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The news came so suddenly, and so unexpectedly, yet many had eyes and ears on the event. Piète-a-piète Kade rode from the Cathery Monastery in the Anglian Heartlands with his aim to reach Regalia in a fortnight. With him he carried what only few would know the hidden Tenth Creed, a document supposedly written by Theomar at the end of his life that was never found. Supposedly, the Supreme Reverend had discovered the ancient almost unreadable Creed in the Cathery Monastery, hidden in a very unassuming chapel. Indeed, it appeared as if he had been there solely for that reason, to chase leads as to its hidden whereabouts. The exact tale of its disappearance caused a modicum of discomfort among the district churches of the Empire, as Piète had uncovered that there was actually a conspiracy after the death of Theomar to make the Creed disappear, at the hands of the clergy.
Piète's carriage however was attacked by religious fanatics on the way. A conspiracy of various regional churches descended on the long road between Axford and Oostpoort, where a ship was waiting for the Supreme Reverend. These churches of wicked men had come together, carrying the information of many centuries ago that this Creed should never see the light of day. The attack started with an innocent looking carriage that had lost a wheel, but quickly devolved into a fierce melee fight as the Helerian Guard of the Supreme Reverend was attacked by other corrupt Helerian Guard. The attackers soon outnumbered the Supreme Reverend's security forces, and confirmed his identity in the carriage, where he was merely seen praying, giving the attackers laughs over the frailty and cowardice of this old man who refused to even leave the carriage, and was tightly holding onto an ancient looking book.
The conspiring forces had once chosen not to destroy the Creed, out of fear of reprisal from the Spirit, but due to the ever devolving Synod and weakness of law enforcement not to enforce Holy Law to the fullest of their extent, they concluded the Supreme Reverend was an acceptable collateral damage to ensuring their own ambitions and interests. Sure enough, explosives were mounted to the carriage, and despite their final warnings to the Supreme Reverend to leave, he would not. Figuring the attack would just be written off as banditry, which had become more frequent in south Anglia since the Rourke-Harhold war with refugees fleeing to Anglia, they blew up the carriage with the Supreme Reverend inside, killing him instantly, and presumably incinerating the Tenth Creed.
Unbeknownst to them however, a milk maid watched the scene unfold from several farm fields away, hurried out of sight just as the explosive went off, and spirited to Regalia. The Supreme Reverend had already anticipated that the corrupted element of the regional churches would come after him to destroy the Creed and his knowledge of it. The Supreme Reverend essentially sacrificed himself to draw the attention of the church fathers, and led them to believe that with blowing him up, they had also eradicated the actual Tenth Creed. However the actual Tenth Creed had been swapped out for a simple book on Anglian liturgy that looked very old, and the real book was given to the milkmaid, who was guarded by the Supreme Reverend's two personal Helerians who had been loyal to him for decades.
The milkmaid arrived in Regalia, and was spirited to the Imperial Palace, where the Tenth Creed was compared to the other Creeds to validate its authenticity. Between the seals, the handwriting, the texture of the paper and Theomar's personal notes between the pages, the authenticity of the document was verified by both the Imperial Seat, as well as several Reverends from the Synod, before finally being reviewed by the High Reverend. Indeed, the effort that had been expended to ensure the Creed remained a secret had been valid for many of the corrupt local churches who assisted in its disappearance and cover up. After all, the Tenth Creed was actually what religious figures would call an Imperial dissention, which is a rare case where an Emperor steps back on a proclamation made before, and changes their mind. Cases of this had occured before in the rule of Henri II and Justinian I, but it had never been witnessed from the hand of Theomar the First.
In this Creed, Theomar professed that the Creed declaring the Unionist Sanchella was a mistake, and that the centralized control of the Church allowed the religious message to fall in the hands of controlling corruption and vice. He essentially argued in his Tenth Creed that there should not be a single Unionist Church, but rather many, regional and greater supranational Churches, each advocating a different interpretation to suit the needs of the common people, outlining that Churches should also disagree with one another, but all follow the same undivorcable concepts of the Holy Trinity of the Holy, Curated and Spiritual Professions. The information was like a bomb hitting the core of Unionism, and the actions of the Imperial Household were also swift. Despite the waging wars in the south, Imperial Guards were dispatched to arrest and confine many of the corrupt church fathers.
