Ischak, are the children of the total victory over the internal and external enemies of Vaspukaran, the babes fat and happy from the long peace that has endured since the Temple Coup. When the War with the Mare occurred, it was fought far away, and no juries from the Ischak joined in the fighting. So as the High Priesthood of their circle commands them to go and clear out all the rabblerousing rascals, scoundrels and scum that occupy the Ischak Plateau, they, and Ataman Kenaman himself, do so with the glee and cruelty of the bored and green. There had been weeks, months, even years of anticipation, of this, for the lowland elites and highland peasants of the circle had seen each other with antipathy for years.
He ignores the warnings coming from the jurors on the border of the plateau that for months the peasants of the Ischak highlands have been plotting, scheming, arming. He ignores the warnings that come from sympathetic peasants afraid of reprisal that there is a true rebellion brewing and it is like nothing they have ever seen. He ignores the warnings from some of his own officers that he should wait for reinforcements and more intelligence before he charges straight into the plateau. Facinated by a mythic vision of himself as a hero drawn from legend, and grown up on books and stories of dashing men vanquishing barbarians, Ataman Kenaman indeed gets his wish to be immortalized, and walks straight into the annals of history.
Following rumors of a gathering horde of peasants who Kenaman believes are an ill-disciplined, disorganized, and easy-to-scatter mass armed with pitchforks, he and his lowland jurors immediately lose themselves in the confusing, and maze valleys of the Ischak plateau. A dream-like landscape of man-eating trees (more accurately, predatory trees that may eat men), giant eagles, poisonous meter-long worms, and undulating, endless, scalp-high grass, the plateau has been a deathtrap since the time of Babarak. But rather than take stock of his supplies, Kenaman and many of his younger officers, frustrated and angry at being denied an immediate victory, charge on. Following local rumors that they deign to trust that a valley further to the northwest is hiding all the bandits, Kenaman wanders straight into a trap.
Sealing the valley behind him with rolling logs and stones, Maryam Vashti, the leader of the Ischak uprising that calls itself Metamoa after the angel of death, and her own band of officers, many of them veteran juror deserters or bandits fleeing debts and penitence manuevers the unwieldy and yes, undisciplined force of peasants into a position where they can do the most damage: attacking downwards, on a vulnerable enemy, on their own home territory.
Kenaman and his Jurors bravely attempt immolation and try to use their machine-guns. But with their baggage train fatally spread out, and having failed to use any kind of scouts to forewarn them, Kenaman and his officers instead immolate in a heroic last stand that only gets them shot by their own men rather than the enemy. Jurors who were thought to have some instrinsic and ineffable fighting spirit transferred effortlessly from father to the son, are exposed instead as dandies playing at war, some of whom have not seen combat for three generations. The remainder of his force surrenders in absolute humiliation and shame, and are clapped in chains to be ransomed for more guns and ammunition.
In about the two weeks, the largest, most well-armed standard in the Ischak, is operationally demolished. Most of the men who did not follow with Kenaman, immediately desert, either to Vashti herself, or disappearing into the countryside, ashamed, dispirited, and headless. The Synodic Axis in Arhan is immobilized by panicked riots, as wealthier denizens flee in the mistaken belief that the savage Vashti will immediately march down from the mountains and kill them all. Instead, facing the same issues of managing such a large force at planting time, the peasant army of Metamoa melts away into the plateau, where the prayer bulletins and intelligence reports of the lowland cannot reach. Instead, deacons, loyal priests, and jurors still ill-advisedly staying there flee south and west and east, spreading horror stories of heaven turned upside down.
Feathers Burning
The news from the Ischak, and the Rout of Beradana Valley comes to Nachivan like a telegraphic lightning bolt. It is difficult to put into words the shock, fear, elation, and confusion felt at all corners that the Ischak, which was thought to have been simply a doomed land and emblem of the tyranny of the old order, turns into a firestorm, and the first domestic rebellion in decades. The further fact that Ataman Kenaman in the span of about a week and a half in a single month, goes from a dashing soldier to a cruel invader to a reviled imbecile, exposes that there is a rot within the interior Juries that goes so deep it might not be able to be eradicated except by total reform.
The collapse of the Ischak's largest force in the span of a week to a group of upjumped peasants obscures the fundamental material realities that allowed the Ischak to succeed where other revolts might have failed, both in the weakness of its juror chamber and the strength and alienation of its peasantry, which has always stood apart on the plateau, an infamously poor terrain for war even for seasoned soldiers, and buoyed by the ranks of angry deserters and penitents escaping from the grasp of debt bondage.
