mythology

====== The Holy Fist of Hlark ====== The Qa­trun and their re­li­gion are syn­ony­mous. One does not ex­ist with­out than the oth­er. Like­wise the na­tion of Fist is not sep­a­ra­ble from the re­li­gion of its in­hab­i­tants. A few oth­er peo­ples, no­tably Babrem no­mad­s, have em­braced Hlark and they are wel­come. But wor­ship of Hlark out­side of Fist con­trolled ter­ri­to­ry is non-ex­is­ten­t.

The Mukhtar(“the cho­sen” in Qadir) as the fol­low­ers of Hlark call them­selves are ar­dent­ly monothe­is­tic. They know their god is the on­ly true god. All oth­ers are just pow­er­ful be­ings, myth­s, or fraud­s. Their faith is ab­so­lute and im­pacts vir­tu­al­ly ev­ery as­pect of their cul­ture.

As their name im­plies they have been cho­sen by Hlark for a spe­cif­ic pur­pose. That pur­pose is to fight the #Old En­e­my in a great bat­tle to come. This dom­i­nates ev­ery as­pect of their lives. The na­tion & peo­ple ex­ist for one pur­pose pre­pare for war. Their so­ci­ety is built around strength, mil­i­tan­cy, and un­wa­ver­ing faith.

They are not over­ly con­cerned with pros­e­ly­tiz­ing or oblit­er­at­ing oth­er re­li­gion­s. They do not how­ev­er tol­er­ate any­thing oth­er than com­plete be­lief and or­tho­doxy with­in their ter­ri­to­ry. Nor do they, de­spite their im­pres­sive mil­i­tary, trou­ble oth­er na­tions much (although if oth­er means fail they will take the land and re­sources they need to prop­er­ly pre­pare for the #Great Bat­tle). For it is a sin to weak­en your­self fight­ing pet­ty bat­tles when you should be pre­par­ing to com­bat The #Old En­e­my.

“Fist” rep­re­sents the might of Hlark and his cho­sen Mukhtar that will oblit­er­ate all that is ab­hor­rent to his eye­s.

===== Ori­gins ===== Hlark does not waste time with point­less sto­ries of how things came to be. It is enough to know that Mukhtar ex­ist and that they ex­ist for a spe­cif­ic di­vine pur­pose.

==== Stat­ue of Light ==== {D­M}(holo­gram of prime god left over from pre-breach times){DM END} Around 900 years ago the an­ces­tors of the Qa­trun were cho­sen and made to find an an­cient ru­in with­in which resid­ed the glow­ing avatar of Hlark. For one hun­dred years the in­fi­nite glo­ry of Hlark was re­vealed to them.

It spoke of the #Old En­e­my, the #Great Bat­tle to come, and the Mukhtar’s spe­cial role, as the army of Hlark, in this con­flic­t. It al­so taught prim­i­tive Qa­truns the se­crets of civ­i­liza­tion. Agri­cul­ture, met­al­lur­gy, ar­chi­tec­ture, sci­ence, medicine, law, di­vine mag­ic, and above all all man­ner of war­craft.

When it had taught them all that they need­ed to know the Stat­ue of Light grew dim and Hlark’s avatar left nev­er to re­turn. Its fi­nal words were “Pre­pare, be ready.” Since then that is ex­act­ly what the Qa­trun have done.

The ru­in, Kazerun, in which this oc­curred is now the holi­est site. Pil­grims can still see the pedestal above which the stat­ue float­ed.

=== Word of Hlark === This is the holy text of Mukhtar. Tran­scribed by the first Mukhtar di­rect­ly from the #S­tat­ue of Light. It is the to­tal sum of knowl­edge pro­vid­ed by Hlark. Not a sin­gle book, but many, many vol­umes or­ga­nized much like an en­cy­clo­pe­di­a.

==== Old En­e­my ==== The un­known, but ter­ri­ble and evil ad­ver­sary the Mukhtar will one day con­front in the #Great Bat­tle. Noth­ing has been re­vealed by Hlark about the na­ture or iden­ti­ty of this en­e­my. He has on­ly said to be vili­gent and pre­pare, that when the en­e­my re­veals it­self all will know and trem­ble in hor­ror.

