End of Empires - N3S III

Great update, worth the whole wait! Seriously excited for the next chain of events.

Homelessness isn't my intention for you, or for thomas, for that matter. As Masada alluded to, there are internal divisions in those states which would make me actively happier if I got two players for them.

A small token of my appreciation NK!

North King said:

Homelessness isn't my intention for you, or for thomas, for that matter. As Masada alluded to, there are internal divisions in those states which would make me actively happier if I got two players for them.

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Alright, that works for me too

I'd be happy to take whatever kind of Internal division you want me to take (I can see the Breaking triggering some form of religious movement...) Or I can take Ba-Tui-Van

It is difficult to express my appreciation for this spectacular update.

So. I'm going to need some help. There are a lot of successor states for the Vedai Satar, and I'm going to need a lot of qualified players to play them.

I have a very deep love and appreciation for all of these states, and while I will probably take the Ashelai, Vellari, Tephrans, or the Zalkephai, I haven't decided yet. It depends on what Satar states others might be interested in playing.

I'll be available to discuss it for anyone who might be interested.

Why, then, should we vest sovereignty within the person of a prince, as the Satar claim, or the assembled self-designated worthies of this region or that, as Patorkans or Opulensi might say? The Faith is of the people and the people are the Faith, and it is manifestly insensible to draw arbitrary lines of division on the earth and say 'these are subject to this one and those to that one and never the twain shall meet'. I am an Eskarite, and so I might meet any other Eskarite from the City and talk and delight to find a friend and brother – so too would a carpenter from Zirais and a carpenter from Essel know at once each other, or soldiers from Parthe and Acca share a bond. Should those links be severed simply because some greedy warlord fears them? Should the range of the strongest band of ruffians and brutes define our horizons? The idea is risible.

-Ksartan, The Virtues of Regicide, RM 743

No Gods, Kings, or Lies; Only Men, Mentors and the Light

-A slogan of the Apprivian Order, 8th Century RM

OOC: Marvellous update, of course. Now I suppose we have to figure out how on earth Maninism's going to be handled.

cicero, Masada, I was about to suggest the very same thing that you two have already seemed to agree upon, regarding Caroha. Good stuff.

It goes without saying, but I'm still invested in Ereithaler.

Perfectionist said:

Why, then, should we vest sovereignty within the person of a prince, as the Satar claim, or the assembled self-designated worthies of this region or that, as Patorkans or Opulensi might say? The Faith is of the people and the people are the Faith, and it is manifestly insensible to draw arbitrary lines of division on the earth and say 'these are subject to this one and those to that one and never the twain shall meet'. I am an Eskarite, and so I might meet any other Eskarite from the City and talk and delight to find a friend and brother – so too would a carpenter from Zirais and a carpenter from Essel know at once each other, or soldiers from Parthe and Acca share a bond. Should those links be severed simply because some greedy warlord fears them? Should the range of the strongest band of ruffians and brutes define our horizons? The idea is risible.

-Ksartan, The Virtues of Regicide, RM 743

No Gods, Kings, or Lies; Only Men, Mentors and the Light

-A slogan of the Apprivian Order, 8th Century RM

OOC: Marvellous update, of course. Now I suppose we have to figure out how on earth Maninism's going to be handled.

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That kind of talk is downright Zalkephic.

"Aresha bore Taleldil seven sons, not seven princes. And now these silver tyrants feed on lies and false sacrifices as they bleed the land and call it tribute."

I am sad to see the Luenan go, but I'll be signing up for another country (hopefully one I can play better) soon.

Lecture to the Eskarite Conclave, Saepuary First Class Celad Arbinter, RM 722

It is commonly asked by those hostile to the Faith how our Haradim can possibly have any power or influence. Aitah is born again and again, Talad wars in Heaven, Opporia rules above, but the Haradim were men – how can 'little mortals', as the Aitahists deride our heroes, be worthy of any more veneration than you might give any teacher? Setting aside for the moment the low attitude towards teachers and guardians this reveals, this seems at first a fair criticism. To address it we must turn to an entirely different subject.