It puts into question everything that has been believed about the power of both the High Priesthood and the Jury of Nachivan. If the Gilded-Eagle Standard can be so easily collapsed, then what about its counterpart in the Eternal City. And if the High Priesthood's calculations can be so dramatically wrong that they inspire not just a rebellion, but a potentially existential one, then what does that mean for their legitimacy as the ruling chamber? It is one thing for them to be evil, for evil is feared, but another for them to be foolish. The Great Synod itself recognizes these facts, and suddenly opens talks after the battle with the Patriarch to speak about a compromise, but the Grand Sanhedron, already inflamed by the Synod's attempt to make itself supreme is finished with their game.
With their powerplay so exposed, and with their military allies so vulnerable, the Grand Sanhedron unleashes itself from the polite control it vested in the Patriarch's attempt to focus its mission. The Mouflon and Low Priest Chambers combine with the threat that the Juror Chamber is losing total control over discipline of its elders due to Komandirs Akabar Morsi and Varhan Sarbadgar whipping the frontier elders into a fury against the incompetence of their High Atamans. Together, they force the Patriarch to open a debate into the Ischak in the Grand Sanhedron.
The resolutions that follow, the first the Sanhedron has actually passed, are some of the most radical actions that have been taken against a circle in Vasparak history. With the approval of the shamed and outraged High Jury of Kedarkan, the Circle of Ischak is declared out of alignment with God and formally stripped of military or fiscal support from juries outside of its boundaries until it reverses its decision to revoke Folk Rite and bows to the Grand Sanhedron. The Great Synod, no longer referred to by its title but as 'that venerable body', is almost unmentioned.
Patriarch Santsarran, who pleads for some level of comity and good humour, is overwhelmed by the loyal but bubbling rage of a Sanhedral majority that is asserting authority it sees as not just sacred but subject to no control by inferior, single-chamber courts, especially when it sees like decisions are guided less by an interpretation of divine mystery but the self-serving greed of unholy pastors.
Penny-Dirhams
The sect cannot believe its ears, cannot trust its eyes. It is not just that the Ischak has erupted, but that every assumption that had been made until now about the pace and possibility of change and equality has been overturned. The facts of the Ischak are still being filtered through panicked bulletins and accounts by deserting jurors each wishing to absolve themselves of any blame, but it is undeniable that one of the most august and oldest circles in Vaspukaran has been shamed and defeated by a horde of peasants led by a girl who identifies their movement with the Pugilist symbol of the angel of death.
Qanam is so overwhelmed, so shaken, by the realization that the same woman he spoke to claiming to have 'slipped away from her betrothed Boros' is the creature some are now calling 'the angel of the Ischak' and others 'the demon scythe', that he demands on the spot at the emergency meeting held one evening after work that he be allowed to smuggle himself to the Ischak to join her. Wendam is floored, and many members of the sect try to talk him down, but Qanam almost cries in dismay. He sees this as nothing but a message from God that this is where he must go. He has been a soldier, he has military experience on the frontier: By god, let me help her.
Dvorah, who understands herself the desperation of someone isolated who wishes nothing but to throw themselves for a moment and a cause, suggests Qanam might be better used in Nachivan, where his skills at printing, and his skills at writing are essential to the sect. Vashti, she reminds him, does not need him: she has done it well enough herself without the assistance of a man. But it is Akov who cuts in and says that this is only the beginning. Not only the Circle of Ischak, but other circles like Sufgar and Gushanaram who border it will not allow such a humiliation to stand for long. Even if they humor for now the Sanhedron's orders, there is no doubt that other, less inexperienced Standards will be sent against Vashti. Qanam is a connection to a wider world, and larger allies, who could prevent this from being just another peasant rebellion to be quashed so soon as harvest comes.
Galavani Chana suggests they might send some of their guns, but Wendam points out to do so would be to cut into their reserve from Hasadaya since they chose not to purchase the six-shooters, and even if they did, revolvers would be less useful. Still, there is a possibility that the sect might divert some of its smuggling contacts north and built connections with the Ischak network: one of the reasons the panic from the Ischak is so visceral is that it is profoundly close by, and there is no doubt that careful caravans and peddlers hiding goods could move equipment. That is surely, Wendam points out, how Vashti even gathered the arms to start their rebellion.
