History of the Trinitine Faith

According to records, primarily the Book of the Black Rose, penned by Darak One-Eye, the Trinitine Faith did not exist prior to the Nightmare War and the end of the Old World. By his accounts the Via Mortus, or Road of the Dead faith was the primary faith of Falhath followed closely by veneration of the Emperor of Aterrizar. The Via Mortus is still practiced a thousand years later, though the Cult of the Emperor ended with the complete destruction of the Empire.

Yes, and the See of Sangreal has proven several times that despite the value of the Book of the Black Rose as a translation tool, that it is nothing more than a fanciful collection of anecdotes likely written well after then end of the Old Empire. Darak's obvious love for the Via Mortus is the reason he slanders the Faith and gives no mention of its history.

The Twilight
This was a hard time for the entire continent. The break down of society was almost total, reducing formerly law abiding citizens into lives of villainy just to survive. During this time refugees fleeing from Tausend and Dreifach poured into Sangreal, which lacked the Haven Wall at this time. They applied their stone working skills and labor to help build the wall, as well as harkening back to the splendor of the lost age for inspiration. this is the impetus that drove the construction of the many stone wonders of Sangreal.

Refugees came from across the continent, drawn to the beacon of hope that was the Kingdom. Many people during this time rejected their old faiths, casting them aside as false and pretenders to adopt the creed of Trinistine. The cathedrals and palaces were built to honor the Trinity that had granted them protection during the dark time of the Twilight.

It is hard to imagine that all of the stone wonders of the holy City were built by memories of a decadent and wicked empire. The backlash against sorcery and all things Imperial would suggest that your assertion is incorrect.

The Katholikos Manifest
The Katholikos Manifest, issued approximately 130 years after the Twilight is the first real indicator of the Trinistine Faith, which at that point only contained two of the three gods of the Trinity. The Manifest sowed the seeds for war as it decreed the sanctity of Sangreal and its faith and set all others as inferior or patently wrong/evil. A major act of aggression in a region where the plurality of faith was held by the Via Mortus. The Manifest established grounds for conversion to the Faith, as well as laying out designs for expansion through monastic and missionary work.

Again, patently biased information. The Katholikos Manifest was a series of charters establishing the Ebionite tradition of monks, also known as the Pauper Monks. It is also worth mentioning that the Via Mortus is not a faith so much as a collection of superstitions propagated by sorcerers, necromancers and con-men.

A Century of War
It was inevitable in the wake of the Katholikos Manifest that there would be a religious based war in Falhath. The irony of the situation was that in the century that Ozea and Sangreal warred on one another, only Sangreal considered the war a religious one. For Ozea, the war was based on protecting their own borders and securing material goods that they needed to maintain their economy and lifestyle.

The region of Ozea is fertile, but lacks old growth forests for the building of ships, and no signifigant sources of minable stone for construction. Sangreal controled regions that were rich in both timber and in stone. The Agares river was sight to more than one major battle between the two powers, but given the population level, the wars proved to be more a series of skirmishes rather than decisive battles and campaigns. The War ended with the unofficial Diet of Orme.

The Century of War was a period of unchecked military ambition on the part of Ozea. The Ozians united under one Lord Vozieren who was demon sworn to the great foe Atma. It was under this infernal banner that the Ozians sought to unify all of Falhath, ushering in a new Kingdom of blood and suffering. It was only be the vigilance of the Lord Protector Mancel I, the only Pontiff raised from the Arms Militant, that Falhath was saved from this dark fate.

While claims that the war drug to a staggered halt are partially correct it has more to do with Mancel I wounding Vozieren in a battle near the border of the Orme Forest. After laying three days near death Vozieren summoned Mancel I and renounced Atma and accepted the rite of Extreme Unction on his deathbed. It was this act of contrition that earned Voz a place among the saints by ending the war and bringing Ozea into the Kingdom of Trinistine. If historians want to call a forest conversion a Diet, why should we try to correct their folly, they never listen.

The Apostle and the Founding of the Kingdom
Historians agree that the Apostle Logan of Marmite appeared in the New Year 417. Logan was as much a historian, penning no fewer than 47 scrolls before his death, as he was a prophet of the Kingdom of Trinistine. His magnus opus was The Kingdom of Trinistine, a treatise that outlined a spiritual kingdom that venerated the trinity of the faith beyond secular or geographical borders. In essence, he saw a body of people subservient to the will of the Pontiff of Sangreal and its Holy See rather than to the secular leaders, the nobility.

Saint Logan estabished this tradition duting his twelve year reign as Pontiff before stepping down to spread the will of the Kingdom to the savages. Now that almost all of Falhath was nominally under the aegis of the Kingdom he had turned his eyes northward towards the tribes of the High Plains.

