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| Expanded Unionism Lore | |
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| Part of Unionism lore. |
The Pious Brothers, Brothers of Piety, Fathers of Piety, and various other titles, are a mostly-male group of the religious devoted who focus themselves on living ascetic lives. Often removing themselves from external stimuli to dwell in the rural parts of the Regalian Empire, Pious Brothers are nonetheless notable for their diligent work over the decades in copying written works, aiding in education, seeking to spread the Unionist faith, as well as defending the faithful. They often work closely with the Silent Sisters in such missions, each handling areas that compliment each other, but this was not always so. For many years, the Pious Brothers remained separate and coldly detached from the world, following extreme values and being few in number. But with time, they have much relaxed their old ways, and can now be seen across the rural parts of the Empire, helping to oversee religiously-held lands. OOC Note: It is not recommended players create Pious Brother roleplay characters, as there are many other organizations and options, supported by Proficiency bonuses and core lore, that would be more beneficial to Unionist RP. Additionally, Pious Brothers have very structured, religiously driven lives, and that will be difficult to RP out in-game. This page is considered Expanded Lore, meaning it is not required reading for a roleplay experience on MassiveCraft but can be used to add additional depth and content to Roleplay.
History
The Pious Brothers originated within just three decades of the declaration of Unionism during the reign of Emperor Theomar. While adoption of the faith was initially slow, it did still have an impact on the population of the Crown Isle and those in other nearby regions held by the fledgling Regalian Empire. One of those impacted was a criminal known only as Espen, and his intense religious conversion saw him grow obsessed with the idea of penance and self-restraint. He flagellated himself, and lived in modesty at the edge of his coastal town (though as a former criminal, he was unlikely to gain better accommodations regardless). His initial mania began to settle, and his words of conviction gradually converted many dozens of local people. Upon traveling to the capital, now a man in his late middle age, he was both a powerful figure in words, and in appearance, quickly attracting attention from the Supreme Reverend, and other members of the newly born Secilly Council. However, while attempts to formally make him an Everian were made, Espen rejected them all. He insisted that his path was elsewhere, and began to construct the group that would soon become known as the Pious Fathers. They were named this because Espen saw himself as a father to the faithless, someone to guide them into a better life through his own firm self-governance of the body and mind. Shortly before Theomar died, Espen gained a religious charter for his growing group, and with its power gathered his followers and left the capital.
He traveled back to his homeland of Anglia, where Unionism had yet to make any substantial impact, and traveled far inland. They crossed the Axel River, and came to an ancient, ruined fortification on a small regional mountain called Mount Kaa in Common. It was not a Dragon Site, though some local people grumbled at their presence regardless. Still, the Fathers of Piety set about repairing the old structure, and got to work on their connection to the faith. Their lives were rigorous, and taxing, for while flagellation decreased as a form of self-punishment, other privations worked to harden the men of the sanctuary, and indeed, it was only men at this time. The Fathers forbade women to enter their spaces, and had a very traditional Anglian mindset regarding gender roles due to much of their population coming from Anglian society. If they had played any role in the First Schism, they might have been exiled along with the Evintarians, but part of their creed was to remain detached from such affairs to focus on the faith, and spread its pure message among the people. From Mount Kaa, Unionism gradually radiated out, and while not everyone converted, many did thanks to the efforts of the “Monks” as they were soon called, birthing the modern name. With time, a second Sanctuary was founded some twenty miles away, and slowly, a network of contact expanded over the countryside. When Espen then died, living to the remarkable age of 90, he selected his successor, the first Magnus Father to replace him upon his death bed.
The year was now 93 AC, and this first Magnus Father began to institute changes to the organization that began to soften both their high, intense standards, as well as put them into better contact with other Unionist officials. The formal Everian priesthood which had been operating in uneasy cooperation with the expanding Fathers soon found them easier to work with, and by the time of the next Magnus Father, the group’s changes only increased. Their name was formally changed to the Brothers of Piety, as the group’s philosophy evolved to no longer profess superiority over others due to their lack of Unionist faith, but also because they desired to appeal to a greater base of the faithful populace. It also felt strange to call some of the youngest members Fathers when vows of chastity were also part of the organization’s creed. Now, they were brothers to the faithful, confidants and helpers to the needs and wishes of the community as well as the Everians. This is also when the Brothers began to gradually integrate further with their mirror Order, the Silent Sisters. While vows of chastity remained intact, the two groups commonly established themselves in the same structures, from which they could serve rural communities. However, the Brothers also remained devoted to truly rural living, and hard lives. Subsects of their faith became hedge preachers or missionaries to lands afar, aiding Everian missions to non-Unionist lands, or establishing new places of Unionist faith in those areas absorbed by the Empire’s dramatic expansion.