==== Great Bat­tle ==== The cli­mat­ic war spoke of of­ten by the #S­tat­ue of Light. It in­struct­ed the Mukhtar to pre­pare for this war and pro­vid­ed them the means to do so. It warned of­ten that the con­flict would be ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult and vic­to­ry was far from as­sured. But de­feat was cer­tain if the Mukhtar’s re­solve to win it fal­tered.

It is un­clear what will hap­pen af­ter this bat­tle, Hlark words on the mat­ter are vague. Some say the Mukhtar will join Hlark in ev­er­last­ing blis­s. Oth­ers be­lieve that our du­ty be­ing done, we will re­turn to wher­ev­er we came from or sim­ply cease to ex­ist.

=== Cru­sade against Kjore === Af­ter much div­ina­tion and study it re­mained in doubt whether Kjore was what they ap­peared to be, the #Old En­e­my. Those that clam­ored it was ob­vi­ous where chal­lenged by oth­ers say­ing it was a test of our pa­tience and re­solve to wait for the true en­e­my. Tem­ples and mar­kets both where filled with ar­gu­ments like “If they are and we don’t” or “If we do and they aren’t”

Even­tu­al­ly the cur­rent #Mouths of Hlark|­Mouth of Hlark de­cid­ed that the chance that Kjore is in fact the #Old En­e­my was too great to de­lay any longer. If Fist launched an at­tack and it turned out not to be the case Mukhtar would have to re­dou­ble their prepa­ra­tion ef­fort­s. On the oth­er hand not act­ing while the #Old En­e­my grew in pow­er risks com­plete fail­ure of du­ty and the ul­ti­mate sin, that of not join­ing the #Great Bat­tle.

So, in the year 7966(1022 P.) he de­clared a holy cru­sade against Kjore. Two years lat­er it is go­ing well but is far from over.

===== Re­li­gious Hi­er­ar­chy ===== Be­ing an ab­so­lute theoc­ra­cy the “gov­ern­men­t” of Fist and it’s re­li­gious hi­er­ar­chy are one and the same.

==== Mouths of Hlark ==== Are the rul­ing caste of cler­ic­s. Al­though oth­er class­es, esp pal­adin­s, have lead­er­ship roles cler­ics are the fi­nal ar­biter of Hlark’s law in Fist

The high­est priest(al­ways male`#1|(1)`) of Hlark has the ti­tle “Mouth of Hlark”. He is the word of god un­til such time as Hlark re­turns in per­son. The po­si­tion is pret­ty much for life but oc­ca­sion­al­ly one will re­tire. The Mouth is se­lect­ed usu­al­ly by omen or div­ina­tion and is typ­i­cal­ly the most ca­pa­ble and ap­pro­pri­ate per­son. Crony­is­m, pol­i­tic­s, and cor­rup­tion do not ex­ist at this lev­el of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

==== Fists of Hlark ==== The mil­i­tary arm of Fist. Com­prised of pal­adin­s, and oth­er war­riors. They are, of course, un­der di­rect con­trol of the cler­ic­s. But the cler­ics de­fer most mil­i­tary mat­ters to the Fist­s’ com­man­der­s. e.g. The Mouth of Hlark might de­clare a cru­sade. It will be left to Fists to fig­ure out how ex­act­ly to ex­e­cute it.

The high­est rank­ing Fist, al­ways a pal­ad­in, is called the “Right Hand of Hlark”.

==== Body of Hlark ==== The com­mon peo­ple of Fist. From crafts­men to mer­chants, farm­ers to sol­dier­s, All of the Mukhtar have a role to play in pre­par­ing for the #Great Bat­tle. The take their du­ty se­ri­ous­ly. Those who do not risk draw­ing the at­ten­tion of cler­ic­s, pal­adins and their more faith­ful neigh­bors.

==== Holy Or­ders ==== Many holy re­li­gious or­ders ex­ist. They are out­side/sep­a­rate from the caste sys­tem al­though some or­ders are ex­clude cer­tain castes.

Or­ders of­ten take the place of de­part­ments, mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties that ex­ist in oth­er forms of gov­ern­ments e.g. “En­forcers of Jus­tice” are po­lice/­judge/jury. Many are com­bat ori­ent­ed hav­ing been cre­at­ed for some spe­cif­ic de­fense rea­son or to hon­or a par­tic­u­lar bat­tle/­mar­tyr. Oth­ers are ded­i­cat­ed to a cer­tain cause “Sis­ters of Mer­cy” heal­ing.