It turned out, a clandestine group of Reverends had knowledge of the tenth Creed and used their influence in the Palace to make the document disappear, in favor of centralization of the Unionist Sanchella, to boost their personal power. This all was designed in a time when the Sanchella ruled almost absolute. Given recent developments however, this announcement was enough to push many of the local churches over the edge, many of whom had dwindling support and lowering flock numbers. One by one, the district regional churches floundered and collapsed in on themselves, with many of the clandestine members arrested, or fleeing into the underworld. The Synod effectively broke apart too, given that the Tenth Creed unequivocally proclaimed that the entire idea behind the Synod was repugnant to Unionism, even if the Tenth Creed did speak about an overarching Conclave of Church leaders to convene on Writs of Sin and Holy Wars. The Document liberated many of the Empire's regions from bloated Reveries, but left behind a vacuum for new churches to be made by Reverends, now given more freedom to dictate the reigns of their faith beliefs. Many of the Reverends scrambled to adapt their faith, though the general news was well received by the people who had started losing faith in the ever increasing radicalism of the dogmatic establishment. While the death of the Supreme Reverend was shocking, the overall news gave hope to others that Unionism could modernize and survive the onslaught of the new century.
((Registrations for new Churches are here: https://forums.massivecraft.com/threads/unionist-church-registration.80766/))
Unionism was not the only faith severely shaken however. Somewhere in the north, an event occurred that would have massive ramifications all across Ellador, and what's more: The entire event was broadcasted directly to the Isldar not in Ellador at the time, through their visions, able to witness all of it from a bird's eye view. ((Meaning, this part of the progression is only known to Isldar, and information of it must be gained from the Isldar)). High above the clouds, two Dragons flew in the light of the setting sun, unmistakably the Imperial Dragon and the Dread Dragon, side by side. The two seemed to fly in unison, and both with an intent that was unclear to those receiving the visions. Slowly the weather and their location came into view as the clouds were breaking. They had flown across the high mountains of Ellador, reached into the Frost Maelstrom and reached the eye of the storm, the central Hold of all Isldar. The glittering frost spires reflected the light of the setting sun, glistening in the valley basked in orange-red like pillars of glass. As the Dragons approached, battlehorns rung from below and Isldar took to the battlements.
The two Dragons avoided incoming howling javelins, speeding past the proverbial angle of view of those receiving visions, with their howling sounds clearly audible. The Dragons dove deeper, before crashing into the south battlements, taking the fight to the Isldar who used Magic and sword to hold off the Dragons. Why this fight was occuring was not entirely clear to those watching, but it was clear that the Isldar were fighting with a level of desperation that none could have seen before in the normally cold and calculative Nelfin. It seemed as if the Dragons did not inflict overt casualties, many of them being trapped in prisons of electrified ice and chains of static, forcing them to the ground. Whatever this fight was about, the Imperial and Dread Dragon tried not to kill any of the Isldar.
Eventually when the first legion was subdued, the Dread Dragon took flight, as the Imperial Dragon fought on against the second legion that approached. Her wings spread far and wide, hovering in the air, before her neck coiled back. Then suddenly, it snapped forward, releasing a savage beam of electric Dragon-fire, aimed directly at a major structure at the heart of the Isldarrin hold. The shattering ray crashed through the icy stonework, cutting through the tall ice-spires like an axe against thin poles, before settling on a large dome. The beam was continuous, cutting through a dense defensive dome that eventually gave way to expose an opalescent shield that was being held up. As the lightning crashed against the shield, it cast light into the dark halls below, revealing Frisit practically half conscious but very much in her undead state ragged and skin on bones.
