Kingdom of God: A Quest of Holy Revolution
- Thread starter Cetashwayo
- Start date
- Original Fantasy
- Location
- Derna
[X] 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].
Changing my vote. I've been convinced by arguments - the time still isn't quite right to start yelling at the New Order, there's a lot of work to do and a lot of gains to make elsewhere.
Changing my vote. I've been convinced by arguments - the time still isn't quite right to start yelling at the New Order, there's a lot of work to do and a lot of gains to make elsewhere.
- Location
- The Middle of the Howling Wilderness
[X] 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].
Leaning towards attacking the old right now... but god damn this is a tough choice. Making me chose between Sarbadgar and Massima Rachel is truly cruel.
Leaning towards attacking the old right now... but god damn this is a tough choice. Making me chose between Sarbadgar and Massima Rachel is truly cruel.
[X] 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].
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] 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].
Horologer
Incertae sedis
- Location
- a risen sea
Something that influenced my vote for undermining the old order: looking at the map, there's a lot of free real estate right now, so to speak. I think that's because a lot of people are still waking up to the situation and going "what now?" There's a lot of advantage to be had in being the first person to provide an answer.
A look at the map also reminded me that Vaspukaran is absolutely massive, and that right now we have one other chapter of note- although it's an important one. Regardless of how the vote goes, I think that needs to change as soon as possible.
A look at the map also reminded me that Vaspukaran is absolutely massive, and that right now we have one other chapter of note- although it's an important one. Regardless of how the vote goes, I think that needs to change as soon as possible.
[X] 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].
Deadly Snark
Tryhard As Fuck
Yeah like I said. If we dont go out and convert via vicious campaigns other people will. Imagine Burs with several Loyal Standards of young and old Jurors, Former Penitents and Witches, who could have been our supporters.
That's the issue right now. There's a vacuum and it will be filled.
Being secure in Nachivan doesnt mean much if everyone else is sending an army to come skullfuck the Capital for example. Well okay, I exaggerate there are powerful political moves that can be taken, but again guns and power.
- Location
- Great Khanate of Scotland
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Of we want somewhere to expand into, the southern Exarchates are free game and we can use our alliance with Ohr and Makabam to get there
- Pronouns
- He/They/She
I'm not changing my vote, but I'm honestly fine with either answer, as long as the justification for Undermine isn't "I trust Holy Leader Santsarran and his pet monsters to continue pushing through his miraculous reforms at the point of a bayonet". That's how you get marginalized and purged.
Deadly Snark
Tryhard As Fuck
It's reaching out to the Millions of Penitents, Witches, and Pugilists we freed and taking responsibility for that by giving them directions and making sure they don't fall in with the wrong company.
Cetashwayo
Lord of Ten Thousand Years
- Location
- Across the Horizon
It looks as though voting has somewhat died down. With that in mind I have set an end-time. It is currently 32-26 for undermining the old order.
Esterkezy Oshana (ArvisParsley)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The First of the Mushad Oathtakers, former exile to the Mare, Arch-feminist, and radical among radicals, Makabam's fiery dame of freedom Esterkezy Oshana
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In Praise of Sarbadgar the Mahdi (100thlurker)
- Location
- SMS Odette II
To be a witness of the Yuhwa, persecuted to death, is to brace the soul for the same fate and join the ever-swelling throngs of martyrs following the Vehicle of Salvation. Few nations know this so well as the Gushans. The first ministry to their nation ended when the executioner's axe hewed into Yuhwasattva Yoonha's neck, from whence milk rather than blood splashed on the flagstones of Hugthgar Rohir's mead-hall. The Sword-Saint Binah meekly went to hang from the boughs of a tall tree like a common thief when she could so easily have escaped after taking her captor's own sword to defend him from the spears of bandits. Saint Euna of Gyerim endured harrowing violations and cruel indignities at the hands of the wicked Theogar Rohir to see her son by his seed, the blessed Walmas Rohir, raised up on the shields of the eorls and proclaim his reiks to be Magian, now and forever. When the Parajasper Rohirs strayed from the Way by indulging themselves in multiplying evils, righteous Magi fearlessly lined the depths of lightless gaols and nameless wells with their bones rather than recant their repudiations of the Lie. After it pleased the Good Principle to tumble the Rohirs to the mire of their charger's hooves and the Yazdas to give dominion over to Amalgast, his Jurors and Priests send uncounted martyrs to the House of Song as dust from burnings at the stake.
Oh Ormuzd, how many Gushans have given imperishable witness to the Yuhwa by their steadfast example? Onward then does the Caravan of Martyrs travel in Gushnaram. How speedily they go, and so gladly, as if carried off by the Simurgh to the House of Song!
Even so, the Magi love Amalgast in each of his many reincarnations at this Wayside Inn. He is the yoke to bend forever the pride-stiff necks of the Rohirs who madly thought to be sovereigns of the whole world, the rod that rebukes them for making their whole nation false witnesses of the Yuhwa. As the Patriarchs, their stern father and protector many times over, he has saved the Way and the Yazdas from obliteration in his country. With their whole hearts they pray to Anahita for his health, to Engwas and Melik Tawus for the commonweal of the whole of his Kingdom of God, dance the Irminsul so that Verethegna and Tiwaz will make his juror-armies victorious, to Baridegi to guide his immortal soul from one incarnation to the next.
The Gushans love Amalgast…but it has been eight hundred years and threescore since the Rohirs were given unto Amalgast's hand, fourfold and half again the whole reign of the Parajasper Rohirs, and heavy has the hand that disciplines them. It cannot be the will of the Good Principle and the Yazdas for Magians to repay forever the crimes of the Rohirate, nor for so many generations of Magians to be born merely to perish in pain.
Nachivan then is the haven where the Magians of Gushnaram dream of spiriting away their children, pinching and scrimping every sliver of treasure – fibulae from heirloom wedding dresses, gold belt buckles and cloak-brooches furtively passed from distant forefathers – for the smuggler's fee, sparing no hope for themselves. The Witch's Quarter there is protected above by the gaze of the Patriarch from the Heavenly Mount and below by the loving embrace of the City's kind sects. It is within the Navel of the Amalgastene World that a Magian can live as a witness, and not merely die as one.
Yet living is hard. Every day the Witches – and they will always be Witches – of Nachivan shuffle through streets deposited with the dust of a near millennium of idol-smashing abuse, where the broken visage of a Yazda or Gushan heroes might stare at them accusingly. Harrowed by guilt, they fill the hands of smugglers and peddlers with their wages to remit for their families back in Gushnaram, who might have perished without a word. Come every week of Korban, when the whole city is drunk with the frenzied delight of Amalgast's victory against the straw-head Rohirs, the Witches huddle together behind locked doors and dare not venture out into the streets where frightful pilgrims from Sufgar and Gushnaram might have brought their cruelty to the city. When a Witch is raped, robbed, beaten, or defrauded by a powerful master against whom the fists of friendly pugilists or the spirited castigation of a friendly rector might have no justice to mete, there is nowhere for them to turn; if even the sons and daughters of God are beneath the notice of pitiless Exarchs and Tatas, what hope have they? Even here in Nachivan, parents must teach their children to keep the brims of their hats low lest they accidentally meet an Amalgastene in the eyes; for they are born Gushan and Witches both, and so long as the Kingdom of God reigns the Vasp will never, ever let them forget.
Where their fathers and mothers dreamed of going to Nachivan, the witches in Nachivan dream of the coming of a Mahdi. The one who, even if there were only an hour left in the life of the world, could prolong the last hour so that heaven and earth might be aligned for the Matreiya Yuhwa to come. It is the Mahdi who will do battle with druj for all the nations and bring peace to all the four corners of the world where it was once full of injustice and tyranny. It is the Mahdi who can redeem the Rohirate's terrible burden on the Gushans.
