Bogatyr

"All but I?" Iskander Basrid, the Count of Susa, lamented; the magnitude of his shriek, of course, mitigated by the 'frog' caught in his throat the evening prior. A very tobaccoey frog it was. He propped his Rhenyar pipe to his tar-sated gums and blew into it quiet and thoughtful architectural logics with a presidential timber. The lord, being the cosmopolitan, metrosexual type that he was, with spittle on his chin, water on his pants, molasses in his ears, spice on his nose, maybe oil in his hair and the moon shining effusively down on him, couldn't help but shed a tear at his exclusion from the column!

N.B., the contents of the above text owe themselves to the counsel of His Holiness, the Holy Father Caivs Primvs. It came to my attention by word of the Holy Father that, in this text, I have inadvertently echoed the opinion of Saint Pius of Sutica in his Dialogue with Bjorn (1804). Supplementary provisions are extended to the aforementioned text, q.v. "MALGATH: Is “darkness” the absence of light? […] So darkness has no positive existence, but is a lack of light. And so evil, which you define as darkness, is an absence of the Good. Take food. Food is a good thing. It sustains life, and brings delight. But a lack of food is starvation; an abuse of good is gluttony. God permits evil, in that He permits those good things He has made to be deprived or perverted by the will of creatures." of which the premise of the mutual dependency of guilt and innocence is derivative.

I dedicate the below thesis to my mentor and confidant, Cardinal Callahan, who has provided me the divine and intellectual faculties as girl, woman, and now holywoman to make reasoned determinations across all bases, be they interpersonal, ecclesiastical, or judicial. Additional provisions directed toward His Holiness, the Holy Father Caivs Primvs, who has counseled me on thesis-writing and how, as holymen and women, we reach and substantiate verdicts. God keep you in His infinite governance.

ON INNOCENCE: THE NECESSITY OF GUILT

A depiction of a lamb with its foreleg cocked, rising to deliver victory in the sole devotion to God,

in Akriti-Raevir style.

VI: FOR JUSTICE IS PERPETUAL AND IMMORTAL: AND THOSE WHO ACCOUNT THEMSELVES RIGHTEOUS IN THIS WORLD SHALL HAVE GOD AS THEIR JUDGE IN THE NEXT. BUT THOSE WHO ARE INNOCENT AND CHILDLIKE, SHALL BE CALLED OF GOD.

—Bl. Father Humbert, O.S.J.

——————————————————————————————————————————

I. The Definition of Guilt. Recognition of Sin, Wherefrom Cometh Salvation.

Striking in both the modern social and political theater is the seeming absence of moral awareness and the feelings of guilt which arise therefrom on a horrifying scale. Leading statesmen and the misled laity alike are exonerated from corruption scandal and the responsibility of bearing sin and are hence presented as guiltless and blame-free, from which we as a vox populi come to the conclusion that the experience of holding guilt must be lived with; guilt cannot interfere with the general state of affairs. All men bear the indelible mark of sin as inherited from the dawn of creation and sown into the soil of human nature viz. “And as I have created for you the struggles of the world, so too do I create the struggles of the spirit.” (Virtue 5:5), quod vid, sin is also inherited originally from the ancestral violations of the mother and father against God’s will, forasmuch as was transmitted to Godfrey in God’s wrath (Gospel 7:28). It is no fault of God that men sin, because He does not compel them to and therefore justly finds fault with them. As such, sinful humanity must pay a debt of atonement to the supreme divine justice debitum peccati solvere, that is the universal necessity to contract sin, as sin can be viewed as a disruption in the relationship between Man and God.

Origin of Guilt

Guilt can be understood as the [recognition of] moral liability that arises from the violation against God’s law. This state of culpability arises from the exercise of free will and the resultant severance or (reconcilable) damage to the interaction between Man and God. God had made everything and its natural faculties ex nihilo, that is from nothing, and because He owed this to none, God’s make is inherently good but subjected to the struggles of the spirit. Given that God is indebted to none, everything which receives existence owes to Him the debt of proper use of the natural faculties imparted upon them, in accordance to the moral and physical order. Sin, whether actual and intentional or unmeditated, violates the duties and faculties which are owed of Man to God; ergo, sin represents a contractual breach in Man’s debt to God, as it is the neglect or misuse of his ability and consequent failure to fulfill his purpose, from which guilt emerges. We are guilty because we are conscious that we underperform in our service to God and contravene the moral order ordained by God. The Flexio term “reatus,” translated as liability or guilt reflects this premise of a legalistic aspect to guilt and retribution sc. the sinner’s accountability before the divine tribunal. The question this poses is, why then does God endure sin and, by extension, the burden of guilt?

