SUMMER

Angkar: Wet season. Precipitation is common during the late afternoon and evening hours. Vegetation grows significantly during the summer, but flooding is a danger due to the monsoons that ravage the country. The rainforest sees evenly distributed rainfall throughout the season.

Ashoka: Desert: Extremely hot and dry. Violent, heavy downpours following long dryspells. Jungle: Hot and humid with frequent, violent rainstorms.

Morrim: Relatively hot and dry, but with a chance of thunderstorms from time to time. The heat may cause forest fires.

Soto: Hot and humid, tree cover is dense while ground growth is restricted. Thunderstorms see the most amount of rainfall during the season, and it can be very windy. On occasion, there are flash floods that can destroy homes and farms built on flood plains.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

March 30th, 2018 As you might have noticed, Elenlond has changed hands and is now under new management! If you have any questions, please direct them to DaringRaven! As for the rest of the announcements, including a season change, you can find them over here at the following link!

January 16, 2018 As you might have noticed, Elenlond has a new skin, all thanks to Mel! Don't forget to check out the new OTMs as well!

December 2, 2017 Winter has settled on Elenlond, bringing sleep for some and new life for others.

September 26, 2017 With the belated arrival of autumn come some interesting developments: new OTMs, a Town Crier and the release of the Elly Awards winners!

July 14, 2017 After a bit of forum clean-up, Elly Awards season has arrived! Head on over to make your nominations!

May 31, 2017 Summer has arrived and so has activity check! That's not all though – we also have some new OTMs for you and some staff changes!


WHAT IS ELENLOND?

Elenlond is an original free-form medieval fantasy RPG set on the continent of Soare and the Scattered Isles, which are located to the south in the Sea of Diverging Waters. The four chief nations of the western side of the world—Ashoka in northern Soare, Soto in western Soare, Morrim in eastern Soare, and Angkar, the largest of the Scattered Isles—continue to experience growth and prosperity since the fall of the Mianorite gods, although power struggles within the countries—or outside of them—continue to ensue.


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    Ashoka: In an otherwise peaceful times, Ashokans are beset with the relatively minor inconveniences of wandering undead and occasionally-aggressive giant rock worms. There has also been some controversy over the recent re-legalisation of human sacrifice.

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    Soto: The Sotoans have defeated the fey and liberated themselves from Méadaigh’s oppression! Preliminary efforts have been made at rebuilding the city of Madrid, which had been captured at the beginning of the war. However, the Sotoans are hindered from recovery famine. Méadaigh’s magic caused summer to persist in the Erth’netora Forest through the winter. Her power has been withdrawn and the plants die as if preparing for winter – even though it is now summer. The Sotoans must sustain off what food they can get, what creatures they can kill and what can be imported into the city from Morrim and Angkar.

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    Old Books; Older Gods; Mordecai
    Topic Started: Nov 27 2014, 05:12 PM (321 Views)
    Hiram Jollenbeck
    Member Avatar
    ...Even to wear such knowledge--for our flesh/ surrounds us with its own decisions--/ and yet spend all our lives on imprecisions,/ that when we start to die/ have no idea why.

    Deep breaths, Hiram! We are almost arrived!

    The shrewd theologian had, by a durable and rather fearless member of his flock, sent ahead some word of his arrival: It was set now in stone, as respectable and reliable as the symbol of Vespasian pressed into the wax seal. Today, today, today was the date. He clutched that same symbol now, its sharp metal edges digging into his sweaty palm, his knuckles grinding into the furs that swathed him. Some of his anxiety could be attributed to the enigma of the lord's reply, sent on the wings of the strangest bird he'd ever seen, containing only acknowledgment and terse welcome; most of it, however, was a product of the setting he now found himself knee-deep in.

    Outside the carriage that bore him, wretched tempests shook the trees. The towers of the Asenath estate jutted like howling monoliths of darkness against the lightning-bleached sky. The stone was pocked and wrecked by ballistae of years past; ruined structures stood like the rib-bones of a great beast stricken down by Andromalius' blade, carved and eaten by the vultures that circled and dove after the slaughter. The thunder seemed louder here, high up in the Do'Suul. The air seemed to crackle with mad energy.

