GM Religion Vomit

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She the Omnity assumed, savior and Lady of the Awakened peoples, as recounted in testimony by her closest champions and set down in the Canon of Orthodoxy at the Second Council of Ubrekt.* (Sparks Note Edition)

Before we get started, I'll introduce the Dramatis Personae. As you'll see, the Canon pretty much starts In Media Res, so it's helpful to know the Main Characters - especially those whose historical influence goes significantly beyond the events of the Narrative. You'll be introduced to them again in the narrative, but since they are *the* central figures of theological importance next to Alexandria herself, it's ok to double tap. Also, before we get started, be aware - what little art and craft I have in writing I will not be practicing here - quick, dirty, and to the point. It's long enough as it is!

  • You know, mostly. Some of this is in the Apologies of Antioch, which

inform church tradition but are not canonical. Sue me.


Important Figures Alexandria: A human orphan living in the village of Tragidore, somewhere between 12 and 16 at the beginning of the Canon. Raised by a retired wanderer and town storyteller, she was raised from the dead after the Sacking of Tragidore and eventually - with the help of her followers - absorbed the powers of all the old Demi-pantheon and banished the Dark Fiend from the world once and for all. (You know, I'm getting ahead of myself. Spoiler Alert.)

Steros Merroand: At the outset of the narrative, a human priest and follower of Tarlos, Lord of Justice and Retribution. Post-Narrative, Steros helped organize the Alexandrian Church and became the first Arch-Warden in 1 FI.

Sayid ibn Maimun: The Betrayer. At the outset of the narrative, a human sailor and merchant from the Petaran Empire, the third son of a wealthy trading family. Post-Narrative, was the first member of the Stand to give Testimonial. (A Testimonial declared heretical by the Alexandrian Church)

Marrwyn Teldandilion: At the outset of the narrative, a traveling companion of Sayid and the fugitive princess of Sidhe-Praxen. Post-Narrative, a very influential founder of the Alexandrian Church and became the 4th Arch-Warden of the Church in 49 FI.

Kivan Elyryn: At the outset of the narrative, a half-elven outcast from the Quiram Wood of Odessa. Post-Narrative, Kivan sought seclusion and took no active part in the Church's formation. Also, his namesake was used in the Kelvinite Heresy of the 1020s FI based around the heretical Second Testimonial of Kivan.

Mythrian Arabelle: At the outset of the narrative, a human child living in the town of Tragidore. Post-Narrative, as the adopted son of Steros Merroand, Mythrian becomes a founder of the Alexandrian Church. In 18 FI, Mythrian becomes the 2nd Arch-Warden.

Mikos Lygit: At the outset of the narrative, a human child living in the city of Tragidore. Post-Narrative, he is best known for his role in the Petran Scism and as founder of the Zupanos branch of the Petaran Heresy.

Dadtim (the Younger): The Peacemaker. At the outset of the narrative, a dwarven child living in the city of Tragidore.


PRELUDE: THE WORLD BEFORE

Before we get into Alexandria, it's probably good to talk about what religion was like BEFORE the omnity. Well, the Prophet's War (keep reading!) did a good number on written records and primary historical sources, so it really a kind of murky and mysterious antiquity. In fact, the period of the Eight is the remotest past and myth. The rough sketch goes something like this:

[note: some of this information, as well as extra details, are in the timeline on the wiki]

In the beginning were Eight. They created the world and all the races, then turned it loose. For a time, everything went well. But, slowly - over the course of centuries - things began to sour. Race fought against Race, and soon race fought amongst race. Eventually, the Eight became aware of the true problem: an force of pure evil had infected their creation, injecting selfishness and greed and hatred into the world. Before the full scope of the infestation became clear, several races were lost entirely to the darkness, such as the orc, the naga, and the ogre-kin. Others, such as the elves and the dwarves, fought in destructive and divisive civil wars.

The Eight rushed into action, taking an active role for the first time in their creation and worked to organize the remaining goodly races against the threat. The army consisted of all those races who had not yet fallen into darkness: humans, gnomes, and halflings. With them stood the High Elves and High Dwarves, along with the Lost Races - those races who gave themselves completely in the war against Shadow.