The floor is open to the sect. There is no doubt, absolutely none, that the sect must support Metamoa. It is the greatest quasi-Pugilist uprising since Pasan Ghadi, and further it has not yet turned explicitly against the Patriarch. Instead, it has focused all of its ire specifically on the Ischak Circle, and the short list of demands published by Vashti are purely appealing to the Sanhedron and the Patriarch over the Great Synod. There are supporters of her within the Sanhedron, though none have dared to suggest they entertain her demands to outright redistribute land from the High Priests. Nevertheless, to give her support would not be an immediate suicide by jury, and anyways it appears the Jury of Nachivan has greater concerns as the Sanhedron makes its first play.
Choose one way by which you will provide support to Metamoa. The Sect has very limited resources in both time and material equipment and so you can choose one option.
[] Plaster Nachivan with supportive pamphlets and woodcuts using our new printing press [will bring you significant in-city attention].
[] Allow Rector Qanam to go and help Vashti in the field as an agent of the sect and schism [Lose Qanam as a sage but gain him as an ally].
[] Set up a smuggling route for weapons going north [significant help but temporary loss of revenue from smuggling].
[] Write-in [must be something reasonably equivalent].
New Reformation Faction: Metamoa
"The blood of behemoth flows red beneath our harvest moon". ~ Book of Ghadi, (P: 52, A: 6).
Thousand are the fallen leaves of Ischak's children, thousand are the fallen tears of Ischak's mothers, and thousand are the miseries of its material affliction. The land of ten thousand years, older than Amalgast, older than Babarak, older than Harasdad, has been scheduled to die by the order of lesser men wearing the traditions of the faith as a wolf wears wool. The people of this place whose lives once held sacral meaning are now the detritus of the plateau to be swept away by the whirlwind of the future that has named them obsolete.
Unless.
There is a vision of a world where justice is meted from the high upon the low, and all obey their masters with the reverence of a herd. A world in which the mouflon is subordinate and eager, and the high priest is generous and kind. There is a reality of a world where the mouflon sobs in their subjugation, and the high priest cracks the lash that holds them low. And then, kept obscured, kept hidden and kept down below, whispered and not dared exposed, there is an idea of a world to come, where no lash is held, with no high and low, and where the wicked all fall down.
Vaspukaran has forgotten the commandments, and so has forgotten God. But the people of the Ischak are the faithful people. The people of the Ischak are the pious people. They remember Him, and his commandments, and and his justice and his prophet and his reverent ones. And they remember that when the God that gives is rejected by the evils of this world, in his place will come the God that takes.
It is by the hands of the avenging angel that His will is done. It is by the hands of Metamoa, the angel of the judgment of the sinners who break the backs of the righteous and force them to starve and beg for bread. And Metamoa is the patron angel of the Ischak, the home of Pugilism's first embrace, the first revolt, the first explosion of the people outwards to bring down the sky. And she is also the angel of the moas, and the angel of the eagles, and above all, the angel of the final judgment: apocalypse, and death.
20,000 of the Ischak's finest, strongest, fiercest men and women gather in Pugranasi communion, a village whose free souls wanted nothing but to till and toil. It was destroyed by the hands of a deacon who would rather profit from the flocks of his sheep than protect the flocks of his congregation. The baba who had urged the people supplicate themselves, is a dead woman slaughtered by the jurors she said that they should trust. The brothers and sisters of the village, scattered to the wind, died in soul as well as body the moment their world was made oblivion.
Only one daughter of Pugranasi now , and she is who the 20,000 are come here for, as this is her wedding day. Not a wedding to a man, and not a wedding to a boy, but a wedding to a land. A great effigy of Ischak, called Boros after the brother of Amalgast, the most heroic of the peasant soldier-boys. Boros is brought forward, and all see his antlers made of pitch-black ironwood, and his grinning skull of a great eagle, and his coat of woven sheep, and his feathered moa cape, and the wicker of his body, weaved by elders imbuing it with a sacred powers. Boros is fifteen feet tall, and the icon of the plateau, but it is his wife that all are watching.
Maryam Vashti is the Ischak's daughter, and now she will be the Ischak's bride. The sharpest, the most intelligent, the wisest, the kindest and the fiercest of them all, at twenty-five she puts her elders all to shame. It is she who gathered up the communions and bound them in the blood of a shared covenant. It is she who gathered intelligence in Nachivan and Arhan, who warned them ahead of what the fat priests planned. It is she who prepared their strategy, and it is her inner circle that have prepared to execute the will of metamoa.
