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CollectorOfMyst
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"Inviksiya Victoceo", the Varyan “Red Seminary”
The name is a bastard’s conglomeration of Russian and dog Latin syllables translated, very roughly, into “finding faith through instruction & victory.” Phonetically “In-vik-C-ah Vik-toe-C-oh”
Genesis
The notorious Varyan Inviksiya Victoceo, known to most as the Red Seminary, was founded with the mantra “through knowledge comes strength. The Red Seminary has its blooded and black roots deep in Varyan culture and history, reaching back two hundred years to the Continental Schism Wars and its monolithic foundations were built upon black secrets and ruins that date back to even darker ages. Two-hundred years ago the nation of Varya, righteous in its strength, will, and might, launched a massive assault on the God-Kings of T’sarae, Omestris, and Muraad. Most prayed for a quick victory but neglected to consider the brutality a quick victory requires. The war was swift, desperate, and bloody beyond recollection. The people of the Ravenous Lord swept into the neighboring territories and laid all resistance, no matter how defiant, to waste. Where the armies of Varya marched the carrion flocks followed, a blizzard of black feathers descending on the corpses of the fallen armies and pecking their pound of flesh before it froze solid. By war’s end the God-Kings were brought back to Varya and imprisoned in the capital city, destined to be consumed slowly by Lord Varya and his arcane machines; machines that were discovered at the site of what is now the Red Seminary.
The Bloody Foundation is Set
During the savage campaigns against the lands of Omestris a group of Varyan historians, scientists, and priests discovered a set of ruins cut deep into the cliffs of a cavernous ravine and took shelter there during a particularly brutal storm. These men and women were some of the brightest and most talented operatives during the Varyan Schism War campaigns, sent ahead of the main force to scout the opposition. These heroes of the Schism War were renowned for spying ahead and discovering weaknesses in the enemy’s lines, each operator able to discover various exploitative conditions that enabled the Varyan forces to combat the enemy. As the operatives pressed into Omestri territory they discovered a cancer within the people, or so the Varyan history books say. The people of Omestris, as all good followers of Varya have come to know, were and are dabblers in the darkest of human desires. It is said by the historians that the Omestri found joy in the enslavement and torture of others and were sadistic in the extreme. The chronicles of the Schism War, found in every Varyan Library and School, recount tales of fields of mutilated corpses leading to their capital city and unparalleled decadence practiced by the people. They were a hedonistic and depraved people dabbling in all manner of conceivable pleasure, pain, delight, and anguish and it was in the depths of the ruins, high in the mountains of Omestris that the Varyan expedition found out just how deep the luscious depravity ran in Omestri culture.
Down in the deepest, darkest depths of those ruins far below the edge of the ravine, dug into the heart of the mountains the team found, twisted and diabolical machinery fused into the very core of the mountain. The inner workings of this machine looked older than anything known to civilization but it had appeared that the people of Omestris had built upon it, expanding it, and turning it to their most unholy and debased desires. As the expedition explored this machinery with great fervor, ignorant of its purpose, the Ether in their bodies began to power the monstrosity, feeding it, and fueling in it a desire for more. It was a slow drain at first and the Varyan team did not take precautions and by the time they understood some of what was happening to them, it was far… far too late. What followed was a descent into lust, murder, experimentation, and madness that no one today could comprehend. The machine seemed possessed of its own highly intelligent and devious mind, to the point of obsession, as it began to work instilling a black desire in the expedition team to revel in the physical and emotional pain of others. In reality it was feeding upon the Ether residue of suffering, in those hellish depths the machine ripped away Ether from their bodies, recycled it through arcane mechanisms, amplified it exponentially, and feed it back to the husks, reanimating the people of the expedition after their depredations would end their lives. Each time they rose anew, they were more powerful but more fearful, more ravenous, more desperate to satiate the appetites of their corrupted flesh and twisted minds. They fell upon each other, visiting every manner of depravity upon one other before being annihilated by the machine’s feeding then revived again to repeat the cycle... each time the machine leaving one more expedition member dead, funneling their power and madness into the remaining "living" souls.
No record exists outside of the Red Seminaries deepest most secure black vaults of what those men and women found in the ruins, of how it corrupted them, of how the machine worked and what it ultimately accomplished. Only the Inner Circle of the Inquisition knows the truth of the machines power and purpose and those secrets are locked in the Seminaries deep dungeons and labyrinthine catacombs.
When the main body of Varyan forces arrived at the ruins they found all but one expedition member dead. The sole survivor was calm amongst his dead comrades, he spoke vaguely of trails, traps, wildlife, and demons in the depths of the ruins but any man with eyes could see the truth etched in the frozen faces and tortured flesh of the victims. Horrors and depravities had been visited upon these men and women that the soldiers dared not think of and when pressed to answer the sole survivor jabbered on and rabidly prevented any soldier from entering the ruins. As the troops camped for the night rumors spread, anger flared, and a mob attempted to lynch the sole survivor for his crimes against his fellow countrymen. Set to hang the survivor hurled curses and obscenities to the mob raving about his purpose and his immortality and at the last moment, it seemed he was right. The High Priestess of Varya herself arrived and pardoned the man, though she was not scheduled to be so close to the front lines. Together they plunged into the depths of the ruins never to be seen again. The army moved on as armies do, Omestris was conquered, and history was written, absent the events at the ruins. The only public record of the event stating that the valiant Varyan expedition gave their lives in an effort to end Omestri perversions.
The Varyan Citadel of Death Rises From the Ruins of Omestri
Shortly after the Schism Wars settled down and the Empire was unified work began on restoring the ruins that had been found by the lost expedition team. First Hordes of slaves, mostly Omestri, were escorted by a newly established Conclave of Varyan priests, dedicated to purging the impurities of conquered people through labor and faith, deep into the ruins. Parts of the diabolical machine that only the most secretive of this new Conclave understood were dismantled and taken to the capital city, at a great cost of slave and tinkerer life, in order to construct the apparatus that binds the God-Kings to Varyan now. With this horrendous task completed armies of soldiers were replaced by armies of masons, carpenters, laborers, miners, architects, and tradesmen. They swarmed to the site of the ruins and began construction on a monument that was to be like no other. Some did it out of a need for work, many out of a sense of pride, a good number were slaves, and all worked, lived, and died under the rising shadow of the Seminary. No record exists of who, specifically, commissioned the work, no dealings were officially recorded, and any inquiry was met with a web of confused orders and convoluted plans that never pointed anywhere. People knew the individual parts they played and the individual pieces they built but no one seemed to know the big picture... yet still the Seminary wall rose in record time. The most extensive archivist documenting the raising of this Varyan monument in what was Omestri land ended his final work on the topic; it consisted of eighteen volumes, with the statement…
“Perhaps it is Lord Varya himself that has commissioned this structure, only the mind of a God could fathom the goings on here!”
~Senior Archivist Nikolev Bravkiea, Chronicler of the Grand Varyan Seminary
It should be noted that shortly after completing his grand and voluminous work, the Archivist disappeared, all copies of his work vanishing from common circulation without a trace or a blip in the history books. It was rumored he had come close to plumbing the depths of not only the Seminary’s construction but what lay beneath and though he had the good sense not to publish it he was still a threat to the fledgling Seminary and so vanished.
Construction continued without pause no matter the season, condition, or time and before long a great Seminary, part fortress, part monument, part cathedral, and completely secretive, menacing and mysterious was built. Raised in a record amount of time the Seminary's skillful architecture was only eclipsed by the great toll in life that earned the Red Seminary its name early. Not only is it called the Red Seminary because of the inquisitorial hopefuls, the students who bleed and die in an effort to be ordained Inquisitors but also because so many workers gave their lives in its construction, staining its walls red with their blood. It is said that one in every three workers died building the structure and that a generation after its completion, no worker was left alive to speak of its construction, all having died or vanished. Stories of unexplained disappearances, grizzly accidents, incomprehensible crimes committed by workers, and episodes of rampant violence litter the history of the Seminary’s construction; those stories now known in full truth, to none but the Inner Circle.