So when Sarbadgar came to the Sanhedron as an elder, some Witches already nursed secret hopes they dare not voice. The Pale Horse may have turned on the Rohirs and renounced the Yuhwa, but their ways are still the old ways of the Gushans, and Sarbadgar is their son – a son of Gapt. They looked and liked to look at Sarbadgar, who stands tall in the saddle with unbowed righteousness, skin darkened by martial dust, his face inscrutable as a Yuhwa. Yes, some began to think in the corner of their hearts where only Ormuzd can look, it must Sarbadgar.
When he passed by on his horse, they bowed their heads and clasped their hands in whispered benedictions – and a prayer: Oh Ohrmuzd, oh Yuhwa, oh Gapt, may it be Sarbadgar!
When Sarbadgar railed against injustice in the Sanhedron, whispers turned to furtive cries: Sarbadgar, Verethegna is ahead of you! Sarbadgar, Tiwaz rides with you! Sarbadgar, bone of our bone, do not forget us!
When Sarbadgar stood for the Metamoa the hopes of a few fused with the dreams of the many, and now everywhere Witches would stand on tip-toes or pressed against the crowds to see him pass, for the first time lifting up the brims of their hats to behold the world with clear eyes: Sarbadgar!
On the fateful day of Tislev, the beer gardens where wounded are laid to rest on tables and drink wets lips blackened and cracked with gunpowder, at the witch's temples and monasteries where the Magi command the faithful to aid the uprising, in alleyways beside the fighting, Sarbadgar's name – the Mahdi's name – is on all the Witch's lips. Sarbadgar atop the walls of Karogen Academy, hand tucked in his jacket, becomes giant. The bullet-spitters of the Pale Horse become his shouts, the knuckle dusters, knives, and clubs of the crowd that came to his defense his fists. He strides across Mushad bridge, sweeping aside bayonets, and tears away the banner of Sword-Altar in his mighty grip. Verethegna burns on his brow.
After the Midnight Bull, they mob Sarbadgar when he passes, kiss the hem of his tunic, his boots, his stirrups. Cloaks, jackets, even bedsheets are thrown to the ground to guard from mud his charger's hooves. They raise their infants up to him and beg him to grace them with a look, a word, a touch; a blessing to last a thousand years. Yuhwasattva Sarbadgar, they chant, Yuhwsattva Sarbadgar, Yuhwasattva Sarbadgar! Redeemer, savior, they scream too, bone of our bone, the Mahdi!
And Sarbadgar's name, the Mahdi's name, travels thence like a thunderbolt over the Jasper Gates, to strike the dry grass of Simurghshahr.
Oh Ormuzd, how many Gushans have given imperishable witness to the Yuhwa by their steadfast example? Onward then does the Caravan of Martyrs travel in Gushnaram. How speedily they go, and so gladly, as if carried off by the Simurgh to the House of Song!
Even so, the Magi love Amalgast in each of his many reincarnations at this Wayside Inn. He is the yoke to bend forever the pride-stiff necks of the Rohirs who madly thought to be sovereigns of the whole world, the rod that rebukes them for making their whole nation false witnesses of the Yuhwa. As the Patriarchs, their stern father and protector many times over, he has saved the Way and the Yazdas from obliteration in his country. With their whole hearts they pray to Anahita for his health, to Engwas and Melik Tawus for the commonweal of the whole of his Kingdom of God, dance the Irminsul so that Verethegna and Tiwaz will make his juror-armies victorious, to Baridegi to guide his immortal soul from one incarnation to the next.
The Gushans love Amalgast…but it has been eight hundred years and threescore since the Rohirs were given unto Amalgast's hand, fourfold and half again the whole reign of the Parajasper Rohirs, and heavy has the hand that disciplines them. It cannot be the will of the Good Principle and the Yazdas for Magians to repay forever the crimes of the Rohirate, nor for so many generations of Magians to be born merely to perish in pain.
Nachivan then is the haven where the Magians of Gushnaram dream of spiriting away their children, pinching and scrimping every sliver of treasure – fibulae from heirloom wedding dresses, gold belt buckles and cloak-brooches furtively passed from distant forefathers – for the smuggler's fee, sparing no hope for themselves. The Witch's Quarter there is protected above by the gaze of the Patriarch from the Heavenly Mount and below by the loving embrace of the City's kind sects. It is within the Navel of the Amalgastene World that a Magian can live as a witness, and not merely die as one.
Yet living is hard. Every day the Witches – and they will always be Witches – of Nachivan shuffle through streets deposited with the dust of a near millennium of idol-smashing abuse, where the broken visage of a Yazda or Gushan heroes might stare at them accusingly. Harrowed by guilt, they fill the hands of smugglers and peddlers with their wages to remit for their families back in Gushnaram, who might have perished without a word. Come every week of Korban, when the whole city is drunk with the frenzied delight of Amalgast's victory against the straw-head Rohirs, the Witches huddle together behind locked doors and dare not venture out into the streets where frightful pilgrims from Sufgar and Gushnaram might have brought their cruelty to the city. When a Witch is raped, robbed, beaten, or defrauded by a powerful master against whom the fists of friendly pugilists or the spirited castigation of a friendly rector might have no justice to mete, there is nowhere for them to turn; if even the sons and daughters of God are beneath the notice of pitiless Exarchs and Tatas, what hope have they? Even here in Nachivan, parents must teach their children to keep the brims of their hats low lest they accidentally meet an Amalgastene in the eyes; for they are born Gushan and Witches both, and so long as the Kingdom of God reigns the Vasp will never, ever let them forget.
Where their fathers and mothers dreamed of going to Nachivan, the witches in Nachivan dream of the coming of a Mahdi. The one who, even if there were only an hour left in the life of the world, could prolong the last hour so that heaven and earth might be aligned for the Matreiya Yuhwa to come. It is the Mahdi who will do battle with druj for all the nations and bring peace to all the four corners of the world where it was once full of injustice and tyranny. It is the Mahdi who can redeem the Rohirate's terrible burden on the Gushans.
So when Sarbadgar came to the Sanhedron as an elder, some Witches already nursed secret hopes they dare not voice. The Pale Horse may have turned on the Rohirs and renounced the Yuhwa, but their ways are still the old ways of the Gushans, and Sarbadgar is their son – a son of Gapt. They looked and liked to look at Sarbadgar, who stands tall in the saddle with unbowed righteousness, skin darkened by martial dust, his face inscrutable as a Yuhwa. Yes, some began to think in the corner of their hearts where only Ormuzd can look, it must Sarbadgar.
When he passed by on his horse, they bowed their heads and clasped their hands in whispered benedictions – and a prayer: Oh Ohrmuzd, oh Yuhwa, oh Gapt, may it be Sarbadgar!
When Sarbadgar railed against injustice in the Sanhedron, whispers turned to furtive cries: Sarbadgar, Verethegna is ahead of you! Sarbadgar, Tiwaz rides with you! Sarbadgar, bone of our bone, do not forget us!
When Sarbadgar stood for the Metamoa the hopes of a few fused with the dreams of the many, and now everywhere Witches would stand on tip-toes or pressed against the crowds to see him pass, for the first time lifting up the brims of their hats to behold the world with clear eyes: Sarbadgar!
On the fateful day of Tislev, the beer gardens where wounded are laid to rest on tables and drink wets lips blackened and cracked with gunpowder, at the witch's temples and monasteries where the Magi command the faithful to aid the uprising, in alleyways beside the fighting, Sarbadgar's name – the Mahdi's name – is on all the Witch's lips. Sarbadgar atop the walls of Karogen Academy, hand tucked in his jacket, becomes giant. The bullet-spitters of the Pale Horse become his shouts, the knuckle dusters, knives, and clubs of the crowd that came to his defense his fists. He strides across Mushad bridge, sweeping aside bayonets, and tears away the banner of Sword-Altar in his mighty grip. Verethegna burns on his brow.