The battle was hard, and ultimately a stalemate. The Eight sacrificed themselves, using their divine essence to imprison the Dark Fiend. As the Armies of Light retreated, what portions of the Eight's godly essence not absorbed in the prison instead were absorbed into the Eight's generals, who were elevated to the Demi-Pantheon. It was also during the Eight's sacrifice that the Nine Obilisks (to be discussed) appeared.

That is the time of most ancient legend and myth, as I said. More recently was the era of the Demi-Pantheon, when a host of some three-dozen or more gods - the imbued generals of the Armies of Light - ran the universe. A time better documented, but still equal parts mythology and history.

The demi-gods fought amongst themselves as often as the cooperated, and in general sought to further their own influence at the expense of the others while fearing the day that the Dark Fiend might escape its bondage. It was during this period that the First Empire - Ubrekt - wiped out the Halfling and Gnomish homelands, united the human tribes, and vassalized the Dwarven and Elven nations. (This process of conquest takes about three hundred years)

Over the course of a couple thousand years, the Ubrekti empire slowly fragmented into many of the nations of today - more or less. Hakan, of course, being the most radical exception.


It was into this selfish and self-serving world that Alexandria was born, the savior and champion of all the goodly races, around the year 50 BI to unknown parents in an unknown nation. The Narrative of Alexandria, an account of how she destroyed the Dark Fiend and assumed the Omnity, begins in 35 BI. The Narrative begins, most appropriately, with the first lines of the Testimonial of Dadtim the Younger : "Tragidore was the beginning and end of all things."

Notes on the Narrative: The narrative is told from the point of view of five of Alexandria's followers: Steros, Kivan, Marrwyn, Dadtim, and Mythrian, each written independently from the others in both time and place. They are not a complete account of the events of Alexandria and her Crusade, but are better seen as a set of *recollections*, and as such each Testimony is generally pretty specific in what it covers, based as each is on the experience, expertise and point of view of the author. Naturally, because of this there are some inconsistencies and contradictions among the Testimonials, and a significant number of "Dead time" spots - entire months or years simply not addressed in any of the five books. The Narrative below is an amalgum of the five books, giving the overall "tale" of Alexandria rather than the contents of the 5 Testimonials on a book-by-book basis. There will also be some meta-commentary embedded within the text, which will be written in [brackets]. Alright, pack a sandwich, here we go:


PART I : THE RAZING OF TRAGIDORE

       The first child to go missing was Arek. There was alarm, but no

suspicion of abduction. When the second went missing in less than a week, parents and the town council took quick action. Asought a skilled woodsman and tracker from a nearby city. In those days, before the Traveler's Highway and the Unified Church, communication and transport was slow. By the time a willing tracker was found (Kivan Elyryn, a half-elven woodsman living in exile from Odessa), several more children had gone missing and the grave robbings and body snatchings had begun. This, of course, brought the local religious establishment into the matter. The local priests were simple men, and quickly saw the problem was beyond them. Sterros Merroand, a young Fresian priest of Strom (the pre-Alexandrian demigod of justice) was dispatched. With him, for unknown reasons, were Sayid ibn Maimun and Marrwyn Teldandilion.

Cut to the chase: bad things were afoot in Tragidore. The bonds that had held the Dark Lord in captivity had been in decay for some time, leading inevitably to the release of one of the Four Great Beasts: the Wyrm of Decay. [It's important to take a time out here to talk about Pre-Alexandrian theology. During the time of theDemigods, there were two orders of major religious figures. 1, the high priests, and 2, the oracles. No1 is pretty self explanitory, but #2 - the oracles - were the only ones who had direct contact with the Demipantheon, though in a murky and semimystical sort of way. Oh, and they were ALWAYS children, who usually were used upearly by the experience. Each demigod had one oracle at a time.] Bad luck for Arek: he became the first Darkling Oracle, imbued with power from the Dark Fiend.