To explore the completed Seminary is an honor few save the Inquisition have ever been granted. The approach to the canyon upon which it is built is a jagged waste of rock and fallow land, howling winds, and deadly beasts but for those that endure and survive the trip the Red Seminary, in all its grandeur, awaits. An area of land was blasted flat and cleared of obstruction in order to house the workers during construction. Today this is “the great approach” to the Seminary, the area around its walls cleared for hundreds of meters, often by students during training sessions. This cleared area often teems with students families, waiting the few times they may see their children during a year, along with merchants, traders, and workers that all provide support to the Seminary. The building itself is a monolithic block of a structure, a mass of deep crimson stone and blackened iron, weathered brass and worn steel. Elegant arches and buttress line the outer walls, tower like extensions rise up half as tall as the walls, set at regular intervals and larger multi-tiered towers, composed of archways, observation platforms, and entrance gates guard each corner. Front and center as anyone approaches the Seminary is the grand training coliseum, its towering pillars supporting a golden dome high above. Grand ramps and stairways flank the coliseum’s entrance on the lower level, each long curving ramp facilitating trade, supplies, and people for the Seminary’s purposes. Once inside one realizes that the vast interior of the Seminary, enclosed by its large building like walls is mostly open to the sky. The front contains the training coliseum and to the very rear is the Sanctuary, between this, built around an open courtyard and into the expansive Seminary walls are the various workshops, training buildings, foundries, smiths, markets and cook-shops. This small town square like place is populated with the various lower level workers, artisans, and tinkerers that keep the Seminary in working order.
No one person save the Inner Circle has free run of the entire Seminary at any one time and it is rumored that areas go completely unused in the Seminary save when the Circle deems fit. Four Great halls for vigils, studies, and lessons make up the majority of each of the four walls that enclose the Seminary. The rear of the structure is comprised of a chapel that is second only in greatness to Lord Varyan’s in Magnagrad. The chapel consists of a sanctuary and spire that is topped with an image of the God, twin towers to the left and right consistently bathing the statue in an ethereal glow from arcane machinery. In addition to the great halls the arched marble wings that run along the length of the Seminary contain barracks that open to the training grounds and town square that are enclosed between the chapel vigil halls, coliseum, and Sanctuary.
The three awe inspiring towers of the Sanctuary, one topped with the image of Varya himself reach for the sky and are off limits to students. The rumors abound as to what happens high above the mass of the Seminary proper, many whisper of the Inner Circle and dark experiments, secret vaults, and imprisoned villains or legends. Only the Inner Circle and Elite Inquisitors know the truth of what goes on in the towers above the Seminary. Far below the towers, ripped open from canyon itself the Seminary delves deep into the earth. Secret vaults, caves, and entire archives exist below the ground level. Tinkerers toil away in workshops piped with Ether and steam while deeper chambers hold training labyrinths and of course ancient and terrible secrets.
Roots of Primacy
Even before the monoliths completion select groups of men and women were drawn to the fledgling Seminary as it was constructed. Top military minds from all over, members from soldiers possessed of great survivability and battle prowess to Commanding Generals famed for their tactics, Priests of all inclinations and apparent capabilities, and those gifted with control of Ether in many ways, shapes, and forms were all summoned, drawn, or ordered to the Red Seminary. After these masterful minds were gathered the first recruitment began. What piqued the curiosity, interest, and horror of the populace is that recruitment did not go after the finest military fighters or the holiest of priests but for young boys and girls. Hundreds of them, all between the ages of eight and twelve, were gathered by the military... some from enslaved populations, others were volunteered by noble families and anything walk of life in between. Once the youths arrived at the Seminary and the gates closed behind them they were never seen again. Unlike today were dead applicants are returned to families (sometimes) or failed living applicants are reassigned to other priestly orders, not one of the original class was ever seen again, except those that were ordained. The masters of the Varyan world began to work on the children, together within the Seminary, and on projects none outside seemed to fully comprehend. As this secretive training continued rumors of treachery spread and suspected rebellions flared up within the newly formed Varyan Empire.
As time progressed the scientists, tinkers , Ether wielders, and engineers modified what machinery was left in the bowls of the Seminary harnessing the power that the diabolical contraption possessed. Using the machine on the youths, in what has become known as the Ravenous Trail, through countless deadly experiments, and brutal training regimes the Order of Inquisitors began to come to life within the Red Seminary. Twelve years after the first group of two-hundred youths entered the Seminary nineteen emerged, ordained by the Varyan Imperial Priesthood with a new title and near limitless authority, Inquisitors. Those nineteen Inquisitors, crafted over one-hundred and eighty years ago, were the first to be ordained. Known today as the Primacy they are revered at the Seminary as legends, grand statues of them line chapels, relics of their bodies, gear, and exploits fill vaults, and it is said their spirits still walk the halls.
They, the Primacy, strode out from the Red Seminary and into a Varyan Empire that was about to explode into rebellion. Over the course of the next three decades talk of rebellion ceased, some were talked down, reasoned with, and negotiated with by the Inquisition others were annihilated, whole family lines snuffed from existence for the mere mention of treason. Each Inquisitor had full liberty and complete authority to handle each situation as they wished as long as the job was done. Through the actions of the Primacy Varya was now at peace. Though the Primacy is revered by Varyan people today, specifically by Inquisitors, part of their true mission was not so noble or illustrious. Through the actions of the Primacy the Omestri people, by and large, were vilified, enslaved, and committed to a life where they are nothing more than a fuel source for the Varyan Empire. Omestri slaves if given the chance or ability to speak would tell you how their people were once happy, loved life, indulged in all it had to offer in good nature and faith but were not the depraved sociopathic tortures and debased hedonists of Varyan history. The Inquisition put an end to that though and the true story, the righteousness of either side is unknown and dependent on whose history you believe. With the perceived success of the Primacy, recruitment began in earnest and the Red Seminary became a hub of Varyan priestly service. The training was beyond brutal though and not all who aspired would succeed, just as the Inner Circle intended.
The Inner Circle
Today the Seminary is governed, as it was two-hundred years ago, by the Inner Circle. The Inner Circle is composed of nine members, men and women, who oversee training, pass judgment during matters of importance, determine who is to be ordained, and to what mission Inquisitors are assigned once ordained. The Inner Circle is a shadowy organization, steeped in myth, secrecy, ritual, tradition, and rumor. The Circle is presided over by the Grand Master. This being is hardly ever seen by any but the Inner Circle and even then it is rare and the Master is always cloaked in shadow and robe, indistinguishable in all but voice. The Circle has evolved into the most important clandestine organization within the Varyan Priesthood a powerful force both politically and religiously, guarding the innumerable secrets of the Red Seminary and Varyan Empire. The judgments of the Inner Circle are fluid and once laid down, incontrovertible, their say is final within the Red Seminary and within almost all aspects of Varyan life.
To become a member of the Inner Circle, one must have served within the Inquisition and only upon their ascension to the elite and secretive forces of the Inquisitorial service will they begin to learn the truth of their organizations past and secrets. However, even after climbing to the elite units, there remain circles within circles and levels within levels, with each step accompanied by its own rituals of entry. Rising through the intricate ranks of the Inquisition, then of elite forces, and finally of the Inner Circle, an Inquisitor will learn more and more of the truth of the organizations history, each secret revealed as the Inner Circle's trust in them grows. For their part the Inner Circle sees to it that not many reach the lofty heights to replace their ranks, in part ensuring their power but also weeding out thousands of applicants through torturous training.
