On the Nature of Kharajyr

[Brother Varazes 8]

A very old letter to a very dead Pontiff resurfaces, having been sold to a priest in a flea-market for 20 cold, hard minae.

 

On the Nature of Kharajyr

 

 

Writing to His Excellency, Ide Cardinal Ves, Brother Varazes greets him in the Lord GOD everlasting. 

 

My colleagues and I were informed of your request, to study and learn what we may concerning the nature of these kharajyr, namely if they are descendents of Man and Woman or if they have the souls of beasts. This question can be briefly settled as follows:

 

The head of a human, or indeed an elf, et cetera, is round and placed on top, so he can observe the heavens, whereas a wild cat’s head is oblong so he looks to the ground; a mark of beastly nature. And humans talk… but cats, in fact, meow. Yet kharajyr, unlike their quadrupedal counterparts, do seem to have the knowledge of language, however mangled and garbled their failed attempts at replicating it may be. This would suggest some level of rationality and reason which would separate them from the beasts of the earth.

 

Indeed, the reports we have gathered on these creatures indicate several things which seem to agree that kharajyr have the reasoning mind of a descendent, rather than the sensibilities of a beast. Evidently they uphold laws of their society, they are said to live together in houses, they practice agriculture, they harvest crops, they show that they respect customs which are not beastly by clothing themselves with human-like modesty. This is evidence for their sense of shame, they don’t just use hides for garments, it’s even wrote that they have cloth. Now in a way, all these things seem to testify that a rational mind is present within them. A sense of civil society may be described as the unification of degenerate people equally under the same law, and since these kharajyr are said to live together in communal houses, I believe the distinguishing factor of civility fits in helpfully with such creatures. 

 

 

As mentioned above, we see in their society evidence of some kind of lawful agreement. Where some type of law is preserved, it is held together with the unanimous agreement of wills, and any sort of law cannot exist where it isn’t decreed by collective consent. Certainly laws can neither be set in place or ever be preserved without some kind of moral instruction. It is also said that they cultivate fields, plough the earth, and sow seeds in the countryside to gain profit, and that they are skilled in craft. These traits would be completely unknown if the kharajyr were not endowed with a reasoning mind to support them. It is then clear that the kharajyr are endowed with the sort of reason that separates man from beast, and that they cannot therefore possess beastly souls. 

 

Yet Scripture tells us that GOD granted souls only to Man and Woman and their descendents. Kharajyr, despite appearing to possess the souls of descendents, are clearly neither humans nor dwarves, and neither elves nor orcs. Where, then, do the kharajyr find their origin? It has often been posited in the past that the daemon Meztli created the kharajyr herself. But we do not find this to be an adequate explanation. In the opinion of this scholar and humble Canonist, only GOD can create life:

Scroll of Virtue, Canticle of Faith
“I am the Lord God without peer, and I separated the World from the Void, and placed the lesser and greater lights into the sky, and breathed life into all the beasts of the earth. And I have also breathed life into thy heart, and the hearts of thy children. And as I have given thee life, I am thy father, as I am father of all things.”

 

Even Iblees, the most powerful and wicked daemon of all, never created new life. All of Iblees’ soldiers were corruptions or perversions of life GOD had already made - like the undead armies created out of the souls of fallen and corrupted descendents, or the zombie pigmen which seem to be some perversion of the common boar. We also see the daemonic ability, and perhaps tendency, to corrupt GOD’s creations when Iblees’ touch turned Krug’s skin molten and green, or when Iblees cursed Urguan with diminutive height. From this we assert that the kharajyr are indeed descended from Man and Woman, but were cursed either by Metzli, or by GOD as punishment for their worship of the former.

 

This conclusion has a number of implications. Perhaps the most obvious is regarding the question of whether or not these creatures should be exterminated. Learned scholars, clergymen and Orenian leaders in the past have concluded that kharajyr were abominations brought into the world entirely by daemonic creation, and that they therefore must be purged. However, our opinion, if correct, would suggest kharajyr are merely another branch of descendents, disfigured by a curse they brought upon themselves with their daemonic worship. This would mean that they need not to be completely purged, but rather only converted. It is also a possibility that the curse would be lifted were they to be baptised into the Church, but this remains to be seen as, to our knowledge, no kharajyr has ever yet been baptised.

 

Your brother in faith, 

T. Varazes.
 

 

Edited September 22, 2023 by Brother Varazes