Despite this, the Order were among those who with this expansion and accumulation of wealth as the Regalian Empire expanded, became corrupt. Many leading Brothers worked alongside Everians and nobles in a network of corruption that radiated across the Empire during the era of Morgan Kade’s control over the Imperial Seat. Decadence infiltrated the halls of religious austerity, and a number of the Brothers broke their vows of chastity, sometimes with Sisters of Silence, or with the laypeople they were supposed to help guide and oversee. However, when the Regalian Pessimism’s worst years came, there was a revolution among the ranks of the Brothers. Compelled to restore their Order to a more religiously pure organization, a series of violent, more militant members of the group forcefully expelled corrupt officials, and then worked to defend their replacements. This more aggressive edge of the Pious Brothers became the group called the Blade Brothers, and they grew to wield significant power as the Regalian Empire gradually remilitarized in the Chrysant War that followed. The changes their arrival helped to spearhead saved the Brothers from becoming a joke, or worse, entirely dissolved, with the Ninth Magnus Father reforging the tenants of the Pious Brothers and openly supporting a return to simpler lives.
In the modern day, the Pious Brothers remain an integral part of the tapestry of the Unionist faith, though they lack the political pull exercised by the Silent Sisters. While not uninvolved in the Empire, their most active faction is also their most extreme, the Blade Brothers, who have been involved in several of the Regalian Empire’s recent wars where terrible crimes were committed against non-Unionists. While not expelled from the faith, there are concerns that these Brothers will soon entirely fragment away from the core Order as the other Brothers largely retreat from these actions with harsh words delivered by both sides. Because of this, as well as the focus of the Order on rural living, the group’s members are more rarely seen by the Unionist faithful. Despite this, their role remains important, and doubtlessly will continue to evolve over the decades to come.
Internal Structure
- Young Brother: Young Brothers are the children of the Order, given to their care as orphans, as the result of religiously pious parents, or from freely joining though this is much rarer. Young Brothers generally assist the other Brothers with chores and work, but do gain a religious and practical education. They also start to learn the specifications that might suit them best as full Good Brothers early on. Young Brothers graduate to the rank of Good Brother at the age of fourteen, with a cutting of lengthened hair (usually lengthened by the older Brothers themselves not cutting it for up to several months), and it is very rare for them to drop out of the group at this early stage.
- Good Brother: Good Brothers make up the core of the organization, from the age of fourteen to men in their forties. They perform the tasks they were trained for when young, but also tend to get additional schooling or tutoring in their work from the adults helping them to work. Good Brothers also engage with the rural public a fair bit, as well as Everians. Good Brothers ultimately graduate up to the rank of Elder Brother before the age of fifty.
- Elder Brother: The final rank many Brothers of Piety will reach, the Elder Brothers are the oldest members of the organization, and tend to be the mentors and respected leaders of any Sanctuary. This group is also notable as being the level older male Knights will retire into after long years of service to the Empire, being most notable in the Thousand Blades Chapter of the Bloodcast Order but also occurring in other instances. As a result, while they can be less numerous in some areas, in other cases they are as strong in number as Good Brothers.
- Good Father: Elected into their roles from the ranks of the Good and Elder Brothers, the Good Fathers are the leadership of any group of Pious Brothers in Aloria. Unlike the Silent Sisters who keep their group number flexible, Good Father councils are set at five figures, meant to represent each of the sub-organizations within the Order. While not every Sanctuary has members of each subgroup anymore (this once was the case), a plural opinion is still sought through electing people at varying levels of experience.
- Magnus Father: Chosen not from every Pious Brothers collective, but from a set of nineteen Sanctuaries which are randomly chosen each election, the Magnus Father leads the Brothers of Piety. Often a Good Father or at least Elder Brother, these men have numbered twelve, with the living twelfth Magnus Father being named Father Winton. The Magnus Father engages with the leaders of the Unionist faith community, and Imperial officials, but only travels for these purposes. Otherwise, he seeks to keep out of urban centers, and remain with his Sanctuary of origin. He has an entourage of assistants and religious officials to assist him in his work, but the Magnus Fathers often live a more quiet life than, say, the Silent Matron of the Sisters of Silence.
Suborders
Home Brothers
The most commonly seen and the largest of number of the suborders in the Brothers of Piety, the Home Brothers are the men who take care of the Sanctuary, local Temples, and handle local religious matters as direct assistance or support to the local Everians and their Everies. As Sanctuaries are often built at the intersections of religiously-held property, this assists such efforts, but also results in many Home Brothers being quite busy. They often wear dark colored robes, from black to hues of brown.
