Aloria Story Progression The 13th Emperor And The 12th Book

The Palace had been busy the past week while the Emperor was in Regalia on a short interlude before returning north. Notable rumors spoke of a serious Black Hand allegation towards Viscountess Wodenstaff and a rebuttal in a series of letters from her to the Crown, yet the Emperor did not even in the slightest respond. In fact, whenever the matter was raised in casual conversation at court, the Emperor just nodded and switched subject with a very faint smile. The Emperor also supervised the Lieutenant General of the Kaisermark’s personal orders for the riot campaign in Drixagh. His moves detailed a smoking tactic that was supposed to yield minimal casualties but proved utterly pointless in the cold north of Drixagh. Siege weapons aimed at producing smoke and little fire were quickly doused inside castles where they never quite seemed to lack the snow or water to extinguish them. Furthermore, the Lieutenant-General seemed to lack a spine among the Northerners. With the lackluster response and silk touch-approval, more and more tribes of Northerners suddenly split off from their baronial loyalty, and soon the rebellion had swelled by almost a third while providing no real change in the sieges.

In the Obermark, the State Reichsrat Minister had officially accepted the Mirnoye’s truce proposal, and hostilities seem to cease. The Mirnoye forces drew back just as Regalians vacated the eastern coastlines. Remarkably, the King of Nordskag also didn’t appear to rouse any sort of ruckus over the terms which crippled Nordskag’s ability to militarize its eastern coast, and instead moved his army with a western arch north to attack the Hvitskaggers again. Whether this peace treaty with the Mirnoye was considered an act of cowardice or a shrewd move by the State Minister was yet to be seen, though the Emperor seemed pleased with the possibility of finally being able to focus on the Songaskia.

The Westmark Lieutenant-General also made moves, but they did not amount to much beyond scouting and training exercises. It was very clear that the Sudmark and Westmark Armies were essentially docile and not particularly acting on anything. In the west, however, Tyllerand had made some progress with his Crown Alliance formation. The Tigrans, despite being a strange addition to the Crown Alliance, were willing partners both to bribery, but also to flattery in the face of Elven Empire resurgence ideas. With the Elves to the south trying to re-establish some Nelfin dominion, the Tigran became nervous about being forced into slavery again. The Dahr’s of Ssil, Osso, and Nakhroohr pledged their obedience to the Regalian Empire in exchange for the religious freedom of the Tigran people, as well as respects to their race as equal to the citizens of the Empire. Tyllerand had to get approval from the Crown for this. However, he gambled by accepting it without Imperial approval. Eventually, his gamble paid off. The Emperor signed the paper, thus suddenly making an outside race that never held rights in Regalia equal to Allar, Qadir, and Ailor as another partner of the Crown Alliance. This also meant that Tigran slavery was now illegal Empire-wide, and all Tigran slaves were immediately released. Some discomfort was brought forward from this decision, as hairy cat people now walked the same high-class streets as the upper nobility, but focus was quickly distracted by what would happen next, and honestly, many did not fully oppose to the idea of using Tigran Corsair fleets as a military buffer with the Elves to save Ailor lives. A little social discomfort was a small price to pay for extra military power after all.

After participating in a few events among Nobility, the Emperor contacted some Court Reverends to initiate the procedure of a new Creed, a Holy Scripture of the Imperial Spirit. Cedromar finished writing it in one sitting for almost half an hour in relatively simple scribbles, after which he had a scribe iron out the wording under his supervision. With post haste the Emperor then departed to Nordskag to resolve outstanding issues with the Hvitskaggers, leaving the court to issue the necessary paperwork across the Empire, which spread like wildfire. For many, the production of an original Creed was a once in a lifetime experience. The latter 11th Creed had been quickly denounced by large swathes of the population and not considered a true creed, but the 12th Creed was immediately accepted by large segments of the population as completely sensical. It felt like an actual proper Creed. The text was as followed:

Twelfth Creed: The Training of Faith
“A person can never be at peace with a theology forced at the end of a sword. Inversely, a person can truly be at peace with a theology when it is trained with a sword like a soldier does. A soldier practices a swing, takes it to memory, and develops the body to sustain the thought. In the same way, theology should be practiced and taken to memory through providence and experience, not forced by the same sword. The Great Way cannot be achieved if it seeks to trample on all the instruments of the Imperial Spirit, the people who have come before, and who will come in the future, the people who are Unionist, those who are not, and those who may yet be. Those who are united with the faith of Union must remain strong, and those who falter shall find others holding them to the righteous path. But the Spirit does not diminish or dim in the face of denial from non-believers. Non-believers bear no skill or tool capable of defeating the Imperial Spirit, yet they themselves may be of skills and tools capable of aiding the Imperial Spirit if permitted. Be it the farmer, the soldier, the bureaucrat or the sailor, Their denial does not impede the Spirit, but their hands may aid it, so that in time, providence and affirmation will soften their mind, and be waxed to practice Unionism like the arm does the sword. Faith will come with practice, but for those theologies named by the Emperor who deny his divinity, only his authority is an absolute.”​

What the Emperor said with this was that the Mellennar Confessions were wrong and that the Unionist ideal of enforcing its faith on everything and everyone were wrong also. Rather that just substituting it with a new system like past Emperors had done, however, Emperor Cedromar changed the playing field by essentially saying that for non-believers, denying the divinity of the Emperor was not a crime, merely denying his supreme authority and supreme rule. Cedromar permanently separated the Spirit’s Divinity from the Emperor’s Material, yet created a clause that ensured full adherence to Unionist tenants, while also multiplying obedience to the Crown. This decision in particular strongly resonated with many Old Gods worshippers and Estel faith worshippers who had lived inside the Empire their entire lives. Under the Confessions of Mellennar, they were marginalized and oppressed, even if they were loyal to the Empire and the cause of global dominion. Now, with this new Creed, they were instantly validated, their faiths respected, and their obedience, loyalty, and respect for the Empire and Emperor recognized. The 11th Creed was considered merely a band-aid for a failing social structure of a bloated Empire, devised by a weak Emperor who did not rule but reigned, while the 12th Creed and its writer were quickly shaping up to become the solution that was needed all along to move the Empire forward, and it was astonishing how the Emperor had made it seem so easy.

The contrast between ex-Emperor Alexander and current Emperor Cedromar also raised some interesting questions. ex-Emperor Alexander professed the Imperial Spirit had made clear to him that succession of the Spirit was to be elective. The Spirit and Emperor would commune on who was the right heir for the Spirit to pass over upon the death of the former Emperor. Some dared argue that the Spirit never actually intended to manifest in Alexander. Alexander had always been considered a weak Emperor, always at odds with the nobility over trivial matters, and showed little to no spine in confrontations that often resulted in him being overruled by the nobility through white lies and false documents, despite his considerable charisma and speech skills. Emperor Cedromar, on the other hand, did not shy from getting his hands dirty, held not before seen authority and support among the Armed Forces, and did not even shy away from personally punching nobility to get his authority across. Some dared argue, as such, that the Spirit had intended to be succeeded by Cedromar all along, and that the Dragon Settlement Act which had allowed a Kade to succeed, was only a legal piece of paper that solved a bigger problem: The Spirit had lost faith in the Ivrae Family.

This theory in itself raised numerous questions. Why were the Ivrae no longer suitable? Was it because their main line had died? Was it because women raised all heirs? Was it because they had strayed far from the Alt-Regalian ancestry, and essentially become Ithanian? Were Ithanians simply too weak to lead the Empire? These questions also raised a valid point. Were Vultar Heretics right, but merely misguided? What about Diviner Heretics? Did these heresies mainly just conceive of a notion that was true all along, but wasn’t abundantly clear because the Spirit had not yet manifested it in the Emperors? These questions did expose one point of criticism for Cedromar; he offered no spiritual guiding whatsoever. Upon his departure, his words were simply:

“I am the Emperor. Vessel of the Spirit. The Faiths of Baskarr, Old Gods, Faith of Estel and all derivatives and Allar and Qadir and Orc faiths are under my protection. I will crush any who opposes me with a fiery storm worse than Sassrakand and wipe them from history.”​

The priests would now look to the Supreme Reverend once more to provide them with the assurances, or rather, to provide them with how to interpret this rising idea that some Emperors might never have been valid Emperors at all, and how to view those Emperors. Certainly, their Imperial hosting was not up for question, as subsequent Emperors had been strong hosts, that much was clear. Additionally, the Imperial lineage was not up for question either. Theomar was clearly a strong Emperor, and the beginning of Unionism, and so were Leomar I, Henri I, Henri III, Allestrain and Justinian II, but bad Emperors like Justinian I and Henri II made them wonder whether Royal Elective right should have been active all along. The divinity of Emperors had never been denied in the past, denying historical revisionists the ability to compare one Emperor to another impartially, but the idea that some could be described as bad Emperors, created the idea that one could actually define what was a good Emperor, purely on certain virtues that good Emperors shared. Notably, the one big trait shared by all Emperors that were considered good Emperors, was that they were all martial Emperors, the current one even more so than all past ones. This begged the question, was military pursuit the highest virtue? What did this mean for the cultural opposition between various parts of the Empire?

The bureaucrats also looked to the Judiciary for a clear distinction on how to deal with Emperor questioners of past Emperors. Indeed, Imperial protection laws no longer applied to dead Emperors, but in the past, criticism of bad dead Emperors had always been denied on the idea that this was disrespectful to the Imperial Spirit. Furthermore, the Judiciary looked to the Hoherichter to perhaps make even clearer distinctions on the Imperial Face law, or to further find some manner of reinforcement of the Emperor’s right to rule in law. The Emperor’s right to rule and sole authority and power had always been codified in his divinity, but if his divinity was not an absolute for non-believers, then new laws had to be designed for non-believers to protect his authority and his right to rule them. The guards needed new protocols on how to deal with those who spoke ill of past Emperors, and new protocols on how to address those offending or denying the authority and supreme power of the current living Emperor.

Before long, Old Gods temples across the capital suddenly sprung back to life and Estel shrines were summarily cleaned. Semi-public worship of certain non-Unionist faiths was suddenly legal, and how this would change the landscape of daily Regalian living, had yet to be seen.

OOC Notes on law changes:

• The confessions of Mellennar have been scrapped. They no longer apply.
• Faith of Estel is free to be worshipped in public, but may not be spread.
• Old Gods is free to be worshipped in public, but may not be spread.
• Faith of Baskarr (Tigran) is free to be worshipped in public, but may not be spread.
• Dwarven Dogma is free to be practiced, but may not be raised above Imperial Authority.
• Allar Beliefs are free to be practiced, but may not be raised above Imperial Authority.
• Qadir Beliefs are free to be practiced, but may not be raised above Imperial Authority.
• Orc Faith is free to be practiced, but may not be spread.
• Unionist and its versions remain unchanged.
• Shambala (due to the confessions of Mellennar being scrapped) is now fully illegal.

All of the above faith changes are pre conditional: Loyalty to the Empire and Emperor and Divinity of the Emperor are separate clauses. Denying the Divinity of the Emperor remains heresy for a Unionist, but is not for a non-believer as long as they are loyal to the Emperor, Empire, and show the necessary obedience, respect and reverence of the Emperor as their supreme ruler, and support the cause of the Empire’s global dominion ambitions.

This means that you can legally get away with saying that Estel is your Goddess, as long as you pray in designated temples or in privacy, do not attempt to convince others to believe in Estel, and pay homage to the Emperor and regard him as the highest authority of the Empire that rules over you, while you obey and support the cause and structure of the Empire.

The Inquisition will also segway into hunting down disloyalty towards the Emperor, as opposed to full blown religious prosecution.

Expect law changes pending from the Hoherichter and announcements from the Supreme Reverend about how to interpret this all and how this will affect daily roleplay.