| CSARATHAIRE | Blades of Fire

[mmat 7461]

CSARATHAIRE

 

“I’ve burned and cut away blights for a century, this new truth changes nothing. But know this; no darkness will escape us, ever again.” - Avius Csarathaire

 

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Csarathaire. It is blazing wrath, barely tempered to burn away the frost, and an inevitable fate of sharpened steel hunting the world’s taint. Centuries of war, death and struggle have gradually warped the scions of this warrior clan into firestorms of passion and unvented, righteous fury. Creatures of extremes almost to a man, at their best the sons and daughters of the fallen phoenix are ferocious, but noble warriors without peer in all existence, possessing an unbreakable sense of honour and a sense of justice envied by all who witness it. At his or her very worst, however, a Csarathaire unbound from any chains of restraint or discipline is intolerably arrogant, nightmarishly callous and capable of phenomenal evil, all in the name of the often dogmatic beliefs espoused by these heartfelt crusaders. Yet not even the most balanced Csarathaire is entirely free of the curse of their clan, nor is the most malevolent bereft of its inherent boons.

 

I  ORIGINS.  

Ancient ‘ame forest-tribes such as Caerme’onn first graced the pages of history at the very dawn times of our race. Old dynasties such as that which birthed the Almenodrim ocean folk have existed for millenia or perhaps far longer. The enflamed soul of Csarathaire possesses no such prestigious and primordial record, having coalesced into being approximately three and a half centuries ago, a mere scrap of time in the grand scale of Elven history. 

 

During the early 1400s, the First Orenian Empire under Horen V sat at the very height of its Anthosian power, although it was soon to end in fire and blood also. That imperial collapse did not, however, come soon enough to save the children of Malin from humanity’s ironically inhuman cruelty and malice. What occured then was and perhaps still is the greatest atrocity that has ever been perpetrated on the Elven race, but the cataclysm provided new beginnings as well as dire endings. Greatest among the assorted vassals of Horen V was House Chivay of Kaedrin - warrior-kings of an ever triumphant military order known as the Order of the White Rose. These paragon soldier-sovereigns of the human race were not only capable of raising vast war hosts in the emperor’s name during those halcyon days of old, but legions of black-iron discipline, armed with the finest weaponry humanity’s imperial forgemasters could produce. More relevantly, the soldiers within these inexorable armies were infused with a bitter, violent hatred of almost everything Elven. For reasons that have been lost to most histories, this White Rose led humanity in a genocidal frenzy against the Elves of Malinor to their west, as well as many others besides. Arrayed against such a military machine, the Elven people stood little chance of resistance, and so were forced to tolerate whatever nightmares were perpetrated against them. 

 

Of the scant records kept by progenitors of the Csarathaire clan through this dark time, graphic accounts of human barbarism during the early fifteenth century massacres are by far the most common... Row upon row of debased Elven men, women and children crudely nailed to crosses, their skin carved from their bones by grinning gaolers. Horror-pyres dedicated to humanity’s devil god, fed by the decaying corpses of dozens or even hundreds of ‘knife-eared’ beings, rendered indistinguishable from the blackened, desecrated earth on which they rested. It was the hardened, scarred survivors of this veritable apocalypse who came together in the shaded hollows and hidden enclaves of northern Anthos and sparked the first flame of what would become Csarathaire. Forced to take up the sword, axe and bow, not for defence, but for fiery vengeance, these Elves from all across Anthos started launching guerilla raids which killed a human soldier here or there, or dragged him off to meet an even worse fate. But this brutal retaliatory violence was not only limited to the perpetrators. With the sole aim of inflicting suffering the likes of which they had suffered, these ‘proto-Csarathaires’ descended on helpless human villages, burning homes, slaying infirm old men and spiriting off women and children to an uncertain fate in hostile woodlands far away. In their maddened fury, the revanchist Elves even perpetrated nightmarish crimes upon those among their own kind whom they considered traitors. Women of their kind who saw fit to couple with human soldiers and quislings who worked with the tormentors and aided their martial effort were common victims, but so were blameless ‘ame, ‘ker and ‘aheral who simply wanted to get away. To these righteous creatures reforged by war and death, flight was cowardice, and cowardice treachery. In the end, when the fires of genocide burned themselves out and the first empire of humanity tore itself to pieces, the enigmatic Elves of resistance realised the extreme horror to which many of them had descended, and repented of it. Still flushed with pain, rage, hate and a desire for retribution, they departed as one from Anthos in guilt, leaving those cursed lands behind forevermore.

