On Yemekar's Balance

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On Yemekar’s Balance

Penned in hand by Zahrer Irongrinder on this day, the 3rd of The First Seed, 1615, and published through The Library of The Citadel of Arcadia.

 

Preface

For nearly one and a half centuries, the Grand Kingdom of Urguan and its followers have invoked the call of Yemekar’s Balance for a multitude of reasons. In times of peace it was used as a means by which the High Prophet and his clergy might call the faithful to sermons and preach of the divine teachings that the Brathmordakin had to offer. In war it was used as a rally and even a battle cry. I shudder to think that I too had once called out to the masses, invoking Yemekar’s Balance as a means of war and indeed a casus belli against human invaders. The dwedmar of the last century or so continue to use the call as a means to say that no nation should own another, that no race should dominate another, or to say that the Empire of Man was simply too powerful in its subjugation of the elgur. This is not the manner in which we should invoke such an important and holy path of faith. I write and publish this work simply to correct a mistake I made nearly two centuries ago and the dwedmar of the age have continued to make for nearly as long.

The True Nature of Balance

The dwedmar of the legion and governmental figures invoke Yemekar’s balance as a means of demanding equality of races and, in doing so, incorrectly site the faith. In truth, Yemekar’s Balance has nothing to do with the petty squabbles of the descendant races and the invocation of Yemekar’s Balance as a means of war is completely off and even borders on blasphemy of the faith. What I propose when I mean to talk about “The True Nature” of Yemekar’s Balance is just as I say: nature.

 

The fundamentals and teachings as laid bare by my research in the Hall of Urguan proves our modern day interpretation of The Balance to be entirely inaccurate in that we edge more towards political and moral means whereas the first dwed founded such belief on the basis of a balance of nature and the morality we need keep when maintaining such a balance. The first dwed characterized a belief in The Balance as a literal scale, much like one would use should he need to weigh something in a shop or workhouse. Yet the manner in which such a scale was depicted is unlike any scale I’ve yet seen. It was as if the scale was maintained through a series of layers, each balancing each other and maintaining an overall vision of stability. I suppose it would be only prudent to present such layers one at a time so as to make simple work of the explanation so that is what I shall do.

 

First and foremost, I shall address the layer which applies most directly to our living state of being. It must first be noted that the even the scales physical makeup was not neglected in conceiving this brilliant design. The scale itself is made of The Brathmordakin as well as those neutral to them, their allies, and enemies. It is certain that any of them might favor one side of The Balance succeeding over that of the other, as is the case with Khorvad, but it is for this very reason that they are set to preside over this layer of the scale. On one side of the scale we place the descendants and the creatures of the realms. By their very nature they were as Yemekar created them, innocent and true to the faith of The Brathmordakin in one shape or another, and maintain the side of life and earth. On the other side of the scale sits those creature whom we call The Undead. At their very core they preside over the death and destruction of nature as well as the killing of our fellow descendants. As is the nature of a scale, the two sides attempt to outweigh the other in their own ways and by their own means. In practice we see this as invasions of The Undead into our mortal realm and our counter attacks to push them back into the Nether. By our own hands we balance the scale in doing such acts. Where it is the very nature of The Undead to upset The Balance and gain an upper hand, it is our task as followers of Yemekar’s Balance to maintain an evenness on the scale. Where the dead may seek to push into our realm, it is our duty to repel them and in doing so preserve The Balance.

 

Beyond the layer of life and death resides the layer of honor. It is strange to think that the first dwed should place such a layer in between that of the struggle of life and the physical nature, which I shall address later on. It does, however, make a great deal of sense given that our ancestors were very proud folk, choosing to create and site wrongs in The Book of Grudges rather than allow what they perceived as dishonorable slights against them. Given their fanaticism of attempting to right every wrong that was done against them, their depiction of the honor layer of The Balance is relatively less forward and equally less blood soaked. On the one side of the scale sits common sense and on the other resides duty. Whereas the previous layer depicted The Brathmordakin as the physical makeup of the scale, this layer simply shows “honor” as that which presides over this layer of The Balance. In this layer, our forefathers sought to show a clear balance in the way we pursue grudges and honor. Where it might be our duty to slay undead, the other layer requiring us to do so at any cost, this layer specifically attempts to attribute meaning and a method of proceedings for the killing of dwed and other descendants. Allowing the killing of dwed only in circumstances such as blasphemy, treason, heresy, and unparalleled dishonor, the text goes on to explain that the killing of descendants should not be worthless and without meaning. In explaining it in such a way, I perceive this to be a means of degrading the practice of banditry and other such dishonorable methods of work. The killing of descendants should be a last resort and should only proceed given that the wrongs are to a reasonable extent that they invoke a need to remove said person from The Balance entirely. That being said, the entire sense of duty is balance on this layer of the scale by common sense. Given any grudge, it is easy enough to argue that it has yet to be filled regardless of the bloodshed invoked in its name. It is here that the first dwed desired we use common sense to determine whether or not a grudge should be crossed from The Book of Grudges. Take the war against Norland for example. As is the custom of the dwed, when the original bearer of the grudge dies, so then do his children and ancestors thereby assume the mantle of the grudge, the same going for him who the grudge was made against. Seeing as this could carry on indefinitely, it was the thought of the first dwed that we might think deeply about our grudges, choosing instead to draw a line in the sand where we might finally end the grudge and the bloodshed derived from it before it is taken too far and more lives are lost than was ever necessary, as was the case with the final sieges of The Krag. It is here that the first dwed wanted us to meditate on the grudge and determine whether or not it should end simply to prevent mass death or if the cost of the grudge has yet to extract enough blood from the target of said grudge.

