Order of the Vigilant
'There shall be among you lying teachers who shall bring in sects of perdition and And the task will be given to you to bring them the truth. If they will not accept what you bring, you must cut off their heads and trample their bodies underfoot, for this is the only way to save your children, and your children's children, from growing up under false gods and heathen images.' - Excerpt from 'Our Cause'
At all times heresy exists, and has been fought by the religion that it pertains to, but when the Cult of the Dreamer appeared and declared that they followed the only true god, Sogna, and that all the other gods were merely his slaves, it was deemed necessary to form a new way to fight them. That is why the priest Elihu wrote his book, 'Our Cause', and why so many of the different factions/religions united under one banner. The basis for he Order and how it functions is laid out in this text.
No one really knows just how big the Order really is, or if it is even one organization. Its methodology is so varied and diverse that it causes some people to question whether it is a single organization or simply the front for numerous different organizations.
The most common tactic used by the Order to deal with the Cult is the use of fiery orators or priests to sway the public opinion against the cult. After that, to further enrage the poor commoners, deranged 'Dream Nectar addicts' will begin attacking women and children for their money to get their next fix. Anyone who voices an opinion that is in any way pro-Cultist often becomes Public Enemy Number 1, and often times gets lynched by an angry populace. Oftentimes they get word of the location of one Dreamer's Temples, most of the time through the grapevine, and in the riots that ensue the entire neighborhood around the temple is often destroyed.
Another of their tactics is firebombing the temple. However this is usually only done when other means of dealing with it would take to long and the target is too large to pass up. If they do raid the temple it is usually a group of 10 or so in the middle of the night, and these soldiers will kill anyone present who is awake. They use urns of an alchemical substance that ignites when exposed to the moisture in the air. They usually also coat the entire collection of books with oil to ensure that they get burned up in the ensuing flames. The urns are broken as they leave the temple.
It is very rare that the Order is openly supported by the authorities, but the inaction of those in power is enough support for them. If a leader has the gall, or backbone, to oppose the Order there are ways to teach them a lesson. Excommunication, assassination, blackmail, torture, ect. have been used to teach leaders the lesson that they were so stubborn in not learning. The Order accepts that occasionally arrests have to be made, but it also has a silent understanding with those in power that their members are to get off with the least punishment possible.
Finally, in addition to their more overt actions they also have an expansive spy/informer network to help them hunt down and infiltrate as many cells of the Dreamer Cult as possible. And the compartmentalization of the Order lends itself to the ideal of the left hand not knowing what the right is doing. Not even the leaders know of more than a dozen other members, and most of the time they only know of their superiors through letters using assumed names. Isolation is complete and total, so that no one organization can use the Order to act as its own private spy network.
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? Responses (10)
It is quite a nice post. It gives us antagonists that see themselves as good, even though they are obviously not.
Could the Dreamer's Cult be that dangerous to the establishe order?
Could we get a write up of the Dreamer's cult itself?
Once I noticed this, I had to check it out. I must say that I like it (I found it through your forum link by the way). Your writing is excellent and the organization is very useful (plotwise) and, I must add, realistic. Nothing like sound logic and excellent material to get me in a jolly good mood.
Are the Dream Nector addicts on the side of the order and their attacks are coordinated or are their attacks something that just happen and the Order plays them up? From the sound of it the Order incites these addict riots.
These poor Dream Cultists sure do get a pretty bad rap just for supplying 'drugs.' Can't just sell them on a street corner so they must have some sort of underground distribution network or something. I keep looking for more of a reason for everybody to hate the cult so much.
I have a good reason for you Strolen: Fear. People hate and fear what they don't understand, and chances are they understand little, if anything, about the Dreamers.
Solid post, good writing, great Idea. No score possible but a 5/5.
I think fear is a slightly generic answer though. If they know it is the drug that makes the people crazy, not the Cult (yes, they provide it the drug dealers and suppliers are bad), but it is a choice made by the people that get addicted to the drug. They want what the drug provides.
Equate it to the theive's guild. People know they are there, they rob people, cause hardship in the city, but do the people attack and fire bomb them? You must admit that theives are much more active then these cultists which all they want to do is sleep. There is a logic hump that I can't get over. I need to justify everything and this just doesn't get me all the way there.
Now, if you tell me that the Dream Cult addicts people on purpose, break into homes to drug people, kidnaps, maybe just spreading the drug over a crowd by a Cultist...now that would go a long way to justify to me why people hate and fear them so much. But just believing some wierdness and selling some drugs to people that want them (addicted or not, they want them, just like current times) doesn't make me want to burn them.
It would also make more sense that, once addicted, the users would be 'inducted' into the dream cult and not have to pay for the stuff anymore. More cult members is good I would guess?
Fear is good start, for a hate campaign at least.
Maybe we need to stop looking at it as an organisation of drug-dealers, and see what it is: a religious group.
But there is more:
- 'all the other gods were merely his slaves' is a powerful insult. If you believe your god is one of the top guys, and somebody claims it is just a stray slave, that can make the people... angry.
- While this may not be readily admitted, the Cult has clearly distinct powers no one else has access to. They may be actually right... on the other hand, their powers do not make them much formidable in combat. They make a good target.
- Lastly, the gods themselves would likely be not above supporting this movement.
Sorry it took me so long to reply to the questions about my own group.
Okay, the reasons why the Order exist have pretty mcuh been covered. Fear, the insult (persieved or otherwise) of someone saying your god(s) are only slaves/lackeys, and the fact that the Nectar gives back something that the gods themselves took away.
But fear is the only one that the Order really needs to play up to get its job done. Tell the people that this group threatens their ancient and 'rightous' way of life and you'll have people flocking to them, escpecially with some of the 'reasons' that the Order tends to conjure up.
The 'addict muggings' are (usually) just something that gets played up by the Order, ocasionally when they don't get enough of them happening and they neeed to speed it up they'll have some fake witnesses saying Poor Old Mrs. McCormick got attacked by an addict and killed the poor widow. But it isn't really the Dreamers, or anyone addicted to the tears, that do these muggings, it's generally just a mugging. And again, it's just fear that the Order needs to use, if you get the people afraid that their precious child will get attacked next, and then they find out where those vile muggers are hiding, well let's just say you'd hate to be living within a block of them.
And lastly, this Order does have the support of the clergy, openly or not, because like Manfred said, 'the gods themselves would likely be not above supporting this movement.'
This is really great stuff Pariah. Neat execution package and great writing.
::Mark of an HoH::
Bump.