    And so all the hair on Father Jollenbeck's arms stood up as if at attention. The draft had already numbed his knuckles, and at the slightest gust he found himself reaching to make sure of his fur hat's presence on his head. It had not been a far journey to make, and yet he felt now that he was in an entirely different realm. It was as if his correspondences with the strange witch of the mountains had dragged him, unknowingly, further and further into some sweeping woodcut Hell.

    A young attendant sat beside him, as was custom – he could not make these sorts of journeys alone, he was certain. He was grateful, suddenly, for the gentle glow of warmth and bravery beside him, the dawning curiosity and interest in surroundings. Hiram became aware of his own breath, sharp and stilted through clenched teeth; making an effort to relax, he touched the black-veiled brother of Vespasian on the shoulder, offering a kind smile.

    “Father--”

    At the touch, gasps of thought whispered through his mind, directionless: Castle... darkness—hellish Night—beautiful...

    “--Jollenbeck, you are frightened.” Beneath the black shawl, the young man's eyebrows knit. “Is all well? Shall I tell the driver to stop and turn around? This is... ill-advised, I think.”

    Hiram took his hand away quickly, avoiding the complexity of color in his follower's eyes. But you wish to stay! This Hell, though it may be that, has whetted your appetite for more. But he would not admonish an eager, silly young brother. “No. That is not necessary.

    “This... this...”

    C-C-CRACK!

    The horses whinnied; the priest nearly jolted from his seat. They had begun to climb the assent to the great front doors of the castle, and its shadow had begun to swallow them. Jollenbeck muttered a quick prayer, the words dribbling into silence on his tongue, clutching his amulet. He was no longer aware of anything but the tang of fear in his own mouth, and his attendant seemed to be grasping at words that left all too quickly.

    Some moments later, the carriage ground to a halt beneath the gates.
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    Mordecai
    Member Avatar
    What is to give light must endure burning.

    [tw: sexual/noncon imagery.]


    The Do’Suul was always inclement. Often she felt as though she lived between the teeth of some giant — forever gnashing, snarling away company with barbs of ice and lightning. Spring had made her tentative arrival in other parts of Morrim, but not here. Winter still howled like a loose beast, shrieking on her battlements, rattling stone and glass. It bit through the thickness of her robes, raising gooseflesh down her arms. She shivered lightly under the dark cloth, drawing the shawl closer to her chin.

    In the name of peace, she had eschewed her usual brigandine and mail. The Asenaths could buckle their armor, yes — but at her core, she had more in common with this Jollenbeck than knights afield. She knew the mad visions. The touch of God, some called it, the terrible forces that tossed humanity in their gales. The great and the unknowable.

    In her tongue, holy was another word for fear. She always felt God could not be carved into a human visage, reduced to a worshipped idol—that the True One could not be adorned with holly and drowned in libation. The southerners spoke of their gods in the same breath as human squabbles, reduced them to fickle children — powerful, but still men in spirit. She did not care for the Sotoans’ false idols, inventions of a fat and spoilt nation. No. The One was cruel, not in the way of rapers and murderers, but as the sea was cruel— as the tempest, howling, obliterating. Impartial.

    She looked to her palms.

    Each dancing mark had been carved into her flesh and sealed in blood. How many years had passed since then? She had lived lifetimes. She could not remember what had been done to her, only that some great Thing pinned her like an insect, tore the veil of her soul and laid her bare. She had wept, fallen into fever—thrashed, eyes fluttering into her skull, dark tongues vomited from her mouth. Her hands had grasped for purchase, slick with blood, nails ripping at her own flesh. It had pooled between her thighs, birthed the offal of creation. Her back had arched like a chained beast, veins cording around her neck, a legion of voices whispering off the stone walls. Rapture and violation twined as bedfellows, lifted her in exultation and ripped her down again, down…

    When she woke, her mother would not look at her. She remembered her turning, face crumpling, her thin features buried in a kerchief. For a long time she was too afraid to follow her gaze. But slowly, slowly, her eyes drifted to her arms — swollen, unrecognizable, butchered with angry red script.

    The Arcana.

    Mordecai shivered.

    The sorceress drew her shawl closer, trying to ward off more than the cold. The hems of her robes slithered across the stone as she paced, eyes trained on the window.

    She prayed Father Jollenbeck would arrive soon. In her heart of hearts, she hoped to discuss more than politics.

    ***


    The light had died by the time a servant spotted the carriage.

