thomas.berubeg
Wandering the World
House Azgheya
The Shield of the Order of the Desert Rain

The Shield of the Order of the Desert Rain

An Excerpt from the Hazat War Manual
The weak swordsman does not realize all violence is circular. He strikes down his enemies and thinks his task done. He casts away his sword and returns to his lover. He does not realize that his swing will encircle the world five times and cut him down fifty fold.
To Duke Mok Io Ian
From the Hazat Izan
While I have always been a creature of compassion, as well as pity, mercy has never before poisoned my soul.
I must thus ask you, for if I do not ask you, somebody else will ask it for me, to bend the knee to me. Serve me as your liege, and all your holdings and assets will be preserved. No Hazat outrider will ever roam your lands with blood in their mouths. No Hazat drop troopers will ever crawl in through every crack in your defenses. We shall swear to protect you until the very stars fade--or until you can take the crown from my bloodied corpse as is the Hazat way.
Will you accept this peace?
Really great diplo and adds nicely to the setting. So no one is waiting on this, i've decided that I'm going to respond in the update after i roll some dice, etc..ooc: At the request of Immaculate my letter to the Church is posted in full below. This is to enable him to render a response in the update rather than fiddling with NPC diplo.
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To His Grace the Lord Archbishop Leonid Mrimiah of Clarke.
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My Lord Bishop, your mercy for the sinner and charity for the needy and for the poor is well known as is your ardent love for Our Lord. Yet we fear that in your haste to offer succor to your flock and bestow kindness to all who avail themselves of thee, you have averred prudence and been excessively tolerant for those sheep who have wandered astray.
Forgive our candour but Your Grace surely understands the dangers of rampant heresy, one needs only look to Byzantium-Secundus to see the darkness that the incarnates may bring down upon our world. Therefore we urge you as your spiritual daughter and out of charity for you our spiritual father and brother in faith to not let your compassion, a most commendable virtue, become a vice. We bid you ardently as one longing for the wellspring of sure faith and as a devoted scion of holy church for you to exercise the teaching authority the Pancreator has given you to condemn the Incarnates and their blasphemy and to use your temporal power to suppress it and execute justice on those criminals who blatantly deny by their own foul doctrine your spiritual authority. Justice demands that those who refuse to repent be punished in full with a fitting penalty Your Grace, and the fitting penalty for denying the truths of Our Lord is death.
We are certain Your Grace knows how zealously we cherish Mother Church and how we pray daily for tranquility and peace for our people and all the peoples of Clarke. Yet we fear that if the sin of tolerance continues to hold sway on Uyish all that we cherish, and the same peace we have brought to Clarke through our actions, might be cast into the darkness and all will be consumed in the fires of chaos. This is why we have made clear that we will take forceful measures to suppress the incarnates if Houses Garathede and Eahibera do nothing even if it is against tradition to intervene in another houses demesne. But if you, who by God has been charged to defend the faith against its enemies offers but a lukewarm response... we fear all our efforts might avail nothing. For what would intercession in the affairs of other noble houses avail if the stain of errant doctrine sets up its throne in the very holy place set up for the enlightenment of Clarke, whispering its corruption from within Mother Churches own cloister?
Do not hesitate to do what must be done Your Grace. We beg of thee. Do not hesitate My Lord Archbishop for the Pancreator knows his own and in the flames of the pyre the heretic receives a great grace, for by his suffering the heretic is spurred to repent of his crime sincerely in the deeps of his soul and it is in repentance that by the grace of our Lord he may be saved.
Yours faithfully
Li Halan Naganaka Ichika, Duchess of Clarke.
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ooc: translation The Duchess urges the Archbishop to publically condemn the Incarnate Heresy and take measures to suppress it in the Ecclesiastical fiefs. She obviously does not take the forceful tone she has with the noble houses on Uyish or suggest using force against the Church's holdings and stresses rather that these heretics by their own teaching rebel against his authority and undermine the same, and that the just penalty for such treason against God and Lord is death.
Hazat Foundational Myth, Verse 7
Note: It is unknown when exactly the events described in the verse took place, or if it took place at all. However, evidence does indicate that the band of anti-corporate rebels that would eventually become the Hazat sometimes raided religious forebearers of the Eskatonic Order as well, granting credance to the below story.