 

 

Bonds of martial kinship and draconian custom that would eventually form Csarathaire slowly came together throughout months and years of nomadic existence, through mock combat and survivalist hunting. This previously mongrel breed of Elves eventually came upon a desolate frozen wasteland, a terrible obstacle which they had to cross in order to progress on their exodus. Undaunted and scorning any peril, the band of renegades set out to do just that, but to embark on such a hubris-induced venture proved to be incredibly unwise. A days’ worth of ponderous trudging through ankle deep snow drifts compounded by the presence of deadly, concealed chasms and thinly iced-over lakes was bad enough, but the conditions just got worse. Above distant mountain pinnacles bearing crowns of shimmering white crept a cloud equally pure in its hue, but far more woeful to look upon. Because it swore, like the truest sentinel pledging a solemn oath of fealty at his sovereigns feet, to thrust upon the hapless travellers an imminent catastrophe, a final nightmare to punish their arrogance, and their sins from the harrowing time before. Barely an hour later it was on them, only a few flakes at first, but then, suddenly, a biting gale of bleached shards howling across the landscape. Mothers slowed to a snail’s pace, each more intent on shielding the babe cradled in their arms than advancing anywhere. Striplings capable of walking unaided were practically forced to swim through the ever-deepening snow. Some of the less resilient young never resurfaced, drowned by the storm, those who would’ve come to their aid too lost in the blinding morass to do so. Legends sing that the preserved, open-eyed corpses of those children remain still in that icebound netherplace, frozen until reality’s end in the moment of their death, staring at nothing in a monument to false ego. Still though, the uncoiled serpent of walking Elves slithered onwards, growing shorter and shorter with each fall into a snow-blinded crevice, each soul which simply surrendered to the devouring cold and shut down, never to feel life’s flame again. Slowly, but with creeping inevitability, all realised that this was not just a tragedy, but the end. They had escaped the bloodied steel jaw of humanity for the promise of a new future just to come to an even more ignoble fate at the icy frontier of the world. None of the wanderers would survive. 

 

It was not to be. Although the tempest of ice, sleet and snow had obscured the wider world to those ensnared within it, things beyond imagination could see the tormented Elves all too clearly. Their war-reaped souls, plagued by grief and sorrow, damned by guilt and wrath, envenomed by bitterness and spite, their war-reaped souls shone a baleful light out into the world and beyond it. As all seemed lost and the last vestiges of treasured life faded away, something found them, drawn to the malignant beacon. Their savior came screaming, twisting existence around itself into a swirling inferno of majesty and power. But those trapped thence could not discern whether it were the flames that came before the form to which they were enslaved, nor the form before the flames, such was the being's might. Nevertheless, the Elves saw it, and they felt it. Killing cold fell away, replaced by embracing warmth. Buffeting wind disappeared, the void filled by relieving stillness. At the creature’s-.. No, at the God's whim, storm and snow both were flicked away, leaving a white calm backdrop fronted by blazing avian wings which exuded fire. Yet, there was something blacker beyond the visible, something of higher horror which beasts of mere flesh and blood could not see. So it was that the great deception unfurled under the guise of a singular mercy upon doomed folk. Mercy of this magnitude could, however, never come without a price paid. Fortunately for the redeemed, they possessed a most potent form of coin in bounteous quantities which the great phoenician demi-deity sought beyond any other, oath and fealty. For this avian pyre was once beloved by all Malin’s children; a caring protector whose fires eagerly served as a bulwark of hope against ever enclosing darkness, but no longer. Through sorcerous arts practiced during ages long gone, that same darkness had joyously bent the benevolent fledgling of fire into a demonic deathbringer, utterly anathema to its previous form. This bending of purpose did not preclude the sundered phoenix’s ability to appear in such a noble and majestic form, at least to those lesser, mortal beings of the world without deeper sight. And so in their desperation and strife, the thrice-cursed Elves were duped by hollow facade into swearing sword and spear to the creature’s terrible whims. Even then though, amidst the damning inferno there were purer embers of doubt yet to burst forth, loyal servants of the Forest Gods who saw an echo of the truth of their ‘savior’.

