ORDER OF THE WHITE COMET

[Xarkly 12618]

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

This was the founding mantra of the White Comet - a prayer and solemn vow alike that the Holy Light shall forever endure and triumph against the Shadow.

 

For the pall of the Shadow lies heavy across the land of Aevos. The curse of vampyrism ran rife and unchecked through the high and lowborn alike; infernal warlocks laid claim to the heads of lords and queens; and the Shadow’s own adjutants made mortal kings dance to their whims.

 

In this period of chaos, the Canonist Faithful languished in fear; they knew not whether their very neighbours walked with them in the Light, or had surrendered their souls to the Shadow. From the assassination of High Pontiff Sixtus VI to the murder of Queen Amaya of Haense, the Light’s truth felt sundered to its bleakest deaths, near eclipsed by the Shadow.

 

Yet, in those depths, the Light rekindled.

 

Aeons past, when the Shadow uttered its final words to lay the curse of transience upon Exalted Horen and his ken, it also tempered the resilience of all mankind. For it was through this same resilience that man has both forged and shattered empires; that man vanquished the great dragons Setherien, Mordring, Avendal, and Cloudbreaker; and that man has held the faith of their forebears for nearly two-thousand years.

 

Now, in this age of the Shadow Rising, the White Comet bears arms as the vanguard of mankind’s resilience once more.

 

For the Light has held for two-thousand years.

So shall it hold for two-thousand more.

 

Father Szetka, Court Warpriest of King Barbov the Black

Royal City of Lahy, Ruska c. 226 A.E.S.

 

The White Comet is a Holy Order of the Canonist Church.

 

Originally formed as an inquisitive tribunal charged with investigating the alleged consortium of the Royal Court of Haense with the Shadow, it’s founding objectives were to not only purge all servants and spawn of the Shadow that plagued the northern archdiocese of Jorenus, but also to rekindle the Canonist faith in the north generally, namely by drawing on its unique practices of the Jorenic Rite.

 

Even after the conclusion of its maiden inquisition in the form of the Esrova Report, it was the will of High Pontiff Caius I that the White Comet be officially constituted as a Holy Order, sworn to oppose the Shadow and its temptations wheresoever it may appear. This path, however, is one fraught with mortal peril, for the scions of the Shadow wield untold powers in their many forms, and the warriors of the White Comet are but mortal humans.

 

But, through all, the Light must preserve and prevail. The core creed of the White Comet is therefore:

 

FIRST, to hunt the Shadow, its spawn, and servants wherever they made hide. The schemes of the Shadow are many, and seldom understood, and so while Shadowspawn themselves are the White Comet’s quarry, their hunt requires careful investigation and research, both to illuminate the dens in which they hide, and to vanquish them in spite of their fell powers.

 

SECOND, to shrive sin from the hearts of mankind, for humans are prone to temptation and sin where they do not feel the Light’s gaze upon them. From the desecration of marital vows to base dishonour, souls ripe with sin make the most fertile soil for the Shadow’s corruption. So it is that the White Comet must guide their fellow man, and hearken those who have fallen back to the Light with repentance.

 

AND THIRD, to join their blades to the banner of Canondom when they march in the name of the Light. While oft the Canonist Princes wage petty secular wars, the White Comet may do battle alongside them where it serves to strike a blow against the schemes of the Shadow and its servants.

 

Akrides and the Comet

Lost Aldersburg, Anthos c. 1502 I.C.

 

The legend from which the White Comet draws its name is central to its identity.

 

Amidst the sagas of the Saint Tobias, there is a tale told of the city of Aldersburg, a ruined city that lay as a blight upon the land of Anthos. The city, though abandoned by its people, played host to a new lord - Hekrigge, a twisted husk of a mortal who led a band of debased marauders. Claimed by some to be an Adunian, and by others to be an insatiable vampyre, what the tales do agree on is that Hekrigge served no master, but their savagery and bloodlust were surely endowed by the Shadow itself.

 

From the stout walls of Aldersburg, Hekrigge beset the region like a plague. Not only were barns plundered and fields yet ablaze, but the peasantry were subjected to all manners of torture at Hekrigge’s hands -- even those who yielded their food and valuables willingly. In this interlude, the road to Aldersburg was dubbed the ‘Painted Path’, for Hekrigge was most creative in their display of murder.

 

Hekrigge’s sole opposition came in the form of Friar Akrides, once a pupil of the late Saint Tobias, who led a rag-tag militia of local farmers against Hekrigge’s tyranny. Yet, despite their piety, Hekrigge’s band meted them defeat and grizzly executions at every encounter. Before long, Akrides was the sole one left, for his compatriots were dead or fled. Without a single mortal ally remaining, Akrides knelt, and prayed to his departed master for salvation.

 

Akrides’ prayers were answered, and the salvation that came was of the most absolute calibre.

 

For, on the dawn of the very next morning, the pall of the morning sky parted, and Friar Akrides’ writes that the very gates of the Seven Skies opened to part a comet, so pure and white that it lit the land for miles around as if it were a summer sun. Through the sky did the comet streak, and it struck the ruins of Aldersburg to obliterate Hekrigge, their bandits, and even the very foundations of the city walls.

