Lexicon/FugaziJyhad
The Fugazi Jihad
Bal Terin, Most Meritorious Archivist of the Society of Obfuscated Antiquity writes:
The time in which the Fugazi Jihad took place was most interesting and chaotic, yet many of its finer details are lost to us in this time. The exact cause of this Jihad is unknown, however we do know from the few records on this account who the participants were and how the Jihad ended. We draw what we do know from surviving records of the Solar Deliberative and personal letters between those directly touched by the Jihad.
While it is unknown who first declared Jihad, the primary participants consisted of a Solar Exalted by the Name of “Glorious Sun Blade”, his mortal and god-blooded followers and his Fire Elemental Allies. The other participant was an Ancient Lunar “Six Claws Striding” and her fanatically loyal company of Dragon-blooded.
It is said that Six Claws Striding was from a small village in the far east prior to the War against the Primordials. Evidence shows that her Exaltation and the harrowing experience of living through and seeing all the monstrosities of the war forged her into a terrible and unfeeling weapon of war. The Dragon-Blooded of Six Claws Striding’s company remember the brilliant tactics and maneuvers that she developed for the War against the Primordials. They looked to her as a paragon of military strength, cunning and planning. In their eyes she alone was responsible for their surviving the war, and many pledged their lives in service to her. In this day, Six Claws Striding’s only lasting legacy is the battle art called Gathering Storm Assault. Through this, her men rarely knew defeat on the field of battle.
It is believed from the surviving records of the Solar Deliberative that Glorious Sun Blade was of the Zenith Caste, and dwelled in the Southwest, near the Principality of Namarath. While it is unknown how Glorious Sun Blade became so fiercely befriended by the Fire Elementals of the area, it’s a fact that cannot be disputed. Most noteworthy of all of these allies was the Lesser Elemental Dragon of Fire, Swan Dragon, who later became the “Censor of the South Direction” and leader of the semi-legal organization “Court of the Orderly Flame”.
While the Lace and Paper War is considered to be testament of true horror in the annuals of Exalted history for its use of Soul Bells, it was surprisingly polite, with little bloodshed among common people; the main antagonists of the war solely targeted each other in elegant and ritualized forms of assassination.
The Fugazi Jihad was, in comparison, a sloppy, bloody, savage affair. The tactics used seem to suggest that the targets of most attacks were not the leaders of either faction as much as they were the followers of either movement. The two factions tore through the entirety of the Southwest, with whole cities falling under the sword of either faction. In truth many of the documented dead can not be said to have followed either Glorious Sun Blade or Six Claws Striding, yet their deaths remain. The motives of the Jihad seemed to be as mysterious to most common folk and savants of the time as it is to our most learned historians.
At the end of the 75-year Jihad, the Solar Deliberative took actions to put the war to a rest. However Glorious Sun Blade fell before Royal Legions could intervene. The last great battle of the Jihad ended in the destruction of Glorious Sun Blade on a lonely mountain not far from the southern coast of the inner sea. On this mountain he was entombed and his followers erected a monument unlike any other, carving the mountain into his likeness in a posture of supplication. Six Claws Striding died 23 years later, after traveling to the mountain in mute respect. In the end she never spoke of the Jihad other then to refer to is as “The Folly of Fugazi”. Who or what “Fugazi” is or was is unknown. Solar Deliberative decrees however refer to the war as “The Fugazi Jihad” prior to any recorded instance of Six Claws Striding referring to it as “The Folly of Fugazi”