In summer, with the burning Tylwyth and the corpse of the warrior Tua behind her, Pralaya journeyed south to further her bloody work. The words of the warrior Tua and all the lessons she have learned of war weighed heavily on her mind. She could not keep the words straight and knew this was a terrible danger. Her captains, noticing her furrowed brow, begged for enlightenment.
"Oh Lady Amari," captain Aarush said. "What kind of sorrow have settled upon your heart? What blackguard cause you to worry so? Tell us their name, so that we may bring you their head."
At this, Pralaya only sighed and turned away. "It is not any man who troubles me," Pralaya replied.
"Is it some new news from the front that worries you so," Captain Aysen, asked, always serious.
"At this, Pralaya's sighs only deepened, and the crease upon her fair face only worsened. "No," she replied. "No, everything is going wonderfully well in the front."
Jiwoon, Pralaya's steward, was very discontent with his master's lack of answers. "Lady Amari, please take pity upon this subject's concern!" the steward begged. "Please tell us what worries you so, before we ourselves are taken by misery!"
"I am worried," Pralaya replied. "Of becoming soft and slipshod in my thinkings."
None among the gathered warriors and advisors could make sense of her concern--for they were not privy to the secret fears and words of kings, and so Pralaya left her squabbling captains in her war tent to visit Osgramor, who she often visited with difficult questions. She found the hulking brute of a man practicing in his stolen wargear by sparring with his fellow rebels. His mood was good, and thus, he was slightly more contemplative than usual, but he was a ferocious warrior and not a philosopher. His advice was rarely good--but Pralaya favored his answers regardless as he was older and loved battle as much as her.
"Osgramor!" she called out to him as he was hurling a trainee into the sand dunes. "Tell me, how do you keep your mind clear and free of distracting concerns and doubts?"
Osgramor did not understand this question, for he was a simple man who never held a single doubt nor concerns in his thick skull. "Have you tried bringing a beautiful man and a woman to bed at once? Perhaps that'll purge your mind of all other distracting concerns."
"I'm afraid these cowardly thoughts and doubts will not disperse with mere pleasures of the flesh," Pralaya said mournfully. "Then tell me what troubles you," Osgramor said. "So that I may better counsel you."
"I'm afraid that I shall die as failure," Pralaya said. "That everything I have built will be undone in a single moment in a single battle. That all of my life's accomplishments will be forgotten and made irrelevant in matter of seconds, as happened to warrior TUA."
Osgramor was perplexed, but he was saved when a band of warriors from the local priory arrived brandishing clubs and yelling out foul curses that were quite secular in nature. Their four wheeled chariot crashed into the brute and the staff-carrying justicars of the faith leapt out to begin savagely beating him. Pralaya found this incredibly amusing.
"You wicked fiend!" the warrior-monk cried out. "We are punishing the sinner, Osgramor, for profaning our temple with a bucket of chicken blood and guts in his drunken stupor. How dare you stand there and mock us?"
"But you are doing such a bad job of it!" Pralaya pointed out. It was true. The chariot had barely made a dent upon the brute's armor. The wooden staves proved quite ineffective against layered ceramasteel. Already the brute was throwing the justicars to the same sand dunes he had been throwing trainees at. The warrior-saint pursed his lips, giving the warlady a scornful look. "Well go on then, don't you have anything better to do?"
"I'm still waiting for Osgramor to answer my questions," Pralaya replied. "I require his wisdom to set my mind at ease and find peace with eternity."
"You fool! If it is wisdom and peace you seek, you should have sought out the hidden saints and followers of Oghma! They have a hidden monastery not far from here, in the mountains of Leto, where they have discovered all the secrets and wisdom of God."
The brother-saint realized his error too late, for before he could react Pralaya already had stolen his chariot and taken off through the sands.
The Monastery of St. Oghma was a place of great learning and mysteries, protected by wise and powerful saint-mystics and keepers of secrets. Many of the monks were blind from age and the dark, but had gained an ability to see into the hearts of men and women and find impurities therein. It was for this reason they were aghast upon seeing Pralaya's chariot approach, and dozens scrambled to find weapons where they could and come to face this new threat.
"Halt, warlady!" the dozen battle-saints of St. Oghma cried out, creating a wall of spears before Pralaya's approach. "Your wickedness and ambition will find no safe harbor here, this is a place of peace and learning! Leave, we will take no part in your wars."