The Faronun call their belief the search for Truth, and would say they are like us in that respect. Of course, they think to find it in the world, as though it were sitting under a rock somewhere and if only you turned over the right one all would be known. They are mistaken, of course; truth cannot be distilled or catalogued. Let us consider the theorems of Fieron relating to triangles. These are known by the learned as invaluable aids in a multitude of endeavours, and there are few now who would dispute the truth of them, and those few rightly derided. But now let us apply one of these theorems: let us draw an exact triangle and measure its edges. And we do this, and we see that these theorems of the great Fieron do not hold: the angles do not sum correctly, the lengths are not related as they should be. And so we think we have made a mistake, and we draw another triangle and we find the same result. We could repeat this for aeons and never would we find a triangle for which Fieron's theorems were true. His theorems are close, of course, more than close enough to be of use, but Truth is not approximate. Truth is not what is merely good enough.

Now, am I saying this means Fieron is wrong? You would think it extraordinary if I made such a claim, and so I do not. Fieron's theorems are indeed True, must be True. And yet they are not True of anything in the world. There is but one way to reconcile this paradox: there must be a world, a more perfect world, where there exists that perfect triangle for which Fieron's theorems are True, and will be True for all time, unless we should by some unimaginable effort harm it, and it is this triangle that Fieron tells us of. All triangles in our world are but imperfect copies, wavering, temporary shadows of that perfect Truth. And it follows immediately, then, that the mind of Man can, with sufficient diligence and intelligence, pierce whatever veil lies between our world and that world of perfect triangles (and spheres and squares and any other geometry you care to mention) and discern Truths, which can then be applied to this imperfect world.

We must then consider that if perfect, ideal triangles might exist in this world, what else might – if this world is a shadow of that, as we might reasonably suppose, well we know there is far more in this world than triangles, and presumably all those other things ought to have similar ideal states. And further, since we have established that our idea of a triangle must come from that world – where else could it originate? - it must be that our other ideas do too. So we could expect to live in this world of which we are speaking not only triangles and circles but ideas and virtues: charity, valour, justice, day, night, blue, green, man himself, and so on. And also there must there dwell the vices and maladies: corruption, disease, murder and the rest.

Now, if we take the preceding as given (and I realize there may be many in this assembly who will not) we can proceed further. As Fieron achieved a greater insight than any else into that part of the perfect world inhabited by triangles, so, for instance, must Javan have achieved a greater insight into that part where dwell the ideas of war, and Risadri pierced the darkness between to see wisdom and humility. But why should this flow be in one direction only? We can see into the perfect world, we can touch with our minds those perfect triangles. Might we not cross and, perhaps, take that perfect triangle and alter it so that Fieron's theorems no longer apply? We cannot, obviously, else it would have happened in all the long swathe of history, and we know that Fieron's theorems have at no point suddenly ceased to be true. It must be that, although men can see into the perfect world, gain insight, they cannot pass into it. And a moment's thought reveals an explanation: we ourselves must be, like all else, imperfect shadows of an ideal, and so of course we could not change worlds, for that would require we overpower the ideal already existing, and we could no more do that than we could make two different people occupy the same space in this room.

Now, however, consider what precisely our Haradim are. They are, we know, men and women of surpassing virtue, who in fact we take as coming to exemplify a virtue on earth. Is it not the case that Javan in the end surpassed all others in valour? Clearly in so doing he drew closer to the ideal in the perfect world. And if in the end there was no difference between the two, if then there would be no reason that he should not be able to move to the perfect world, for it would no longer be an overlaying of two distinct forms but rather the merger of a single identical one. And there we have our answer: the Haradim are those who attained sufficient virtue that they were no longer of our world, but passed into the perfect world, and yet exist there, perhaps not as the men we knew, and certainly the workings of their mind would be incomprehensible to us – just as we cannot comprehend creating a perfect triangle. And, as we know that the wise might manage a glimpse of that triangle and thereby learn a Truth, so the virtuous might by following their example manage a glimpse of the Haradim and thereby be inspired of a different Truth, or the Haradim themselves might pierce the boundary and pass a shred of perfection onto a worthy Faithful.

And so the supposed objection in the end rebounds upon the objector, for as I have shown the Haradim follow naturally and inevitably from the very mathematical formulations of the objectors, and so their religions must either reject Truth, or embrace the Faith. The Path is, after all, solitary.

Thlayli said:

That kind of talk is downright Zalkephic.

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Very amazing. Once the other maps are up, I'll look around for a new nation, since I completely abandoned Lesa there over the ET.

Earthly bonds are the enemy of commitment and so we cut away the life of before, leave it behind to wither and die. But dedication alone does not assure victory, so we bend ourselves to the task, shape ourselves into the sharp tip of Talad's spear. Our lives are the shield of the Faithful, and we will sacrifice them gladly if the time comes; for we are less than nothing without Faith.

