To: The Grandpatriarch of Opios
From: The Sarafaio of the Farubaida o Caroha
We have heard enough from your herald, and we have heard enough for the time being.
Two weeks ago, he arrived in Caroha, expressing alarm at what he termed 'Anti-Iralliamite Practices in the Farubaida'. The Pentapartite Council's ears were caught by this claim, for it would be crass and unbecoming of us to behave in such a manner, to act counter to a faith of truth, goodness and light. With rapt attention, we bade him speak, and speak he did.
This voice of the Grandpatriarch went on to declare the Farubaida's favouritism towards Aitahism, at the expense of the Iralliamites of the Federation. So great was this stated inequity that he declared our behaviour to be outright ...reprehensible, particularly in consideration of the assistance the realms of Iralliam gave to the Aitahist nations against the Satar horde, assistance without which we would have seen the Satar retaining their dominion over your lands. The Farubaida owes its liberty to assistance from the followers of Iralliam and yet it repays them with marginalization, and disrespect? It maintains the protection of Iralliamite nations and yet tramples the Church into the dirt and scoffs at the name of Opporia?
Let us pause here, for a moment, and consider why this guest to our dignified halls of government may have made a poor first impression of himself. First, he called our behaviour reprehensible, when it is most visibly not. The Farubaida patronizes a great many things. The establishment of structures of learning, of theatre and the arts, and of faith, are all aided by the largesse of the Sarafaio. Religious buildings, be they Temples to Aitah, Temples to Haiao, or Temples to the Heart of Knowledge itself, are established in proportion to the number of those who use them. The Farubaida is a land of much mixing and overlap of faiths, and it is terribly difficult to state for certain how many of us are Orthodox Aitahist, how many of us worship Haiao alone, and how many hold both divinities dear. However, to be most crude and broad, we may estimate that there exist four Aitahists for every one Iralliamite. What proportion exists in human souls is reflected in the churches of our lands.
However, our guest, the herald of the Grandpatriarch, did not halt with merely one affront. He went on to declare the Farubaida's deep debt to the Realms of Iralliam, casually raising the spectre of the Treda and wielding the vile Dahaiaou as a threat against us. In doing so, he insults all who perished in the annihilation of Farou and Tarofa, and all who died in the fell years that followed. Ignored are the armies of the great General Aramsayafa, who fought by the side of the Moti Chief-of-Chiefs throughout that terrible war. Does this herald disregard how the Helsians cast the Satar out of their own lands? Does he not know how we destroyed the Butcher of Kargan, and reclaimed the city in which he stands at this very moment? We won our freedom, as we have time and time again since antiquity, through force of will and force of arms!
Through that war, the precursors of the Farubaida and the Holy Moti Empire forged a bond that has never been broken, an alliance unshakeable, and unassailable. We have each sacrificed much for the other. We stand together as the closest of partners, but neither of us are beholden to the whims of the other's churches. We are allies! We! Are! Not! Slaves!
Beyond all this, the herald returned to his tremendous insults, that we trample upon Iralliam, and scoff at Haiao's name! What more horrendous things will this man accuse us of doing? Haiao is beloved to Iralliamites and Aitahists both, for he is the light, the sun, the source! In the words he spoke, the herald of the Grandpatriarch showed himself to be wholly uninformed of our people, and accuses us of making the most blasphemous and false insults against our own faith!
He concluded his speech to our dumbfounded council by declaring his Grandpatriarch's demands The Church requests an end to this disrespect and undue favouritism of Aitahism. It requests an equivalent and respectful equality of support in acknowledgement of the Farubaida's debt to Iralliam, and the presence of ostensibly equal Iralliamite nations in its Federation. We would also ask, if the Farubaida is so inclined to show it is not an enemy of the faith or an ungrateful recipient of the faithful, that it redresses the previous abuses by supporting the construction of Iralliamite temples in those areas where Iralliam is practiced and in the major cities, for the community of the faithful to balance the excessive support of Aitahism to the neglect of Iralliam the Farubaida commited over the last ten years.
The Farubaida does not play favourites between Iralliam and Aitahism. The Farubaida is not indebted to the Church of Iralliam. The Farubaida resents the implication that the equality of its Federation is a lie. The Farubaida is affronted by the mere suggestion that it might be an enemy of the faith, or a Federation of Ingrates. The Farubaida will not be driven to action by untruths.
With this, our first audience was completed. The Sarafaio, understandably incensed, chose a levelheaded representative to respond on their behalf. Thus spoke Lady Piralayei Maeridula of Faerouhaiaou.
Your words seem harsh, dear messenger, and troublingly accusatory in tone. However, the road from Opios has been long, you are weary, and I do not begrudge you your concerns, for were they to be wholly true, then there would be much trouble afoot in the Farubaida. As is ever the case, there are many ways in which illumination may be brought to this issue. First, let me assure you that the Farubaida holds a deep respect for both Aitahism and Iralliam, and in this very room you will find men and women of both faiths, present at the highest levels of the Pentapartite Council. You can be quite sure that, were the Teachings of Light and Dark being suppressed as you so fear, then we would have a most terrible conflagration going on at this very moment, in protest of such an issue. The Grandpatriarch need not fear that the Church, over whom he is Ward, is suffering in our lands.
Our Farubaida is, as its Faronun name suggests, a Federation. The Five States; The Union of Aya'se, The Empire of Dremai, the Empire of Helsia, Neruss, and Faerouhaiaou; are five self-governing federates united by a common foreign policy. How each state opts to patronize various causes is up to the various Senates, Kings, Emperors, and Faeoria Councils which govern them.