Play­ers are wel­come to sug­gest new or­ders to the DM.

== En­forcers of Jus­tice Or­der == A large or­der that is re­spon­si­ble for law and or­der through­out Fist. They are the po­lice, pros­e­cu­tion, judge, and ju­ry. Al­though it is much fair­er than that sound­s. Be­ing reg­u­lat­ed by the #Word of Hlark.

== Sis­ters of Mer­cy == A holy or­der ded­i­cat­ed to heal­ing the sick and in­jured.

== Or­der of Flame == Pro­tec­tors of trav­el­ers and de­stroy­ers of un­dead.

== Re­tri­buners Or­der == Soli­tary hunters of those who have es­caped just pun­ish­men­t. They of­ten de­pict Hlark’s fist hold­ing a black bar.

== Rasha’s Light == Formed to hon­or the mar­tyr Rasha. Who seek­ing fur­ther avatars of Hlark en­tered an an­cient tomb. On­ly one of her par­ty re­turned. From his bro­ken mind cler­ics where able to ex­tract on­ly frag­ments of the hor­rors and abom­i­na­tions with­in. What was clear is that Rasha sac­ri­ficed her­self to oblit­er­ate the abom­i­na­tions with­in and cleanse the site of tain­t. To this day a pil­lar of puls­ing blue light reach­es from the tomb in­to the cloud­s.

== Wall of Hi­bena == A com­bat or­der based in the city of Hi­bena. The sto­ry goes ear­ly in its his­to­ry Hi­bena pri­or to com­plet­ing its de­fens­es was at­tacked by an evil necro­mancer lead­ing a huge Babrem horde of un­dead. Com­mon peo­ple stood shoul­der to shoul­der with pal­adins and oth­er sol­dier­s. Fill­ing the gap be­tween the un­fin­shed wall­s. Block­ing the un­dead hor­rors from ram­pag­ing through the city prop­er and ul­ti­mate­ly wrest­ing vic­to­ry from cer­tain doom.

===== Pan­theon ===== Al­though there is on­ly one god, Hlark, he has sev­er­al “aspect­s”. Mukhtar do not think of these as sep­a­rate in any fash­ion. Dif­fer­ent cler­ic­s, pal­adin­s, and peo­ple sim­ply choose to fo­cus on dif­fer­ent char­ac­ter­is­tics of Hlark’s glo­ry. There are di­vi­sions such as be­tween cler­ic­s(­mouth­s) and pal­adin­s(­fist­s) but not based on the as­pect one wor­ship­s. Noth­ing out­ward­ly dis­tin­guish­es a cler­ic of Hlark’s Faith As­pect from a cler­ic of his Pro­tec­tive As­pec­t. They will have dif­fer­ent “world views”, ap­proach prob­lems in dif­fer­ent­ly, etc. But they are all Mukhtar pre­par­ing for the #Great Bat­tle.

The as­pects are treat­ed as sep­a­rate gods on­ly for game me­chan­ic rea­son­s.

=== Com­mon El­e­ments === The mailed fist is the ubiq­ui­tous sym­bol of Hlark. It is of­ten de­pict­ed hold­ing things to de­note the na­ture of the bldg/per­son it is on. Such as Fal­chion for pal­adin train­ing com­pound, quill for a scribe, sprig of herbs for a hos­pi­tal.

Stat­ues, paint­ings, etc of Hlark are not made. Mukhtar fol­low his word not his like­ness. Fo­cus­ing on oth­er than his word is a se­ri­ous sin.

Prayers All Mukhtar pray reg­u­lar­ly. This is done in pri­vate or group­s. The nor­mal pro­ce­dure en­tails sup­pli­cat­ing one­self on a prayer mat while recit­ing re­li­gious vers­es. The melo­di­ous chants are quite po­et­ic and beau­ti­ful. They al­so typ­i­cal­ly face Kazerun.

Tem­ples Are large and ubiq­ui­tous. All gov­ern­ment and mil­i­tary buid­ings are tem­ples or part of tem­ple com­plex­es. In fact pri­vate homes and some busi­ness­es are some of the on­ly struc­tures not part of some tem­ple. Many tem­ples are elab­o­rate­ly dec­o­rat­ed with in­tri­cate pat­terns or vers­es from the #Word of Hlark. Oth­ers are plain and prac­ti­cal.