Definition of Innocence

Foil to guilt is innocence, after which this thesis is titled. Innocence, unlike guilt, can be understood as the condition of freedom from sin and the resultant burden of guilt, as the relationship between the elect and God is not compromised by sin and the state of estrangement from God’s Will is not in motion. Thus, the condition of innocence reflects a co-naturality with Heaven. 

We find that vastly, the chief example of this condition is documented in children; when we look upon a mewling babe contentedly amusing himself in his strange and infantile ways, essentially unpretentious and contemplative, what resonates with us is the chord of our springtime innocence nestled deep within us, a chord so at odds with the surrounding selfishness of the world. Bl. Father Humbert echoes this q.v. “those who are innocent and childlike, shall be named of God.” (Daily Meditations, 2.5). But, even children are incompatible with the Canonist doctrine of innocence, because their innocence lies in the weakness of the body and not in the infant mind, and their desires are inherently selfish and self-destructive but absolved nevertheless by the lack of power to act. Therefore, the claim of childishness cannot be conflated to innocence, as children display adultishness in their self-absorption.
 

Ergo sum, true innocence goes beyond mere immaturity, and the absence of actual sin. It is a deliberate state of being and the presence of virtue which is sustained by the conscious adherence and accordance of our natural faculties with the physical and divine order. Paramount in this respect is the example of Julia, the saintwife of Ex. Horen, who remained in the tabernacle wherein she sheltered her children from the mounting iniquity that was Iblīs, but ultimately gave passage to Saul (Gospel 2:22; 2:31-32). Julia’s innocence in the tabernacle represents a misunderstanding of the evil she had never chosen, or what it was to choose in the first place. She is untainted by wrong but also untaught by it. The naturalness of her goodness secured passage for evil, but is innocent nevertheless because her innocence is not passive, despite her heedlessness to wrong and wickedness, but actively maintained through her righteous exercise of her natural faculties as mother, wife, and woman and she lacks culpability—reus—to the misdoing because she still exercised her free will insofar as the natural faculties received by her.

In this example, the line between innocence as a consequence of naivete and innocence as a consequence of a genuine and self-sacrificial act of good and aversion of sin is made very thin. While Julia’s proclivity to goodness inadvertently secured the passage of Saul, this does not undermine her condition of innocence. Julia acted in her capacity of conformance to the cautions of Horen and the moral order imparted unto by God as wife, dictated by her overall commitment to love—an active, self-denying love—of her husband and of God. The unforeseen consequences of her actions do not diminish the innocent condition of her intentions.

Interaction of Guilt and Innocence. Inter se Dependre.

Be the above as it may, however, if the world was innocent and absolved of the sins and guilt which it owes to its elect and their mothers and fathers, there would not exist a concept or condition of innocence. It would be neutral and undistinguished. Likewise, the awareness of what it means to have sinned viz. to be guilty reminds us about the value and standard of innocence and purity. The recognition and acknowledgement of our sins against God’s moral order implies the existence of an original state of goodness from which we have fallen or otherwise strayed. Innocence lends itself to guilt as a standard against which one should be compared, from which point the sinner can take the appropriate measures to be absolved before the divine tribunal. 

Leadingly we examine the character of Owyn as evidence of the remedy which guilt provides in the path toward absolution and the standard of innocence q.v. “But Owyn was wroth for the death of his father. He raised the sword of GOD in vengeance, and with it he slew his own uncle. Thus the lords of mixed blood scattered into the night, and there was a great thunder.” (Gospel 4:48-50). Owyn’s slaying of his uncle, Harren, violated the moral order preordained by God and represented an exercise of free will not in accordance with the faculties received by Owyn as prophet, messenger, and uniter; “‘You betray man with your wrath, and once again Horen’s sons are divided.’” (Gospel 4:53). The consequent state of immense guilt and culpability to Owyn’s sin is evidenced by his pleas for His mercy and vindication (Gospel 4:54), as he recognised in both parts the gravity of his sin and the damage it would incur upon his relationship with God and his condition as prophet. His guilt did not represent a mere acknowledgement of his error in a legalistic capacity, but a tunnel of clarity and awareness of having transgressed against providence, which broadens guilt as a far larger, internal condition that creates an estrangement from God and innocence and perverts the spirit such that a condition of innocence would require a response of atonement and redemption. The admission of guilt could only thereafter be resolved through Owyn’s reconciliation of the innocent condition whence he fell and with God, as he safeguarded the Word of God and restored to his people virtue (see. Gospel 5:3-19). Hence, “The Lord saw the penance of Owyn, which was the death of the unrepentant. And Owyn was made again as the light of his blade, and the great city was destroyed.” (Gospel 5:19-20). 