She is today a beauty not of jewels and ochre and myrrh, but of fine wools and feathers, a mother's, not a machine's, work. A cloak of eagle feathers plucked from the haakwai giant eagle that she downed, and a coned hat simple but sturdy and well-made. Her modesty is her great virtue, for none can doubt that she is not their queen, and not their princess, but the simple prophet of their own redemption. She is well-kept, and some admit vain in her attention to keeping pomade in her hair, but that only makes them adore her more. She is no God or Goddess, she is no Patriarch, but a reverent messenger of God, on this earth to mete justice upon evil.
And she echoes out to all the gathered people, and says to them: God's reverent ones are now his revenant ones. Our lives are not tragedy, the closing of a story, but a coming climax. Today I take my greatest vow, not to a man, not to a priest, not to a master, but to the land to which I give my love. If we will die, we will die standing our feet, and if we live, we shall not live crawling on our knees. I swear myself to the scythe, of the field, and I swear myself to the scythe, of the apocalypse.
And then come out the proctors of the Ischak, and then come out the babas of the Ischak, and then together they unleash a bellow, an ululating roar, and put to their lips the ram's horn of sacred proclamation, and from its endless, reverberating blast, held until its blower collapses blue from the exhale of their breath, is a single, unmistakable, and irresistible call:
The declaration of a people's holy war.
Ghosts Long Dormant
There is a spectre haunting Vaspukaran - the spectre of pugilism. Long thought tamed or exorcised, its most radical proponents driven to the fringe of respectable and holy schismatic opinion, it has become a curiosity. The thunderclouds of reformation, as they start to form, have always been thought to be those of the other schisms. Always-adaptable Amalism, the chameleon of faiths. Always-redoutable Iconoclasm, relentless in its survival as a challenge to the strong. Always-articulate Confession, holding domination over the realm of letters. Pugilism, so old, so outdated, so tied to the land, so simplistic in its demand for a leveling of the strong and weak, could not possibly pose a significant challenge to the edifice of orthodoxy.
That was before the Rising of the Ischak. The March of Seventy-Thousand Fists, joined not only by the HaKhofshim and Ma'On, but the conservative and martial arts oriented Ghadim, is the first warning sign that the old words of the Pasan Ghadi and the Opernani Myriam are not fables of a different age, but deeply resonant and timeless traditions. This march swells well beyond what its organizers hope for, as thousands upon thousands of laborers of the city of Nachivan gathered in solidarity with those who might have been their fathers or their mothers when still they had been peasants.
The cultural memory of the minyan communion, not erased totally by the passage of time and the grinding of industrial gears, has been kept alive through the carrying of traditions like the samovar tea-time or the spring festival of Vladwane, adapted for the urban environment. The literacy of the peasantry, and their ability to make their voices heard means that the separation between them and the toilers of the factories is less than the great Jurors and the High Priests, who themselves had mostly cut their ties to the countryside a generation earlier and cannot comprehend.
And you are among those marchers, and you make your way through the city, through the western Navel, flying high the Six-Shin Aluf that has not been flown within the city of Nachivan since uprisings older than the Second Sanhedron. And you, who are the most radical, the smallest, the poorest, of all the Pugilists there, draw eyes who have not seen you before. The women of the Convent of the Gunpowder Eucharist, their cheeks stained with powder, the Jurors of the Scourge of God, who slap their backs lightly with the lashes of their own repentence, and the wandering assortment of hooligans, and sports fans, and hardened former penitents, lean, and mean, who fought their way from bondage, cannot be hidden from the watching crowds.
Predator and Prey
The Jury of Nachivan is visibly discomfited by the presence of the Scourge, and some of their line, gathered in a grim unbroken row, protecting the House of Creation from the errant attempts at looting or sabotage, their bayoneted rifles poised against their shoulders, fine cloaks aflutter in the afternoon rain cannot resist but to yell: traitor. And Akov, from his place at the scourge's head, the veteran spit on by his own komandir, turns to them with wild eyes, and calls back, and the Scourge calls back with him: apostate.
