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| − | * - Back to [[GoldenCat/DanceOfAngels|A Dance of Angels]]
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| − | = The Fanatics =
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| − | Of all the Deathlords, unquestioned movers and shakers of the Underworld, the Bishop of Chalcedony Thurible is certainly the most insane. Half the time, he believes he is a Malfean, and forgets those above him. The rest of it he lets the writings of his own believers shape his vision of himself. Those who see his true form, see that the Bishop might very well be the closest to the Malfeans, at least in sheer inhumanity – the form of his mind is only remotely human, and only the presence of sexual organs still show any human need or concern in his horrid form.
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| − | And yet, while he spends all his time in the depths of his citatel waiting for the world to end for him and rambling insanely, his forces prosper. His religion goes to the depths of the north, and he is worshipped to an extent on almost every shadowland of the north.
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| − | Somehow, the Church of the Shining One increases as it can, a few regions concentrating it in a juggernaut of monastic orders, into a armies full of religious fervor. Somehow, without going out of his citatel, in a state of perpetual madness, his influences continues to increase.
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| − | Some whisper it is the influence of Ten Thousand Virtues, the elusive and intimidating Sidereal Exalted who acts as the Bishop’s majordomo, personally training his generals and deathknights. Others see the fever with which his generals, powerful ghosts and dragons, work for his cause... those who saw epiphanies within the Hidden Tabernacle, and now run their absent lord’s juggernaut.
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| − | == Spreading like a disease ==
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| − | Soon after the contagion, the Bishop walked on Creation... and the mere sight of him generated epiphanies. Too smitten to realise most of what he was spouting was self-centered gibberish, they followed him in his ‘pilgrimage’, actually a sight-seeing, and, under the guindance of Ten Thousand Virtues, spread his word. The Ashen Book was written then, his first bible, and it was followed throughout the shadowlands of the north, and even the places outside of it... offering a promise of eternal life many found more tempting than the Immaculate One, and present everywhere the dead wanted an excuse to receive control and respect of the living...
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| − | The Hidden Tabernacle became a place of pilgrimage, and the mountain ranges of the Northwest soon came all under the control of his religion – ruling not in name, but having much more power than the rules if they so cared to exercise it. It was just another religion among many, when it begun to grow too much in power.
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| − | Until the Shining Arbiters came on the Northwest. The Shining One’s Inquisitors. An order of humans and ghost-blooded, burning all those who worshipped ‘lesser gods’. The greatest among them, usually old ghosts with converted Dragon-Bloods as their ‘dogs’, with the blessing of their lord, destroyed the local gods, or, with greater help, even subdued them.
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| − | The Arbiters tried to expand their inquisition past the Alpine ranges where they are protected, but their tries were broken by the Realm and the local gods. They shied away, unable to enforce their will to the rest of the north, but not loosing territory – any prosecution against them on the Shadowlands creating only martyrs, giving more to the ranks of undeath...
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| − | == The Religion ==
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| − | The Cult is quite simple, even with the additions of all the stories around it.
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| − | Basically, it boils down to the fact the Underworld is definitive and supreme. Undeath is a state of catharsys, and the mouth of Oblivion is so called because humanity is uncapable of understanding the true greatness of the state that comes after it. The Mouth is existence, true existence as it is meant to be – living as your soul, with no constraints of age or gender, forever in the shape one so desires. One can be anything in the Underworld, tio live aeons aeons as an exalted immortal.
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| − | Heaven is the enemy, and the immaculate faith a pack of half-truths – ‘reincarnation’ exists, but it is not dead. It is nonexistance. It is your energy without your will, without your existence. Not better than if one was to be sucked dry by the Raksha. Heaven takes the soul forcefully out of the body, and in its infernal engines purges the soul of everything human, of life, emotions, feeling and experience, taking the tissue apart so it can be rewoven in another suit of cloth. It is death for the individual, and simple currency for heaven.
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| − | The Underworld is a perfect existance, but like the man who lives on the plant that grows, and the plant that lives on soil, that lives on the worms... the Underworld needs the living world as the lower part, the base of its existence. Toil to mantain paradise, and join it with the honors of godhood for all your years of toil... it is a good enough promise. More tangible and palpable than the uncertainty of reincarnation, mantaining the knowledge of self – and, in the Shadowlands, seeing the proofs of that, who speak so sweetly of undeath...
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| − | The Dragon-Blood and the Exalted are servants of heaven, but those chosen can also become the greatest agents of death, if they forsake heaven and repent for their sins, eternity shall be theirs as well, and sweet death in existance their gift. The Dragon-Blooded need to be specially marked, as they are agents of nature and life, and thus must be properly given to death.... marked with a necromantic scar on their forehead, as consecrated servants of the Shining One – a mark that tends to stay the hand of any dynast wanting to infiltrate the cult.