-Excerpt from the Gabasen Creed of the Sadorishi


They say that within the Order there are no divisions or distinctions, that its men are featureless, implacable and interchangeable: cut one down and another takes his place, identical and unfazed by the loss. The front the Order projects is fearsome enough that many believe it. You know better, of course. Man will always seek to differentiate himself from his fellows and clump with those he thinks like himself, and it's no different even among this oldest and most feared of Orders. Oh, it's not colour or language or nationality that delineates the Order's cliques. They all speak that Gallatene creole that's the lingua franca of men for hundreds of miles in every direction (the historians say it originated long ago in the camps of the Peregrination, but you don't know or care the truth of that) and you don't even know where most of your colleagues are from. No, the Fatherless aren't so unsubtle as that. There's the old lineages, the ones who've been in the Order, father to son, since all the way back at the Founding. They don't mention it, of course – terribly bad form for a Fatherless to be close to his father – but everyone knows them. There's the new lineages, of course, mostly formed in the last hundred years, and desperately jealous of the old. There's the proudlings, the ones who weren't born into it and had something to be proud of before, the ones who joined up for glory or honor or faith, and who stuck it out once they were disabused of those notions. There's the groundlings, the ones who weren't born into it but didn't have a choice, the ones who are running from something, got something in their past they want dead so badly they came to Talada. There's the horsemen too, but everybody tries to pretend they don't exist – they might be necessary, but there's still something terribly perverse about those men who won't fight on foot. And then, last and in some ways least, there's the trueborn. That's where you fall, of course: one of those small children, never more than three years old, given to the Order by desperate parents in exchange for a small bit of money and raised to join the Order since you could walk. Fatherless in truth as well as in name, you're always a little on the outside. The lineages have their histories, the outsiders have there pasts, but you and the trueborn don't share any of that, and there's a distance. You don't care, though: you know that you're a Fatherless to the core, and that if the others keep their distance it's because they're worried they don't measure up themselves. And it's true that there's a bit of an aura around the trueborn, that they're always regarded with a bit of awe and jealousy – so many of the great heroes of the Order have been trueborn for a reason. Not that they went easy on you on that account, of course. The contrary, in fact: they've expected you to be a perfect Fatherless, and anything less has been punished.

That's nearly over, though. You're twenty, and you've been in the Order your entire life, preparing for tomorrow. Actually, it's probably today by now. You don't remember your parents, but it doesn't bother you. Sometimes you wonder idly what extremity drove them to sell a son, and if they recovered. You're not doing anything idly tonight, mind. The Vilic[1] would skin you alive if he caught you dozing on watch, and he might be around at any instant. The fact that there's nothing to watch for is entirely irrelevant. You're in one of the southernmost of the desert watchtowers. It's a squat little thing built centuries ago to serve as an early-warning system for the Pale, back in the days when the Desolation was still in living memory and the prospect of Savirai raiders was real. It's been a long time since anything but pilgrims or caravans was likely to come out of the desert, and longer still since anybody would dare to attack the Pale itself, but the watch is maintained nonetheless. The Vilics say it's because we can never let our guard down even in safety, but the popular opinion is that the system's kept active just because it's useful as a punishment detail in disguise. There are few things worse than staring into an empty darkness all night, on guard for something that will never happen but unable to relax for even an instant, because you never knew when a Vilic would test you, and if he did and you didn't pass there'd be consequences. Vilics were good at consequences.