What it Means to be Trained as an Inquisitor
The Trial
Many hundreds of people offer up their children willingly for the Red Seminary’s program every year, hoping their child will become the next ordained Inquisitor, bringing their family wealth, power, and notoriety. In addition to this it is the sole purpose of an ordained Conclave of Inquisitors, called the Seraphs, to seek out those children best suited to become Inquisitors. Recruits chosen by the Seraphs are always admitted to the Seminary, although the recruitment process and what constitutes the Seraphs standards varies considerably between Inquisitors. The only rule the Seraphs operate by is that between all of them they choose no more than twenty-five of the potential two-hundred future students but those chosen twenty-five will be guaranteed a spot. All other applicants are screened by the Seminary’s Inner Circle, each member evaluating the applicants until a final class of two-hundred students is reached. Thousands upon thousands apply every year so the selected few are a small crowd. They are all recruited at young ages, typically no older than twelve and no younger than eight and once selected for training they will all be isolated from their families for the majority of the time except for a three month period every year beginning in the third year. After selection the children are designated "Initiates" and the first year of their training begins that very day. Outside the walls of the Seminary in the brutal and biting cold the mass of 200 children are stripped of anything that connects them to their past. Clothing is replaced with the dull gray sackcloth robes and blank white tabards of the Initiates, personal items are cast into the abyssal ravine the Seminary is built over and all traces of their former lives are removed.
At this point and for the next two years the instructors will have to take children from every walk of life and shape them into Inquisitors. The Seminary forces the Initiate, over these first two years, to disregard what made them rich, poor, slave, noble, cared for or abused and baselines each student with the dedication, devotion, and warrior ethos needed to succeed in the Seminary. After the trappings of their former lives are tossed away they are led into the Seminary’s Coliseum where a member of the Inner Circle addresses them, telling them what it is they are about to become a part of, of the importance of their duties and tasks, and of the infallible nature of their future instructors and of the Inquisition. When this speech is completed the Initiates are broken down into groups of ten and led deep into the maze like sub-levels of the Red Seminary and subjected to something called the Ravenous Trial. There is no turning back from this point, no student can quit. Only instructors can fail students who are then reassigned to either maintenance or upkeep duties at the Seminary, for the terms of their twelve year stay, or other areas of Priestly orders where they can still serve Varya.
Initiates are led deep into the bowels of the Red Seminary, they are blindfolded and led in a twisting, ever changing pattern through countless doors, passages, and caverns and by the time they arrive not even the best tracker could remember the way free. Each group of ten students is instructed to enter a vigil chamber lined with brass mechanisms and ocular lenses. All around this round chamber are doors leading to individual rooms that each student is placed in. There is nothing to these rooms except at the far end of the spartan chamber there is a trench into the abyssal canyon below the Seminary, the floor slightly slanted towards it, slick with condensation. Here the students are told to engage in prayer, locked away, and not spoken to for two days. Some pray, some cry out, some endeavor to escape, others fall asleep and fall into the trench below but most survive the first two days. Throughout this week of the Initiate’s trial the only contact will be the Instructor that provides them a flagon of green colored water and a slice of maggot ridden bread.
They will be asked one question and must answer immediately or be removed from training. “Is Varya alive within you” the answer being “Yes Inquisitor.” Over the next three days, those after the first two, isolation, food deprivation, and administration of psychotropic compounds (the green water) prepares them for the final days of the trial. On the final two days the mechanisms and lenses in the central chamber are focused on each individual room by secretive tinkerers and the Initiates are exposed to a manipulation of their existing Ether, by painful magical and mechanical means. This is but a small aspect of the Machine that the Red Seminary was built over and it induces in each Initiate a state one hundred fold less intense but similar to that experienced by that first Varyan expedition team. They are induced into a condition where they are “put in touch” with a facsimile of a miniscule portion of the hunger Varya experiences for the other Gods. This is a maddening experience that affects each Individual Initiate in differing ways but it brings home, for those final days and nights of insanity, a personal connection with the God who is then able to gift them more powerful Ether capabilities as their bodies, minds, and training goes on. In effect this enhances the bond Varya has with his subject Inquisitors.
Some students throw themselves into the trench below out of madness or misstep, others go completely mad, carted deeper into the dungeons after the trial is over, but those that do survive intact are ready to begin their first years of training. Having survived the Ravenous Trial the Initiates are healed of any serious malady, given spartan bunks and begin years of progressively torturous training. They are told that those not with them anymore succumbed to the trial and have died or gone mad. In truth the Seminary’s healers can cure any malady or madness inflicted by the trial and those falling or flinging themselves into the chambers trench are not killed but immediately retrieved from the underground lake that feeds the Seminary’s water system. Once found and healed these failures will spend the rest of their twelve years helping those that maintain the Seminary, serving in an honored, if lower, rank of Seminary Acolyte.
Initiates
The first years for the Initiates training are primarily filled with schooling and theology. Harsh rules are enforced with corporal punishment that is given often and intensely but never without cause. Every minute of every day of their lives for the next two years will be micro-managed, supervised, and observed. Along with the introduction into academic matters and theological matters comes the baseline physical training. Hand-to-hand combat begins early in order to develop a warrior culture, the “I” and “Me” is broken down, and the words are never used the team and the organization takes priority. The Initiate refers to themselves as “This Initiate” or “Initiate and then their name” They must request to do everything and anything and are punished for any small infraction. This period focuses on breaking down much of the old person, what little there was, and imposing the ways of the Inquisition. To craft the elite Inquisitors each must start from a baseline of obedience and warrior culture. The instructors are loud, quick to strike, and commanding… there is no mistaking that this is their world they are Gods under Varya’s will and Initiates are nothing but grains of sand. Their prior lives are erased and a militaristic warrior culture is established as a baseline, from here the individual becomes part of a greater whole.
With the passing of the first two years time the micro management ceases. The great reward for enduring this remolding is the first break from Seminary life. A three month period is granted at the end of the year, and every year after in order for the students to invite their families to the Seminary, spending time in the caravan towns of traders outside the walls or within the Seminary’s town square. Students also have the option of leaving for the three month period but if they are late in returning they will not be accepted back into the Inquisitorial program and will be pawned off to another Priestly order.
By this point in time the Initiates have had a warrior culture drilled into them, a selfless deviation to the Seminary, their classmates, and the Inquisition. They gain the freedom to express their personalities again and the constant drill, controlled movement, and empirical processes are ended. The Initiates are divided into Conclaves of twenty members and this unit is to be their unit throughout the rest of their time at the Seminary. Each Conclave is still closely supervised by Instructors, three of them assigned specifically to each Conclave, in addition to their subject matter teachers for different evolutions. These Inquisitors are given a degree of leeway with the manner in which they train the Initiates and competition between Conclaves is encouraged by the Inner Circle. Conclaves often begin planning raids on each others wings in the Seminary, the goal always a weapon, trophy, or important item, these practices are encouraged by the instructor cadre, it hones competitiveness, increases the warrior ethos, team cohesion, abstract planning, deception, combat, and physicality while giving them an outlet for the stresses of Seminary training.
During the third year the physical training is ramped up. Initiates will do every conceivable combination of running, climbing, swimming, swinging, falling, rolling, jumping, scrambling, crawling, and moving. They will complete complex physical puzzles and be faced with challenges that can only be accomplished as a Conclave. Combat training begins to evolve from the hand-to-hand tactics of years one and two to sparring with wooden weapon replicas. Individual tactics are beginning to be taught as well as maneuvers and fighting styles. Basic ranged weaponry, sling, bows, crossbows, and throwing weapons are introduced at this point. Survival training begins in the third year and much of it, while informative, is dangerous. A great majority of the Survival work will be academic in this year, things like shelter, staying warm, weather, survival foods, hunting, trapping, fishing, and overland travel and navigation will be covered. Initiates do spend tests and trials out in the wilds around the Seminary and some do not return, succumbing to exposure, starvation, or predation. While a few die, more often than not, teams of Inquisitorial instructors and observers will quickly rescue the student near death and though they live their failure means reassignment out of Inquisitorial continuance.