The first from the Isldar increased in intensity, numerous of them leaping on lesser wyverns of their own and flying to fight the Imperial Dragon who was outnumbered and overpowered. The Dread Dragon took note, released her attack on the shield, and dove down to assist the Imperial Dragon who had been covered in Isldar trying to cut at him with all manner of weapons. With the two Dragons fighting together again, the Isldar were driven back, and both took flight, circling over the now exposed shield. Frisit aimed her blind head up, as if to call out to the other Dragons in resistance, but no words came out. The other Dragons circled for a while, making a number of noises that sounded a bit like Wyrmtongue, but quite distinct. Then moments later, they both opened fire with their electric Dragon breath, two beams focussing down on the shield until it could take no more and shattered just like the Glass Spires. They continued their beams however, even through the shrieks and cries of pain produced by Frisit as they landed on her skin. Frisit had not spoken for hundreds of years, but the pain became too much to bear for the aging Dragon. As the Dragon breath consumed her, great green flames erupted from her skin, setting alight the entire chamber she was in, though oddly enough not burning the Isldar priestesses who were frantically trying to do anything they could to help.
It certainly burned Frisit however, whose skin and fleshy parts was burned up by the green flames, until nothing but charred bones of hers remained, loosely clumped up into a pile. The following shockwave shattered windows and knocked the Isldar off their feet, continuing on across the valley where it carpeted the pine trees and caused strong gusts of snow to wash up against the mountain sides, soon to be returned with avalanches coming down yet stopping shy of the Isldar Hold. Frisit's bones subsequently reduced to ashes, the bones seemingly turning to stone in a matter of seconds, before cracking and dissolving. The sudden loss of Frisit was so shocking that many of the Isldar did not even notice the Dread Dragon diving down into the roofless chamber and doing something to the rapidly disappearing ashes that had remained. She soon raised up from the chamber, her head craning around with an almost distinguishable level of disgust at the Isldar around her that were wailing for the death of Frisit, before both the Dread and Imperial Dragon flew off, high into the night sky where the clouds sustained by Frisit's Magic had already started waning, the Frost Maelstrom disappearing bit by bit as the Dragon Magic weakened.
Naturally, the Isldar in Ellador immediately blamed the Regalian Empire, but others might have speculated they would blame anything not-Isldar. The Isldar roamed to the coastal areas and started mass-capturing, enslaving, and sometimes even killing the Ailor settlers and colonists, while a series of destructive magics were used to entomb the Dwarven holds, shutting close their doors with many feet thick ice and rock to prevent their intervention. The Dread and Imperial Dragon had disappeared, leaving the world with one less Dragon, even if Frisit was technically an undead Dragon. Her death did not cause any effects on the Isldar, aside from the fact that the Isldar could no longer hear her song in the wind, could no longer hear the Isldar chants, and were only met with silence in prayer, if they prayed to Frisit.
Piète's carriage however was attacked by religious fanatics on the way. A conspiracy of various regional churches descended on the long road between Axford and Oostpoort, where a ship was waiting for the Supreme Reverend. These churches of wicked men had come together, carrying the information of many centuries ago that this Creed should never see the light of day. The attack started with an innocent looking carriage that had lost a wheel, but quickly devolved into a fierce melee fight as the Helerian Guard of the Supreme Reverend was attacked by other corrupt Helerian Guard. The attackers soon outnumbered the Supreme Reverend's security forces, and confirmed his identity in the carriage, where he was merely seen praying, giving the attackers laughs over the frailty and cowardice of this old man who refused to even leave the carriage, and was tightly holding onto an ancient looking book.
The conspiring forces had once chosen not to destroy the Creed, out of fear of reprisal from the Spirit, but due to the ever devolving Synod and weakness of law enforcement not to enforce Holy Law to the fullest of their extent, they concluded the Supreme Reverend was an acceptable collateral damage to ensuring their own ambitions and interests. Sure enough, explosives were mounted to the carriage, and despite their final warnings to the Supreme Reverend to leave, he would not. Figuring the attack would just be written off as banditry, which had become more frequent in south Anglia since the Rourke-Harhold war with refugees fleeing to Anglia, they blew up the carriage with the Supreme Reverend inside, killing him instantly, and presumably incinerating the Tenth Creed.