Faerouhaiaou is my land, that of the Helsian Uplanders. We are a people whose faith has been informed by a great many sources. Just as the ancient Liealbis learned of Opporia the Luminous, the ancient Faronun independently recognized and rightly revered Haiao as the holy source of all. It took a great many years for the Satar to come, and teach us of Dahaiaou, and longer still for the word of Kleo to reach our ears. Through the Prophet or Iralliam's teachings, we learned of the duality, and knowledge of the ultimate good and the ultimate evil has informed us ever since.
Similarly, teachers from the north, the land of the Sehorsehockyes, taught us of the Red Lady, and the celestial court. Aitah shines Haiao's light upon the path to salvation- it is not a different path, it is the same tale, told through the tongues of different prophets.
Through the love of Aitah and the Light of Haiao, my people follow the Doru o Ierai, the hunt for truth. We seek the holiness of pure knowledge, the perfect forms of the Haiao, and the liberation of mankind from the wickedness, ignorance and deception of the Dahaiaou.
It is to this that our great temple in Sahelahaia is constructed. It is not a temple of Aitah alone, and you may find that it shares far more with a house of the Illuminating One, than it does with a shrine to the Lady Goddess.
I do invite you to look upon it, and perhaps you shall not fear so much that the faith of Iralliam suffers from disregard or disrespect.
Now, returning to more temporal matters, places of worship and civic institutions are funded through the charity of their communities and the patronage of their rulers. The Union of Aya'se, being the heartland of Aitahism and overwhelmingly Orthodox, will see the construction of buildings celebrating the Lady, while the Empire of Helsia, the bastion of the South, shall set out to glorify the Light. In both, believers of other faiths may worship, and just as minor Patriarchies evangelize in the north, so do the new Hundreds preach the word of Aitah throughout the south.
The Farubaida was founded in an accord between Aitahists and Iralliamites, and the accord stands. Both faiths are recognized in the eyes of the law, and both guide their followers towards goodness and truth. For us to tread upon one or the other would be an affront to our beliefs, values and laws, all at once.
This, we hoped, would impress upon the Grandpatriarch's herald the nature of the issue into which he was wading. Unfortunately, it was not to be. Lady Maeridula was rebuffed, the herald noted that he was well aware of the attitudes and mechanics of [our] dominion. He then proceeded upon his insistence that our support of Aitahism was egregious, and that the Grandpatriarch demanded recompense, precisely budgeted from that point and on into the future. When questioned on precisely what that amounted to, the herald stated a value of 5 000 000 Haoui [5000 EP], then suggested that, due to the Grandpatriarch's mercy and generosity, that value could be reduced to a mere 4 000 000 Haoui. These values amount to roughly three year's worth of the entire Farubaida's discretionary income.
This provoked a profoundly negative reaction, largely because the justification for the donation in the first place is a false accusation. However, the herald carried on unbothered. Speaking more of this tithe...
This would expiate the seeming marginalisation of Iralliam in your dominion, and need I say it ensure that no fallout comes your way from the events in Hallat, where the Aitahists there saw fit to burn the High Ward of the Maninists at the stake. The political situation is such that it is quite necessary from my side of the fence for the Farubaida to clear up any perception (intended or not) of being unequitable to Iralliam. Twould also alleviate the Grand-Patriarchs urge to denounce Aitahism in light of the atrocity (which the Farubaida incidentally has failed to condemn), something which would be politically inconvenient for you I'm sure.
At this point, anger and frustration knew no longer where they ought to go, and gave away to confusion. Was this man, the voice of the Grandpatriarch of Opios, threatening to denounce the entirety of the Aitahist religion in response to the death of the High Ward of Maninism? The death of a man who was in league with the Dahaiaou? The Dahaiaou, who stand against everything that the Grandpatriarch, as the figurehead of Iralliam, stands for?
As the Sarafaio sat aghast, the herald went on to discuss how the funding for new Iralliamite churches might be distributed between the various federates of the Farubaida. At last, Se'Val, Representative of the Senate of the Union, rose to interrupt the herald. A heated argument broke out regarding the nature of his statements, leading to the herald restating the position which he was appointed to represent.
I did not blame the Farubaida for the burning of the High Ward, instead I pointed out that Aitahists did it, in the name of the Aitah, and that this concerns the Grandpatriarchate in the context of ostensible favouritism to Aitahism in the Farubaida. Afterall as they say there are many Aitahs but only one Aitah, who's therefore to say this ostensible favouritism could not turn into something like what is occurring in Hallat, namely the aggressive subjugation and active extirpation of a competing religion, should the Holy Moti Empire cease to be the leviathan on your doorstep? The context of the burning of the High Ward entirely revolves around the Aitahist religion, it did not occur in a secular context, and politically therefore in terms of this discussion it is relevant when explaining why the Church of Iralliam desires tangible signs of equality with Aitahism within the Farubaida. It fears that the Farubaida's Aitahists have ill intent to the Church.
To summarize the Faronun response: The burning of the High Ward is an event possessed of both secular and religious motivations, for he is both a political opponent, and a man in league with the Dahaiaou. The idea of Farubaidan Aitahists slaughtering their own people, Iralliamites, is ludicrous and offensive. The equality you seek exists, despite the fact that you seem to be doing your very, very best to undermine it through your statements.
Your herald has since departed from our audience, O Grandpatriarch, but we wish to send a messenger of our own to your hallowed halls in Opios. Let it now be read.
Long have the words of the Prophet Kleo been heeded, both in Helsia and throughout the Farubaida.
Long has Haiao been worshipped, and the Dahaiaou been shunned in our lands.
Long have the Moti, Faronun, Seshweay, Nerussians, and all other civilized folk of the cradle been allies.
Long may our alliance last.
Great is your authority, Aisen of Opios, but you are unwise to wield it heavily, in cultures with whom you are unfamiliar.
Glory to the Light. Glory to the Lady.