After the Midnight Bull, they mob Sarbadgar when he passes, kiss the hem of his tunic, his boots, his stirrups. Cloaks, jackets, even bedsheets are thrown to the ground to guard from mud his charger's hooves. They raise their infants up to him and beg him to grace them with a look, a word, a touch; a blessing to last a thousand years. Yuhwasattva Sarbadgar, they chant, Yuhwsattva Sarbadgar, Yuhwasattva Sarbadgar! Redeemer, savior, they scream too, bone of our bone, the Mahdi!
And Sarbadgar's name, the Mahdi's name, travels thence like a thunderbolt over the Jasper Gates, to strike the dry grass of Simurghshahr.
- Location
- Australia
[X] 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].
Cetashwayo
Lord of Ten Thousand Years
- Location
- Across the Horizon
Great stuff. Like the continuing development of trying to reconcile traditional theologies and the trinity with more radical politics.
Reaper, Reaper!
That's what people call me. Why?
Cause they all DIE!
When I sing I end their lives!
You act as though power
Makes you a noble man, is that a fact?
Well you're a god-damn philistine!
Excellent work, really like the look of the Sakarog. Threadmarked.
Based off of the designs from Spiral to Sanhedron
Koggers:
ThatFeelssionalismWhen:
Despicable work, subtracting points from HaKhofshim.
Okay you've redeemed yourself. Consider yourself warned. Threadmarked this amazing character piece.
I will allow this as long as we understand that the historians involved do not understand Qanam is like twice Vashti's age, or if they do they will be cancelled + ratioed. Nevertheless I very much appreciate the bizarre references and attempts by future historians to decipher all of this.
Great work. Put into sidestory and a canon look at the Gushan witch response to the emancipation of themselves and the triumph of Sarbadgar.
Monster in the West Vote
Cetashwayo
Lord of Ten Thousand Years
- Location
- Across the Horizon
Forget-Me-Not (Natruska)
- Location
- Derna
Forget-Me-Not
What is Memory? For the yeshiva student, it is mnemonic devices and candle-lit pages. For the country rector, it is births and deaths and land disputes. For the peasant, it is gossip and bad winters and the old rituals. The High Priest's response may be more practiced: Memory, by his mark, Memory is a type of thought. A Memory is an image of something that no longer is, a kind of non-existence. It is the present-past, kin of expectation (the present-future) and attention (the present-present).
A Juror will say that it is whipping or burning. That is it pride and penance. That it it is Kentelken. There are the survivors, he might say. There are the memory-men.
A man in a tattered coat trembles on a corner. In the morning Sword-Altar beats him, in the evening exiles feed him. It is cold in Nachivan, bitingly cold, but it matters not to the trembler. His eyes will not focus, his ears will not listen. He has no need for present-present or present-future, no desire for any beauty this world might have to offer. The Mare's Garden Corps has gifted him sights and sounds to last a lifetime.
Across the street, a man pulls his hat down low and slips through a door, seeking cures for what ails him. Enough booze and he will stop feeling the fragments in his back - enough yamroot and he will obliterate Mind, beating back Memory's host of demons for another night.
Above a cafe, thirteen Jurors gather. Twelve are fresh off a grinding shift in Pesselpan, one has stopped seeking work. There are others who cannot be here, working other shifts. But not many. This room is the best their pooled funds can manage. A little space and some chairs, a raised cafe table for an altar and a scrap of homesewn fabric hanging on the wall. It is too small and too crude to be a proper standard, a crimson eel speared on an amber background.
This is what remains of Dargang's Blood-Eel Standard, the old foe of Nesra. This is the culmination of four centuries of warfare, four hundred years of tradition. When the Nesrans rose for the Pugilists, Blood-Eel rose against them. When Nesra sided with the Antipatriarch's march up country, Blood-Eel resisted them bitterly. When Nesra fought the will of the Infalliable Patriarchs, Blood-Eel enforced it with barely restrained glee. And when the Mare landed on Nesra's shores, Blood-Eel marched south one last time.
The men who will sit above the cafe, they survive Eykshir. As the army disintegrates and standards immolate, they stand firm and retire in good order. They march home to Dargang exhausted, hounded by the enemy, denied even enough time to bury their dead. There they meet salvation in the form of Varhan Sarbadgar, his Pale Horse, and all the other far flung standards rallying to the defense of God's Kingdom. Then they march again. Men fall out from heat and exhaustion, but not them. Their cheap boots disintegrate, but their bloody bare feet reach a priestly estate called Rechobot.
The unemployable man is behind the altar. His right shirtsleeve hangs down, pinned and empty. He is Seye, the standard-bearer of this Blood-Eel, re-elected with twenty-four votes. He hangs his sleeve as a sign, an unavoidable reminder, a challenge to this shrugging city, Dare ignore my sacrifice? Once there was an arm - now the arm is but a thought, a memory. He is done leading the prayers. It is time for a speech.
Recently, Seye says, he has dreamed of traveling home to Dargang. It will be better than the march up. On horseback, not barefoot. Meals purchased, not scrounged. He sets his own pace and smells sweet flowers instead of rotting horses, the sweat on his brow instead of the metallic tinge of blood. The horse leaves the road without orders, climbing a great slope. The branches of the trees shiver and shake, birds launch into flight, but he does not jump or duck. Here he feels safe, here he does not scan the horizon for dust or smoke. And there, before him, a valley between two gentle hills. Vines and stone walls and a beautiful brick manor. Familiar to him, but not recognized. No, not recognized.
He approaches the outer wall, fine stone blocks higher than a man. There is a gatehouse - new, unsplintered and unweathered. Not defensible, not for long. There is an image in his mind, the crack of rifle fire - just skirmishing until the guns come up to tear the wall down, then a frantic withdrawal, men in red hats - A cough snaps him out of it. A fat man in the robes of a High Priest is waiting there, his face indistinct. Come in traveler, he says, it is late and there is nowhere else to stay.
And they walk through the vineyard. It is not the season, the vines are bare, but he knows the look and taste of the grapes. Blood red, like the caps worn by the men between the rows. They are sleeping or chatting or eating, calm despite the looming assault. Then closer to the house he sees them kneeling in line, anxious, then closer they are firing. There should be a gap here, he thinks, this row was wounded by enemy action. A soupsir lieutenant slashes through the vines, a sapper's sledge in his meaty hands - but no, this is not that place.
The inner wall. He stoops down to check for the firing holes drilled that morning. They are not there. This wall is new also, no more than five years old, pristine in places. Seye stands and places his hands as if he is about to vault it, and the sounds are clear as day. Shouting in a strange tongue, the clanking pteruges on the shoulders and skirts of the red-jacketed invaders, the crackling of fire. He looks left and yes, there it is, the little private temple. But it is not burning now.
The priest invites him to dinner. He apologizes for the sorry state of the dining table, the wife says it's an heirloom and they can't get rid of it, you know how these things are - Seye runs his hands through the grooves made by bayonet, saber, and bullet, he taps gently on the massive crack made by the soupsir's sledge, he imagines himself holding it against the door as the sky falls, the weight of the Garden Corps pushing back.
Stairs are new. Unchipped by fighting, unstained by blood. So is the glass in the guest room window. Seye wonders if anything on the property is more than five years old as he looks out on the hill. The path is overgrown, but he can still picture the Gushans. There they are, charging to the rescue with wild abandon, sabers flashing - Varhan Sarbadgar prying open the jaws of death, saving what remains.
The priest catches him staring. I've heard there's some famous battlefield out that way, he says cheerfully, if you'd like to see it in the morning.