Owyn’s example posits thus the necessity to recognise first the standard of innocence, from which we can restore virtue and our relationship to God in our active and uncontained service and fulfillment of natural and moral duty to him, not merely through incidental avoidance of sin. Ergo, innocence and guilt cannot exist as static conditions but as dynamic and dualistic natures which punctuate our service to God, in simple duty or acquittance of sin. 

Summa summarum: God endures the existence of the lower evil of guilt, so that the higher and transcendental good of Innocence can exist.

All this is to say that we should not be surprised nor lose spirit at the often uncomfortable nor self-condemning aspects and moments in spirituality. Whereas the condition of guilt can oftentimes be conflated with a sense of permanency in one’s flaws and sins, I counsel that this liability to sin be viewed as the first rung in the readmission into the state of innocence whence we originate. All is God and all will be restored in and through Him; the experience of faith is about learning to see and reconcile the sacred, the sacramental, everywhere and in and throughout everything.

Great art Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised, my Mercy, who didst create me and didst not forget me even when I forgot Thee. O true Light, to You I lift up my heart and mind lest it should teach me vanities. For in the restless misery of fallen spirits, which expose their darkness stripped of vesture of Your light, You clearly show how great You made the rational creature, since for its repose and beatitude nothing less than You suffices, and from Thee shall arise our vesture of light, and our darkness shall be as midday. 

Since he is the Alpha and the Omega, this thesis is ended thus with God, who is blessed throughout the ages.

Remaining the least of His children,

Rev. Sem. Adolpha Yohānāh

most of this stuff is pretty cool and i concur with most peoples' replies. i think the whole crop yield system would rlly have to be dictated by an independent weather system which, while i think would be cool, is a problem of its own. u rlly couldnt have one without the other.

also dont think ppl should be chimping out over the cannibalism stuff, i think it's pretty funny. my only caveat with that would be, introducing mechanics for undead to feed could very easily be misinterpreted as fulfilling said undeads' individual race/magic quotas for feeding (i.e., necromantic undead/darkstalkers and having to feed something like every week or two to stay alive). i think it should very explicitly be mentioned that such a system wouldnt coopt their roleplay responsibilities, otherwise this system would stand to deincentivize actual undead roleplay. also, definitely no stat buffs be they for undead or the average john/jane doe

“Cleanliness is next to godliness, that is right and true. But, when the Lord summons His faithful for heavenly hymn, will there be any soul––be they man, calf, lamb, or bull––uninvited to His chorus? In our vanity, we have forgotten the qualities imparted on us by the saintwife Julia: Love, Charity, Mercy, and infinite Vindication, for these shall be named His horseman on earth. Not a passive love, but an active, self-denying love; to love beyond love, and that extends to the innocentest of His chorus, the lambs and calves,” Adolpha von Alstreim bridled a straggler to her profuse and ragtag drove of lambs and sheep; her tug and tussle against the infinite, all-too-human desire of the sheep to graze and be among God’s pasture brought them into her kowtow. She flashed a smile of tender dotage but of self-containment all the more, and bitterness of the petulant cowardice of bureaucracy.

"All of us alive and lifeless are from one," With tender dotage, Adolpha chewed over the contents of the missive. Her disposition to love had engendered her to see in all the divine graces where no man is suffered to want or toil but is ancient, unmutable, and unchanging, and in this letter was no different. The wash of piteous sympathy, borne on wings of religious self-surrender, salted her face and pickled her expression. "We know, from Saint Jude, a lifetime of beatings and kicks is as nothing to a mere moment with God. In a land where darkness has long presided over man and beast alike, hatred has rusted the tongue of every arrogant five-copeck tyrant, priest, and kindly woman. Has the heart forgotten its capacity to love? The layman to cultivate himself in kindness? For that is to cultivate yourself in God, for God is Love and Charity itself in that he permits us to live even in spite of our own evil, born or acquired."

17 hours ago, Child Neglecter said:

Fairuz, our Bird of the East

عليها السلام

Iskander Basrid, Count of Susa, held his chin up high, and his flagon of mead higher!

Cute concept, interested in seeing this religion develop.

The Count of Susa, Iskander Basrid, turned his nose up at the dressing-up of rigid court formalities. Nonetheless, in steadfast support of his dear ally and the spirit of dedication, he sealed his approval through a flat but agreeable smile.

A depiction of the basilica butchering, styled after an icon of Saint Lothar of Balian,

in Akriti-Raevir style.

XIII: BEWARE OF THOSE WHO PROFESS TO BE HOLY WARRIORS AS A CLOAK FOR THEIR INIQUITY

—Bl. Father Humbert, O.S.J.