It is close to a riot, defused only by the komandir of the Jury who does not wish to incite a fight now. There are rumors that they are calling for help from other Circles, reaching out to juries and standards who might bolster their numbers. The White-Gold Standard of Kedarkan and the Pale Horse Standard of Perusan and their komandirs are both a nightmarish alert to the Jury of Nachivan that the old good feeling, the old fraternity, the old alliance, that might have once existed between the sections of the juries, is not just gone, but teetering at the edge of outright dissolution.
The Jury of Nachivan's role in the manipulation of the pensions of Jurors, and its support of the Great Synod which has denied compensation and redress for the scams run by many of the elite Atamans and Komandirs, has snapped the chain of obligation that held back these wild dogs. All that keeps them back is the cold logic of predators who know that if they strike at the wrong moment they will become prey themselves. The Jury of Nachivan, meanwhile, has done so well for itself, has so pilfered the wealth of the city through its factories and its direct levies of gold from the Patriarch, that it has inadverdantly turned most of the See and the Exarchates against it in an irreversible, and increasingly volatile way.
It would not be enough to shatter the fear they hold on everyone within their grasp, however, if not for what happens next.
Eagles Falling
Ataman Edalfani Kenaman is an old boy's boy. The young leader of the Gilded-Eagle Standard has never fought a military battle, and has never shot a gun save for ceremonies and the occasional shootout with highland Ischak bandits. Elected more for his financial acumen, he has made sure all of the peers of his standard are well-cared for. He, like most of the jurors of the Ischak, are the children of the total victory over the internal and external enemies of Vaspukaran, the babes fat and happy from the long peace that has endured since the Temple Coup. When the War with the Mare occurred, it was fought far away, and no juries from the Ischak joined in the fighting. So as the High Priesthood of their circle commands them to go and clear out all the rabblerousing rascals, scoundrels and scum that occupy the Ischak Plateau, they, and Ataman Kenaman himself, do so with the glee and cruelty of the bored and green.
He ignores the warnings coming from the jurors on the border of the plateau that for months the peasants of the Ischak highlands have been plotting, scheming, arming. He ignores the warnings that come from sympathetic peasants afraid of reprisal that there is a true rebellion brewing and it is like nothing they have ever seen. He ignores the warnings from some of his own officers that he should wait for reinforcements and more intelligence before he charges straight into the plateau. Facinated by a mythic vision of himself as a hero drawn from legend, and grown up on books and stories of dashing men vanquishing barbarians, Ataman Kenaman indeed gets his wish to be immortalized, and walks straight into the annals of history.
Following rumors of a gathering horde of peasants who Kenaman believes are an ill-disciplined, disorganized, and easy-to-scatter mass armed with pitchforks, he and his lowland jurors immediately lose themselves in the confusing, and maze valleys of the Ischak plateau. A dream-like landscape of man-eating trees (more accurately, predatory trees that may eat men), giant eagles, poisonous meter-long worms, and undulating, endless, scalp-high grass, the plateau has been a deathtrap since the time of Babarak. But rather than take stock of his supplies, Kenaman and many of his younger officers, frustrated and angry at being denied an immediate victory, charge on. Following local rumors that they deign to trust that a valley further to the northwest is hiding all the bandits, Kenaman wanders straight into a trap.
Sealing the valley behind him with rolling logs and stones, Maryam Vashti, the leader of the Ischak uprising that calls itself Metamoa after the angel of death, and her own band of officers, many of them veteran juror deserters or bandits fleeing debts and penitence manuevers the unwieldy and yes, undisciplined force of peasants into a position where they can do the most damage: attacking downwards, on a vulnerable enemy, on their own home territory.
Kenaman and his Jurors bravely attempt immolation and try to use their machine-guns. But with their baggage train fatally spread out, and having failed to use any kind of scouts to forewarn them, Kenaman and his officers instead immolate in a heroic last stand that only gets them shot by their own men rather than the enemy. Jurors who were thought to have some instrinsic and ineffable fighting spirit transferred effortlessly from father to the son, are exposed instead as dandies playing at war, some of whom have not seen combat for three generations. The remainder of his force surrenders in absolute humiliation and shame, and are clapped in chains to be ransomed for more guns and ammunition.
In about the two weeks, the largest, most well-armedstandard in the Ischak, is effectively destroyed. Most of the men who did not follow with Kenaman, immediately desert, either to Vashti herself, or disappearing into the countryside, ashamed, dispirited, and headless. The Synodic Axis in Arhan is immobilized by panicked riots, as wealthier denizens flee in the mistaken belief that the savage Vashti will immediately march down from the mountains and kill them all. Instead, facing the same issues of managing such a large force at planting time, the peasant army of Metamoa melts away into the plateau, where the prayer bulletins and intelligence reports of the lowland cannot reach. Instead, deacons, loyal priests, and jurors still ill-advisedly staying there flee south and west and east, spreading horror stories of heaven turned upside down.