I do not need to go back there, Seye concludes, and I cannot. I do not know that estate. It would not welcome me. Rechobot as we know it...it does not exist in creation, not anymore. The land has forgotten that battle, forgotten Blood-Eel and the Garden Corps. The vines that grow there are watered by rain, not blood. Rechobot is a memory, an idea, not a place. It is here in Nachivan, not in Dargang.
Tears fall in the small audience. Hundreds of men fell within those walls, and this is their reward, their memory entrusted to a few dozen exiles. Few of these men have wives, none have children. They work mindless shifts in the Ironshrine, they sleep, and every mindful moment is consumed by remembrance. They remember absent friends, the march, and Rechobot, always Rechobot. They talk to each other because no one else will listen.
They do not follow the news or theopolitics, they do not even complain about work. They remember. There is no present for these men, certainly no future. They are living past, living non-existence. When they die, no one will mourn, no one will remember. Blood-Eel will finally be forgotten, erased for its sinful failure. The landlord will tear down that standard and toss it in the alley, just another scrap in a pile.
---
Orlachag. 30th Tislev. Standard-cult Blood-Eel lacks an altar for the day's services. They were evicted due to the 'recent unpleasantness' in the city - their landlord fears Sword-Altar, fears that a group as unsavory and 'agitated' as Blood-Eel might be targeted in their next attacks. Despite Seye's protests ("We're not radicals, Aaron, what do you take us for, those thrice-damned Nesrans in the 'Scourge'"?) the decision is final, the room has been rented out.
Desperate to find something before the holy day, Seye reached out to the prayer bulletin Day's Orders - radical, yes, but beloved among Kentelken's exiles. He begged for some kind cult to take in his flock, just once, just for the evening services. They would be fine in the morning, but if they did not light candles for Havadar before dusk, well, the ancestors would rip him apart.
Effect: Varhan Sarbadgar. A short note in the good komandir's hand, delivered to Seye's tenement. "Many such cases in Nachivan this year. The dean of Karogen Academy has made a chapel available, though you will likely have to share or take shifts etc. Present this note at the gate." And so Blood-Eel sits in the Park of Pillars, listening to distant parades. It is early morning. They wait as Jurors do, sleeping, chatting, carving sticks and playing dreidel.
Distant explosions and distant gunshots. They have heard those sounds on many mornings like this, before many battles. It fits so well with the waiting in their minds that they do not even stir until they hear the bells and the golems. At first, knowing not what to do, they sit. Then the gunfire is closer, approaching Karogen, and Seye moves.
It is a day for prayer, so they are in their finest dress. The streets are panicked but they are all order and calm, marching towards the fray in their blue jackets and red caps. By the time they arrive Karogen has already repelled the first assault, and thousands of sectarians and witches and workers are rushing to its defense.
The crowd, the Pugilists, they are not Jurors. Pale Horse is brave - every man of Blood-Eel here owes his life to that famous courage of theirs - but they are horsemen of the Hamgad Steppe. This kind of warfare is still new to them, and novelty brings nervousness. But the men in the red trousers are serene as they pull weapons out of dead Sword-Altar hands. In lieu of a staff, one ties the standard around a rifle barrel and hands it to Seye. This one they shall not lose.
This is not the present. This is not new to Blood-Eel. Besieged by the Iconoclasts, their ancestors licked condensation off the walls. Their great-grandfathers piled Nesran bodies around a customs house, a hundred men holding off the wrath of one of Camad's greatest cities. To live as Blood-Eel is to live in a world that no longer is. They look up at Karogen's battlements and dream of Rechobot.
A shell blasts a hole in the wall, and it begins again. The Pugilists jump back stunned, the Gushans flinch and draw their sabers, the men from Dargang smile because they know what follows. Silence, anticipation. Then in the smoke - the jackets look black and not red, this time they are wearing masks. It does not matter. They're coming on in the same old way.
Blood-Eel, all two dozen of them, fires and advances into the breach, a thin wall of red and blue tipped with steel. This is not the present, this is not the Battle of Nachivan. This is an image of the War of Behemoth and Leviathan presented before an audience of hundreds. Here, now, they will erase their shame. Here they will repay Pale Horse and Blood-Eel alike for their survival.
God willing, they will have luck enough to die.
---
Ten still live when the Nesran convinces Sarbadgar to create the Mass Jury. They swear his oath, but their wounds are too extensive to follow him to the Sanhedron. Three succumb before the day's end. The survivors are in no condition to light candles, but they hold a late evening service from their hospital beds. While sectarians shout at the House of Creation and the people celebrate their survival in the streets, Blood-Eel prays for their ancestors who fell at Havadar. Six will survive to be released, Seye among them. But there are small mercies. This time they bury their own dead.
Six men is not a standard-cult. It is nothing at all. But they still live and they still remember. They must talk, and listen, and try to understand the present-past that haunts them. So six men wander the streets of Nachivan looking for others like them, men struck with the Juror's curse. The city is trying to swallow them up, but this battle has left behind hundreds of memory-men. Everywhere they look they find them, in ruined streets and cafes with bloody floorboards. And Blood-Eel is kind but not smiling as it asks, What is this place to you?
And a cabinetmaker in the east gestures to the cleared street and says, That was the barricade where we tried to stop them, and we failed and everyone died except for me, but I guess we won anyway. And a cooper's son sitting at the Yovan gate says, I was there and I still don't know why. And Blood-Eel sits with them, gives them all the time they need to wander aimlessly through memory and try to describe friends they loved who are now thoughts and breath, or the things they saw, or the things they did, or anything else that seems relevant. And Blood-Eel does not judge.
Then there are meetings. The Blood-Eel Standard still hangs from the wall, but invited guests greatly outnumber the Jurors and the ratio worsens daily. And one day Seye says that Nachivan is a city with no memory, a city that refuses to have a past. The barricades are gone and the blood is washed away. Only ghosts remain. It is not healthy to stay. The Mass Jury can take them away from here.
Thus a company is formed and drilled and marched. None want to march; the amateurs worry they'll look silly, the veterans fear they'll be sloppy. But Seye insists, and he is right to do so. Children wave, women smile, and it mends wounds in Mass Juror souls.
Then, a pale horse.
The first rank slams to a halt, and the second smashes into them from behind. The men who have not yet seen collapse into cursing and squabbling, forgetting themselves. And then they spot him and freeze also. Ahead, watching them, a lone rider, their good komandir. Varhan Sarbadgar in the flesh.
Even on horseback, he seems smaller than he ought to be. Those who were at Karogen remember him impassive on the battlements or wheeling about the fray. They wonder how he could be but a man's size. The street is silent and empty. There are no onlookers, no witnesses. The great charger approaches, halting before the standard-bearers. Sarbadgar gazes upwards and his face seems carved from stone.
On the left, the flaming orange standard of the Mass Jury, elegant and beautiful. On the right, a bloody eel on amber, hastily sewn onto a sheet to enlarge it. By weight, more bedding than Blood-Eel. The komandir lingers on the second flag for a moment, and Seye thinks he sees a flash of recognition in those flinty eyes. Do they still live in his past, too?
He can see it now, can't he? Sarbadgar is on that hill again, pushing the foaming horses forward. Rechobot should have fallen two hours ago, it was only a forward position, but the men there did not take the easy way out - though outnumbered they have not fled, though surrounded they have not immolated, they stand and fight and die by inches. And now the forces of the Mare withdraw and the Gushan riders press them harshly, seeking an opening to wreak havoc. Sarbadgar looks above the whirling smoke, white from the guns and black from the fires, and spots crimson and amber. There is still time - in his mind there is still time to relieve them, in his memory there is still a chance.