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| − | == The Bloody Crusade ==
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| − | During the reign of the Scarlett Empress, the church did much, but nothing truly overt to the world. They trained several militant orders, some of which were cannibalized in religious disputes over this or that passage of the Ashen Book. The greater lords did little to avert it – natural selection left the surviving orders even stronger.
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| − | It was during those centuries that a former Labyrinthine, Saint Vicious, rose to power on the church, up to having the ear of Ten Thousand Virtues himself. A Dragon-Blooded ghost from the time of the Shogunate, who became a labyrinthine, a Disciple of the Abyss. Shortly after the Contagion, he met the Bishop of Chalcedony Thurible in his walks... and had an epiphany, becoming one of his loyal followers. He became a missionary then, and on the East, bested a champion of the Dowager and took its blade, Sorrowful Dreamer’s Demise. With its help, and the terrifying ability to return to his former exalted glory while riding the body of a Dragon-Blooded, with the charms he had in life and the potent martial arts his Sidereal master had taught him, he became a force to be reckned.
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| − | The prototype of what is now the Dead Hand was formed to hunt down vessels for Vicious, and in the proccess managed to convert quite a few outcastes to his army – most notably Sizard the Mountain, an enforcer for the syndics of Whitewall, and White Fang, admiral of the White Sea.
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| − | With them, he made an army on the mountains, both the snowy ones on Creation, and the jagged, razor-sharp ones on the Underworld. On the Underworld, he lifted high the banner of the Thurible and swept through the north, a scourge drawing all to the worship of the Shining One. He took the shadowed north, stopping only close to the Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tear’s territory, Sorrowful Dreamer’s Demise clashing with Soul Mirror.
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| − | Fifty-nine years ago, Vicious tried to lead his crusades into Creation... and despite a great early success, taking out almost all of the Northwest, spreading like the wildfire on the Imperial North as the Realm worried about a the Bloody Scythes revolt within its own borders, almost taking over the cadet branches and slaying one of the Syndics in an attempt to spread terror and destruction within Whitewall, he was beaten back in a crushing defeat that was doom to him and death to his lieutenants...
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| − | But to this day, all the regions that still worship the Bishop hold him as one of their greatest martyrs, and as the greatest of their examples. Every time a country that believes on the Bishop goes to war, they call his name and raise his banner. And the Dead Hand, among other orders, were founded on his example... on an example of how far one can go. And they wait the moment to do it again, successfully this time.
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| − | A moment that seems to finally have come.
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| − | === '''[[GoldenCat/BishopsZealots|The Zealots]]''' ===
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| − | The Forces of the new Crusade...
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| − | == Resources ==
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| − | === '''The Religion''' ===
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| − | The Church of the Bishop of the Chalcedony Thurible is the greatest death-cult in Creation, holding tight sway over much of the Northwest. More and more, they win land by the sheer blind belief of the followers, by the presence the Bishop has over his flock even at adistance, even on the minds of those that have never seen him. To hear of the Bishop is to behold the resplendence of the Lord in Death. Although it possesses so many followers, it has little in the way of formal military training, although it does possesses thousands of ready martyrs. Despite this, it does posses a near-endless human potential, which can be used and abused by his greater eschelons. If even one in ten thousand excels, they have scores of excellence. If one in twenty thousand survives the procedures of a given experiment, they still retain scores of successful ones. This unique situation allows for sizable numbers in their army, for sizable numbers even in fanatic monkish orders, which are exploited in their religious orders... ruthlessly.
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| − | They lack not for Ghost-Blooded, and they are taken as sacred, a life that invariably leads to immortality, and the greatest of them serve into even more ruthless experiments, or are thrown in the way of Necromancy - and each and every one of them who can raise their essence so far is given the title of Priest, and is expected to work his magics full time in furthering the powers of their Ghosts, and creating necromantic wonders. The ghosts, moliated, changed by Necromancy, are also used in the ranks of elite Orders, which posses usually less than a hundred individuals, but each and every one a match for a fledging terrestrial.
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| − | This systematic, ruthless abuse of their sea of followers bring great benefits...
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| − | === '''[[Necromancy/GoldenCat|Ebony Illumination]]''' ===
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| − | Higher Necromancy, the touch of the Void, can change ghosts. They can be made to feel like the living, or be changed like clay statues to possess superhuman capacities. At its greatest, it can even make ghosts into something... else. The Bishop claims the Creation of this technique, but as it has been spread throughout the Deathlords, some of which claim the same, it is impossible to know which has the truth of this.