    A murmur, a gesture. Flames licked to life across her entrance hall, doing little to dispel the gloom. The frail light seemed only to make the ceilings look higher, more forbidding, gave a menacing aspect to the statues standing sentry. Mordecai kept her hands clasped at her waist, her skeletal fingers peeking from a dark shroud. She looked like an apostle of Death, the navy of her robes rendered black in the poor light. Winter had thinned her face to gauntness, features composed into a piercing mask. She felt eager and cautious at once, waiting. A thousand questions threaded her mind, ensnared her curiosity.

    The gates swung open at the touch of her cowled servants. As the carriage rumbled inside, more drifted to meet him, clustering in the courtyard. Their robes made no noise as they turned to face her, silhouetted by the torchlight.

    “Welcome, Father Jollenbeck,” she called in greeting, taking a few purposeful steps. Mordecai halted, her dark eyes lifting to fix on the sagging little man exiting the carriage. He was… less impressive in stature than she had imagined. How odd, to finally see the hand that held sway over the peasantry, the fingers that wrote such moving words. Then, to be such a man, the body did not have to be strong—only the mind. “I have eagerly anticipated your arrival. Come inside—formal introductions can wait until we are besides a fire. My servants will attend to your horse and carriage.” The sorceress nodded, and the cowled figures stirred to life, swaddled hands reaching for the reins. The beast gave a terrified whinny, eyes rolling, and recoiled, hooves churning the mud.
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    Hiram Jollenbeck
    Member Avatar
    ...Even to wear such knowledge--for our flesh/ surrounds us with its own decisions--/ and yet spend all our lives on imprecisions,/ that when we start to die/ have no idea why.

    Hiram clambered out, full of jittering expectation; his hands tangled with Brother Julius’, seeking clammy purchase as the young attendant helped him out of the carriage. The turf was hard and uneven under his feet and his legs wobbled, made custard after the long sitting voyage. Sucking in a mouthful of the chill, tainted air, he looked about him, fist balled in the cloth of the young monk’s habit. Impressions danced about him, jumbled, both from the young man and the broken battlements--

    Blood. Much blood.

    His nostrils flared. It was a killing ground, a wretched place – reminded him of old days in Angkar, the aura of the place of a sudden overwhelming, like the scent of something rancid, something... – Bloody bandages, moaning women, sharp voices and sweating brows. Plagued villages were like battlefields, if you got enough swaggering fops together, thrusting blades and codpieces, plucking women from their homes. Things on fire, things on fire. There was always smoke, whirling up into the air, and the sound of people making their families ashamed.

    Battlefields didn’t smell like steel or Vespasian’s glory; places like the Asenath estate were the truest evidence. Battlefields smelled like pillage. Like shit and old meat and dying breath.

    And that was the reek that rose from the bones of the place – Julius, youthful under his clutching hands, knew nothing of it. Servants... inhuman-- It was not the place itself, aside from modern man’s fear of the ancient brooding castle, that troubled him. There was mysticism in the way that the wind tugged the servants’ robes, howled about and stirred their hoods. Where are the faces? asked Julius’ trembling lips. What are they?

    Clutching his hat to his tousled hair, Father Jollenbeck dared a few looks at them, their presence a void of all mortal queues. He could not begin to read them, and he imagined that if he touched their brittle bodies, each in turn, he would feel only dull material powered by some unholy crackling. But he let his fingertips brush the back of Brother Julius’ head, pat his scalp lovingly. “We walk with the One,” he whispered to the boy. “They cannot hurt us.”

    Then he saw her standing there, still and gaunt: For a moment he nearly mistook her for Death.

    A shy curve of a smile whipped across his face, bringing color to his cheeks. Like flint, the eyes glinted -- he met her gaze briefly, boldly, then a sudden anxious sheepishness tore them away to linger on the spidery shapes of her hands. The Lady Asenath? I did not know Mordecai had-- a wife. Or a daughter, perhaps? Something told the theologian otherwise, his sharp nose twitching. A... stewardess? Something dark in her robes.

    “Greetings! Vespasian bless thee!” But he feared the gale had eaten his quiet voice.