And the invaders are retreating but not all of them, not yet. Burning Jurors stumble out of the temple too pained to scream, gardeners rip down the walls of the stable and butcher the men found within. In the manor house, that most hellish of hell-spots, the smoke is too thick to tell red-jacket from blue. Bayonets are useless. Men who enter become beasts, killing with knives and feet and teeth and nails. And the Blood-Eel still waves above it all, flown from the highest window and riddled with holes. He is so close now. It is too late to save the men, but the memory - he can still save the memory.
A lone figure appears on the roof, his shoulders silvered, his hat outlandish. From birth, this man's far-flung empire has shaped him for this moment. Sarbadgar sees him, realizes the brash insanity he intends, and pulls up his horse to bark orders at the surrounding horsemen. The gardener Chorbaci is placed under a withering fire by Pale Horse carbines, but he dances through it all and lunges for the edge. Even as bullets slam into the woodwork, he hangs over the side of the roof by his feet and snatches the staff out of the window. The Gushans can only watch in horror as he slides down the roof and vanishes into the smoke.
It is over soon. There are survivors, but not many. All are wounded, few seem to notice. Dozens wander the estate, mute and numb. The carnage is horrific, hundreds of bodies scattered through the orchard and the buildings, the smell is...indescribable. Outside the house stands the old standard-bearer, his uniform soaked in blood, his ruined arm hanging by his side. He does not cry or whimper. He stares blankly at the empty staff that was left behind once the gardener ripped his prize free, unable to comprehend that he failed and still lives.
And the Komandir of Pale Horse looks upon this and wonders if the gardener knew. Did he realize, when he did that absurd and courageous deed, how much damage he was doing? Did he realize how this strange land would react to him absconding with that standard? No, he couldn't have. These men fought him to a standstill. He will respect them for the rest of his days. He wanted a token of their courage - something to hang on his mantle. And so he stole their standard. That is why he destroyed their souls and sentenced them to pseudo-obliteration. For a conversation starter.
Until his death, Seye will swear that somehow he knew Sarbadgar was thinking these things. That some angel placed him inside the komandir's head for the long seconds he spent staring. That divine grace interceded to let him know there was someone else who remembered.
Rechobot, the komandir says, you were there. It is not addressed to the standard itself, though he is looking at it. It has never left Nachivan. The teenager bearing the orange standard nods and then feels like a damn fool. He was only a child when the war started. He has hung on every word of the stories, but they aren't his to claim. Seye knows it is addressed to him. Sarbadgar's eyes drop down to the standard-bearer's face, and Seye tries to hold his intense gaze. It is impossible. He looks away, and the rider scans him intently.
That was fine work, Sarbadgar says. Seye's eyes snap back to the komandir, who gives him a little nod. The eyes are still intense, but warmer now - almost human. He waits a full second to return the nod, and then the Gushan is leaving, pushing his horse through the stunned body of Mass Jurors. They want to reach out and grab something, his leg or his tunic, his stirrup leathers or his horse. Something, anything to confirm he is real and present, not merely an image. But the old guard, the veterans, they are stock still. The new blood sees their example and maintains discipline as Mass Jurors ought.
Seye stares off into space, unmoving, until he is sure the rider is long gone. Then he allows himself to collapse. Olam Seye, who did not even cry at his own unanesthetized amputation, starts to bawl in the street like an infant.
This is the sway Varhan Sarbadgar holds over these men, the discarded veterans of the War of Behemoth and Leviathan. This is the depth of their affection for him. It is not enough to say they would die for him - if he asked them to die a hundred times over, they would gladly claw at their coffin lids. It is not enough to say he has given them a future - he has given these lost souls everything they were, everything they are, everything they could be.
By his words, he has redeemed their past glories, sanctified their memories. By his actions, he has given them a place in this world, a righteous pride. By his very person, he has promised that they shall never bear such indignities again. No more will courage be met with shame. No more will honor be persecuted. No more will the glorious dead be erased.
Blessed by the Patriarch Amalgast Santsarran, approved by his Grand Sanhedron, the ever-burning banner of Extinguishment flies across Vaspukaran. The old order that crushed the warriors of the Lord underfoot is collapsing. All that is needed is one more push.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.
What is Memory? For the yeshiva student, it is mnemonic devices and candle-lit pages. For the country rector, it is births and deaths and land disputes. For the peasant, it is gossip and bad winters and the old rituals. The High Priest's response may be more practiced: Memory, by his mark, Memory is a type of thought. A Memory is an image of something that no longer is, a kind of non-existence. It is the present-past, kin of expectation (the present-future) and attention (the present-present).
A Juror will say that it is whipping or burning. That is it pride and penance. That it it is Kentelken. There are the survivors, he might say. There are the memory-men.
A man in a tattered coat trembles on a corner. In the morning Sword-Altar beats him, in the evening exiles feed him. It is cold in Nachivan, bitingly cold, but it matters not to the trembler. His eyes will not focus, his ears will not listen. He has no need for present-present or present-future, no desire for any beauty this world might have to offer. The Mare's Garden Corps has gifted him sights and sounds to last a lifetime.
Across the street, a man pulls his hat down low and slips through a door, seeking cures for what ails him. Enough booze and he will stop feeling the fragments in his back - enough yamroot and he will obliterate Mind, beating back Memory's host of demons for another night.
Above a cafe, thirteen Jurors gather. Twelve are fresh off a grinding shift in Pesselpan, one has stopped seeking work. There are others who cannot be here, working other shifts. But not many. This room is the best their pooled funds can manage. A little space and some chairs, a raised cafe table for an altar and a scrap of homesewn fabric hanging on the wall. It is too small and too crude to be a proper standard, a crimson eel speared on an amber background.
This is what remains of Dargang's Blood-Eel Standard, the old foe of Nesra. This is the culmination of four centuries of warfare, four hundred years of tradition. When the Nesrans rose for the Pugilists, Blood-Eel rose against them. When Nesra sided with the Antipatriarch's march up country, Blood-Eel resisted them bitterly. When Nesra fought the will of the Infalliable Patriarchs, Blood-Eel enforced it with barely restrained glee. And when the Mare landed on Nesra's shores, Blood-Eel marched south one last time.
The men who will sit above the cafe, they survive Eykshir. As the army disintegrates and standards immolate, they stand firm and retire in good order. They march home to Dargang exhausted, hounded by the enemy, denied even enough time to bury their dead. There they meet salvation in the form of Varhan Sarbadgar, his Pale Horse, and all the other far flung standards rallying to the defense of God's Kingdom. Then they march again. Men fall out from heat and exhaustion, but not them. Their cheap boots disintegrate, but their bloody bare feet reach a priestly estate called Rechobot.
The unemployable man is behind the altar. His right shirtsleeve hangs down, pinned and empty. He is Seye, the standard-bearer of this Blood-Eel, re-elected with twenty-four votes. He hangs his sleeve as a sign, an unavoidable reminder, a challenge to this shrugging city, Dare ignore my sacrifice? Once there was an arm - now the arm is but a thought, a memory. He is done leading the prayers. It is time for a speech.
Recently, Seye says, he has dreamed of traveling home to Dargang. It will be better than the march up. On horseback, not barefoot. Meals purchased, not scrounged. He sets his own pace and smells sweet flowers instead of rotting horses, the sweat on his brow instead of the metallic tinge of blood. The horse leaves the road without orders, climbing a great slope. The branches of the trees shiver and shake, birds launch into flight, but he does not jump or duck. Here he feels safe, here he does not scan the horizon for dust or smoke. And there, before him, a valley between two gentle hills. Vines and stone walls and a beautiful brick manor. Familiar to him, but not recognized. No, not recognized.
He approaches the outer wall, fine stone blocks higher than a man. There is a gatehouse - new, unsplintered and unweathered. Not defensible, not for long. There is an image in his mind, the crack of rifle fire - just skirmishing until the guns come up to tear the wall down, then a frantic withdrawal, men in red hats - A cough snaps him out of it. A fat man in the robes of a High Priest is waiting there, his face indistinct. Come in traveler, he says, it is late and there is nowhere else to stay.