Saint Logan the Apostle, the Converter, he has many names within the Faith and is remembered as possibly the most energetic of the Pontiffs. Is it such a small wonder that he stands so high among the ordained saints? He did establish the tradition of the Kingdom, though it was more of pointing it out and writing down what was already known than just coming up with a neat idea as historians would have you believe.

Logan served as Pontiff and did go among the savages of the plains. It was no surprise when he returned with envoys from foreign lands who had come to worship at the Holy See. Logan was the first to take the Word of the Trinity to the primitives, and not just those humans, but to the orcs and goblins, the bugbears and the ogres. such a holy man he was, they could not raise hand to harm him.

The Schism
The Schism marked the first major point of contention within the Faith. Almost 5 centuries after the Nightmare War the climate of magic had returned to a stable level and sorcery became a viable option again. no longer did magic spells run the risk of wild fluctuation or thaumic transmogrification. A number of faithful discovered that they had a gift for the arcane arts and found themselves ostracized and eventually excommunicated from the Faith.

These men and women took up residence in Dreifach and taught what would evntually become Orthodox Sorcery; magic that would be deemed morallt responcible by the Faith. At that time, the upper ranks of the Faith were dominated by Hard Line conservatives who decried any sorcery, regardless of effect or intent as evil. More progressive members felt that sorcery was going to make a comeback regardless of the stance of the Faith, and should find a way to guide it to a responsible maturity.

It was already becoming more and more common that lone mages were experimenting with the arcane arts, creating all sorts of havoc and mayhem. Spells were going wrong, monsters were being released, and infernalism was on the rise.

The Lesser of Two Evils was to accept sorcery, since, like sin it cannot be expunged from society. The Schism is overstated by historians as an attempt to discredit the solidarity of the Faith. There was division in the ranks, but the Faith never broke into two seperate halves, and there were no sectarian slaughters as some claim. The Emerald Order was accepted by the Pontiff, Duncan II as was their common body of sorcery, also known as the Codex of Orthodox sorcery.

By supplying adequate instruction and learning materials at the Emerald Academy in Dreifach as well as grounding new magi in the tenets of the Faith a safer future was being created. These magi were protected from unsafe magics of demonology, necromancy, and magics of perversion, corruption and domination. Sometimes derided as the Society of Upright Civic Wizards, the Emerald Order was a success. It gave magi a conscience and moral integrity that was lacking beforehand.

The Diet of Sangreal
The Diet estabished many things for the Faith. it cemented the position of the Emerald Order as well as Orthodox sorcery. Many of the themes of the Old World were officially terminated, including texts on Old World architecture, vivisectionism and surgery, and polygamy which had been legal until then.

The Diet established the current version of the Canon of the Trinity, as well as the Emerald Order. As for exorcising the demons of the Old World, many of those demons were eliminated well before the Diet. The realm importance of the diet was the canonizing of St. Mancel, St. Logan, and St. Duncan. The procedings were also host to the election of the first Ankaran Cardinals and the establishing of the Arch-Diocese of Ankara.

Of Nyserta, much good can be said. The Queen Nara VI, of a line of unbroken queens dating back to the Twilight, accepted the teachings of Logan and in exchange offered gifts of metal smithing and the collected writings of the philospher-physician Vsijnik. This new form of healing was certainly inferior to the divine power of Healing, but it was certainly well advanced compared to the brutal and blasphemous vivisection and amputation of the Old World's schools.

Height of Power
At the height of Sangreal's power and infuence, the city claimed over 15,000 paladins as defenders. Now Mancel XXIII's claims are rather loose, naming each defender of the city a paladin. The Holy city saw over 100,000 pilgrims a year, and the demand for grain for bread was so great that chartered settlements were set out to reduce the demand on local farms. Many decided to settle in these new communities to be closer to Sangreal and the tombs and relics of the Trinitine Faith.

According to church archives, the full compliment of Sangreal in 717 was 16,720 Defenders of the Faith, or Paladins. While numbers have decreased since then, there are also fewer threats to the Diocese of Sangreal than there used to be. Ozea has joined, Ankara has joined, and a dozen more dioceses as well. The time for walls of shields and swords in Falhath was coming to a close. The orcish marauders had been puched back into the wastes, and the borders of the Great Woses are secure.

The supposed decline of the Faith is a falsehood that is repeated by the opponents of the faith, they themselves lacking in faith.

Modern Times
The Trinitine Faith has seen its greatest glory. The Kingdom has functionally split between the Eastern Orthodox based in Sangreal and the Western Radical in Kesselry. Pilgrimages have dropped dramatically and the grain communities have become shells of their former selves. All the while the old ways are coming out again. The Via Mortus is practiced openly in the backwaters of Ozea and Ankarans are still leaving offerings to Father Thunder. Many see the increasingly authoritarian stance of the Faith as a holding action against the erosion of their influence and power, an act that only accelerates the loss.

The Kingdom of Trinistine will not yield, nor will it falter. those who say it will do so out of false hope.