Rites Ev­ery as­pect of life in Fist is reg­u­lat­ed by the #Word of Hlark. Hlark has pro­vid­ed laws for most ev­ery sit­u­a­tion. No ma­jor and few mi­nor tasks are done with­out the ap­proval, in­struc­tion and su­per­vi­sion of a cler­ic. Many of the laws have been im­ple­ment­ed as rites and cer­e­monies.

Her­ald and Al­lies The #S­tat­ue of Light, not seen for near­ly 900 years, has been his on­ly Her­ald. Hlark is cur­rent­ly hid­den away from the #Old En­e­my. En­trust­ing the Mukhtar to pre­pare them­selves and be ready when he re­turn­s. Mukhtar don’t be­lieve oth­er gods are gods and so Hlark has no di­vine al­lies.

=== Hlark’s War As­pect === Greater De­ity (Law­ful Good)

War and com­bat as­pec­t. Cler­ics are un­com­mon but about 60% of pal­adins fol­low this as­pec­t.

Fal­chion is the fa­vored weapon.

Port­fo­lio War, pal­adins

Do­mains War, Strength, Force, Law,

Cler­ic Train­ing It goes with­out say­ing that days are long with ex­er­cise and com­bat train­ing. While the nights are filled with study­ing his­to­ry, tac­tic­s, siege en­gi­neer­ing, lo­gis­tic­s, lead­er­ship, and of course the #Word of Hlark

Quests Train­ing, tests of abil­i­ty/­wor­thi­ness, ac­quir­ing as­sets need­ed to strength­en Fist.

Prayers Of­ten be­fore bat­tles, train­ing, sleep­ing, up­on wak­ing. Some­times just a quick sword salute. See #Com­mon El­e­ments

Tem­ples Pal­adins live and train with­in the ex­pan­sive tem­ples. See #Com­mon El­e­ments

Rites See #Com­mon El­e­ments

Her­ald and Al­lies See #Com­mon El­e­ments

=== Hlark’s Faith As­pect === /In­ter­me­di­ate De­ity (Law­ful Good)

About 20% of pal­adins and many cler­ics fa­vor this as­pect of Hlark. They en­sure faith and pu­ri­ty with­in Fist. Oblit­er­at­ing abom­i­na­tions and the faith­less alike. Many mem­bers of #En­forcers of Jus­tice Or­der iden­ti­fy with this as­pec­t.

Fa­vored weapon is a scim­i­tar.

Port­fo­lio Faith, truth, or­tho­doxy, pal­adins

Do­mains De­struc­tion, Mys­ti­cis­m, In­qui­si­tion, Or­a­cle, Law

Cler­ic Train­ing To fol­low this as­pect re­quires ex­ten­sive study of the #Word of Hlark. They be­come well versed in mat­ters of faith, law and or­tho­doxy.

Quests Root­ing out and oblit­er­at­ing ab­ber­a­tions, the un­faith­ful, or cor­rup­t.

Prayers Of­ten be­fore bat­tles, train­ing, sleep­ing, up­on wak­ing. Some­times just a quick sword salute. See #Com­mon El­e­ments

Tem­ples The faith­less are ques­tioned and shown the er­rors of their be­liefs deep un­der the tem­ples. See #Com­mon El­e­ments

Rites When pro­vid­ing tes­ti­mo­ny for any court or of­fi­cial pur­pose one must sub­mit to the judg­ment of Hlark in a short cer­e­mo­ny co­in­cid­ing with cast­ing of spells to en­sure ac­cu­ra­cy. See #Com­mon El­e­ments

Her­ald and Al­lies See #Com­mon El­e­ments

=== Hlark’s Venge­ful As­pect === In­ter­me­di­ate De­ity (Neu­tral Good) 10% of pal­adins and a few cler­ics take it up­on them­selves to bring Hlark’s jus­tice to the guilty. The #Re­tri­buners Or­der fol­lows this as­pec­t.

They oblit­er­ate the de­serv­ing with dou­ble scim­i­tars.