You stiffen suddenly. Deep in the desert it gets dead silent at night, but here on the edge there's still the odd animal sound, wind rustling through sparse underbrush. You're accustomed to the sounds of the night and attuned to anything out of the ordinary, and the faint metallic clinking at the edge of hearing might as well be hornblast to you. You grab a torch and thrust it into your small fire. It catches and burns a fierce, bright red (the result of some arcane concoction cooked up by the Order's alchemists), and you slide it into its holder. Far away in the dark you see another red flame shoot up in answer, and beyond that, at the edge of sight, a third, the beginnings of a chain that will continue all the way back to Talada – one red flame, for an unscheduled arrival. You shout at the darkness to identify itself, and the clinking stops for a moment, but no answer comes back. Then the clinking starts again, at a faster tempo this time. You hear running footsteps, and you light and place a second torch, to be relayed down the line – two red flames: potential hostilities, standby for confirmation. A figure emerges into the tiny pool of light around the tower's door, cloaked so that you cannot make out its appearance. The door is barred, but that won't hold any attacker for more than a few moments, and for these towers on the end of the line it isn't intended to. If there's an attack the man on duty in one of the outermost towers is dead no matter what: the lock is just to buy him a few precious moments to send the signal down the line. You grab one more torch and prepare to light it – three red, tower under attack, standby for further information. Your hand doesn't tremble. You shout at the figure again to identify himself. In answer, he produces an axe and makes as if to smash the door. You still don't light the torch. At the last second, the figure stops the swing, reverses the axe, and knocks on the door. He throws back his hood and looks up, and you recognize Vilic Erulf. You still hold the torch. The Vilic scowls for a moment, then shouts up at you “Summer winds, south.” Upon hearing the night's passphrase you replace the torch, unlit, salute the Vilic, extinguish the burning torches, and procure, light and place a different torch. This one burns a bright green, and down the line you see the distant red lights go out, and a single green appear in their place a moment later: one green torch, friendly arrival, situation normal. Only then do you descend to unlock the door and meet the Vilic.

Erulf is still scowling when you open the door. “You sent the appropriate signals,” he notes, and he sounds disappointed, inasmuch as a twenty-year Vilic conveys anything with his voice. Even Vilics found it hard to enjoy creeping around all night when they didn't get to dress down some poor fool at the end of it. Erulf had been hoping you'd miss his approach, or panic and send the signal for an attack too early – the tower down the line would have been informed, as usual when Vilics did this trick, to expect an attack signal at this time and not to relay it – and then he'd have come down like the wrath of Talad himself. You don't think they'd revoke your initiation over such a mishap, but they'd certainly delay it. Which is why Erulf picked tonight, of course. That seemed sadistic even for a Vilic. “You are relieved. Return to Talada immediately,” he continues. And that was out of character too: Vilics did not take over for uninitiated watchmen. You wait a moment to see if Erulf will explain but further, but he just brushes past you into the tower without another word. You start walking down the track immediately – an order is an order, no matter how strange it might seem. You settle into a steady loping trot and let your mind relax as you cover the miles to the first waystation. There you are given a horse. It's already waiting for you when you arrive. Erulf must have alerted them when he passed. Strange.

Still in pitch black, you settle in for the ride back to Talada. It's miles yet. The first faint glimmers of dawn appear overhead, and you can see the vegetation increasing, the road growing wider and more regular, and signs of cultivation appearing: you are entering the Pale. Not even a Fatherless can subsist on death alone, whatever the stories say: there's miles of farmland around Talada, and villages, towns, mills, and more besides, all of it owing allegiance to the Order, all working to produce the food and arms and clothing and revenues needed to support the Faith's most potent weapon. There are some craftsmen and manufacturing, a bit of art, but nothing like that to be found in the great monasteries of the Rim, or in Gallat, for this is the Pale of the Sadorishi, and there is little room here for anything but the sinews of war.

The sun is up now, and you start to see people at work in the fields that you now pass. They're not initiates of the Order, but they're bound to it all the same, gifted land and owing loyalty. In extremis they might even be armed, though that has not happened for many years. Your briefly make eye contact with one such farmer, bent over some tool or other – it is your business to understand the implements of war, not of farming, and so you could not put a name to it – a swarthy face made darker by a deep tan, and a well-fed solidity to him that is rarely to be found inside the Order. It only lasts for an instant before you're past, but you think you recognize him. It's possible, of course: he might be a Step-Son. That's what you called them, the ones who couldn't handle initiation, the ones who dropped out, stepped aside. Some of them went back to their lives; some, such as the trueborns like you, had no lives to go back to. All the Order's cliques might make contemptuous remarks about the Step-Sons, but the Order did not abandon them: rather it gave them a place, if it could. After all, if you let them go some other order might scoop them up, and Sadorishi couldn't have that. That was how the Pale had started, all those centuries ago: Step-Sons (though of course none called them that yet) given land in what was still an Aitahist-blighted waste and set to cultivating it, and over the years those men and their descendants had made a garden of it. These days there was little arable land left in the Pale, though land grants still happened in the Order's further flung holdings, but some Step-Sons still wound up there. It was a good deal for them, all things considered. For many, owning their own land had been an impossible thought before the Order. You wonder for a moment if the Step-Son was happy. You hope so, though you can not imagine how someone could be happy as a farmer, however necessary the work.