Feathers Burning
The news from the Ischak, and the Rout of Beradana Valley comes to Nachivan like a telegraphic lightning bolt. It is difficult to put into words the shock, fear, elation, and confusion felt at all corners that the Ischak, which was thought to have been simply a doomed land and emblem of the tyranny of the old order, turns into a firestorm, and the first domestic rebellion in decades. The further fact that Ataman Kenaman in the span of about a week and a half in a single month, goes from a dashing soldier to a cruel invader to a reviled imbecile, exposes that there is a rot within the interior Juries that goes so deep it might not be able to be eradicated except by total reform.
The collapse of the Ischak's largest force in the span of a week to a group of upjumped peasants obscures the fundamental material realities that allowed the Ischak to succeed where other revolts might have failed, both in the weakness of its juror chamber and the strength and alienation of its peasantry, which has always stood apart on the plateau, an infamously poor terrain for war even for seasoned soldiers, and buoyed by the ranks of angry deserters and penitents escaping from the grasp of debt bondage.
It puts into question everything that has been believed about the power of both the High Priesthood and the Jury of Nachivan. If the Gilded-Eagle Standard can be so easily collapsed, then what about its counterpart in the Eternal City. And if the High Priesthood's calculations can be so dramatically wrong that they inspire not just a rebellion, but a potentially existential one, then what does that mean for their legitimacy as the ruling chamber? It is one thing for them to be evil, for evil is feared, but another for them to be foolish. The Great Synod itself recognizes these facts, and suddenly opens talks after the battle with the Patriarch to speak about a compromise, but the Grand Sanhedron, already inflamed by the Synod's attempt to make itself supreme is finished with their game.
With their powerplay so exposed, and with their military allies so vulnerable, the Grand Sanhedron unleashes itself from the polite control it vested in the Patriarch's attempt to focus its mission. The Mouflon and Low Priest Chambers combine with the threat that the Juror Chamber is losing total control over discipline of its elders due to Komandirs Akabar Morsi and Varhan Sarbadgar whipping the frontier elders into a fury against the incompetence of their High Atamans. Together, they force the Patriarch to open a debate into the Ischak in the Grand Sanhedron.
The resolutions that follow, the first the Sanhedron has actually passed, are some of the most radical actions that have been taken against a circle in Vasparak history. With the approval of the shamed and outraged High Jury of Kedarkan, the Circle of Ischak is declared out of alignment with God and formally stripped of military or fiscal support from juries outside of its boundaries until it reverses its decision to revoke Folk Rite and bows to the Grand Sanhedron. The Great Synod, no longer referred to by its title but as 'that venerable body', is almost unmentioned.
Patriarch Santsarran, who pleads for some level of comity and good humour, is overwhelmed by the loyal but bubbling rage of a Sanhedral majority that is asserting authority it sees as not just sacred but subject to no control by inferior, single-chamber courts, especially when it sees like decisions are guided less by an interpretation of divine mystery but the self-serving greed of unholy pastors.
Penny-Dirhams
The sect cannot believe its ears, cannot trust its eyes. It is not just that the Ischak has erupted, but that every assumption that had been made until now about the pace and possibility of change and equality has been overturned. The facts of the Ischak are still being filtered through panicked bulletins and accounts by deserting jurors each wishing to absolve themselves of any blame, but it is undeniable that one of the most august and oldest circles in Vaspukaran has been shamed and defeated by a horde of peasants led by a girl who identifies their movement with the Pugilist symbol of the angel of death.
Qanam is so overwhelmed, so shaken, by the realization that the same woman he spoke to claiming to have 'slipped away from her betrothed Boros' is the creature some are now calling 'the angel of the Ischak' and others 'the demon scythe', that he demands on the spot at the emergency meeting held one evening after work that he be allowed to smuggle himself to the Ischak to join her. Wendam is floored, and many members of the sect try to talk him down, but Qanam almost cries in dismay. He sees this as nothing but a message from God that this is where he must go. He has been a soldier, he has military experience on the frontier: By god, let me help her.