    The young attendant jumped as the servants moved, startled by the horses’ sudden frenzy. Father Jollenbeck clapped him on the back once, then broke away, leaving the monkish underling to trail behind him. Winter ruffled their robes like wartime banners as they struggled closer to the great doors, Brother Julius gasping as his scarf nearly came unraveled. Closer and closer grew the apparition, the woman in black, her leer familiar from some half-remembered nightmare. Sneering voices from deadened parts of his mind seeming to chase the hems of her robes.

    “Greetings,” he repeated, reaching her side. “I thank the Lord Asenath for his hospitality, and you for the... prompt welcome.” He reached through the storm to place one hand on her arm, fatherly, pressing fingers to cloth to bony flesh beneath – only for a short time, for his hand jerked back as if stung, frozen fingertips reeling and twitching from the connection.

    The underworld could not have felt thusly. Something-- screamed beneath. Red like a gaping wound. For a moment, all he could see was crimson: Blotching and pooling. Familiar--

    Is this the Lord Asenath? This woman, a feudal lord of Morrim? Surely not. What is... so strange about her? What is this feeling?

    He tucked his hand in his robes, dipped his head; though his eyes burned with intrigue, he dared not look her in the eye again. The same warm, priestly smile touched his face again, drawing up his pinched, reddened cheeks as he stirred to move after her.

    “I should be glad to get inside, Lady. It has been a long journey; this weak mortal longs to sit, though Vespasian has kept him up well on his way.”
    Edited by Hiram Jollenbeck, Mar 18 2015, 11:35 AM.
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    Mordecai
    Member Avatar
    What is to give light must endure burning.

    [apologies in advance. wrote this while mildly drunk. |D]

    “Vespasian bless thee.” A response like an echo off the walls of a church. Long ago, she had observed while her father met with theologians and priests of the new way. Their conversations had sounded so strange, rehearsed, like battle in the ritual banter, the careful parrying of verses.

    Vespasian be with you.

    And also with you, Father.

    In the name of the One and his spirit…


    Hands fluttering across robes, chasing their demons as one would shoo an insect. She always found them interesting, those desperate little prayers, the rites of kneeling and repetition. In the new way, one always knew what to do to win divine favor. Priests writ prescriptions for every sin.

    She scanned him as he struggled against the snapping wind, a tottering, swaddled thing, so frail. When at last he reached her side, she had to crane her head to look down at him. Through the drizzle of rain she made out a weak dribble of cheeks, sleepless darkness under his brow—wondered what sort of thoughts hounded his nights, eager to get a better look by the fire. Her fingers felt like red, raw chunks of ice, going numb in the chill air.

    I thank the Lord Asenath… She stiffened imperceptibly. Ah, but it still rankled. Even after years of patient correction, always — she lived in the shadows cast by men, their paper crowns throwing long reaches. And you. Appended like an afterthought. His spindly fingers reached, twitched, suddenly present and unwanted on her arm. The suddenness of human touch startled her, as if maggots swarmed the length of his palm. In response the Arcana lurched, marks crackling down her skin— her very blood responded, flesh tight as if sunburnt, forearm itching. And away—! He recoiled as if burnt, gaze scattered.

    For a moment her eyes were luminous. A shadow rolled over her features, lived a moment in the tightness of her lips and flinty eyes before it slunk away.

    “I am no Lord, Father Jollenbeck.” Her toned brooked the generosity of a miser, thumbing out just enough to tolerate one mistake. She did not hate ignorance itself — ignorance could be rectified, made right with a few words. It was insolence that curled her lip, stirred hollow disappointment, and she would wait to see if Jollenbeck proved himself the latter. Mistake or not, the man had caught her eye as an oddity, an aberration. She’d read his curious insights into Vespasian, his claims of fever dreams and angels bearing prophecy on flame-tipped wings. Whispers of reform. Morrim turning another leaf, stirring like the back of a roused beast.

    The Arcana responded to him. He has drawn its eye.

    So he was no false prophet, perhaps. Her heart quickened.

    “I welcome thee with open arms. It is fell weather that has beset us. Then, winter does not go gently in the Do’Suul. The servants have mulled wine, if you care for something to warm your bones.” Once inside, she lowered her shawl. It pooled at her chin, revealing a face made of hard angles and flint, shivering with a black crop of hair. She led him through the hall, their footsteps swallowed by the great anteroom. Generations of Asenaths surveyed them blankly, their lips carved in contemplation, granite eyes fixed sightlessly on the beyond. Flames licked like an apparition, jumping in the confines of their hearth.