The sun is high overhead and you are on your fourth horse when at last you crest a rise and Talada comes into view. The fortress-city is not very imposing to look at. You've heard tales of the great fortresses of the world: of Magha and its caves, Epichrisi's soaring towers, the impenetrable Rock of Gurach. In your imagination those cities glisten in the sun and proclaim to all who see them their strength. Talada, tucked against the end of the Allato Hills, does not glisten. Its brown buildings and pair of unremarkable walls do not scream defiance at anyone. But the Order builds for function, not for form, and you know that appearances are deceiving. Those unremarkable wall are both nearly thirty feet thick, riddled with embrasures and virtually unassailable even if the gates are breached; those towers, ugly and at first glance notable chiefly for their disinclination to do anything remotely resembling soaring, are precisely placed to support each other and form killing grounds, and are topped with siege engines; even those ordinary brown buildings are organized with a mind to defense, and on inspection more closely resemble blockhouses than ordinary residences. Every aspect of the city is calculated to make it a nightmare for attackers. The Sadorishi have been preparing to defend Talada for nearly three hundred years, and they have not wasted an instant of that time.

You turn your horse over to the handlers at the last waystation, just outside the walls, and pass through the Desert Gate and into the city on foot. The massive reinforced gates stand open, but the guards are vigilant and you know that they can be closed in moments. The Desert Gate, as all the gates of Talada, lacks ornamentation as might be found in places that considered themselves more civilized: there are no reliefs or statues or mosaics to be found. There are numerous murderholes, of course, but you ignore them as you pass through. Inside, the city is filled with all the usual hustle and bustle of business, while here and there Sadorishi pass by in little bubbles of empty space. You, not yet initiated, are afforded no such respect, and have to elbow your way through the throng. You are quite out of breath when you arrive at the Square of the Cadivacs[2] and the Armory. That was what they called the center of the city and the Order, though it had long since become much more: a towering fortress complex in its own right, the administrative hub of a network that spread across the continent, and, yes, an armory, with enough weapons and armor to outfit half a dozen armies stowed in its enormous underground storerooms. Beyond the gates of the Armory the public was not allowed, and as you approach the guards you raise your left arm to display the brand that marks you as pre-initiate. They too, however, seem to be expecting you, and wave you forward before you are closer than ten paces. They instruct you to proceed immediately to the Grand Yard, and so you do.

The Yard is a wide open space near the center of the Armory complex, used for training, assembling large forces, and the like. It is not typically used for initiations, and so you are surprised when you emerge to see an initiation clearly prepared. Three men are waiting, cowled as customary, beside a fire as you approach. A deep voice from beneath the cowl of the lead figure tells you “You have been elected to carry the burdens of the Faith. Do you accept?” Without hesitation you reply in the affirmative. The man motions you to kneel, and you do. You recite the Gabasen Creed, pledge yourself to the Sadorishi, stretch out your right arm, and the man pulls a hot iron from the fire and applies it to your skin. There's no shame in screaming – the Fatherless are too well acquainted with pain to disdain it so easily – but you resolved a long time ago not to, so you don't, though the pain is excruciating and the smell of your burning flesh sickening. And then it's done, the iron removed, and you stand, initiated into the Order. More than the pain you feel confused. Not by the speed and matter-of-factness of the ceremony – other Orders might make a great show of things, perhaps with tests and extravagant ceremonies, but as far as the Fatherless were concerned the real test was the years before initiation; the ceremony itself was little more than a formality, though a necessary and coveted one – but by the circumstances surrounding it. You can not recall ever hearing of an initiate called away from his post to immediately receive the Mark. Your confusion deepens as the figure throws away his cowl and reveals himself. “Welcome to the Order, Sadorisk Pallas,” said Moril Vabin. “I trust you will not disappoint us.” The Prelatyr[3] turned on his heel and strode off, leaving you with yet more questions.


[1]Rank within the Sadorishi, roughly equivalent to a sort of drill sergeant
[2]Martyr, more or less; semi-official title bestowed on the Order's famous dead
[3]Head of the Order

Apologies if I've overstepped my bounds. Excess of enthusiasm.

Just for future reference, o'Aya'se ta Caroha is a direct translation of Farubadia o Caroha in Seshweay.

This is lovely. I can't wait until my freetime this weekend to sit and absorb it all.

Just epic! I continue with Vischa Exatai.

Thlayli, send me write-ups on the different Satar states. I'll take one.