So, the various interested parties eventually come together in common cause, and figure out the very basics of what is going on, at least enough to take action and organize a smash-and-grab SAR party. Into the forest! Come up against a nasty shit of a monster, a big lizardy fuck best categorized in the Metagame as a "Dragon." In true heroic fashion, the Wyrm is dispatched and the children are rescued. Well, except for Arek. too late for him. Of course, that's when the second problem becomes clear. The monster wasn't the Wyrm of Decay at all - but rather that fel creatures own spawn! A pant-loadingly large monster then comes on the scene.

Well, it turns out Fel Creatures do not have a terrific sense of irony and, enraged at the slaying of its one and only offspring, it flew into a terrific rage. It set the entire of the forest ablaze, but otherwise did not give further chase to the would-be heroes and children. Instead, it razed Tragidore to the ground, killing man, woman, and livestock, and leaving nothing but a blighted wasteland before flying northward.

Obviously, everyone felt pretty crummy about the whole affair, what with leaving an entire village's worth of children orphaned and destitute. It is at this point that Alexandria, doubly orphaned and the oldest of the group at 14, swore her Oath of Vendetta. (Oldest save Mythrian, that is. And, of course, Dadtim the Younger because he's a Dwarf.)

Afterward, everyone packed up what they could and marched toward civilization.

The trip back had its own share of problems. See, remember how all oracles were children? Well, someone had to find those kids and make them do their job, ya? Well, wouldn't you know, on the long march back, a group of them comes across our weary wanders and, by methods generally skipped over in the text, decide there is something about Alexandria that commands their attention and she goes with them. Well, for a bit, anyway.

A half days march later, that same group is found butchered to all but a man in the highway, with no sign of Alexandria. The lone survivor, a general badass we might consider a Paladin named Uther, sets everyone off to recover the Probable-Oracle-To-Be. When the trail is tracked, it was pretty obvious who would be there: Arek. (what a jerk, even for a 12 year old!) Oh, and Alexandria.

Well, her corpse, at any rate. Bugger all. Luckily, after a bit of bad-natured jeering and slightly revalatory monologue, Arek goes on his way and leaves everyone to contemplate their continued string of failures, up to and including allowing the prophesized savior of creation to up and get killed. [It is worth noting here that the Prophecies of Alabar Tremaliane are actually very ambigious as to if said savior would be the traditional kind or the Save The World By Destroying It kind. Hindsight is 20/20, of course, but Evil Powers don't like taking chances, I guess,]

Of course, we all know prophecy is not so easily thwarted, and by means not fully explicated (get used to that), she is raised from the dead. [Also worth noting: Raise Dead, and other such spells, are generally non-existant in this world.] Now that the adults are drawn into something way beyond themselves, they're pretty much stuck seeing it through to its conclusion. Alexandria decides to throw her lot with the group, and goes on the lam from the oracular paladins. Might as well start calling them Alexandria's Stand and the Children of Tragedy now. After a brief discussion, it's decided that the Stand will become the de facto adoptive parents. Steros takes the majority of them under the auspices of Strom and his church, though most of the other Stand take at least one or two other like-tempered kids under their wing. (Sayid and Mykos are the most famous, or infamous, pair.)

Mattie has suggestede that I ought to break this up and send it in parts, so that ought to be enough for one go. Stay tuned for the next installment, which will most likely cover The Awakening of Ancient Evils through the beginning of the Prophet's War.