Port­fo­lio Vengeance, pun­ish­men­t, de­struc­tion, hon­or, re­tri­bu­tion, jus­tice

Do­mains De­struc­tion, In­qui­si­tion, Celer­i­ty, Trav­el, Law

Cler­ic Train­ing Most fol­low­ers are soli­tary hunters of evil/abom­i­na­tion­s. At some point in their life they feel the call­ing. En­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly sub­mit­ting to Hlark’s will and new pur­pose for them.

Prayers They pray less than oth­er­s, be­ing con­fi­dent in their faith and be­liev­ing time is bet­ter spent in ap­ply­ing jus­tice. See #Com­mon El­e­ments

Tem­ples See #Com­mon El­e­ments

Rites The Kiss of Hlark. Giv­en to re­cent­ly van­quished dead to en­sure they re­main dead. See #Com­mon El­e­ments

Her­ald and Al­lies See #Com­mon El­e­ments

=== Hlark’s Pro­tec­tive As­pect === Greater De­ity (Law­ful Good) All wars cre­ate ca­su­al­ties. The side who lets them bleed dry on the bat­tle­field is weak­er for it. Hlark said this

Large num­bers of cler­ics keep the cities of Fist healthy and well fed. Their heal­ing and pro­tec­tion mag­ics are honed to keep the more bat­tle wor­thy of the faith­ful on the front lines.

Fa­vored weapon is light ham­mer.

Port­fo­lio Pro­tec­tion, heal­ing, growth

Do­mains Heal­ing, Pro­tec­tion, Com­mu­ni­ty, Sun, Plant

Cler­ic Train­ing Many of the cler­ics fol­low­ing this as­pect are mem­bers of the or­der #Sis­ters of Mer­cy

Quests Most ev­ery ex­pe­di­tion, car­a­van, mil­i­tary pa­trol will con­tain one or more ad­her­ents of Hlark’s Pro­tec­tive As­pec­t.

Prayers See #Com­mon El­e­ments

Tem­ples Wa­ter­work­s, ir­ri­ga­tion, grain stor­age, hos­pi­tal­s, are typ­i­cal fa­cil­i­ties built and op­er­at­ed by cler­ics of this as­pec­t. See #Com­mon El­e­ments

Rites Plant­ing, har­vest­ing, bless­ing ba­bies and sanc­ti­fy­ing new build­ings are typ­i­cal events cler­ics re­cite from the #Word of Hlark. See #Com­mon El­e­ments

Her­ald and Al­lies See #Com­mon El­e­ments

=== Hlark’s Law/Teach­er As­pect === Greater De­ity (Law­ful Neu­tral) This is the most com­mon as­pect for the #Mouths of Hlark|­Mouth of Hlark and oth­er top lead­ers to fol­low. Pro­tect­ing and teach­ing the #Word or Hlark is their fun­da­men­tal mis­sion.

Fa­vored weapon is the mace.

Port­fo­lio Law, knowl­edge, lead­er­ship

Do­mains Law, Knowl­edge, An­i­mal, Pu­rifi­ca­tion

Cler­ic Train­ing Ex­ten­sive bu­reau­crat­ic train­ing is re­quired. Tests of abil­i­ty, knowl­edge, and faith are re­quired for cler­ics to ad­vance.

Quests Not so much.

Prayers Ma­jor­i­ty of in­struc­tion and school­ing is done in the form of prayers as much of the knowl­edge know to Fist schol­ars comes from the #Word of Hlark which is al­so the source of prayer­s. See #Com­mon El­e­ments

Tem­ples A Law/Teach­er cler­ic is the head priest of most tem­ples. See #Com­mon El­e­ments

Rites Most school­ing and teach­ing is per­formed by Law/Teach­er cler­ic­s. There are spe­cif­ic cer­e­monies for hand­ing copies of the #Word of Hlark, clear­ing the minds of stu­dents pri­or to in­struc­tion, and a byzan­tine pro­ce­dure for civ­il court cas­es. Crim­i­nal mat­ters are much sim­pler, rarely get­ting to a

court. See #Com­mon El­e­ments

Her­ald and Al­lies See #Com­mon El­e­ments

====== Foot­notes ====== == 1 == All oth­er po­si­tions are open to fe­male cler­ic­s. 40-50% of cler­ics are in fact fe­male. Fist so­ci­ety is very “e­qual op­por­tu­ni­ty”. It’s just that Hlark is a male and it has al­ways been felt that his “mouth on dirt” should al­so be a male.