Academic course begin to cover mathematics, science, and history along with theology. Ether training moves from an academic nature into a practical form in the third year. Initiates are taught the nature of Ether, its limitations, powers, and abilities, each in tutored in the passive and active abilities and is taught how to conserve their own life giving Ether and how to employ Ether vials. The third year is the first year the Initiates may view the annual Conclave Games but they are yet unable to participate. Each Initiate and Conclave is observed closely and voluminous notes are taken by little seen scribes that are always off to the sides in the shadows and always disappear through some manner or another when approached. Most of these scribes are failed Initiates, Aspirants, or Neophytes that continue to serve the Seminary.
The fourth year passes much as the third year did. The training difficulty increases but so does the students ability. Physical training becomes more demanding, Initiates… in reality twelve to sixteen-year-old children by this time are typically capable of outperforming the normal conscripted solider when it comes to technical combat ability and physical endurance. The fourth year is when the students begin weapons practice with actual weapons, only blunted. Their sparring gets violent and full contact and healers are often required to see to it that students don’t die. Even then only the most grievous of wounds are healed on the spot and only if the Conclaves cadre of instructors thinks the initiate deserves healing. If not they will have to suffer through the day until one of the appointed times healers are available, the Conclave members practicing their first aid or their own healing skills until professional healers are available. Ether training continues to advance; the Initiates begin to be able to maintain their passive abilities and start to practice active techniques with some success. Undue caution is met with corporal punishment and combat aggressiveness is rewarded with a bit of respite or food. Often times at this point it is the entire Conclave that will bear the physical punishment, mental anguish, solitary confinement, or verbal berating for one of their members mistakes.
Two other significant events occur in the fourth year. Initiates are exposed to their blood trials in which their combat and survival skills are pitted against the beasts of the wild in combat matches. Again though seemingly alone against these beasts, teams of healers and observers typically quickly save the fallen or defeated student after it has seemed they have died, bringing them back from the brink and assigning them to serve Varya in other disciplines. Even with this precaution in place each class will see its share of Initiates die; if an actual death occurs, the family takes solace and pride in the fact that their children were selected for the Red Seminary as even just the selection is an august and revered enough to console the families.
The next important event is that the Initiates may participate in the annual Conclave Games. The games are held each year and consist of trials all designed to test the students. Fourth year and Fifth year Initiates participate in the Tower Games outside the Sanctuary, Aspirants participate in the Coliseum Games and the Neophytes compete in their games called the Pentacle Games. The games consist of everything from academic challenges of logic, rhetoric, and puzzle solving, to physical challenges such as many types of races, combat, and endurance games. Each Conclave participates as a team and the Games are held as the opening to the yearly three month break, that way the student’s family may come see them perform. There are no real prizes for winning the games or events except for a token insignia stating what year it was and what was won, the insignia often looked at as one more thing to keep clean, perfectly aligned, and maintained or the instructors will punish the wearer. What happens often is that Conclaves will raid each others barracks after the games have been completed, stealing each others insignia, fighting over them, challenging each other to find hidden ones, and so on and so forth.
Year five continues like year four and three but progresses the training to a new level. Initiates will normally rise an hour before the sun, train, learn, pray, and fight all day until late in the evening typically 2000. During this time crammed with academia, combat training, physical training, and spiritual training students must find time to eat and complete the tasks assigned to them by instructors. No leeway is given, the schedule always has priority for the Conclave, and it is the Conclaves job to figure out how to optimize their time and resources during the ten hours a day they do not train. Combat drills and endurance training is focused on in year five. Ether training, survival training, and course work are still important but the instructors take this year to harden any soft edges left before the Initiates become Aspirants and move on to the demon year or year six. The Initiates are also assigned Neophyte mentors in the fifth year. These Neophytes, a year from being ordained, become part of that Conclaves instructor cadre and are given the opportunity to pass on some knowledge, skills, a small degree of hope, and mentorship before the Hell of the demon year begins. Also in the fifth year the blood trials become fiercer and some Conclaves suffer great losses to attrition and perceived death. If a Conclave becomes too small to function effectively then it will be merged with another weakened Conclave to form a new Conclave, the Initiates having to come together with newer people in order to succeed. Those that adapt and lead succeed those that cannot fail. At the end of the fifth year the Initiate Conclaves are allowed their three months of freedom but when they return to the Seminary they are deemed Aspirants and without much ceremony or fanfare the Conclaves instructors turn the newly dubbed Aspirants over to an order of Inquisitors that exist only in the Red Seminary, The Acherons.
Aspirants
The newly dubbed “Aspirants”, full of mirth from their three months off, pride at being Aspirants, and confidence in their skill have no idea what they have stepped into once in the care of the Acherons. The sixth year, conducted by the Acherons is dubbed the “demon year”. Once the Instructor Cadre departs the Acherons begin eight-months of terror and training that anyone not being trained as an Inquisitorial Initiate could not endure. Immediately they are set upon by men and women, Acherons, that make even the strictest Cadre Instructor seem like an angel. The Acherons are the hardest and most war blooded, elite Inquisitors that have returned to the Seminary to train Aspirants. Each knows no pity or remorse and will remove an Aspirant from training without a second thought. Their feverish and near insane tempo of order barking, corporal punishment, and ability to inflict mental anguish are all ways of weeding out those that flew under the radar during the first five years. Their method of madness simulates the stress an Inquisitor may experience during prolonged combat and war and it is unrelenting. This year of training sees a rapid progression of physical strength and endurance training, academics are taught but often while fighting or training and students will be required to remember the lessons while conducting other drills. Sleep will be interrupted, food will be scarce but enough, and the Conclave will have to come together as a unit and as a team of unique personalities and skill sets to succeed. The demon year continues at a break neck, non-stop pace for the entire eight-months. The Aspirants that do not die either perceptually or in reality are taught more advanced fighting techniques, different weapons, firearms, advanced survival, more advanced Ether manipulation, and take part in many tactical decision making and leadership scenarios.
Once completed the Acherons, possibly showing a small amount of begrudging respect… most likely not, will hand the students back to the Instructor Cadre that left them eight-months ago. Having survived the demon years the true Aspirants are now given new robes and clothing of leather and wool, green in color, in respect to their ascension into the novice ranks above Initiate and more durable for the training to come. The month immediately following the eight-month demon year is called the vigil month. It is a month that the Aspirant spends entirely in prayer, healing, and observation… a measure to ensure the demon year did not leave any lasting scars upon the new Aspirant. Once the Vigil month is complete the student is cleared and the yearly Conclave Games will begin followed by that year’s three month break.
Returning Aspirants will find that during the seventh year they are given even more freedom within the strictures of training. Training schedules are still progressive and tough, lessons continue on advanced topics making even the dumbest inquisitor more educated than most common men or women. Ranged weaponry progresses from basic use into combat marksmanship, sparring and combat begins with the actual weapons the student prefers and often time students are encouraged to spar each other and other Conclaves. Instructor Cadres become less of the God-like instructors of Initiates and more like stern mentors that oversee the progression of the Aspirants individual skills. As an Aspirant the town square of the Red Seminary, the small village like courtyard enclosed by the Seminary’s walls, becomes open to the students during the day if they find the time to visit it. Here students can find a microcosm of a small village and often times instructors will utilize the Acolytes and failed students that live and work here as marks for information gathering, intelligence work, and urban survival training. Like all years, except the first two, the time ends with the Conclave Games and the three free months.
