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Faith Support for Pravus

Posted by Apostate on 12/15/19
Q: Pax's posts about the Pravus split off mentioned the bulk of the Faith NPCs being OK with this. I just wanted to confirm my read on this really (and in the form where a yes/no would work for busy staff!). I'm guessing the vast majority of this support is obviously from the Liberal and Pragmatic branches? As Oathlands are only a plurality and not an overall majority you could get the bulk supporting you from those constituencies. And of course some Oathlands would probably see smashing Abandoned etc as so great maybe they can ignore a Lycene new Great House. I'm guessing the bulk of the Orthodox though probably have grave concerns about a new Lycene great house, which will then give what might be viewed as more liberal attitudes to Faith more say - arguably currently Lycene is Liberal, Grayson is Pragmatic, Redrain floats between Liberal/Pragmatic to Orthodox eyes given the shaman thing, Thrax floats between pragmatic and traditionalist, and then Oathlands is obviously Orthodox/Traditionalist. But, on this they are outweighed by the majority of Liberals, Pragmatics and those Orthodox content with smashing heretics with the idea you can work out the rest later. Are my assumptions roughly right?

A: Oathlands Orthodox has mixed feelings because yes they don't like anything that makes a more powerful Lyceum generally, but they DO like a more powerful Faith and particularly anything that attacks the Abandoned, as the Abandoned represent an ongoing threat to the Compact and the a significant percentage of Abandoned are that way due to heretical beliefs. It isn't that all that rare in the Oathlands to use 'heretic' and 'shav' almost interchangably, as it's taken for granted that those working against the Church are shavs and shavs are working against the Church. This is assuredly why the current Dominus has signaled his approval, as the current Lycene Dominus would see this as an expansionist move that the Oathlands Orthodox might tolerate, despite it being one that could dramatically increase the power of the south by essentially doubling Lycene holdings, even if it would no longer be the Lyceum in name, or a Western vs Eastern Lyceum. Aside from his regional biases, he'd look favorably upon a crusade against Saffron Abandoned, and would feel a bulwark against foreign, godless adversaries as strongly desirable, and much of the Oathlands Orthodox would sympathize with that, but past that it gets a little complicated.

As great houses go, the Oathlands and Thrax peerages have the strongest reservations, particularly Thrax because the traditionalists there have long focused raiding the Saffron as a key way of replacing thralls, by mass capture of Abandoned clans and then declaring the new thralls as paying off a war debt for rebellion against the Crown. Many of the Seraphs of the Mourning Isles are not Oathlands Orthodox at all, but in traditionalist holdings are still speaking out with grave concern about the recklessness of expansion, and specifically talking about how capturing and potentially converting this many Abandoned could introduce heresy into the Compact, and poses a grave threat by allowing dangerous shav ideas to infiltrate into the Compact. This could be very problematic for a lot of the Faith by having a number of seraphs essentially advocate genocide by implicitly suggesting that Pravus should take no prisoners in their war of conquest, a stance that would be emphatically opposed by most of the seraphs in the rest of Arvum, but split among the Oathlands Orthodox.

Religiously, this could result in a realignment as much of the seraphs of more pragmatic holdings as they turn to hardliner stances that go significantly past what the Oathlands Orthodox have long pushed, and a conflict within the Oathlands Orthodox about war justifications and trying to reconcile the Gloria ideals of just war and fair treatment of foes compared to fear-driven reactionaries that strongly believe the Abandoned must be wiped out, and mass taking them as prodigals is unacceptable.