Dvorah, who understands herself the desperation of someone isolated who wishes nothing but to throw themselves for a moment and a cause, suggests Qanam might be better used in Nachivan, where his skills at printing, and his skills at writing are essential to the sect. Vashti, she reminds him, does not need him: she has done it well enough herself without the assistance of a man. But it is Akov who cuts in and says that this is only the beginning. Not only the Circle of Ischak, but other circles like Sufgar and Gushanaram who border it will not allow such a humiliation to stand for long. Even if they humor for now the Sanhedron's orders, there is no doubt that other, less inexperienced Standards will be sent against Vashti. Qanam is a connection to a wider world, and larger allies, who could prevent this from being just another peasant rebellion to be quashed so soon as harvest comes.
Galavani Chana suggests they might send some of their guns, but Wendam points out to do so would be to cut into their reserve from Hasadaya since they chose not to purchase the six-shooters, and even if they did, revolvers would be less useful. Still, there is a possibility that the sect might divert some of its smuggling contacts north and built connections with the Ischak network: one of the reasons the panic from the Ischak is so visceral is that it is profoundly close by, and there is no doubt that careful caravans and peddlers hiding goods could move equipment. That is surely, Wendam points out, how Vashti even gathered the arms to start their rebellion.
The floor is open to the sect. There is no doubt, absolutely none, that the sect must support Metamoa. It is the greatest quasi-Pugilist uprising since Pasan Ghadi, and further it has not yet turned explicitly against the Patriarch. Instead, it has focused all of its ire specifically on the Ischak Circle, and the short list of demands published by Vashti are purely appealing to the Sanhedron and the Patriarch over the Great Synod. There are supporters of her within the Sanhedron, though none have dared to suggest they entertain her demands to outright redistribute land from the High Priests. Nevertheless, to give her support would not be an immediate suicide by jury, and anyways it appears the Jury of Nachivan has greater concerns as the Sanhedron makes its first play.
Choose one way by which you will provide support to Metamoa. The Sect has very limited resources in both time and material equipment and so you can choose one option.
[] Paster Nachivan with supportive pamphlets and woodcuts using our new printing press [will bring you significant in-city attention].
[] Allow Rector Qanam to go and help Vashti in the field as an agent of the sect and schism [Lose Qanam as a sage but gain him as an ally].
[] Set up a smuggling route for weapons going north [significant help but temporary loss of revenue from smuggling].
[] Write-in [must be something reasonably equivalent].
New Reformation Faction: Metamoa
"The blood of behemoth flows red beneath our harvest moon". ~ Book of Ghadi, (P: 52, A: 6).
If I had to describe this update, I would describe it as "kino", "peak fiction", or more directly, KOGGERS
inject this shit straight into my veins
Thousand are the fallen leaves of Ischak's children, thousand are the fallen tears of Ischak's mothers, and thousand are the miseries of its material affliction. The land of ten thousand years, older than Amalgast, older than Babarak, older than Harasdad, has been scheduled to die by the order of lesser men wearing the traditions of the faith as a wolf wears wool. The people of this place whose lives once held sacral meaning are now the detritus of the plateau to be swept away by the whirlwind of the future that has named them obsolete.
Oh damn the girl we talked too has been inspired and taken up a cause. Now to be in character here.
"My fellows of the sect is this not a sign of God? That this girl would come forth and listen to our Sage Rector Qanam and to be inspired? If that is not so clearly a sign that he must go forth and aid them then I do not know what is and if God has spoken to him and us as a whole who are we to deny his will?"
[X] Allow Rector Qanam to go and help Vashti in the field as an agent of the sect and schism [Lose Qanam as a sage but gain him as an ally].
So yeah voting for this though don't know if there's a voting Mortarium so I'll wait a bit.
Qanam and Akov are the two people in our sect with the most military experience, and they both agree that the Rector's experience and connections are necessary for Metamoa.
Losing Rector Qanam would hurt us. But a Sect and its beliefs are not things to be caged and hoarded. With what has happened, we have attracted attention and will gain other allies in the city soon enough.
Sent Qanam to the one God has tied him to. Have him spread our teachings and our beliefs to the Holy Fighters of Metamoa. To Vashti's following of peasants, women and jurors, and in their wake we will see the legacy of the Gunpowder Convent, the Scourge and the Extinguishment spread and grow.
To keep him with us chained would be cruel and selfish, and there have been enough cruelty and selfishness.