Years eight and nine are a progression of year seven. By now the youngest Aspirants are about sixteen and the oldest are close to nineteen or twenty and each Conclave of youngsters are the equivalent of an Elite military organization when it comes to knowledge and Ether/Combat skill levels. The Instructors seem to let on that the Aspirants are no longer a dull stick of iron but a sword that needs refining and sharpening and treat them as such. Any infraction is still sternly punished but not out of a desire to instill disciple or order but because the Aspirants and Conclave should know better by now. Year nine is the final year that the student will be an Aspirant. At its end, after the games but before they leave for the free months the remaining students… less than a quarter of what started, are dubbed Neophytes and granted permission to wear the solid black robes of their rank.
Neophytes
If Initiates are dull sticks of iron and Aspirants refined swords then “Neophytes” are a swords keen edge. The first two years of being a Neophyte, years ten and eleven, are big changes for the students and the Conclave. As Initiates their schedules were set in stone, as Aspirants the Instructors began to focus more on what needed fine tuning but as Neophytes the students and Conclaves are given even more leeway. They are told by the Instructors what course and training events they must attend during a week… other than that it is up to the individual and the Conclave as a whole to ensure they are where they need to be, when they need to be, with the gear they need. This also serves to give the Cadre Instructors a break besides that which occurred during the demon year. All training focuses on shaping the deadly edge Neophytes have to the thinnest, razor keen edge. Their minds are tested and pushed by complex tactical scenarios, philosophical and theological debates, and advanced sciences and mathematics. Advanced interrogation and even torture techniques are taught and the physical training is focused to boost whatever may be lacking, or push that high standard just a bit farther. Fierce competition between individuals and Conclaves is encouraged as most of the Instructors are aging and can no longer keep up with the student’s younger physiques, though they still instruct mounds of technical skill. Students now have the run of the Town Square as Neophytes, day or night, and it is their responsibility to see they have all that is required for their training evolutions. In these final years the youngest Neophytes are nineteen the oldest nearing the end of their twenty-third year and each is the pinnacle of Varyan priestly, Ether wielding, academic, and military prowess. These years end with the Conclave Pentacle Games which are often the most watched and most competitive, followed by the standard three month grace period.
The final year, year twelve, is the year in which a Neophyte is assigned to assist the Cadre Instructors with a batch of fifth year Initiates that are preparing for the demon year. This Neophyte is granted whatever leeway with the Initiates that the Cadre Instructors grant and often times spend a great deal of time as a mentor to the young students as the Cadre that is dedicating twelve years to this group takes a break. This time is in addition to their final year of training, examinations, and religious rights but provides the Neophyte the ability to develop his or her leadership style outside of the Conclave they have known for twelve years. At the end of this last year a final Pentacle Games is held, a separate division created for the graduating class and for the first time participation is optional. After the games an elaborate ceremony attend by the students family and friends, Instructor Cadres, Seraphs, the occasional Acheron, and all available members of the Inner Circle is held in the main Sanctuary. It has even been known for The Grand Master to attend this ceremony and on average, of the initial two-hundred students that started… one Conclave of twenty Neophytes remains. The Neophytes complete their final rituals before the assembled mass, swear their binding oaths, and are clothed in the black and red robes of ordained Inquisitors, rising as Fathers and Mothers of the faith. Once complete the new Inquisitors are allowed their final three month grace period to relax and put any family matters to rest before receiving their assignments from the Inner Circle. During this final three month period Inquisitors, are granted an 'audience' with Lord Varyan, where they are taken to an unnamed colossal chamber within the Grand Palace in Magnagrad and are allowed a small glimpse of Lord Varya. This meeting or glimpse is always through some kind of veil and even then it is only the honed endurance and mental fortitude of the Inquisitors training that allows them to survive the encounter. Lord Varya says nothing to the Inquisitors but they can feel the enormity of what is in the room with them. Lord Varya then makes a spiritual connection with the Inquisitor and they are thus blessed with a powerful gift taking form of an active ability.
The name is a bastard’s conglomeration of Russian and dog Latin syllables translated, very roughly, into “finding faith through instruction & victory.” Phonetically “In-vik-C-ah Vik-toe-C-oh”
Genesis
The notorious Varyan Inviksiya Victoceo, known to most as the Red Seminary, was founded with the mantra “through knowledge comes strength. The Red Seminary has its blooded and black roots deep in Varyan culture and history, reaching back two hundred years to the Continental Schism Wars and its monolithic foundations were built upon black secrets and ruins that date back to even darker ages. Two-hundred years ago the nation of Varya, righteous in its strength, will, and might, launched a massive assault on the God-Kings of T’sarae, Omestris, and Muraad. Most prayed for a quick victory but neglected to consider the brutality a quick victory requires. The war was swift, desperate, and bloody beyond recollection. The people of the Ravenous Lord swept into the neighboring territories and laid all resistance, no matter how defiant, to waste. Where the armies of Varya marched the carrion flocks followed, a blizzard of black feathers descending on the corpses of the fallen armies and pecking their pound of flesh before it froze solid. By war’s end the God-Kings were brought back to Varya and imprisoned in the capital city, destined to be consumed slowly by Lord Varya and his arcane machines; machines that were discovered at the site of what is now the Red Seminary.
The Bloody Foundation is Set
During the savage campaigns against the lands of Omestris a group of Varyan historians, scientists, and priests discovered a set of ruins cut deep into the cliffs of a cavernous ravine and took shelter there during a particularly brutal storm. These men and women were some of the brightest and most talented operatives during the Varyan Schism War campaigns, sent ahead of the main force to scout the opposition. These heroes of the Schism War were renowned for spying ahead and discovering weaknesses in the enemy’s lines, each operator able to discover various exploitative conditions that enabled the Varyan forces to combat the enemy. As the operatives pressed into Omestri territory they discovered a cancer within the people, or so the Varyan history books say. The people of Omestris, as all good followers of Varya have come to know, were and are dabblers in the darkest of human desires. It is said by the historians that the Omestri found joy in the enslavement and torture of others and were sadistic in the extreme. The chronicles of the Schism War, found in every Varyan Library and School, recount tales of fields of mutilated corpses leading to their capital city and unparalleled decadence practiced by the people. They were a hedonistic and depraved people dabbling in all manner of conceivable pleasure, pain, delight, and anguish and it was in the depths of the ruins, high in the mountains of Omestris that the Varyan expedition found out just how deep the luscious depravity ran in Omestri culture.
Down in the deepest, darkest depths of those ruins far below the edge of the ravine, dug into the heart of the mountains the team found, twisted and diabolical machinery fused into the very core of the mountain. The inner workings of this machine looked older than anything known to civilization but it had appeared that the people of Omestris had built upon it, expanding it, and turning it to their most unholy and debased desires. As the expedition explored this machinery with great fervor, ignorant of its purpose, the Ether in their bodies began to power the monstrosity, feeding it, and fueling in it a desire for more. It was a slow drain at first and the Varyan team did not take precautions and by the time they understood some of what was happening to them, it was far… far too late. What followed was a descent into lust, murder, experimentation, and madness that no one today could comprehend. The machine seemed possessed of its own highly intelligent and devious mind, to the point of obsession, as it began to work instilling a black desire in the expedition team to revel in the physical and emotional pain of others. In reality it was feeding upon the Ether residue of suffering, in those hellish depths the machine ripped away Ether from their bodies, recycled it through arcane mechanisms, amplified it exponentially, and feed it back to the husks, reanimating the people of the expedition after their depredations would end their lives. Each time they rose anew, they were more powerful but more fearful, more ravenous, more desperate to satiate the appetites of their corrupted flesh and twisted minds. They fell upon each other, visiting every manner of depravity upon one other before being annihilated by the machine’s feeding then revived again to repeat the cycle... each time the machine leaving one more expedition member dead, funneling their power and madness into the remaining "living" souls.
No record exists outside of the Red Seminaries deepest most secure black vaults of what those men and women found in the ruins, of how it corrupted them, of how the machine worked and what it ultimately accomplished. Only the Inner Circle of the Inquisition knows the truth of the machines power and purpose and those secrets are locked in the Seminaries deep dungeons and labyrinthine catacombs.
