Reverential Address - The Spark That Enlightened The Many

[_GoldWolf_]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Reverential Address
The Spark That Enlightened The Many
High Exarch Aelfric Harhold

June 10th, 308 AC

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
'Sɛkʃn I - Introduction
'Sɛkʃn II - The Message
'Sɛkʃn III - The First of Ten
'Sɛkʃn IV - Nine More and the Path Furthered
'Sɛkʃn V - Conclusion
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"But you, Faith, are a shield for me. My Glory, the Glory of our Mankind, we call out to His will. The will and direction of Your Imperial Crown, vestige and body of your Imperial Will and Promise!"

- Second line of the Verse of Holy Faith. -

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━​

|'Sɛkʃn I|
It is by the grace of the Divine that we were bestowed knowledge of the one truth. By the grace of the Holy Imperial Spirit that the first Emperor of the Ivrae dynasty received a revelation, a vision which was imparted upon him by a being otherworldly, the one and only of His kind, a God of men and of the world. A Holy Being destined to be worshipped by all who exist and all who are to exist, all who bear the flesh and blood of a mortal.

It was upon this day that this Emperor was elevated to an echelon higher than all others, destined for even further heights when he would reach the Divine Throne of the Everwatch at his death, ascending up the steps to commune with the Spirit as he would in life. This man was to make history and while his accomplishments were many, none would ever reach the importance of what he was to announce that day. He would announce the formation of the one true faith and the enlightenment bestowed upon him, knowledge that he would then impart upon the rest of the world in turn.

This man, now God of human flesh, was His Imperial Holiness Theomar I. He had ascended to a position of great power already, the Emperor of the newly founded Regalian Empire. While at the beginning he may not have held much foreign power, within the borders of the Empire itself this man was the leader of the State, monarch of all within its borders. This had all occurred after the Five Family Rebellion of which he was a key member. The Rebellion was against the corrupt Regalian Kingdom and its monarch who had grown complacent in their duties, the Kingdom now stagnant.

The Five Family Rebellion was soon successful in their fight against the King and his state, the Ivraes being bestowed the crown of the Empire, the Kades the Chancellery, and the other three Noble Houses swathes of land to rule.

Theomar would rule with great passion for the newly founded Empire however it was not until months and months later that he would be considered anything other than an Emperor. With time came a vision from the heavens and the Divine Truth Himself, the Holy Imperial Spirit, appeared before Theomar I to impart upon him a message. This was the spark.

It is with this introduction to this Address that I announce a larger project. While my Credo contains to grow and expand, I also wish to offer the laity a smaller but ever important project which will come in pieces within the next months. These Reverential Addresses will speak on the history of Unionism and therefore the Empire itself as these two are naturally connected like father and son or brother and brother. With such, I continue this Reverential Address on the spark of Unionism. The vision and the years after.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━​

|'Sɛkʃn II|
The message granted to Emperor Theomar was of great import. Enveloped in shining light, the Holy Spirit spoke to Theomar. He bestowed upon the young Emperor the truth of Union. The truth of Union was to be spread to the corners of the world, the knowledge of the Holy Imperial Spirit, the great undertaking to be fulfilled by the faithful and our destined future after this undertaking, a future which was explained in the words of Emperor Theomar as, "I, Theomar the First have witnessed a land where there is no want, no hunger, no sadness and no fear. It is the land where all who have gone before us returned, and embraced those who were living and saw no difference between the living or the dead or the soon to be." All of this was to be told to Emperor Theomar and more. He was told his duties as the now vessel of the Spirit, the connection the Spirit would hold to Aloria. Theomar would be the embodiment of the Spirit's intercession upon this mortal plane.

It was a great honor and he held further duties. He was charged by the Spirit with enlightening Man, the elves, the orcs, all upon this mortal plane of His word. How you may ask?