Unbeknownst to them however, a milk maid watched the scene unfold from several farm fields away, hurried out of sight just as the explosive went off, and spirited to Regalia. The Supreme Reverend had already anticipated that the corrupted element of the regional churches would come after him to destroy the Creed and his knowledge of it. The Supreme Reverend essentially sacrificed himself to draw the attention of the church fathers, and led them to believe that with blowing him up, they had also eradicated the actual Tenth Creed. However the actual Tenth Creed had been swapped out for a simple book on Anglian liturgy that looked very old, and the real book was given to the milkmaid, who was guarded by the Supreme Reverend's two personal Helerians who had been loyal to him for decades.
The milkmaid arrived in Regalia, and was spirited to the Imperial Palace, where the Tenth Creed was compared to the other Creeds to validate its authenticity. Between the seals, the handwriting, the texture of the paper and Theomar's personal notes between the pages, the authenticity of the document was verified by both the Imperial Seat, as well as several Reverends from the Synod, before finally being reviewed by the High Reverend. Indeed, the effort that had been expended to ensure the Creed remained a secret had been valid for many of the corrupt local churches who assisted in its disappearance and cover up. After all, the Tenth Creed was actually what religious figures would call an Imperial dissention, which is a rare case where an Emperor steps back on a proclamation made before, and changes their mind. Cases of this had occured before in the rule of Henri II and Justinian I, but it had never been witnessed from the hand of Theomar the First.
In this Creed, Theomar professed that the Creed declaring the Unionist Sanchella was a mistake, and that the centralized control of the Church allowed the religious message to fall in the hands of controlling corruption and vice. He essentially argued in his Tenth Creed that there should not be a single Unionist Church, but rather many, regional and greater supranational Churches, each advocating a different interpretation to suit the needs of the common people, outlining that Churches should also disagree with one another, but all follow the same undivorcable concepts of the Holy Trinity of the Holy, Curated and Spiritual Professions. The information was like a bomb hitting the core of Unionism, and the actions of the Imperial Household were also swift. Despite the waging wars in the south, Imperial Guards were dispatched to arrest and confine many of the corrupt church fathers.
It turned out, a clandestine group of Reverends had knowledge of the tenth Creed and used their influence in the Palace to make the document disappear, in favor of centralization of the Unionist Sanchella, to boost their personal power. This all was designed in a time when the Sanchella ruled almost absolute. Given recent developments however, this announcement was enough to push many of the local churches over the edge, many of whom had dwindling support and lowering flock numbers. One by one, the district regional churches floundered and collapsed in on themselves, with many of the clandestine members arrested, or fleeing into the underworld. The Synod effectively broke apart too, given that the Tenth Creed unequivocally proclaimed that the entire idea behind the Synod was repugnant to Unionism, even if the Tenth Creed did speak about an overarching Conclave of Church leaders to convene on Writs of Sin and Holy Wars. The Document liberated many of the Empire's regions from bloated Reveries, but left behind a vacuum for new churches to be made by Reverends, now given more freedom to dictate the reigns of their faith beliefs. Many of the Reverends scrambled to adapt their faith, though the general news was well received by the people who had started losing faith in the ever increasing radicalism of the dogmatic establishment. While the death of the Supreme Reverend was shocking, the overall news gave hope to others that Unionism could modernize and survive the onslaught of the new century.
((Registrations for new Churches are here: https://forums.massivecraft.com/threads/unionist-church-registration.80766/))
Unionism was not the only faith severely shaken however. Somewhere in the north, an event occurred that would have massive ramifications all across Ellador, and what's more: The entire event was broadcasted directly to the Isldar not in Ellador at the time, through their visions, able to witness all of it from a bird's eye view. ((Meaning, this part of the progression is only known to Isldar, and information of it must be gained from the Isldar)). High above the clouds, two Dragons flew in the light of the setting sun, unmistakably the Imperial Dragon and the Dread Dragon, side by side. The two seemed to fly in unison, and both with an intent that was unclear to those receiving the visions. Slowly the weather and their location came into view as the clouds were breaking. They had flown across the high mountains of Ellador, reached into the Frost Maelstrom and reached the eye of the storm, the central Hold of all Isldar. The glittering frost spires reflected the light of the setting sun, glistening in the valley basked in orange-red like pillars of glass. As the Dragons approached, battlehorns rung from below and Isldar took to the battlements.