When the main body of Varyan forces arrived at the ruins they found all but one expedition member dead. The sole survivor was calm amongst his dead comrades, he spoke vaguely of trails, traps, wildlife, and demons in the depths of the ruins but any man with eyes could see the truth etched in the frozen faces and tortured flesh of the victims. Horrors and depravities had been visited upon these men and women that the soldiers dared not think of and when pressed to answer the sole survivor jabbered on and rabidly prevented any soldier from entering the ruins. As the troops camped for the night rumors spread, anger flared, and a mob attempted to lynch the sole survivor for his crimes against his fellow countrymen. Set to hang the survivor hurled curses and obscenities to the mob raving about his purpose and his immortality and at the last moment, it seemed he was right. The High Priestess of Varya herself arrived and pardoned the man, though she was not scheduled to be so close to the front lines. Together they plunged into the depths of the ruins never to be seen again. The army moved on as armies do, Omestris was conquered, and history was written, absent the events at the ruins. The only public record of the event stating that the valiant Varyan expedition gave their lives in an effort to end Omestri perversions.
The Varyan Citadel of Death Rises From the Ruins of Omestri
Shortly after the Schism Wars settled down and the Empire was unified work began on restoring the ruins that had been found by the lost expedition team. First Hordes of slaves, mostly Omestri, were escorted by a newly established Conclave of Varyan priests, dedicated to purging the impurities of conquered people through labor and faith, deep into the ruins. Parts of the diabolical machine that only the most secretive of this new Conclave understood were dismantled and taken to the capital city, at a great cost of slave and tinkerer life, in order to construct the apparatus that binds the God-Kings to Varyan now. With this horrendous task completed armies of soldiers were replaced by armies of masons, carpenters, laborers, miners, architects, and tradesmen. They swarmed to the site of the ruins and began construction on a monument that was to be like no other. Some did it out of a need for work, many out of a sense of pride, a good number were slaves, and all worked, lived, and died under the rising shadow of the Seminary. No record exists of who, specifically, commissioned the work, no dealings were officially recorded, and any inquiry was met with a web of confused orders and convoluted plans that never pointed anywhere. People knew the individual parts they played and the individual pieces they built but no one seemed to know the big picture... yet still the Seminary wall rose in record time. The most extensive archivist documenting the raising of this Varyan monument in what was Omestri land ended his final work on the topic; it consisted of eighteen volumes, with the statement…
“Perhaps it is Lord Varya himself that has commissioned this structure, only the mind of a God could fathom the goings on here!”
~Senior Archivist Nikolev Bravkiea, Chronicler of the Grand Varyan Seminary
It should be noted that shortly after completing his grand and voluminous work, the Archivist disappeared, all copies of his work vanishing from common circulation without a trace or a blip in the history books. It was rumored he had come close to plumbing the depths of not only the Seminary’s construction but what lay beneath and though he had the good sense not to publish it he was still a threat to the fledgling Seminary and so vanished.
Construction continued without pause no matter the season, condition, or time and before long a great Seminary, part fortress, part monument, part cathedral, and completely secretive, menacing and mysterious was built. Raised in a record amount of time the Seminary's skillful architecture was only eclipsed by the great toll in life that earned the Red Seminary its name early. Not only is it called the Red Seminary because of the inquisitorial hopefuls, the students who bleed and die in an effort to be ordained Inquisitors but also because so many workers gave their lives in its construction, staining its walls red with their blood. It is said that one in every three workers died building the structure and that a generation after its completion, no worker was left alive to speak of its construction, all having died or vanished. Stories of unexplained disappearances, grizzly accidents, incomprehensible crimes committed by workers, and episodes of rampant violence litter the history of the Seminary’s construction; those stories now known in full truth, to none but the Inner Circle.
To explore the completed Seminary is an honor few save the Inquisition have ever been granted. The approach to the canyon upon which it is built is a jagged waste of rock and fallow land, howling winds, and deadly beasts but for those that endure and survive the trip the Red Seminary, in all its grandeur, awaits. An area of land was blasted flat and cleared of obstruction in order to house the workers during construction. Today this is “the great approach” to the Seminary, the area around its walls cleared for hundreds of meters, often by students during training sessions. This cleared area often teems with students families, waiting the few times they may see their children during a year, along with merchants, traders, and workers that all provide support to the Seminary. The building itself is a monolithic block of a structure, a mass of deep crimson stone and blackened iron, weathered brass and worn steel. Elegant arches and buttress line the outer walls, tower like extensions rise up half as tall as the walls, set at regular intervals and larger multi-tiered towers, composed of archways, observation platforms, and entrance gates guard each corner. Front and center as anyone approaches the Seminary is the grand training coliseum, its towering pillars supporting a golden dome high above. Grand ramps and stairways flank the coliseum’s entrance on the lower level, each long curving ramp facilitating trade, supplies, and people for the Seminary’s purposes. Once inside one realizes that the vast interior of the Seminary, enclosed by its large building like walls is mostly open to the sky. The front contains the training coliseum and to the very rear is the Sanctuary, between this, built around an open courtyard and into the expansive Seminary walls are the various workshops, training buildings, foundries, smiths, markets and cook-shops. This small town square like place is populated with the various lower level workers, artisans, and tinkerers that keep the Seminary in working order.
No one person save the Inner Circle has free run of the entire Seminary at any one time and it is rumored that areas go completely unused in the Seminary save when the Circle deems fit. Four Great halls for vigils, studies, and lessons make up the majority of each of the four walls that enclose the Seminary. The rear of the structure is comprised of a chapel that is second only in greatness to Lord Varyan’s in Magnagrad. The chapel consists of a sanctuary and spire that is topped with an image of the God, twin towers to the left and right consistently bathing the statue in an ethereal glow from arcane machinery. In addition to the great halls the arched marble wings that run along the length of the Seminary contain barracks that open to the training grounds and town square that are enclosed between the chapel vigil halls, coliseum, and Sanctuary.
The three awe inspiring towers of the Sanctuary, one topped with the image of Varya himself reach for the sky and are off limits to students. The rumors abound as to what happens high above the mass of the Seminary proper, many whisper of the Inner Circle and dark experiments, secret vaults, and imprisoned villains or legends. Only the Inner Circle and Elite Inquisitors know the truth of what goes on in the towers above the Seminary. Far below the towers, ripped open from canyon itself the Seminary delves deep into the earth. Secret vaults, caves, and entire archives exist below the ground level. Tinkerers toil away in workshops piped with Ether and steam while deeper chambers hold training labyrinths and of course ancient and terrible secrets.
Roots of Primacy
Even before the monoliths completion select groups of men and women were drawn to the fledgling Seminary as it was constructed. Top military minds from all over, members from soldiers possessed of great survivability and battle prowess to Commanding Generals famed for their tactics, Priests of all inclinations and apparent capabilities, and those gifted with control of Ether in many ways, shapes, and forms were all summoned, drawn, or ordered to the Red Seminary. After these masterful minds were gathered the first recruitment began. What piqued the curiosity, interest, and horror of the populace is that recruitment did not go after the finest military fighters or the holiest of priests but for young boys and girls. Hundreds of them, all between the ages of eight and twelve, were gathered by the military... some from enslaved populations, others were volunteered by noble families and anything walk of life in between. Once the youths arrived at the Seminary and the gates closed behind them they were never seen again. Unlike today were dead applicants are returned to families (sometimes) or failed living applicants are reassigned to other priestly orders, not one of the original class was ever seen again, except those that were ordained. The masters of the Varyan world began to work on the children, together within the Seminary, and on projects none outside seemed to fully comprehend. As this secretive training continued rumors of treachery spread and suspected rebellions flared up within the newly formed Varyan Empire.