 

When Akrides stumbled to the site of where Aldersburg once stood, he found only an enormous, smouldering crater. The comet that had bit the earth was no longer it's brilliant and pure white; for it had struck this seedbed of the Shadow, and so its surface became the colour of obsidian.

 

A Temple Guard of the Exalted Sanctum

Trade City of Dules, Ruska c. 270 A.E.S.

 

 

The Creed is the White Comet’s goals, and the Codex is its path to them.

 

All faithful must abide by a code, the most basic of which are the tenets of the Light enshrined in the four Holy Scrolls. The greater a duty a mortal soul assumes, the stricter the charter they abide by must be in order to guide their power virtuously. Thus, the White Comet is no exception; in order to maintain integrity amongst their flock, to leave no doubt as to the virtue they espouse and the reckoning promised unto the Shadow, its warriors swear to abide by the Lucent Codex:

 

ONE

TO REVERE the teachings of the Light.

 

TWO

TO REVILE the temptations of the Shadow.

 

THREE

TO HONOUR those who walk in the Light in discourse and battle.

 

FOUR

TO VANQUISH the spawn and servants of the Shadow at any cost.

 

FIVE

TO SHRIVE sin from the hearts of Canondom.

 

SIX

TO MARTYR oneself in the name of the Light.

 

The wrath of Saint Malcolm

The Viper of Fjordheim, year unknown.

 

Although a Holy Order, the White Comet is somewhat unique.

 

Unlike most of its kindred banners, the White Comet styles itself not as a chivalric order nor an army unit, but rather an exclusive band of pious brethren - though small in number, they are strong of heart, and sharp of mind. Whereas armies typically clamour to recruit any willing to bear arms in their name, it is not so for the White Comet: given that they hunt Shadowspawn, and all clues as to their hiding places and powers, a level of skill and secrecy is mandated, in tandem with the fact thats its members must be true adherents of the Canonist faith.

 

The White Comet’s simplistic structure is therefore as follows:

 

COMMANDANT

First among the White Comet is its founder, Villorik Cardinal Westerwald, who wields forthright command of all Canonist orders as Commandant of the Pontifical Guard of Caius I.

 

ADJUTANT

The stalwart lieutenant of the Commandant, serving as both their right and left arm, and prepared to fulfil their role should their master fall in battle with the Shadow.

 

VINDICATOR

A rank for brothers and sisters of the White Comet who undergo the sacrament of ordination. Rather than being dubbed a common priest, Vindicators are specifically warpriests, who achieve the will of the Light by strength of arms.

 

VENATOR

Pious warriors of the White Comet who serve as hunters of the Shadow; they pledge their hearts, minds, and bodies to the pursuit and eradication of Shadowspawn under their snowy-white standard.

 

SCION

Aspirants accepted as squires under the White Comet, and undergo the tempering of body and soul in pursuit of the mantle of Venator.

 

Exalted Sigismund battles Ishtar

Alexandria Bihar, c. 302 E.S.

 

‘To be favoured by the Light’.

 

That is the sole metric by which a new Venator is welcomed into the White Comet. There is no rigid tradition of trials; no grand quest that must be undertaken. No -- for the Commandant, endowed with foresight, determines for themselves whether a warrior has the strength of heart and arm necessary to serve in the Order. Beyond merely that, though, they must carry with them the Light’s favour - a sign that they are destined to not only serve as a hunter of the Shadow, but serve well.

 

There is no such trial for this - when the time is right, it is simply known.

 

Once worthy, new Venators are ordained in a manner reminiscent of the Burgundian Host, one of the first holy orders that ever took up arms in the ancient Highland of Edel -- they must face the Commandant in a battle in which the Venator cannot fight back. Instead, the fighting will not end until they have recited the six tenets of the Lucent Codex while being assailed with blows.

 

For, if the Light rejects them, then their guard shall fail, and the Commandant shall slay them.

 

 

[Laeonathan 3965]

"I am almost tempted to join, but sadly it is in Haense." Noted Father Montfort, "Maybe... if the Grand Prince proves himself less vile to the world than his father was?"

[SethWolf 1386]

Siegmund Weiss was sat in the reliquary of his family's keep, face wrapped in bandages drenched in salves and balms. Many candles encircled him, and the smell of incense was heavy in the room. His young mind as of recent was being rapidly sharpened as a blade to a whetstone as he read every bit of scripture and gospel he could find, and he would have been rarely seen outside of his little sanctum.

 

The little Scion raised his face from the Scroll of Virtue, which was sprawled over his lap to gaze out of the stained glass window - and to the stars above. Pinpricks of Light besieged by Shadow. The night sky was very much like the order, an ocean of shadow interrupted only by islands of desperate light, standing in defiance of the darkness around them. His eyes drifted closed, and he spoke a prayer - for himself, and his soon to be comrades.

 

He reached forth, to take up a mask of steel. He placed it upon his face, and stood. He prepared himself for the coming days, where his comrades would train him to be a righteous executor of perdition. His steel gaze looked down to Amaya's prayer beads that rested in his palm and for a single moment he promised both himself, and Godan: His bones may break, but his spirit never would.

 

He turned on his heel, and made his journey to Valdev.