    Mordecai spread her hands, thawing them by the skittering dance of the fire. A great many chairs surrounded it, sprouting as odd luxuries in the starkness. Servants materialized from the gloom, bearing tankards. One hovered by the priest, cowled head shivering into darkness. The other proffered a second mug to his understudy, equally shy in manner.

    To show she meant no ill, Mordecai took one, fingers wrapping around the warm belly of the mug. She lifted it to her lips, drawing in the tang of cinnamon and apple— a rare treat, all-told, boiled specially for company. When she lowered it, some of the iciness thawed from her impassive face, shied at humanity.

    “Welcome, Father Jollenbeck. I am Mordecai of Asenath, third of my name and heir of these lands, bearer of the Old Way. I am gladdened to see the face behind the pen, at last.” She inclined her head, bangs falling in turn. The spiders of her hands sought each other, set the mug down upon the table. “I admire your works, Father. They are a breath of air in the mire of false idols and black arts.” She paused, looking to him, drawing a silent breath.

    “I have called upon thee because I see the hand of the Old Way in your writing. We share many visions of Vespasian, of the nature of divinity. Morrim lies in crisis—she is wounded, and the treatment of her people shall either heal or turn gangrenous. The priests of Filie and Malarian dither. They are buboes in the disease that rooted through the Empire, turned them from a single god.” She watched, a black hawk, her eyes flint. “My family has kept the Old Way alive, stayed faithful to the One. And yet my bloodline has thinned, grown weak. No heirs remain to me, no sons or daughters to pass the mantle.” Bitter truth, caustic, biting the tongue. Why, she sat in her own sepulcher, dined and slept in her eventual catacombs. “Therefore… I seek your guidance, Father. You have influence where I do not. For the truths of the One to die with me would be criminal. And to live on in history under the accusation of occultist is a snub to the Asenaths. We, the divine’s faithful servants, have been spurned by priests of the new way, condemned unfairly.”

    Indeed, the very people who tilled her lands looked to her in fright — shrunk from her blackened battlements, spread whispers of the demon atop the mountain. If she was ever to win favor, then she could not go on in such a manner. And the man that sat before her had the means to shift the peasantry, to put her in good favor among the smallfolk and zealous lords. She smelled revolution. Impending blood on the air. This new philosophy had taken the people of Morrim like fire, and it was always the heads of heathens that ended up on the chopping block.

    Slowly, she extended a hand, palm open. The Arcana gleamed in her flesh, runes flitting and arcing, chasing each other through the lines of her hand. Ancient words. Holy words. A warm, velvet murmur spilt off her lips, disarmingly human in such a cold face.

    “I only wish to make peace.”

    She was no heathen.
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    Hiram Jollenbeck
    Member Avatar
    ...Even to wear such knowledge--for our flesh/ surrounds us with its own decisions--/ and yet spend all our lives on imprecisions,/ that when we start to die/ have no idea why.

    And like that he was certain, a grim smile replacing his look of trepidation as he followed after her. How was he to correct the mistake? He had felt whatever stirred beneath her robes, a power the like of which he had never dreamt he would greet before Vespasian welcomed him in death. This was the Mordecai of Asenath of their exchanged writing, the 'man' he had found so intriguing and worthy of respect. He was silent as they shuffled in, thoughtful, listening to the velvety voice drone on.

    If he had ever thought to picture Mordecai as a woman, it would have been the woman before him – this, at least, was certain. She was an apparition whom he could picture in armor, mounted on a black horse and followed by a standard-bearer, and her close-cut hair might have looked more appropriate on a general than some soft nobleman's wife. Though he could only bear to steal snatches of glances at her face – chill and white, a framework of skin and bone like a gaunt porcelain mask, perhaps the only betrayal of life her full lips – her eyes were fixed in his mind, dull and solemn but lambent in a flash.

    Bishop's wine, he thought, recalling his mother's colloquialism, smiling. A charming coincidence?

    At the mention of 'servants', Brother Julius looked as if he tottered on the precipice of sticking his foot most disastrously in his mouth; at the sound of him wetting his lips, Hiram laughed softly and put a bony hand on his shoulder.

