Legate Domnhall

[Random_White_Guy]

Legate Domhnall,

While I am unable likely to visit tomorrow for the Assembly, as we spoke on faith last evening I am called to lead prayer on the morrow as the Day of Settling Affairs upon us, I wish to raise to you a question.

The Temple of B'aara is an institution that which while long standing, I have come to assist in renewed teaching and growth. A great many Refugees have taken to adhere but in such they have also some wildly unorthodox presumption. I have had the pleasure of speaking with the likes of Yourself, Of Sister Selsi, and many others who have professed to revere and honor the Faith and I am eager to reach and meet with more.

As the Mother sits Patron on the Stele, as you sit of the Faith, as so many of Ephia the same I wish to inquire -

What would be required to see the Temple honored with proper raising as organization to the Stele? As a Voiced I am told this is a possibility among your City's protocols, and as we begin to offer new services and lessons to draw in more of the Faithful I would wish to do things accordingly.

If yourself or one of your Scribes could aid me in learning more of the processes I would be most grateful.

Al-Marain

[Erudiche]

Al-Marain,

I suspect this would require a certain number of personnel associated with the Temple active in the community, as well as some stated objectives and social utilities offered. The Assembly is, as ever, very protective of its money, and far from the picture of piousness.

Legate Guivarch

[Random_White_Guy]

Honorable Legate,

I thank you for the swift reply and elucidation on Secular Bureaucracy. It is a curious thing to witness in truth as the Great Temple so bound to the Sultanate but I do understand the nascent foundations of Ephia and the progression from Frontier outpost to Democratic Republic. In terms of Social Utility I would say of course the very Waters of this Sacred City of hers so charitably given, but you are not wrong with personnel associated with the Temple.

One of the reasons for my dispatching was Mother Al-Fayyid, blessed as she is, tends so much of the established faithful of the city and has been overpoured with the influx flooding of Refugees from the Tonsured march, the Banafsian disaster, and the Modini Exodus.

I shall endeavor to see the likes of Sister Selsi, Acolyte Narwen, Palatial Physician Scherwin, and others of the faith be they Accorded, Voiced, or Voiceless brought into Temple practices to ease the transition with the Assembly. You of course would be equally invited but I understand as Secular matters take your schedule.

Lastly, I equally am curious. With the movement discussed among your cabinet, what would be the protocol for submission of one's name for consideration as Magistrate? I know that Casella has filled his Cabinet but with your own forming I would submit for contention if you would be amenable.

Al-Marain

[Random_White_Guy]

Legate Domhnall,

Per your request and for your consideration I present my unvarnished critique of your works.

Beginning with the Clouds Burst, and following with Apcoalypse. I will offer one concurring and one dissenting of each, before offering an overall upon the volumes as a body.

 The Clouds Burst

In response to your work on Universal Law and the drafting therein I would raise to you the following.

Of the notion of Universal Law I extend to you request to consider the Urn. B'aara's waters take whatever shape are placed within it.  You say "Individuals are forced by the structure of society to conform to their expected roles, which are the products not of the machinations of the Wheel, but instead by the conflicting elites of the Civilized period".

Yet I say unto you the splendor of Asterabadi's work is in fact proven by none other than your compatriot. The tales surrounding Casella's rise are manyfold depending upon who you ask. Criminal doing as he pleases for wealth, Refugee doing as he must to scrape by. First making his fortunes in mysterious circumstance as noted in the Creep, then the League of Gold, before transitioning to wash his hands and fell deeds in the Populist approaches of the White League donating fortune to the District, much works to the Tablet's shrine of B'aara, and more. This culmination in his rise to the Pyramid in which he has taken to rule as a Purple - His first actions to strengthen the State with the laws of the Undercity as the "Pyramid holds all the keys", Usher in the Refugees raising Janissary presence, and more.

Such things by precedent lend to the next election sizable which showcases that the System as it sits presently does indeed work - Asterabadi proven. Drawing from each of the Leagues he has risen from an outsider to one who now sits upon the Esctatic Terrace gazing down upon the world with new perspective, insights, and quietude.

It is the perfect pathway from Refugee to fully assimilated Voiced Citizen and Legate and participating in the Civil Process. And no doubt the wisdom that saw the Sultan to allow the Accord this practice - In many ways such tools will be used by the Purple or Gold anew.

On the notion of the Dreams of Rain, well - Your very opening premise paints a bleak enough picture.
"Populism refers to the approaching phase of historical development, whose early forms can be seen in today's Ephia's Well and to an extent in the Archonate of Banafsi." - Banafsi has fallen. We would do well to ensure the Well does not the same, and opening the Voice to any who wish it would see to a great deal undertaken to subvert if they merely move in masse.

A fair thing to work towards but there is a reason B'aara shapes the clay of the world, and the peoples fill it. Order on some level is required but that does not mean a Kulamet's balance between the Civilized and Wylde cannot be found.

On the Struggle for Bread however - It has lent curious insight into your current policies and to see from whence many of these current first actions of the Lily Pyramid were nascent. I await in particular for - "Adventurers must be brought to order and made accountable through oversight". As historically the Boardworker has been a thorn in the side of the common man, preferring thousands of dinar in potions and bloodshed over charity, peace, and piety.