And they walk through the vineyard. It is not the season, the vines are bare, but he knows the look and taste of the grapes. Blood red, like the caps worn by the men between the rows. They are sleeping or chatting or eating, calm despite the looming assault. Then closer to the house he sees them kneeling in line, anxious, then closer they are firing. There should be a gap here, he thinks, this row was wounded by enemy action. A soupsir lieutenant slashes through the vines, a sapper's sledge in his meaty hands - but no, this is not that place.
The inner wall. He stoops down to check for the firing holes drilled that morning. They are not there. This wall is new also, no more than five years old, pristine in places. Seye stands and places his hands as if he is about to vault it, and the sounds are clear as day. Shouting in a strange tongue, the clanking pteruges on the shoulders and skirts of the red-jacketed invaders, the crackling of fire. He looks left and yes, there it is, the little private temple. But it is not burning now.
The priest invites him to dinner. He apologizes for the sorry state of the dining table, the wife says it's an heirloom and they can't get rid of it, you know how these things are - Seye runs his hands through the grooves made by bayonet, saber, and bullet, he taps gently on the massive crack made by the soupsir's sledge, he imagines himself holding it against the door as the sky falls, the weight of the Garden Corps pushing back.
Stairs are new. Unchipped by fighting, unstained by blood. So is the glass in the guest room window. Seye wonders if anything on the property is more than five years old as he looks out on the hill. The path is overgrown, but he can still picture the Gushans. There they are, charging to the rescue with wild abandon, sabers flashing - Varhan Sarbadgar prying open the jaws of death, saving what remains.
The priest catches him staring. I've heard there's some famous battlefield out that way, he says cheerfully, if you'd like to see it in the morning.
I do not need to go back there, Seye concludes, and I cannot. I do not know that estate. It would not welcome me. Rechobot as we know it...it does not exist in creation, not anymore. The land has forgotten that battle, forgotten Blood-Eel and the Garden Corps. The vines that grow there are watered by rain, not blood. Rechobot is a memory, an idea, not a place. It is here in Nachivan, not in Dargang.
Tears fall in the small audience. Hundreds of men fell within those walls, and this is their reward, their memory entrusted to a few dozen exiles. Few of these men have wives, none have children. They work mindless shifts in the Ironshrine, they sleep, and every mindful moment is consumed by remembrance. They remember absent friends, the march, and Rechobot, always Rechobot. They talk to each other because no one else will listen.
They do not follow the news or theopolitics, they do not even complain about work. They remember. There is no present for these men, certainly no future. They are living past, living non-existence. When they die, no one will mourn, no one will remember. Blood-Eel will finally be forgotten, erased for its sinful failure. The landlord will tear down that standard and toss it in the alley, just another scrap in a pile.
---
Orlachag. 30th Tislev. Standard-cult Blood-Eel lacks an altar for the day's services. They were evicted due to the 'recent unpleasantness' in the city - their landlord fears Sword-Altar, fears that a group as unsavory and 'agitated' as Blood-Eel might be targeted in their next attacks. Despite Seye's protests ("We're not radicals, Aaron, what do you take us for, those thrice-damned Nesrans in the 'Scourge'"?) the decision is final, the room has been rented out.
Desperate to find something before the holy day, Seye reached out to the prayer bulletin Day's Orders - radical, yes, but beloved among Kentelken's exiles. He begged for some kind cult to take in his flock, just once, just for the evening services. They would be fine in the morning, but if they did not light candles for Havadar before dusk, well, the ancestors would rip him apart.
Effect: Varhan Sarbadgar. A short note in the good komandir's hand, delivered to Seye's tenement. "Many such cases in Nachivan this year. The dean of Karogen Academy has made a chapel available, though you will likely have to share or take shifts etc. Present this note at the gate." And so Blood-Eel sits in the Park of Pillars, listening to distant parades. It is early morning. They wait as Jurors do, sleeping, chatting, carving sticks and playing dreidel.
Distant explosions and distant gunshots. They have heard those sounds on many mornings like this, before many battles. It fits so well with the waiting in their minds that they do not even stir until they hear the bells and the golems. At first, knowing not what to do, they sit. Then the gunfire is closer, approaching Karogen, and Seye moves.
It is a day for prayer, so they are in their finest dress. The streets are panicked but they are all order and calm, marching towards the fray in their blue jackets and red caps. By the time they arrive Karogen has already repelled the first assault, and thousands of sectarians and witches and workers are rushing to its defense.
The crowd, the Pugilists, they are not Jurors. Pale Horse is brave - every man of Blood-Eel here owes his life to that famous courage of theirs - but they are horsemen of the Hamgad Steppe. This kind of warfare is still new to them, and novelty brings nervousness. But the men in the red trousers are serene as they pull weapons out of dead Sword-Altar hands. In lieu of a staff, one ties the standard around a rifle barrel and hands it to Seye. This one they shall not lose.
This is not the present. This is not new to Blood-Eel. Besieged by the Iconoclasts, their ancestors licked condensation off the walls. Their great-grandfathers piled Nesran bodies around a customs house, a hundred men holding off the wrath of one of Camad's greatest cities. To live as Blood-Eel is to live in a world that no longer is. They look up at Karogen's battlements and dream of Rechobot.
A shell blasts a hole in the wall, and it begins again. The Pugilists jump back stunned, the Gushans flinch and draw their sabers, the men from Dargang smile because they know what follows. Silence, anticipation. Then in the smoke - the jackets look black and not red, this time they are wearing masks. It does not matter. They're coming on in the same old way.
Blood-Eel, all two dozen of them, fires and advances into the breach, a thin wall of red and blue tipped with steel. This is not the present, this is not the Battle of Nachivan. This is an image of the War of Behemoth and Leviathan presented before an audience of hundreds. Here, now, they will erase their shame. Here they will repay Pale Horse and Blood-Eel alike for their survival.
God willing, they will have luck enough to die.
---
Ten still live when the Nesran convinces Sarbadgar to create the Mass Jury. They swear his oath, but their wounds are too extensive to follow him to the Sanhedron. Three succumb before the day's end. The survivors are in no condition to light candles, but they hold a late evening service from their hospital beds. While sectarians shout at the House of Creation and the people celebrate their survival in the streets, Blood-Eel prays for their ancestors who fell at Havadar. Six will survive to be released, Seye among them. But there are small mercies. This time they bury their own dead.
Six men is not a standard-cult. It is nothing at all. But they still live and they still remember. They must talk, and listen, and try to understand the present-past that haunts them. So six men wander the streets of Nachivan looking for others like them, men struck with the Juror's curse. The city is trying to swallow them up, but this battle has left behind hundreds of memory-men. Everywhere they look they find them, in ruined streets and cafes with bloody floorboards. And Blood-Eel is kind but not smiling as it asks, What is this place to you?
And a cabinetmaker in the east gestures to the cleared street and says, That was the barricade where we tried to stop them, and we failed and everyone died except for me, but I guess we won anyway. And a cooper's son sitting at the Yovan gate says, I was there and I still don't know why. And Blood-Eel sits with them, gives them all the time they need to wander aimlessly through memory and try to describe friends they loved who are now thoughts and breath, or the things they saw, or the things they did, or anything else that seems relevant. And Blood-Eel does not judge.
Then there are meetings. The Blood-Eel Standard still hangs from the wall, but invited guests greatly outnumber the Jurors and the ratio worsens daily. And one day Seye says that Nachivan is a city with no memory, a city that refuses to have a past. The barricades are gone and the blood is washed away. Only ghosts remain. It is not healthy to stay. The Mass Jury can take them away from here.