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| − | === '''Martial Arts''' ===
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| − | Ten Thousand Virtues is a Sidereal Exalted, able to create Martial Arts and initiations for the same with incredible ease, and to tutor them with great mastery. He trains many of the Bishop's Deathknights in their ways, as well as Dragon-Blooded, knowing how the Immaculates train them, but going more for more physical initiations - they have ghosts at their side to deal with gods. Almost all of the Dragonblooded who give true commitment to the Church, instead as to one of its Deathknights, has to go through the grueling tutelage of the Sidereal master. And even a few ghosts, Illuminnated twisted by the whispers of the Malfeans in the depths of the Labyrinth, are able to draw into this stage of power - those very, very few become some of the greatest champions of the Crusade...
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| − | :'''Ten Thousand Virtues - Sifu *****'''<br>'''Celestial Martial Arts''' [[MartialArts/ArgentScorpionOfOppositionStyle|Argent Scorpion]], [[MartialArts/CrimsonTempleStyle|Crimson Temple]], [[MartialArts/ForsakenHopeStyle|Forsaken Hope]], [[MartialArts/GravenButterflyStyle|Graven Butterfly]], [[MartialArts/HouseOfEndingsStyle|House of Endings]], [[MartialArts/VermillionSpiderStyle|Vermillion Spider]]<br>'''Sidereal Martial Arts''' Ashen Calendar of Setesh, [[PassengerPigeon/CinereousFlockofRaptorsStyle|Cinereous Flock of Raptors]], Charcoal March of Spiders.<br>'''Initiations''' Spider-and-Serpent, Iris Bulb Understanding of Secular and Profane Brokerage.
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| − | :The creator of both Ashen Calendar of Setesh and Forsaken Hope styles, Ten Thousand Virtues teaches his charms to those who receive the Ebony Illumination, who return from the Labyrinth perfected in the way of the Lotus and for many of the Dragon-Blooded who join the religion.<br><Br>More complete Arts, he teaches Argent Scorpion of Opposition for Ghosts more often than not, or Graven Butterfly for those who are to be spirit-killers. Vermillion Spider and Crimson Temple are choices for most Terrestrials(Air and Water Aspects, respectively, especially) as well as Forsaken Hope, with House of Endings, a more offensive style, as a complimentary second choice for those who have walked the path of the whole of a Martial Art. Spider-and-Serpent is his version of the Tiger-and-Bear initiation, taught to those who will not likely fight Gods, but powerful material creatures instead.
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| − | :The Five Immaculate Styles are taken as heretical, part of the teachings that glorify life and the elements of Creation. Only those converts from the Immaculate Order possess them. There are many of Terrestrial Styles, most of them beneath the attention of Ten Thousand Virtues, practiced by Ghosts, dark divinities and Terrestrials in the church. Some of those are similar to those practiced in Creation. The '''Four Monarchs Fight As One''' style is very similar to the '''Five Dragons Fight As One''' so common in the Realm, but hails from Stygia, and asks for no Elemental Surcharge for creatures of the Underworld. The '''Infinite Chalcedony Shards''' is very similar to the '''[[MartialArts/VerdantSolarPrismStyle|Verdant Solar Prism Style]]''', but with the appearance of gemstones shining with the dark light of the Underworld.
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| − | === '''Necromantic Weapons''' ===
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| − | Every Deathlord has a different approach to the use of Necromancy. From the Mask of Winter's complex devices and weapons to the First of Forsaken Lion's grand fleets, passing through the Dowager's undead beasts and the Lover's languid diplomats and assassins, each and every one has its particular style. The Bishop's style is religion. Its weapons tend to be made out of believers or heretics, and used mostly to break morale and faith of others, channeled in imageries that resonate with the church, such as...
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| − | :''Cherubim'' are a weapon created for the warfare in Winlandia - the corpses of babies, outfitted with claws, teeth and wings of metal, meant to swarm over individuals, clawing off their skins while repeating a single chant - 'mother'. Winlandia possess more female heroes in its history than male ones, and more than the usual share in its armies - and the Cherubim are made to exploit exactly that.
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| − | :''Seraphim'' are a weapon created to exploit the compassion of those who do not understand Void's ultimate bliss. The souls of seven choir boys, moliated together into a single angelic form with seven mouths over a week of torture, the Seraphim sings of their pain, and those who listen and care are moved by it, sorrow filling their hearts... callous individuals are, however, able to resist, and those who use Compassion in the way of the Abyssals are immune to the song, however, as they can feel that the boys burn their souls in it, and are simply walking towards the Void.
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| − | :''Leviathan'' are similiar, greater versions of the Seraphim - the bones of a great whale of the White Sea, everywhere its skin should be patched with the souls of heretics, singing similar songs to the Seraphim. They are weaker in effect, but their range is far greater, and the singing itself is enough to make the ghost-whale fly. It is used in wars, where one has to demoralize a whole city, or have the war machine resist to heavy sorcery.
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| − | * - Back to [[GoldenCat/DanceOfAngels|A Dance of Angels]]
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