TO HIS HOLINESS, Sixtus V, Vicarius Filii Dei, present Pontifex Maximus of the Church of Canon.

Holy Father, being that you have been, by the grace of God, appointed pastor over His Church and committed to the care and custody of His flock, I beseech you that you might heed the worries of your mildest and littlest subject.

I trust that at this time, you will be aware of the tragic and irreverent transgressions which transpired that day, the eleventh of Godfrey’s Triumph, MCMXXXIII. Having bade my time in speaking out against this event, in part from deep and inconsolable sadness, I will recount this sequence of events with said sadness and regret, the quality and intensity of which bleeds much as ink on this letter. On this day, the sanctity of the hallowed Everardian Basilica was permanently violated and defiled when a pregnant woman supposed to have been an unholy interloper—having sought a vampiric mediator by whom she might be cleansed and made deluded and afflicted with the various and multiply wretched effects of black-magic and diabolic evocation—invaded the temple. According to the accounts of inquisitors from the Haenseni national guard on-scene, this woman evaded the brigade during pursuit and took flight for the basilica. It was at this point that the woman—and child in-utero—was butchered and spilt blood in the crossing between the church’s sanctuary and presbytery, a murder dealt by the before Haenseni guardsmen.

The nature of this moral quandary is double: the slaughter of a fetal child and the spilling of blood on consecrated grounds. While acknowledging the conflict which is posed by the woman’s, though more urgently, her child’s, circumstances at her butcher, we must reconcile the sanctity of life with the violation of sacred grounds. It would have been of paramount importance to make extra efforts toward the preservation of this child, irrespective of its mother’s unique conditions, which are guided by the innate value of fetal life. Notwithstanding the unlikely hazard that this child might have been born grotesque and misshapen, this value is underscored by His word, “And I have also breathed life into your heart, and the hearts of your children. And I have given you life: I am your father, and the father of all things.” (Virtue 1:5-6). 

But, the premature loss of life is tantamount also to the profanation of the basilica and its defilement and subsequent contamination to iniquitous—that is, vampiric—blood, and the misdemeanors of the garrison soldiers and accessories at-scene who condoned the slaying and neonaticide. As a bastion of communal reverence and divine connection, which uplifts, heals, and inspires the human spirit and the worship of God, its protection and safeguarding becomes paramount in defending the essence which nurtures spiritual journey to and from God and sustains the bond of our shared humanity. We refer back to His word, which quotes, “So I am the Most High, and in pursuit of My Virtue, I bid my faithful this: You shall not blaspheme My Word, nor any thing that is holy.” (Virtue, 1:8). But, in this moment, the sanctitude of the basilica is permanently and irreparably debased, and more blood soaks the soil, feeding the evil therein. The efforts against an agent of evil and the wages of sin being death here, then, neither give grounds for this rash attack nor absolve the parties involved. In any case, and in the words of Bl. Father Humbert the Slave of God, “To... murderously pursue war without any attempt at a peaceful solution, surely makes men sons of Krug, not of Horen.”

I plead for your counsel, now, Your Holiness, Holy Father: how can this be allowed, with full conscience, to continue? So great is this affront, yet the guilty continue at liberty and with weapons in their hands—weapons which continually threaten the integrity of Canondom. And, what is more, this transgression was scantly the first of its like, and will scantly be the last.

At the expense of painting myself as an apologist—how much more blood need soak our altars? How many more infants carved out of their mothers' wombs?

Do Thou, O Lord, have mercy on our dearly departed, for the sake of us sinners all who greatly hope and trust in Thee. For Thy mercy can turn bittering weeping to joyous fanfare, for Thou alone judgeth the living and the dead.

No more to you at this time, but God keep you in his holy governance. This missive is ended with He alone, who is the alpha and omega, and who is blessed throughout the ages.

Remaining the least of your children,

Iskander Basrid, Count of Susa.

Iskander Basrid's jaw clenched tighter than a hangman's knot, every so often grinding his teeth and enamel with the effect of being, at once, highly disoriented and deeply upset by the logorrheic, parabolic nature of the text. He was, however, intensely sentimental, a quality he demonstrated best by his veiled amusement seeing out from the corners of his pursed lips. "It is my mother, and not some washed-up old man, who makes the white road more light, lean, level. You, my mother, illuminate my path with grace and resilience."

A sellsword entertains the idea of participating.

IGN: sultan__hasan

Discord: mntgue#0613

RP name: Sufjan

Event: Jousting

Place of Origin: N/A

On 8/4/2022 at 8:16 PM, MCVDK said:

Full name: Roebuck Wright

Summers’ old: 53

Racial identification: Heartlander

Sex: Male

 

[Username: armpit_s]

[Discord: ---]