    Faces – staring faces – demons --

    Oh, boy, he wanted to cry – hush your mad, stumbling mind! He could not touch the child without feeling a rush of fear, a flurry of heartbeats like footsteps down a long and empty hall somewhere far away. He could see now, with a sidelong look, the sweat that plastered the boy's curly hair to his brow, the way his lips wriggled and wrinkled under his gnawing teeth. Brother Julius, a Sotoan immigrant, had evidently never paid any visits to the old aristocracy of Morrim. Otherwise, Father Jollenbeck wagered, he might have been finding this less... traumatic.

    Old aristocrats are proud of their heritage, thought Hiram absently, surveying the walls of the great anteroom. Young Julius would not understand. A muscle in his cheek twitched. Even low-class landowners like Abel Jollenbeck filled their halls with busts and commissioned paintings of themselves, their wives, their children; the children of those children's children would wander corridors full of unfamiliar faces, though they would feel the weight of expectation in their ancestors' stares.

    Hiram was quick to honor the quiet servant's offer and claim a seat, delighted at the sight of the cozy fire. In his hands, the mug radiated warmth. Julius hung back, spooked at first by the servant; the scent of rich delicacy overcame his fear, however, and he tentatively took a mug for himself, offering the servant a shy quirk of the lips and murmuring thanks.

    “Oh, gracious. Yes.” At the introduction, Jollenbeck blushed again. “Forgive a doddering fool, confused by something so simple and neutral as a name; clearly I am more a man of letters than of people. I am sorry.” He smiled, settling back into his seat and bringing the mulled wine to his lips; the warmth and spice seemed to splash some feeling back into his frozen, tired joints, as if he were a dying god given ambrosia. “It is certainly a pleasure finally to see your face, Lady Asenath. Though our correspondence was but brief, I was most curious about the visage and carriage of Mordecai III of Asenath – learning is ever mankind's salvation, and I am pleased to have learned.”

    Then, for a time, he listened to her go on, distracted by the crackling of the hearth and Julius' nerves.

    The Old Way... the One.

    The words chilled him, and he felt Julius' stringent mind soon blur into awestruck quietness. Indeed, thought the theologian, indeed the Asenath family was old. Her talk of the Old Way and the New Way scuttled chills into his bones; the sense of ancient loyalty, belief-before-philosophy, the act of witnessing a god Himself purer than listening to a thousand seminars in Kinaldi... The words – the culture that rose behind them like a ghost at sea – were powerful and sent ripples of excitement and anxiety through him, his stomach making delicate noises of protest. Hush. I have no time for your stress, insufferable belly mine.

    The mug was halfway to his mouth again when she extended her hand; it stopped there, his eyes widening, whites glistening in the shadow of his brow. Seemingly without his permission, his fur-robed tush had maneuvered itself to the edge of his seat. He nursed the mug of wine in his lap, the scent of cloves billowing up about his reddened cheeks.

    I see the hand of the Old Way in your writing.

    That power he had sensed, and now the shifting, aggrieved flesh – could it be...?

    He dared to meet her eye once, his own sharp, questioning. As he settled back into his seat once more, his eyes returned to the runes on her hand, an image so surreal that he expected it to vanish under true intellectual consideration.

    “You have made your peace with me, at least,” he murmured, scratching at his weak, stubbly chin, “though the minds of the masses are... all too easily frightened by unfamiliarity. Few people understand...” His mouth felt dry of a sudden; he took another sip, feeling a dull tingle in his cheeks. “Few people understand – the nature of Him, the Divine, our Lord. I am not altogether certain that I understand His workings, though in my heart of hearts, I believe that He has visited me and told me of His plans. When I write, I think that it is best not to frighten people; they have gone long enough feeling separate from their god, forced to plead into the darkness through a hundred saints and Faces and middle-men. In frightening political climates, I think words of a human utopia – of humbleness and virtue under one beloved god, with whom we all can speak, if we truly believe – are more welcome than what is perhaps... closer to the truth.”

    “Father?” Brother Julius' voice was small.

    “Mordecai of Asenath,” began Hiram with a feline quirk of a smile, “who is the One to you? I know very little of the Old Way. I would feel blessed to know more, though I cannot promise that the rabble will ever do aught but shun what seems different from them. All we can do is seek the truth, and hope that that, in the end, is enough.”
    Edited by Hiram Jollenbeck, Mar 21 2015, 02:56 PM.
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