Wandering Brothers
Wandering Brothers are the diplomats, missionaries, and messengers of the Pious Brothers. Wearing deep green robes, they are often well traveled and worldly men, aware of other faiths and often local practices from the regions they have visited or worked in, on top of a greater knowledge of languages, often speaking or understanding the writing, of several. They are also men, while not corrupt, who are known to enjoy the finer things in life, with the icon of the happy traveling monk frequenting a tavern coming from this often real stereotype. However, while some might be called foodies or connoisseurs of fine cuisine, their main goal with such visits is often to get to know locals, and when in non-Unionist territory, seek ways of converting them. They are also a method by which the Sanctuaries, and broadly, religious communities, send secret notes or information to each other, kept safe from prying eyes, and also often a far more subtle way of delivering any sensitive messages.
Earth Brothers
A more common Brother to find in Aloria, the Earth Brothers are the men who are schooled in the sciences for the purpose of aiding local agriculture and money-making operations in the Sanctuaries. They are schooled in animal husbandry, as well as animal behavior, but also help tend to Sanctuary gardens or fields, as well as the fields of local Everies. They thus help ensure that these local religious territories remain productive, and have a scientific mind seeking to update and ensure their knowledge suits the local environment. They are also well known for tending to bees, the practice eagerly adopted from the Zeměvčel, and making local wines, beers and other spirits. They often wear pale brown, tan or beige robes, usually edged with colorful nature-inspired patterns as befits their speciality.
Book Brothers
A group of men which has begun to die out in recent decades, the Book Brothers were once responsible for the writing and illumination of many thousands of books over the past two and a half centuries since they were first formed to keep records for the Sanctuaries. However, their role expanded, and they came to be the recorders of works, operating as part of and in unison with the Scribe Order on many occasions. However, the invention of the printing press has greatly reduced their need to write texts, as they instead focus on the artistry of printed texts, but this is also a fading pivot. The group is still valuable for their knowledge of their local records, both in the Sanctuary they are based in, and those found in local Everies. They are also collectors of local folklore and histories, sometimes helping preserve tales only handed down by the spoken word in years prior.
Blade Brothers
The militant wing of the Brothers of Piety, these men in black and limited armor initially formed themselves in purposeful invocation of the Thousand Blade Monastery of Axenfoord. However, with time, they have enveloped that organization of similar monastic individuals. The group was initially centralized but soon fractured, and while originally meant to protect their fellow Brothers, have often come to interpret their tenets as widely as possible, allowing them to travel far from home to protect them from greater threats. They have routinely joined and helped lead peasant mobs, but most notably had whole companies of men serving in the Regalian Military during the Altaleï-Regalian War. An extremely conservative anti-Magic body, some of their number have joined the Émérites Chapter of the Lothar Order and make up most of the men who have joined with the splinter of the Silent Sisters who helped create said group.
Rules
The Brothers of Piety maintain rigorous standards among those sworn to their Order. While there is always variety in appearance or customs among the group given the range of jobs the Brothers can undertake, in general, it is expected that each Brother follows several core rules to govern their actions in the wider world.
- Brothers are expected to engage in frequent times of prayer, contemplation, including communal gatherings for this purpose. Learning the Nineteen Core Chants represents dedication to the Order, diligence in one’s studies, and Good Brothers are expected to know them by heart by their twentieth year.
- Brothers are expected to fully respect members of the Unionist priesthood, members of the Silent Sisters, and to offer courtesy to non-Unionist religious figures. They are also expected to remain up to date on religious scripture, and should defend the faith against those who defame it via debate and discussion.
- Brothers are expected to keep their hair and fingernails short, and their vestments clean. Additionally, clothing must adhere to the role one has selected or been assigned in life, which is to say, an Earth Brother should not walk about in leather armor like a Blade Brother would.
- Brothers are expected to keep aware of local events, and all religious festivals, offering assistance to any Everians hosting them. Earth Brothers in particular are to offer Sanctuary aid in the form of a small food donation.
- Brothers are expected to be chaste. Offspring of unchaste Brothers are to be taken in by either the Order of Silence or the Order of Piety.
Trivia
- Some Book Brothers have taken to learning the ins and outs of the printing press, becoming masters of machinery and information dissemination.
- There was once a uniform hairstyle adhered to by the Brothers of Piety, but they stopped insisting on it when non-Ailor began to join their ranks, and as the group loosened their once unbreakable tenants of conformity.
- The Blade Brothers actually often use blunt weapons, their most known symbol being the wooden cudgel.
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