As time progressed the scientists, tinkers , Ether wielders, and engineers modified what machinery was left in the bowls of the Seminary harnessing the power that the diabolical contraption possessed. Using the machine on the youths, in what has become known as the Ravenous Trail, through countless deadly experiments, and brutal training regimes the Order of Inquisitors began to come to life within the Red Seminary. Twelve years after the first group of two-hundred youths entered the Seminary nineteen emerged, ordained by the Varyan Imperial Priesthood with a new title and near limitless authority, Inquisitors. Those nineteen Inquisitors, crafted over one-hundred and eighty years ago, were the first to be ordained. Known today as the Primacy they are revered at the Seminary as legends, grand statues of them line chapels, relics of their bodies, gear, and exploits fill vaults, and it is said their spirits still walk the halls.
They, the Primacy, strode out from the Red Seminary and into a Varyan Empire that was about to explode into rebellion. Over the course of the next three decades talk of rebellion ceased, some were talked down, reasoned with, and negotiated with by the Inquisition others were annihilated, whole family lines snuffed from existence for the mere mention of treason. Each Inquisitor had full liberty and complete authority to handle each situation as they wished as long as the job was done. Through the actions of the Primacy Varya was now at peace. Though the Primacy is revered by Varyan people today, specifically by Inquisitors, part of their true mission was not so noble or illustrious. Through the actions of the Primacy the Omestri people, by and large, were vilified, enslaved, and committed to a life where they are nothing more than a fuel source for the Varyan Empire. Omestri slaves if given the chance or ability to speak would tell you how their people were once happy, loved life, indulged in all it had to offer in good nature and faith but were not the depraved sociopathic tortures and debased hedonists of Varyan history. The Inquisition put an end to that though and the true story, the righteousness of either side is unknown and dependent on whose history you believe. With the perceived success of the Primacy, recruitment began in earnest and the Red Seminary became a hub of Varyan priestly service. The training was beyond brutal though and not all who aspired would succeed, just as the Inner Circle intended.
The Inner Circle
Today the Seminary is governed, as it was two-hundred years ago, by the Inner Circle. The Inner Circle is composed of nine members, men and women, who oversee training, pass judgment during matters of importance, determine who is to be ordained, and to what mission Inquisitors are assigned once ordained. The Inner Circle is a shadowy organization, steeped in myth, secrecy, ritual, tradition, and rumor. The Circle is presided over by the Grand Master. This being is hardly ever seen by any but the Inner Circle and even then it is rare and the Master is always cloaked in shadow and robe, indistinguishable in all but voice. The Circle has evolved into the most important clandestine organization within the Varyan Priesthood a powerful force both politically and religiously, guarding the innumerable secrets of the Red Seminary and Varyan Empire. The judgments of the Inner Circle are fluid and once laid down, incontrovertible, their say is final within the Red Seminary and within almost all aspects of Varyan life.
To become a member of the Inner Circle, one must have served within the Inquisition and only upon their ascension to the elite and secretive forces of the Inquisitorial service will they begin to learn the truth of their organizations past and secrets. However, even after climbing to the elite units, there remain circles within circles and levels within levels, with each step accompanied by its own rituals of entry. Rising through the intricate ranks of the Inquisition, then of elite forces, and finally of the Inner Circle, an Inquisitor will learn more and more of the truth of the organizations history, each secret revealed as the Inner Circle's trust in them grows. For their part the Inner Circle sees to it that not many reach the lofty heights to replace their ranks, in part ensuring their power but also weeding out thousands of applicants through torturous training.
What it Means to be Trained as an Inquisitor
The Trial
Many hundreds of people offer up their children willingly for the Red Seminary’s program every year, hoping their child will become the next ordained Inquisitor, bringing their family wealth, power, and notoriety. In addition to this it is the sole purpose of an ordained Conclave of Inquisitors, called the Seraphs, to seek out those children best suited to become Inquisitors. Recruits chosen by the Seraphs are always admitted to the Seminary, although the recruitment process and what constitutes the Seraphs standards varies considerably between Inquisitors. The only rule the Seraphs operate by is that between all of them they choose no more than twenty-five of the potential two-hundred future students but those chosen twenty-five will be guaranteed a spot. All other applicants are screened by the Seminary’s Inner Circle, each member evaluating the applicants until a final class of two-hundred students is reached. Thousands upon thousands apply every year so the selected few are a small crowd. They are all recruited at young ages, typically no older than twelve and no younger than eight and once selected for training they will all be isolated from their families for the majority of the time except for a three month period every year beginning in the third year. After selection the children are designated "Initiates" and the first year of their training begins that very day. Outside the walls of the Seminary in the brutal and biting cold the mass of 200 children are stripped of anything that connects them to their past. Clothing is replaced with the dull gray sackcloth robes and blank white tabards of the Initiates, personal items are cast into the abyssal ravine the Seminary is built over and all traces of their former lives are removed.
At this point and for the next two years the instructors will have to take children from every walk of life and shape them into Inquisitors. The Seminary forces the Initiate, over these first two years, to disregard what made them rich, poor, slave, noble, cared for or abused and baselines each student with the dedication, devotion, and warrior ethos needed to succeed in the Seminary. After the trappings of their former lives are tossed away they are led into the Seminary’s Coliseum where a member of the Inner Circle addresses them, telling them what it is they are about to become a part of, of the importance of their duties and tasks, and of the infallible nature of their future instructors and of the Inquisition. When this speech is completed the Initiates are broken down into groups of ten and led deep into the maze like sub-levels of the Red Seminary and subjected to something called the Ravenous Trial. There is no turning back from this point, no student can quit. Only instructors can fail students who are then reassigned to either maintenance or upkeep duties at the Seminary, for the terms of their twelve year stay, or other areas of Priestly orders where they can still serve Varya.
Initiates are led deep into the bowels of the Red Seminary, they are blindfolded and led in a twisting, ever changing pattern through countless doors, passages, and caverns and by the time they arrive not even the best tracker could remember the way free. Each group of ten students is instructed to enter a vigil chamber lined with brass mechanisms and ocular lenses. All around this round chamber are doors leading to individual rooms that each student is placed in. There is nothing to these rooms except at the far end of the spartan chamber there is a trench into the abyssal canyon below the Seminary, the floor slightly slanted towards it, slick with condensation. Here the students are told to engage in prayer, locked away, and not spoken to for two days. Some pray, some cry out, some endeavor to escape, others fall asleep and fall into the trench below but most survive the first two days. Throughout this week of the Initiate’s trial the only contact will be the Instructor that provides them a flagon of green colored water and a slice of maggot ridden bread.
They will be asked one question and must answer immediately or be removed from training. “Is Varya alive within you” the answer being “Yes Inquisitor.” Over the next three days, those after the first two, isolation, food deprivation, and administration of psychotropic compounds (the green water) prepares them for the final days of the trial. On the final two days the mechanisms and lenses in the central chamber are focused on each individual room by secretive tinkerers and the Initiates are exposed to a manipulation of their existing Ether, by painful magical and mechanical means. This is but a small aspect of the Machine that the Red Seminary was built over and it induces in each Initiate a state one hundred fold less intense but similar to that experienced by that first Varyan expedition team. They are induced into a condition where they are “put in touch” with a facsimile of a miniscule portion of the hunger Varya experiences for the other Gods. This is a maddening experience that affects each Individual Initiate in differing ways but it brings home, for those final days and nights of insanity, a personal connection with the God who is then able to gift them more powerful Ether capabilities as their bodies, minds, and training goes on. In effect this enhances the bond Varya has with his subject Inquisitors.