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━​

|'Sɛkʃn III|
Emperor Theomar I worked with haste to compile the teachings given to him into words and with the guidance of the Spirit, the First Creed was published and a faith destined for greatness was learned of by the Empire and the States past its borders. The First Creed, "There exists something so pure and beautiful, yet it has no name. I, Theomar the First have witnessed a land where there is no want, no hunger, no sadness and no fear. It is the land where all who have gone before us returned, and embraced those who were living and saw no difference between the living or the dead or the soon to be. It was a land pure of Humans, clean of those who would spoil our greatness and clean of those who would be ruinous onto others as they are onto themselves. It is a vision that was given to me by a being so pure it also has no name. For it tasked me to provide it with a name, and a worldly body so that it can act for which it exists. I write of the Imperial Spirit, the embodiment of our Empire so Holy and our future so pristine. The collective will of all that is Regalian and all that shall be, for a future which we all share. This Spirit was born when we cast down the chains of the past, when we freed ourselves of oppression and raised ourselves up in the light of prosperity. This Imperial Spirit has chosen the Emperors of Regalia as its host, as we see the world of Aloria our host. As we guide our world, so does this Imperial Spirit guide our hand to the future that lays beyond, the Great Way that will take us there." With such a revelation now known by not only Theomar but the Nobility of the Empire, the faith began its slow but steady spread across Regalia. This would start with the Nobility and would be isolated mostly to the highest echelons of our society until the remainder of the Ten Predictions of Union were completed. However, Unionism's time was to come and come soon it would.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━​

|'Sɛkʃn IV|
In the coming decades, the rest of the Predictions would be revealed to the Court and the Church, while not matured, would begin to form into a powerhouse that while not possessing any base of operations would be successful in spreading the word of the Spirit to potential believers. The Church began as missionaries led by the Emperor's Court, and Unionism would spread like wildfire, soon to be more popular with the people of Regalia then the Old Gods faith which had dominated the theological scene of both the Regalian Kingdom and its successor the Empire for years.

While Theomar made no efforts to form a true Church, the believers of the one true faith worshipped the Spirit and Emperor ever the same, abiding by His word and listening to the word of missionaries who traveled far and wide by the behest of the Emperor to enlighten those in the dark. It was with this that our forefathers learned the truth and adopted it, passing it on to the next generation and the next and so would the cycle continue. A birthright was given to all upon that spark. Once one was to enter this world. To possess flesh and blood. To be born from the womb of the mother.

To be given life by the Spirit was to also be bestowed the truth. The right to join the brotherhood of Union, a united front against the enemies of the Spirit and His word. A family to belong to under the Spirit's blessed light.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━​

|'Sɛkʃn V|
It was with the visions of Theomar that the world was brought out of a dark age. An age where the world was consumed with false religions and so were the people prey to the farces of Gods that plagued Aloria and the lies of holy men, not to their fault, who were devoted to the word of Gods and Goddesses not of the Spirit but of myths and legends. There were no such concepts such as Unionism, the one true faith, that could combat the venom that sickened the people. The venom of deceitful tales, brewed over centuries of stories turned into religion and devotion.

It was with the visions of Theomar that the non-believers could be saved, ripped out of an endless cycle of rebirth as lesser races. It was with the enlightenment of the few that the many could be offered salvation and a place in the Everwatch. That the Ailor could soon take their rightful place as the rulers of this world and the lesser races could be redeemed, finally being offered the Spirit's ever powerful and eternal mercy. It is with the Spirit's word that we were saved and in the coming years we would be enlightened further through the interpretations of the men of the cloth and the ability to hear the Spirit's word in the newly built houses of worship. It is Theomar I that is our savior and it is the Emperors of the past, present, and of the future that shall guide us as the vessels of the Spirit along the path outlined in the First Creed. The path that all began with the spark that enlightened the many.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

May the Spirit above,
Upon the radiant Imperial Throne,
Protect us against all evil,
Until the day where we his faithful,
Bring forth Paradise to Aloria,
When his light shall shine upon all,
Oratario Paean.

​