PS: aren't you glad you asked for this now? ;)



They dick around for some time in Sterros' home town doing odd-jobs and trying to figure out WTF just happened. Eventually, they discover most everything of any importance about the Prophecies is being (metaphorically) gobbled up by Antioch's newly established University. They pack up and head to Hakan City, ambushed on the way by a group of Dark Naga. This is the first real sign since Arek that Shit Is Going On, and any doubts the group has about the legitimacy of Alexandria's importance is pretty well laid to rest. They make it to Hakan City and take up residence, clandestinely studying the prophecies by trying to grab up fragments and commentaries as they came into the city. As you might imagine, a huge influx of everything even tangentially related to Tremaliane followed the buying frenzy. This is, probably, what made the Naga start ambushing people. In fact, since the great Sorcerer-King really can't be outbid on his home turf, "research" generally meant "hunt down Dark Naga and take whatever information they had stolen from caravans and traders flocking to Hakan overland. It is during the early point in these hunts, before Sayid and his close associates depart for Petara. As this is the first time Sayid has been in any one place for a length of time, reports finally reach him that his family is sort of in Crisis mode: Renegade Brother, possibly dead father.

And so, the groups bid each other farewell. Sterros, Alexandria, Kivan and most of the orphans, including Mythrian and Dadtim Jr, stay in Hakan. Sayid and Marrwyn leave for Petara, along with Mikos, a couple of Sayid's faganlings, and the twins. As of now, both groups are still essentially powerful flunkies, whose ambitions are exceeded in quantity only by their helplessness. When they meet again, they will be masters of their respective worlds.

It was during the post-Sayid portions of the Naga Hunt that two important things happened.

 1. Mythrian discovered the Quicksilver Egg and was convinced to hang on to it by Sterros, despite his emnity toward dragons. (The Dark Naga were probably trying to corrupt it. Jerkfaces.)
 2. Sterros and Alexandria and Co. finally come to the attention of Antioch. (How could they not?)

I believe most of the story from this point through the end of the Prophet's War, at least, is covered quite well by the entry on Sterros and the intro blurb for Mythrian.


Sayid and company, however, run into trouble on the way back to Petara. While traveling through Elven waters, the Captain (Sharky) waylays the party in their sleep, during Marrwyn's meditation. Subdued and bound, it becomes clear that Sharkey is not only wise to Marwynn's identity as the absconded elven princess, but in fact has been arranging a setup all along. The Oh Shit factor ratchets up about an order of magnitude once the ship heads to the far side of the island and everyone realizes Sharky has not sold them out to the Elven Royals, but rather to Drakasia, the Half-Elven rebel leader. Marrwyn is offloaded, and Sharksy sets sail. After assurances from Sayid, he decides to free the others and offload them at the next port. Of course, even though the ship has a pretty decent crew, poor sharksy does not realize that most of these kids have been learning espionage, fencing, dance, and other related skills, while Marwynn's twin wards are accomplished novice sorcerers in their own right. One six-person mutiny later, the ship is redirected toward the island captained by a very apologetic Sharkey.

Of course, a ship going into and out of a rebel harbor is going to attact the notice of the Elven Armada, which sinks the vessel post haste. The survivors shipwreck on the far side of Sidhe-Praxen and make their way to the Rebel Camp. Sharksey is kind of fucked six ways to sunday, and kind of scummy anyway, so he flips easily to Team Sayid. The Plan: Use Sharksey's contacts in the camp to integrate, find Marwynn, raise hell, escape, high fives, miller time. While there, it is learned that a couple of dwarven operatives are with the rebels, helping them create impressive fortifications, solidify and improve logistics, and all that sort of stuff we send dark suited men into latin american jungles for.

(As an aside, once it became clear to the elves that the dwarves were meddling in very personal, very domestic shit, all bets were off - when the Prophet's War broke out, the elves jumped in early and often for Team Alexandria. The only reason Mythrian was able to hold out so long in those cities is because they were all along the coast. With Elven mastery of the seas, and Drekasia's rebellion crushed at home, they could supply the Alexandria faction indefinitely. Indeed, Mythrian and company were able to go back and forth from their cities with impunity for years without ever having to venture outside of protected walls.)

Anyway, once the team was back together, Sharksy proves to be a pretty damn good captain, especially of light craft, and they escape easily with the help of seven or eight levels worth of fireball spells from Marwynn. I believe what follows, the Petaran Civil War and the rise of Sayid, is pretty well covered by MisterDoctorAllen's vanity project.

I will now open the floor to questions.


This narrative is included and expanded upon in the entry for Steros.