The two Dragons avoided incoming howling javelins, speeding past the proverbial angle of view of those receiving visions, with their howling sounds clearly audible. The Dragons dove deeper, before crashing into the south battlements, taking the fight to the Isldar who used Magic and sword to hold off the Dragons. Why this fight was occuring was not entirely clear to those watching, but it was clear that the Isldar were fighting with a level of desperation that none could have seen before in the normally cold and calculative Nelfin. It seemed as if the Dragons did not inflict overt casualties, many of them being trapped in prisons of electrified ice and chains of static, forcing them to the ground. Whatever this fight was about, the Imperial and Dread Dragon tried not to kill any of the Isldar.
Eventually when the first legion was subdued, the Dread Dragon took flight, as the Imperial Dragon fought on against the second legion that approached. Her wings spread far and wide, hovering in the air, before her neck coiled back. Then suddenly, it snapped forward, releasing a savage beam of electric Dragon-fire, aimed directly at a major structure at the heart of the Isldarrin hold. The shattering ray crashed through the icy stonework, cutting through the tall ice-spires like an axe against thin poles, before settling on a large dome. The beam was continuous, cutting through a dense defensive dome that eventually gave way to expose an opalescent shield that was being held up. As the lightning crashed against the shield, it cast light into the dark halls below, revealing Frisit practically half conscious but very much in her undead state ragged and skin on bones.
The first from the Isldar increased in intensity, numerous of them leaping on lesser wyverns of their own and flying to fight the Imperial Dragon who was outnumbered and overpowered. The Dread Dragon took note, released her attack on the shield, and dove down to assist the Imperial Dragon who had been covered in Isldar trying to cut at him with all manner of weapons. With the two Dragons fighting together again, the Isldar were driven back, and both took flight, circling over the now exposed shield. Frisit aimed her blind head up, as if to call out to the other Dragons in resistance, but no words came out. The other Dragons circled for a while, making a number of noises that sounded a bit like Wyrmtongue, but quite distinct. Then moments later, they both opened fire with their electric Dragon breath, two beams focussing down on the shield until it could take no more and shattered just like the Glass Spires. They continued their beams however, even through the shrieks and cries of pain produced by Frisit as they landed on her skin. Frisit had not spoken for hundreds of years, but the pain became too much to bear for the aging Dragon. As the Dragon breath consumed her, great green flames erupted from her skin, setting alight the entire chamber she was in, though oddly enough not burning the Isldar priestesses who were frantically trying to do anything they could to help.
It certainly burned Frisit however, whose skin and fleshy parts was burned up by the green flames, until nothing but charred bones of hers remained, loosely clumped up into a pile. The following shockwave shattered windows and knocked the Isldar off their feet, continuing on across the valley where it carpeted the pine trees and caused strong gusts of snow to wash up against the mountain sides, soon to be returned with avalanches coming down yet stopping shy of the Isldar Hold. Frisit's bones subsequently reduced to ashes, the bones seemingly turning to stone in a matter of seconds, before cracking and dissolving. The sudden loss of Frisit was so shocking that many of the Isldar did not even notice the Dread Dragon diving down into the roofless chamber and doing something to the rapidly disappearing ashes that had remained. She soon raised up from the chamber, her head craning around with an almost distinguishable level of disgust at the Isldar around her that were wailing for the death of Frisit, before both the Dread and Imperial Dragon flew off, high into the night sky where the clouds sustained by Frisit's Magic had already started waning, the Frost Maelstrom disappearing bit by bit as the Dragon Magic weakened.
Naturally, the Isldar in Ellador immediately blamed the Regalian Empire, but others might have speculated they would blame anything not-Isldar. The Isldar roamed to the coastal areas and started mass-capturing, enslaving, and sometimes even killing the Ailor settlers and colonists, while a series of destructive magics were used to entomb the Dwarven holds, shutting close their doors with many feet thick ice and rock to prevent their intervention. The Dread and Imperial Dragon had disappeared, leaving the world with one less Dragon, even if Frisit was technically an undead Dragon. Her death did not cause any effects on the Isldar, aside from the fact that the Isldar could no longer hear her song in the wind, could no longer hear the Isldar chants, and were only met with silence in prayer, if they prayed to Frisit.
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