Thus a company is formed and drilled and marched. None want to march; the amateurs worry they'll look silly, the veterans fear they'll be sloppy. But Seye insists, and he is right to do so. Children wave, women smile, and it mends wounds in Mass Juror souls.
Then, a pale horse.
The first rank slams to a halt, and the second smashes into them from behind. The men who have not yet seen collapse into cursing and squabbling, forgetting themselves. And then they spot him and freeze also. Ahead, watching them, a lone rider, their good komandir. Varhan Sarbadgar in the flesh.
Even on horseback, he seems smaller than he ought to be. Those who were at Karogen remember him impassive on the battlements or wheeling about the fray. They wonder how he could be but a man's size. The street is silent and empty. There are no onlookers, no witnesses. The great charger approaches, halting before the standard-bearers. Sarbadgar gazes upwards and his face seems carved from stone.
On the left, the flaming orange standard of the Mass Jury, elegant and beautiful. On the right, a bloody eel on amber, hastily sewn onto a sheet to enlarge it. By weight, more bedding than Blood-Eel. The komandir lingers on the second flag for a moment, and Seye thinks he sees a flash of recognition in those flinty eyes. Do they still live in his past, too?
He can see it now, can't he? Sarbadgar is on that hill again, pushing the foaming horses forward. Rechobot should have fallen two hours ago, it was only a forward position, but the men there did not take the easy way out - though outnumbered they have not fled, though surrounded they have not immolated, they stand and fight and die by inches. And now the forces of the Mare withdraw and the Gushan riders press them harshly, seeking an opening to wreak havoc. Sarbadgar looks above the whirling smoke, white from the guns and black from the fires, and spots crimson and amber. There is still time - in his mind there is still time to relieve them, in his memory there is still a chance.
And the invaders are retreating but not all of them, not yet. Burning Jurors stumble out of the temple too pained to scream, gardeners rip down the walls of the stable and butcher the men found within. In the manor house, that most hellish of hell-spots, the smoke is too thick to tell red-jacket from blue. Bayonets are useless. Men who enter become beasts, killing with knives and feet and teeth and nails. And the Blood-Eel still waves above it all, flown from the highest window and riddled with holes. He is so close now. It is too late to save the men, but the memory - he can still save the memory.
A lone figure appears on the roof, his shoulders silvered, his hat outlandish. From birth, this man's far-flung empire has shaped him for this moment. Sarbadgar sees him, realizes the brash insanity he intends, and pulls up his horse to bark orders at the surrounding horsemen. The gardener Chorbaci is placed under a withering fire by Pale Horse carbines, but he dances through it all and lunges for the edge. Even as bullets slam into the woodwork, he hangs over the side of the roof by his feet and snatches the staff out of the window. The Gushans can only watch in horror as he slides down the roof and vanishes into the smoke.
It is over soon. There are survivors, but not many. All are wounded, few seem to notice. Dozens wander the estate, mute and numb. The carnage is horrific, hundreds of bodies scattered through the orchard and the buildings, the smell is...indescribable. Outside the house stands the old standard-bearer, his uniform soaked in blood, his ruined arm hanging by his side. He does not cry or whimper. He stares blankly at the empty staff that was left behind once the gardener ripped his prize free, unable to comprehend that he failed and still lives.
And the Komandir of Pale Horse looks upon this and wonders if the gardener knew. Did he realize, when he did that absurd and courageous deed, how much damage he was doing? Did he realize how this strange land would react to him absconding with that standard? No, he couldn't have. These men fought him to a standstill. He will respect them for the rest of his days. He wanted a token of their courage - something to hang on his mantle. And so he stole their standard. That is why he destroyed their souls and sentenced them to pseudo-obliteration. For a conversation starter.
Until his death, Seye will swear that somehow he knew Sarbadgar was thinking these things. That some angel placed him inside the komandir's head for the long seconds he spent staring. That divine grace interceded to let him know there was someone else who remembered.
Rechobot, the komandir says, you were there. It is not addressed to the standard itself, though he is looking at it. It has never left Nachivan. The teenager bearing the orange standard nods and then feels like a damn fool. He was only a child when the war started. He has hung on every word of the stories, but they aren't his to claim. Seye knows it is addressed to him. Sarbadgar's eyes drop down to the standard-bearer's face, and Seye tries to hold his intense gaze. It is impossible. He looks away, and the rider scans him intently.
That was fine work, Sarbadgar says. Seye's eyes snap back to the komandir, who gives him a little nod. The eyes are still intense, but warmer now - almost human. He waits a full second to return the nod, and then the Gushan is leaving, pushing his horse through the stunned body of Mass Jurors. They want to reach out and grab something, his leg or his tunic, his stirrup leathers or his horse. Something, anything to confirm he is real and present, not merely an image. But the old guard, the veterans, they are stock still. The new blood sees their example and maintains discipline as Mass Jurors ought.
Seye stares off into space, unmoving, until he is sure the rider is long gone. Then he allows himself to collapse. Olam Seye, who did not even cry at his own unanesthetized amputation, starts to bawl in the street like an infant.
This is the sway Varhan Sarbadgar holds over these men, the discarded veterans of the War of Behemoth and Leviathan. This is the depth of their affection for him. It is not enough to say they would die for him - if he asked them to die a hundred times over, they would gladly claw at their coffin lids. It is not enough to say he has given them a future - he has given these lost souls everything they were, everything they are, everything they could be.
By his words, he has redeemed their past glories, sanctified their memories. By his actions, he has given them a place in this world, a righteous pride. By his very person, he has promised that they shall never bear such indignities again. No more will courage be met with shame. No more will honor be persecuted. No more will the glorious dead be erased.
Blessed by the Patriarch Amalgast Santsarran, approved by his Grand Sanhedron, the ever-burning banner of Extinguishment flies across Vaspukaran. The old order that crushed the warriors of the Lord underfoot is collapsing. All that is needed is one more push.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.
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Turn 4.5, 822 Tebet: Codex of Illuminated Vaspukaran
Cetashwayo
Lord of Ten Thousand Years
- Location
- Across the Horizon
Turn 4.5, 822 Tebet: Codex of Illuminated Vaspukaran
Find below the players of the game, those who have unleashed the deluge of freedom, those who seek to brave its waves, and those who brace for its coming impact.
THE ILLUMINATING SECTS
- HaKhofshim
- Ma'On
- Ohr
- As Hahayiim
- Makabam
- Kedesh
- Melecha
- Yam Soph
THE NEW ORDER
- Patriarch Amalgast & His Prophetic Fellowship
- Fourth Grand Sanhedron
- Eternal City of Nachivan
- Mass Jury of Vaspukaran
- Pelagic Order Karaban
- Sorrowful Circles
THE OLD ORDER
- The Grand Jury
- The Synodic Circles
- The Missions
- The Autocephalates
- Nahad Chesh
DOGMATITES AND DISSENTERS
- Metamoa
- Nullifier Juries
- Originator Remnant
BEHOLD THE DELUGE COME
BEHOLD THE DAM FALLEN, SHATTERED, GONE
BUT NOW WITH DELUGE SO UNLEASHED
WHAT ELSE SHALL IT SWEEP AWAY?
END ACT 1
BEHOLD THE DAM FALLEN, SHATTERED, GONE
BUT NOW WITH DELUGE SO UNLEASHED
WHAT ELSE SHALL IT SWEEP AWAY?
END ACT 1
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Cetashwayo
Lord of Ten Thousand Years
- Location
- Across the Horizon
I figured as we go forward into the changed world you should know who everyone is first 100%. Each section contains a list of characters mentioned along with a short description. Some of the sections are a lot more detailed - I recommend looking at the old order ones to see what exactly you're fighting against as there's a lot of information. All of this will be retreaded going forward, but I figured having something to come back to will be exceedingly helpful for both you and me.