"I am here to learn!" proclaimed Pralaya. "I wish to seek the mysteries of the world, and learn how to clear my mind of doubts and worldly fears."
"Wisdom will forever elude you, warlady," said one of the battle-saints. "The Purification Mantra is not fit for a woman of such wicked and violent ways."
"Please, oh wise ones!" Pralaya said, falling to her knees. "I cannot sleep. I cannot think. I cannot live. Everywhere I go, I am consumed by doubt. Take pity upon this foolish farm girl. I merely wish to seek your wisdom and counsel!"
With great reluctance, the battle saints raised their spears, for there was a true air of desperation in Pralaya's voice. They entered into a hushed discussion, for there was a general belief in redemption among them. They believed that even a warrior as vicious and ambitious as Pralaya could learn to curve their worldly desires and seek true peace through meditation, no matter how small the chances. The wise and knowledgeable battle saints generally considered Pralaya to be an uneducated and particularly foolish farm girl, and thus believed she shouldn't be blamed for her and her follower's wide list of transgressions against common sense and good.
"Very well," said one of the battle-saints. "We shall allow you to prove your devotion to your desire to learn."
"Okay," said Pralaya.
"First, you must find two score men who are truly pure of heart, for you must develop your eye for finding goodness in others before you may take the path to wisdom."
"Okay," said Pralaya.
"Second, you must bring us the sword of the wise monk, Hermann, among the Zen Serotonin."
"Okay," said Pralaya.
"This sword must be obtained through peaceful means," another saint added. "You may not slay him and take the sword. It must be granted to you with his consent, and must not be stolen. We must see proof that this sword was granted to you in peace. Be warned that Hermann is of incredibly discerning eye, and he will not grant his sword to anyone he deems to hold evil in their heart."
"Okay," said Pralaya.
"Third, you must travel to the holy mountain at the island of Dagoth, in the north polar seas," said another battle-saint. "There lies the monastery of the Sun, where our fellow brothers and sisters keep oaths of silence. Here, you must dwell for a year and a day, uttering not a word. You must discard your possessions and learn to rid yourself of your lustful ambitions and aspirations of the flesh. You must cast aside your armor and break your weapons. You must unlearn your poetry of destruction. You must purge your breath of the language of blood. With the sword of Zen Serotonin and a mark of approval from the abbot of the Sun, we shall grant you access to our halls and our knowledge, and welcome you to learn the Purification Mantra."
"This is getting too complicated," said Pralaya. "Let's fight instead, and I'll take all the wisdom from the books you have hidden."
So they did, much to the dismay of the battle saints. Pralaya carved at the battle saints and then the acolytes until she was out of breath and the monastery was ablaze. No learning nor enlightenment would ever be taught in its halls again.
It was in midst of this great slaughter that Pralaya found a simple truth: in the midst of battle, she found her mind clearing, her doubts dissipating, cut apart by her own self-annihilating sword blows. "My will and existence defines itself. Violence and death is the arbiter of all truths" she proclaimed. "I will never doubt, so long as I continue my path of conquest." She left with the library scorched, no longer concerned with the wisdom within.
Of the monks, only a few survived.
A surviving monk said: "Violence is nothing new. Everything happens of itself. This is not unassociated with hero myths. You have not acted with the creative impulse. Weight of karma and destiny tugs at you still. Central to your claim is the predominance of frailty. To be judged by what exists is to sit upon a throne of eternal doubt. Slay us more, Hazat, if you wish. You will find nothing but our absence."
Excerpt from Communique No. PV217, Grand Republic era
This is how we knew they were coming. For weeks we could hear the screams of the dying, the stranded, running out of oxygen, begging for help. God above, it was a relief that I was not assigned to sentry duty--those who had to sift through these broadcasts listening for useful information. I would see them at mess--these hollow eyed listeners of the living dead.
We had to use old radios. Any time we turned on the light comms, we would be flooded by the sound of the dead and the screams. We cleaned the guns. We ranged our sights. The technician even installed a little extra shielding around the gun turrets.
We only had a day's warning. The dead-listeners finally found actionable information. Some dying transmission from a lieutenant who had drifted for days. The Hazat and her legions, with blood on their mouth, hurtling towards us at a significant fraction of the speed of light.
We gave them hell, and we learned that they were its masters. Their course is towards Byzantium Secundus. Tell them that they must redouble the defenses and establish further anti-personnel defenses within their ship. We will delay them as long as we can.