 

On yet another layer of the scale, we find a physical means manifestation of nature. While it is a relatively thin layer in the grand scheme of The Balance, I understand it to apply more directly to that of the Runelords than it would to those dwed without such knowledge. This layer is quite a bit different than the others in that it merely proposes a balance of creation as presided over by Yemekar himself. While it is within the power of a skilled and knowledgeable runesmith to create elements such as that of iron, gold, and gems, such practice is placed on one side of the scale as unnatural creation while the other side is simply depicted as “Yemekar’s Creation”. What I perceive this to mean is that, while it might be well within the power of a runesmith or any other being of given ability to create such elements, it would be unnatural and wrong of us to do so. A portion of the texts I have read even go as far as to say that such practice casts us in a light of self assurance as if to say that we think ourselves more knowledgeable in creation than Yemekar himself in the creation of such valuable elements. While the scale perceives a creation of a variety of other elements to be acceptable in the eyes of Yemekar given their abundance, it is certain that such valuable items are not to be created by the hands of descendants lest they be seen as immoral and contradict Yemekar’s Balance.

 

As a final layer, the first dwed took it upon themselves to examine a balance between faith and fanaticism. While this might sound as though it would attempt to prevent wars of religion and the like, this scale instead refers to the manner in which we worship The Brathmordakin. While our present day faith presents itself in a manner of direct worship, the faith of the first dwed was decidedly different in that, rather than worshiping The Brath directly, they chose to worship through their skills. The faithful dwed would spend his or her life working hard to increase their knowledge and skill in a given art and in doing so gain the favor of The Brath whose attributes most directly applied to that art. In other words, the first dwed worshiped The Brath by becoming better and better at their arts, dedicating their success and gain of knowledge to the favor of The Brath should they succeed and acknowledging the displeasure of The Brath should they fail. Given this explanation, the scale presents itself physically as that of faith and belief. Assuming we are ardent followers of the faith and The Balance, the scale is materialized and offers the balance between belief and worship through skill, as the first dwed had worshiped, and direct worship of The Brath, which the first dwed determined edged more on the terms of fanaticism as it took away from dutiful and meaningful work that Yemekar had created us for. Having seen this as the last layer, it was certainly a surprise to note the differences between our faith in the modern age and the “true” faith as depicted by the first dwed.

 

In Conclusion

The Balance, as depicted by the first dwed, is both ancient and complex. For this reason I have yet to entirely translate the old texts into common and, as a result, this is merely a portion of the grand scale which they had attempted to pass on to us. This does not, however, mean we can not begin to correct our path using the knowledge already uncovered. If one thing is entirely certain throughout all of my studies on The Balance, it is that our ancestors must certainly have lost the knowledge I’ve uncovered at the Hall of Urguan. The evidence of this conclusion is all too present in our modern day misuse of The Balance as both a casus belli and a war cry. In this single fact, we find ourselves failing in our duty as followers of The Brathmordakin and indeed Yemekar’s Balance for, if we continue to misuse The Balance in such a way, are we not toppling it in one way or another? My proposal is simple and it is one which I have already put into practice within the halls of The Citadel. Simply put: We must cease our current misuse of Yemekar’s Balance and return to the correct course which Yemekar set us out upon and the first dwed carried out. With the fall of Khaz’Urguan to the Ironborn centuries ago, our blatant misuse and misinterpretation of The Balance was expected and not unprecedented, but as the true nature of The Balance has come out, it is our duty as followers of The Brathmordakin to correct our path and once more correct this Balance which we have so terribly tilted against ourselves through its misuse.

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Moved to The Great Library. It shall be sorted into the appropriate category shortly.

 

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