The Lesson abroad - Of Banafsi once more sets an ill portent, but this passage did bring to me a smile "While we consolidate the Well from outside threats, we must also work to strengthen it from within.".

Of the Coda-  "There are no neutrals in the conflict between progress and stagnation, there is no middle ground to be found between oppressed and oppressor".

We agree though that stagnation is the enemy - atrophy and complacency. To sit idle welcomes an end of all that has been built by the selfish and destructive. While the White League, Gold League, and Purple League may spar they all hold place in this city. Just as the Three Accord. The contention and contests between each other are designed to bring forth the best - though from time to time it does bring forth the worst.

These set fair groundwork towards a dream of Ephia rising to be a new Twin City to Baz'eel may be realized.

[close]

Apocalypse

It presents an interesting meditation. I have long posited among my peers that Allahab Alsaakhin is not a literal prophecy or portent, but a spiritual one. And it is not something that awaits but something that has come. While it is not a popular opinion I believe in earnest that your people's arrival heralds its coming. A test of my own people, our ways, our efforts, and the very world itself as we know it.

It is easy to hold dreams of apocalypse in terror, another to face them resolute.
It is easy to hold portents of ill in disgust, another to face them level headed.
It is easy to hold visions of malice and abomination, another to prepare with due cause.
It is easy to hold spectacle of gratuitous violence, another to face them with passivity.

The Flame that Bleaches the World, is in essence - Mankind. The barest sense of the word. While your other work talks about the dilation of consideration of racial differences I look upon what has become of this Great Ash Desert in the last 11 years time. Not just one war, but multiple. Not just one blight, but boundless.

In the face of such a thing will my faith hold? Will my pacifism? Will my cultural, spiritual, and personal oaths to my Mother created - Overgod of the Wheel.

Will I have the strength, courage, and faith to gaze upon this terror and hold in my heart Mercy?

When the legions of Orc, Syballant, and Mankind claw and wrestle and shriek for blood?
When Earthly Children are told the path to a future is through steel and boardwork and potion and greed?
When Celestial Children are disregarded and mired and schism and apathy and disillusionment?

Will my beliefs hold? Will I? Or shall I like the urn caked in the Demon's gaze, shatter. The waters held by my beliefs spilling out along with my entrails as in the face of abject barbarianism I waiver?

I pray it is not so, but it is a matter of faith I have weighed much on to the chagrin of some of my more eternally optimistic counterparts. It is why I endeavor to teach, and preach, rather than the other trades undertaken by my Compatriots.

And while this may not be a direct critique of your works, I lend you some of mine, because one passage stuck in my teeth from your work.

You write eloquently - "No one exists outside of Providence or the Path of the Wheel. No one is immune from it. No one may escape it. To assume otherwise is madness, an illusion of the Pra'raji and the atheist."

Tell that to Il Modo, whose Heresy has seen to the withdraw of their own waters, now they come to this Well and risk exposing all who dwell here to the very same fate.

Tell that to the Sister-Priest of Santina Sofia, who has openly in the Krak declared that her "Sage is more Gracious than the Mother, more giving and charitable" before countless witnesses and Twindari Priest of the Wheel. Yet holds Pin of the Purple League and her name on registry, the League of Baz'eel, of the Sultan, of our Culture, Of Our Faith. Yet spurns it.

Tell that to the Gold League Sage-Priest Ottavio who claims Markolo but the Scribes say was called Pilot-Priest by Bellow, who holds Voice and color of the Red Band. Who sits surrounded by a growing rank of soldiers and men empowered by the White Pyramid because they deigned to vote for White Casella. Yet holds Pin of the Gold League, the League of Independence, of Merit, and espouses whatever is given to the highest price.

Both who sit voiced, both who have partaken of our elections, both who meet with candidate, seek place in our city, and partake of all the Sultan offers to the fullest save this last and crucial step. They refuse The Wheel.

This, my unvarnished opinion.

No one exists outside of Providence or the Path of the Wheel. No one is immune from it. No one may escape it. To assume otherwise is madness.

Our City lay besieged and majority have been content to let such come to pass as it benefits their board work, their apathy, and their lust for greed.

So I ask your own words back upon you in my retort -

"The lines are even now being drawn in the sand, and you will have to choose what cause you shall take as your own."

[close]

From the seeds you planted long ago, to your rise to Legate, to what now comes of the Lily Pyramid it is interesting indeed to see the pathway you have charted and moreso- followed through on seeing it to fruition by virtue of your skills and undertakings.

And had your foes been more savvy, they would have simply read your works and known what to come.

I offer you credit for your transparency, and in my critique of Apocalypse, return the favor in kind.

Al-Marain

[Erudiche]

Al-Marain,

It brings me great pleasure to see your thoughts on my work. Let us reconvene and discuss once more. Another qualified contender has arisen, and I wish to fully appraise the measure of you both before making an appointment.

Grace Be Upon You,
Domhnall