Proposal for a New Model of Army (Cavalier)
- Location
- Southern Virginia
In the days after 30 Tislev one retired Starshy Idly Minoji circulated around a set of recommendations for the organization of the Mass Jury. They were drawn from a previous work by Minoji on the defeat of the Lhazarene Banner in the war against the Mare, and collected into a petition form here identified as the Proposal for a New Model of Army. A stripped down version of the proposal was circulated in pamphlet form to members of the Jury and on the Temple Mount among Confession-sympathetic monastic priests.
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Regency
PFP by vanathema (previously yubishines)
- Location
- Morioh Town, Mt. Ebbot
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Lmao
Huh, so it's not just Guru Bluff who's a martial arts trailblazer from Ma'on, our first schismatic ally.
...I guess it's good that someone with this reputation is on our side in Ohr, our second schismatic ally alongside Makabam. Also I, er, forgot what's the Gabbis' role. I do know the Cantors are like the elected head of each sect.
Fourth known power couple in the setting after Dina & Samangan, Dvorah & Wendam, along with Santsarran & Kenturah
Our second schismatic ally alongside Ohr. Huh, our coalition unexpectedly gonna have two bases of artisan support in Ohr & Makabam.
Did Massima make herself a widow 👀
Oh damn, Melecha's gabbi prolly can't enter Palatinates for his own safety. Also, this madlad is the one that got the High Noon fighters a goddamn (19th century) rocket launcher.
Yam-Soph seems much more based than I initially thought, but that "owning moral economy" is kinda ominous. Unless it means, like, anti-rentier economy.
Well that certainly puts his ascent after the Battle of Nachivan into perspective.
Oh! Isn't this the first time we see the Sanhedron's symbol?
At least it's not the high-level dual power between Grand Synod & Grand Sanhedron. With the exception of the situation between Metamoa & the Ischak Sanhedral Axis, we want Lesser Sanhedrons to topple their rivals.
Ah, A variant of the Battle of Nachivan banner!
Ah we also failed to appeal to her alongside Samangan. Samangan now has respect for us, but Ragata's sympathies is with Yam Soph. Oh well.
At least it's no longer the Grand Synod-Grand Sanhedron dual power situation, I guess. Although we do want Metamoa to triumph in its dual power situation with the (thankfully unpopular) Ischak Sanhedron.
Oh, that's a reference to Immolation isn't it?
Oh that's h o t
Oh the details for Pelagic Order Karaban.
Hahahah wow reminded me why natruska's so hyped about em. These crazy bastards ambushed a Maare fleet by going through a highland
I assume him being pushed to resign from the position of High Taman in the info within the Grand Jury section is to avoid the dual role alongside being civilian vassal monarch? Not like it's gonna diminish the Steedeaters' loyalty to him.
Oh he's a supporter of Lazar? That means Northern Amalists' unity, so they won't add intra-Amalist conflict to potential gamer moments alongside Amalist bands' attacks.
Here be trust-busting & nationalization targets.
Personally, that's 55 too many
I haaate the Tranquil & Perusian Rites most. The Hospodari Rite is nearing its way out with the rise of Northern Amalists. The Kazar Rite could be based...if the kongsis are altered into less merchant-dominated coops.
Ohhh so the conversion of Missions into "proper Synodic Circles" was lip service, they're Vasp's internal colonies. Hmmm how to approach decolonization....well I guess the "blueprint" could come out from our previous prison; Kutan.
1. Karman's just chilling and they have MAMMOTHS.
2. Azam's potlach gift economy is being wrecked by Vasp's money economy...and I think it'll be inevitably broken until the KoG setting reaches sufficient 20th century digital tech to try moving away from currency (aka outside the scope of the Quest).
3. Kusro's humiliated by the War with the Mare? What're the terms imposed on em. Heh, the Avatars' selection are less like the IRL Lamas & more like ATLA's Avatars.
4. Eykal's denizens are traditionally KoG!Cthulhu worshippers?
5. We already know Usral's heading into civil war by the time its monarch died.
6. Hayabiru has a massive serf population!? Yeah they gotta be broken alongside the Tranquil Rite.
7. Mangar's turned from commerce center to extractive colony.
God, another looming succession crisis.
Yooo
If she turns out to be acclaimed as such by the wider Vaspukaran within the scope of the quest then our prophecy theology, Amalgast the Accelerant, could already accommodate that potential event.
Um based? I wonder how that's gonna interact with the Mass Jury and the fact Akov's gonna return to Nesra soon(tm)
Reads like an obituary, although I quite enjoy this one
Cetashwayo
Lord of Ten Thousand Years
- Location
- Across the Horizon
Secretaries. They set agendas and move matters along. In real Judaism they are assistants to the rabbi and make sure matters run smoothly in the synagogue, including prayer service. Some Gabbis are weak, some are strong. I only really name strong important ones.
The artisan/proletarian division is a little different than it is in real life. Because guilds have not been abolished, and because there is such a strict division between skilled and unskilled labour, a lot of skilled workers are erroneously referred to as 'artisans'.
It means an ownership economy and the end of rent.
No, her husband died of an illness very fast after they were married and she never remarried. It's not really clear if they were close because she never speaks about it publicly. As being a widow is one of the only acceptable situations where a woman can remain unmarried it did somewhat liberate her from those obligations, but Massima Rachel is known to be pedantically incorruptible and is unlikely to have done anything untoward.
Yes!
Yes, it is. The always-burning banner denies the very principle of immolation by saying that the members of the mass jury are always ready to be martyred in defense of freedom, but will never obey an order to throw their lives away pointlessly.
He's being pushed to resign because he is too powerful, but also because in their eyes he is not fervently anti-witch and he is a rank Cheshvan ox who needs to be put down with a good blow to the head with a sledgehammer, in the words of the other regional standards. So long as Buman Burs controls the High Jury of Ramayan Gushanaram and Hamayan cannot wield the powers of the High Ataman to enforce Perusian Rite at all costs.
The High Jury of Ramayan has traditionally been an appendage of the Hamayan and Gushanaram Synodic Circles. Burs is breaking this rule and breaking it to side with the Patriarch over witches which is a betrayal of his caste and the rite, in their eyes. He is a blasphemer and a bastard who [various expletives omitted].
A lot of the smaller kongis are dominated by large ones invested into the salt bank and other Juror enterprises. There's a real small producer vs large banker issue in the Kazar Circles which is why free silver is also big there. The economy is very capitalized and there are fewer minyan communions versus priestly farmers. It also significantly relies on Kutan as an extractive colony.
The mission system did function in the past properly, but these four have for one reason or another been impossible nuts to crack. Whether because Vaspukaran doesn't want to accept the local syncretism or because the local mission has become too comfortable with self-governance and being outside Vasp laws for a lot of stuff like how they treat heathens.
They got their ships sunk and doors open to trade with the Mare which they're deeply unhappy about.
4. Eykal's denizens are traditionally KoG!Cthulhu worshippers?
And other sea creatures, like predatory whales and ammonites and so on.
bookwyrm
Doom of Public Libraries
- Location
- Wichita, Kansas
damn so not only have the Anglomans in the Mare done their classic gunboat diplomacy schtick on Kusro, but they've also double-thieves by stealing yankland's whole Commodore Perry bit for the Kingdom of God's Japan analogue.
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IamtooSleepy
I came here to be an ant
I just have a terrible realisation
Vaspukaran won't divide politics by left-right scale, since that was a thing because of how French revolution's assembly was seated while our Grand Sanhedron is seated by grouping chamber into 4 quarter... so we won't have a terrible political spectrum... No, we will skip right to terrible political compass.
Vaspukaran won't divide politics by left-right scale, since that was a thing because of how French revolution's assembly was seated while our Grand Sanhedron is seated by grouping chamber into 4 quarter... so we won't have a terrible political spectrum... No, we will skip right to terrible political compass.