Reports of Heretics

High Justicar Varain read through the reports on his desk after a day of purifying the corrupt and the heretical. Several inquisitors had managed to purge a cult masquerading as followers of The Lady. Good, the priests of the other gods may be sloppy in purging the heretic from their ranks, but the servants of The Lady would not be so lax.

     The halfling’s eyes were drawn to the door of his office as it opened and a half-elf woman entered. Her tabard bore the symbol of The Lady, and the chainmail worn under it along with the leather pauldrons showed her rank as a low-level inquisitor. He watched impassably as she knelt on one knee, fist flat on the ground, before speaking.

     “Lord Varain, High Justicar of the Abies Ceatung, the Faith Militant of the Holy Lady of the Night Skies, I bring word from Inquisitor Marshal Uilar from Whaleden. He reports finding heretics in the native populations that portray The Lady as a savage, brutish male figure. He is requesting additional Inquisitors and Evangelicals to stamp out the heresies,” the inquisitor reported, her form remaining in its crouched position.

     “Much as I would like to grant the marshal’s request, our numbers are too few to set out to convert the entire frontier. Tell him to make do with the forces that he has. I will reconsider his request when the hobgoblin heretics have been dealt with. Is there anything else from the north?” Varain asked as he read over the report from the Inquisitor Marshal stationed in the Viridian Mere.

     “The training of acolytes is proceeding as expected, recruitment is up from last month, and rumors have made it to Whaleden of some kind of local elf population massacred the mining village of Golstatt roughly two weeks inland. As of the time that Inquisitor Marshal Uilar sent me to make his report, he was preparing a team of inquisitors to investigate. I have not been updated on the situation since I left.”

     Leaning back, Varain considered what he had been told. In the seventy years since Sylvanor had been colonized by more than pirates looking for a hidden and safe hiding place, there had been no word of a native population of elves. Just orcs and some nomadic humans far to the north. Most likely the village was killed by orcs, but just in case, “These rumors, what else do they say about the elves?”

     “Only that they have skin darker than the blackest of nights. The rumors reached Whaleden only three days before I departed.”

     Well, Varain felt that he could easily dismiss the rumor. No elves had black skin, meaning that it was definitely orcs. Motioning the inquisitor to continue her report, he carefully listened as she spoke, archiving and memorizing everything that she told him. When, finally, her report was complete, he sent her off to get a meal and some rest before she was to return to Sylvanor.

     Upon her departure, Varain took a short stack of fresh parchment and began to document the important details of the Whaleden report. Upon doing so, he rolled the condensed report into a scroll and prepared it to be sent to his superiors.

     Four days later, the scroll case arrived in a lavishly decorated room filled with moons made of silver inlay on the furniture, doors, and chandeliers. Seated at rest in an elaborate chair made entirely of silver, was a halfling woman entering into her second century of life. Before her was an elven man reading the contents of the scroll case.

     Seated on her throne, the Highest Crescent of the faith of Maidanaa listened to the various reports from all corners of the Green Coast and beyond. Her inquisitors were doing well, more than twenty heretic cults had been discovered and eliminated in the last month. In addition, the infiltrators in the slave pens of the hobgoblins reported having success in converting the slaves in preparation for an uprising. It would be years before the uprisings could take place and would need to be timed perfectly, but the seeds had been planted.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you like my work and want to support me, check out my homebrew race book here.