 

 

What deeds these newly bound Csarathaire performed in the phoenix’s name have been obscured over the centuries since, by chance of history or purposeful obfuscation, but evidence of malevolent deeds perpetrated in the name of an enigmatic, screeching evil nevertheless bled through time’s impenetrable shadow in fits and starts. The most prominent ‘proof’ of these atrocities came from but a single human villager who, through means unknown, escaped to Descendant lands after Anthos’ destruction. Coming dishevelled to one of the fractured kingdoms in that age after empire’s fall, this man cried of slaughterers entirely clad in dark armour both grey and cloaked red. Deranged ramblings of ironclad wraiths and multitudes sacrificed to an all-consuming beast of fire in the sky did not make any impression on humanity’s divided kingdoms, set against themselves as they were. More reports of a similar nature might’ve turned the descendants’ gaze, but Csarathaire’s wrath in those days rarely allowed any who experienced the flame to survive and tell their story. After decades or even centuries following the ice march and tenfold flame had passed, the pure embers safely nestled unseen said no. Kinstrife erupted amongst those Elves who had been reforged into the Phoenician warrior clan, one side championing the dark god of flame they’d pledged themselves to, and the other reaching further into the past, to the Aspects whom they had forsaken, and the firebird before its corruption. What exactly happened and how long it took can never be told for sure, but at the end of this calamitous civil war, the Phoenix’s darkwreathed servants were gone, and their savior along with them. This was only a pyrrhic victory though, for it had taken much blood and effort to purge the nightmare that had infected them, and few remained. One who did sired a son, and he a son after that, and he a son also until one day, Khaine Csarathaire appeared for the first time in the twilight of Axios, ignorant of the events which had shaped his soul. More of the truth is known now than it was then, but more still is yet to be discovered. 

 

II  PERSONALITY AND BELIEF

Long shadows of a blood-saturated history are cast over each and every Csarathaire, as well as the customs to which they adhere. However, the two most recent clan lords’ proximity to less severe traditions in wider ‘ame civilisation has mellowed the fiery warriors to a near enough acceptable degree. To believe that this mellowing has rendered the phoenix’s former servants soft, however, is to court extermination of the direst sort. For although the Csarathaires’ inferno-soul now burns just a little less potently than it did in the years of their birth, it is still a thing capable of searing anyone who gets too close. Subconsciously atoning for the great betrayal of his predecessors, it is the greatest honour for a Csarathaire to kill, purge or scour an enemy of the aspects in their name. Such relish is only made sweeter if the victim is an accursed creature of darkness, unnatural beast or corrupting menace, but they will equally happily and without hesitation make utter mincemeat of fellow descendants should the offending party prove a threat to hearth and home, kith or kin. Perhaps the most iconic marker of Csarathaire religious practice is the lack of any patron Mani to speak of. Caerme’onns revere Amaethon, Arvellons give thanks to Kwakwani and Ithelanen take their martial cue from Moccus and Morea, but Csarathaire faith is near dogmatic in its guilt-laden purity, worshipping the Aspects and only the Aspects. 

 

III  MARKINGS AND SYMBOLISM

Rather than daubing their forms in garish tattoos representing each and every crevice of their custom, Csarathaires usually make do with just a single one. Imprinted on the upper chest of males and the back of females sits the representation of a phoenix, a tribute to the fallen creature to which their clan were once thralls. This marking was initially a symbol of just that slavery, a brand of everlasting subjugation at the hands of a darkling star, but the beast’s unknown destroyers appropriated the symbol upon their victory, keeping it as a warning of the past, and a threat to the future. Moreover, the revanchist worshippers of the Wild Gods wished to pay defiant tribute to the dark phoenix before its forced fall to darkness, a memorial to a noble creature whom they would have served willingly.