[X] Allow Rector Qanam to go and help Vashti in the field as an agent of the sect and schism [Lose Qanam as a sage but gain him as an ally].
I would also like to point out while Qanam is one of our main Sages with Military experience he's not our only one we have Akov as well so it's not like we wouldn't have a military leader with us in case we needed one. So I do believe that we can afford to send him off to give aid.
Note that not all the choices from last update are represented here - some of them have been moved to the next update as with the first turn. The general structure I've tried to adopt is turn-start-mid turn event (usually something outside Nachivan) and then Turn-End.
It was asked whether Qanam can be sent with a small group of followers: it can be assumed if he goes he'll take a very small band (less than 10 people) rather than showing up as one guy. That's part of why sending him is a distinct option that is mutually exclusive; you are expending some manpower here and need to get them smuggled through.
Commanders are good, experience is good, but smuggling will keep the revolution armed and supplied and connected to the world. We must at least seriously consider diverting our smuggling operations.
[X] Allow Rector Qanam to go and help Vashti in the field as an agent of the sect and schism [Lose Qanam as a sage but gain him as an ally].
Sending one of our best orators helps radicalize the Metamoa, and secure them against backsliding. With a declaration such s they have made, the most toxic thing to their movement will be the suggestion of backing down. These are people pushed to the brink, and so they will do much, but if the conditions change, if they get promises of better treatment from the synods or the juries, they may wish to disarm and return to their fields.
This cannot be allowed, for if they back down it will simply begin the cycle anew- the juries ad synods of tomorrow, or next year, or next century, will once again fill with the greedy, the devious, the cruel, and they will again begin degrading the rights of the folk rite, and try to seize the land for their domination. Unless the minds of Ischak can be awoken to this. Unless the eyes of Ischak watch for this threat. Until the hands of Ischak have begun to reach for the world to come!
Rector Qanam, I charge you with this- come back with the minds of Ischak or come back with none!
OOC: remember, Qanam's bonus is fervor, building support for the very idea of the cause
Commanders are good, experience is good, but smuggling will keep the revolution armed and supplied and connected to the world. We must at least seriously consider diverting our smuggling operations.
Objectively I agree. But to be fair that is also part of the Qanam action, where he has the connections to enlarge their existing routes and keep them connected to the wider world.
Of course on that front, its not as good as giving them access to our smuggling contacts right now.
We should take out time and carefully consider all the options. There are upsides and downsides to each one, and we should be practical enough to accept that the HaKhofshim by themselves cannot be a decisive factor except in so far as they leverage other movements and popular opinion.
So the pamphlet option is not as weak as it might seem. It would help to keep the Sanhedron focused on affairs in the Ischak and push them towards a more uncompromising and radical stance. Mobilizing the population of the capital will pressure the Patriarch as well not to backslide towards conciliating the Nachivan Jury by showing how isolated the High Jurors as a class are. It'll draw attention which can be a positive as well as a negative. But for the moment I don't think the Jurors of the city are willing to risk a conflagration and coming after the HaKhofshim in the Pugilist district after a march in solidarity with a Pugilist uprising would be picking a fight with all the Pugilist sects - and all of the lower classes who are increasingly sympathetic to militant opposition towards the Hugh Jurors.
Likewise, running guns to the uprising will help the uprising succeed in the most direct way. In truth getting the Sect used to smuggling weapons on a big scale will probably be an incredibly useful development. The skills involved in a smuggling route would reinforce the skills needed to operate as a proscribed conspiracy, should it come to that, and developing smuggling routes also provides escape routes to allies or for the Sect as a whole if needed. And a militant revolutionary group sitting armed and dangerous on the Ischak Plateau, near the capital, has a certain revolutionary potential as it were.
Finally sending Qanam is more of a gamble than it looks. We'd lose his services, when we need help expanding the Sect's membership and income as much as possible. It's also not unlikely he doesn't actually provide a great deal of help, or winds up dead sooner or later if the movement is defeated. Though that said having him there and presumably welcomed by Maryam Vashti might help cement a close alliance between the Sect and the Metamoa revolutionary movement. Right now they presumably have only the vaguest of ideas that the Sect exists, and to be sure right now the kind of aid we can offer is limited - if anything we might need to seek sanctuary with them if things go poorly in the capital. But hopefully eventually the HaKhofshim can articulate a popular message that draws a mass movement and when that happens being able to ally with a sister-movement in the countryside would be very useful for putting even more pressure on the system.