 

Other, less important tattoos are sometimes given and received, but the most prestigious secondary marking that a Csarathaire can ever gain are not granted by the clan lord, or even any kindred Elf, but foes with whom they come to blows in honourable combat and death struggles against malignant beasts alike. Should a woman possess a beasts’ claw marks down her face which would otherwise render her less aesthetically pleasing than before, such an injury would be seen as far more beautiful by a Csarathaire of either sex, the mark of a battle fought to its painful end, victory or defeat. Battle-gained scars are also frequently used as conversation topics when in the company of brother warriors - Tales of brave exploits are shared, along with the valuable methods of combat used in the process.  

 

IV  APPEARANCE AND STYLE

In contrast to the undignified semi-nudist tendencies exercised by the average Wood Elven population, Csarathaires are most comfortable clad firmly in iron whilst in public, ready for combat with any enemy, at any time. To that end, weaponry is always carried at their side or on their back, depending on the armament in question, and sometimes multiple kinds at once. Eschewing most forms of ranged combat except in special circumstances, Csarathaires fight best when it close quarters, viciously slashing their enemies with the honed edge of a sword or cleaving them in two with a brutally heavy axe. Use of spears is usually frowned upon due to the extended nature of the weapon, and therefore its ingrown preference of engagements of some distance, but Csarathaires will generally acquiesce to their utilisation if required to do so in a formation of less brave Elves. It is fair to say, however, that these lovers of face-to-face battle may complain vociferously if forced to fight in a manner other than that to which they have become accustomed, such connoisseurs of violence are they. 

 

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”I remember their coming like it was yesterday. The first thing I noticed was a familiar tang in the air, the smell of burning timber, followed soon after by a vision of houses aflame. Then I saw it; one of the unfamiliar interlopers engaged in a fight to the death with Karlus, our village’s greatest housecarl. The man was the best with a waraxe I’d ever seen, but this unknown metalclad slayer made Karlus look like a greenhorn. 

 

Our man levelled his own strike first. It was a downward arcing swing aimed directly at the invaders’ bulk, perfect in my eyes. Karlus put the entirety of his momentum behind the attack, but his enemy simply drew its armoured form back with surprising agility, pulling itself and its slightly curving sword out of range without breaking poise. Karlus’ next attempt fell just a moment later, helped along by momentum, but it was slightly weaker and slower than the one before. That was all the flaw the red-cloaked being needed.

 

Pivoting exactly half a turn left and allowing the axe to graze against chest armour as it passed with a grinding noise, the ironclad stranger laid both hands on the hilt of his weapon, inclined it towards Karlus with a single fluid motion and elegantly rammed the swordpoint through our boy’s right eye socket while momentum was still carrying him forth. That was the last straw for me. I ran, Karlus’ death screams in my ears.

 

I do not know who or what these warlike beings are and why they came but they are masters of bloodshed, kings of steel and champions of fire. You must listen to me, because if they come here, you will stand no chance! They, and their pyre-god will make kindling of us all!” 

Unnamed survivor, late fifteenth century

 

Spoiler

Thought id write a little about my irrelevant seedclan, more for practice than anything. its probably full of errors

 

[H3nree 342]

Based.

[_Sug 2555]

20 minutes ago, iMattyz said:

semi-nudist tendencies exercised by the average Wood Elven population

 

Well Done Matthew.

[shortchangehero 3502]

Can I join? 

[_pr0fit 2945]

Is this a norlandic clan?

[AstriaS 3709]

[The Red Faith would like to know your location.]

[Criala 728]

Amazing. Love it, Mattio.

[Valannor 6345]

Hello! Your clan application in the Kingdom of Norland has been accepted! Welcome, Servant of the Allfather!

[UnBaed 8946]

very good, mister matticus 

[Orlanth 3539]

[Slayy 816]

Is this when I can say 'poggers'?