Some students throw themselves into the trench below out of madness or misstep, others go completely mad, carted deeper into the dungeons after the trial is over, but those that do survive intact are ready to begin their first years of training. Having survived the Ravenous Trial the Initiates are healed of any serious malady, given spartan bunks and begin years of progressively torturous training. They are told that those not with them anymore succumbed to the trial and have died or gone mad. In truth the Seminary’s healers can cure any malady or madness inflicted by the trial and those falling or flinging themselves into the chambers trench are not killed but immediately retrieved from the underground lake that feeds the Seminary’s water system. Once found and healed these failures will spend the rest of their twelve years helping those that maintain the Seminary, serving in an honored, if lower, rank of Seminary Acolyte.
Initiates
The first years for the Initiates training are primarily filled with schooling and theology. Harsh rules are enforced with corporal punishment that is given often and intensely but never without cause. Every minute of every day of their lives for the next two years will be micro-managed, supervised, and observed. Along with the introduction into academic matters and theological matters comes the baseline physical training. Hand-to-hand combat begins early in order to develop a warrior culture, the “I” and “Me” is broken down, and the words are never used the team and the organization takes priority. The Initiate refers to themselves as “This Initiate” or “Initiate and then their name” They must request to do everything and anything and are punished for any small infraction. This period focuses on breaking down much of the old person, what little there was, and imposing the ways of the Inquisition. To craft the elite Inquisitors each must start from a baseline of obedience and warrior culture. The instructors are loud, quick to strike, and commanding… there is no mistaking that this is their world they are Gods under Varya’s will and Initiates are nothing but grains of sand. Their prior lives are erased and a militaristic warrior culture is established as a baseline, from here the individual becomes part of a greater whole.
With the passing of the first two years time the micro management ceases. The great reward for enduring this remolding is the first break from Seminary life. A three month period is granted at the end of the year, and every year after in order for the students to invite their families to the Seminary, spending time in the caravan towns of traders outside the walls or within the Seminary’s town square. Students also have the option of leaving for the three month period but if they are late in returning they will not be accepted back into the Inquisitorial program and will be pawned off to another Priestly order.
By this point in time the Initiates have had a warrior culture drilled into them, a selfless deviation to the Seminary, their classmates, and the Inquisition. They gain the freedom to express their personalities again and the constant drill, controlled movement, and empirical processes are ended. The Initiates are divided into Conclaves of twenty members and this unit is to be their unit throughout the rest of their time at the Seminary. Each Conclave is still closely supervised by Instructors, three of them assigned specifically to each Conclave, in addition to their subject matter teachers for different evolutions. These Inquisitors are given a degree of leeway with the manner in which they train the Initiates and competition between Conclaves is encouraged by the Inner Circle. Conclaves often begin planning raids on each others wings in the Seminary, the goal always a weapon, trophy, or important item, these practices are encouraged by the instructor cadre, it hones competitiveness, increases the warrior ethos, team cohesion, abstract planning, deception, combat, and physicality while giving them an outlet for the stresses of Seminary training.
During the third year the physical training is ramped up. Initiates will do every conceivable combination of running, climbing, swimming, swinging, falling, rolling, jumping, scrambling, crawling, and moving. They will complete complex physical puzzles and be faced with challenges that can only be accomplished as a Conclave. Combat training begins to evolve from the hand-to-hand tactics of years one and two to sparring with wooden weapon replicas. Individual tactics are beginning to be taught as well as maneuvers and fighting styles. Basic ranged weaponry, sling, bows, crossbows, and throwing weapons are introduced at this point. Survival training begins in the third year and much of it, while informative, is dangerous. A great majority of the Survival work will be academic in this year, things like shelter, staying warm, weather, survival foods, hunting, trapping, fishing, and overland travel and navigation will be covered. Initiates do spend tests and trials out in the wilds around the Seminary and some do not return, succumbing to exposure, starvation, or predation. While a few die, more often than not, teams of Inquisitorial instructors and observers will quickly rescue the student near death and though they live their failure means reassignment out of Inquisitorial continuance.
Academic course begin to cover mathematics, science, and history along with theology. Ether training moves from an academic nature into a practical form in the third year. Initiates are taught the nature of Ether, its limitations, powers, and abilities, each in tutored in the passive and active abilities and is taught how to conserve their own life giving Ether and how to employ Ether vials. The third year is the first year the Initiates may view the annual Conclave Games but they are yet unable to participate. Each Initiate and Conclave is observed closely and voluminous notes are taken by little seen scribes that are always off to the sides in the shadows and always disappear through some manner or another when approached. Most of these scribes are failed Initiates, Aspirants, or Neophytes that continue to serve the Seminary.
The fourth year passes much as the third year did. The training difficulty increases but so does the students ability. Physical training becomes more demanding, Initiates… in reality twelve to sixteen-year-old children by this time are typically capable of outperforming the normal conscripted solider when it comes to technical combat ability and physical endurance. The fourth year is when the students begin weapons practice with actual weapons, only blunted. Their sparring gets violent and full contact and healers are often required to see to it that students don’t die. Even then only the most grievous of wounds are healed on the spot and only if the Conclaves cadre of instructors thinks the initiate deserves healing. If not they will have to suffer through the day until one of the appointed times healers are available, the Conclave members practicing their first aid or their own healing skills until professional healers are available. Ether training continues to advance; the Initiates begin to be able to maintain their passive abilities and start to practice active techniques with some success. Undue caution is met with corporal punishment and combat aggressiveness is rewarded with a bit of respite or food. Often times at this point it is the entire Conclave that will bear the physical punishment, mental anguish, solitary confinement, or verbal berating for one of their members mistakes.
Two other significant events occur in the fourth year. Initiates are exposed to their blood trials in which their combat and survival skills are pitted against the beasts of the wild in combat matches. Again though seemingly alone against these beasts, teams of healers and observers typically quickly save the fallen or defeated student after it has seemed they have died, bringing them back from the brink and assigning them to serve Varya in other disciplines. Even with this precaution in place each class will see its share of Initiates die; if an actual death occurs, the family takes solace and pride in the fact that their children were selected for the Red Seminary as even just the selection is an august and revered enough to console the families.
The next important event is that the Initiates may participate in the annual Conclave Games. The games are held each year and consist of trials all designed to test the students. Fourth year and Fifth year Initiates participate in the Tower Games outside the Sanctuary, Aspirants participate in the Coliseum Games and the Neophytes compete in their games called the Pentacle Games. The games consist of everything from academic challenges of logic, rhetoric, and puzzle solving, to physical challenges such as many types of races, combat, and endurance games. Each Conclave participates as a team and the Games are held as the opening to the yearly three month break, that way the student’s family may come see them perform. There are no real prizes for winning the games or events except for a token insignia stating what year it was and what was won, the insignia often looked at as one more thing to keep clean, perfectly aligned, and maintained or the instructors will punish the wearer. What happens often is that Conclaves will raid each others barracks after the games have been completed, stealing each others insignia, fighting over them, challenging each other to find hidden ones, and so on and so forth.
Year five continues like year four and three but progresses the training to a new level. Initiates will normally rise an hour before the sun, train, learn, pray, and fight all day until late in the evening typically 2000. During this time crammed with academia, combat training, physical training, and spiritual training students must find time to eat and complete the tasks assigned to them by instructors. No leeway is given, the schedule always has priority for the Conclave, and it is the Conclaves job to figure out how to optimize their time and resources during the ten hours a day they do not train. Combat drills and endurance training is focused on in year five. Ether training, survival training, and course work are still important but the instructors take this year to harden any soft edges left before the Initiates become Aspirants and move on to the demon year or year six. The Initiates are also assigned Neophyte mentors in the fifth year. These Neophytes, a year from being ordained, become part of that Conclaves instructor cadre and are given the opportunity to pass on some knowledge, skills, a small degree of hope, and mentorship before the Hell of the demon year begins. Also in the fifth year the blood trials become fiercer and some Conclaves suffer great losses to attrition and perceived death. If a Conclave becomes too small to function effectively then it will be merged with another weakened Conclave to form a new Conclave, the Initiates having to come together with newer people in order to succeed. Those that adapt and lead succeed those that cannot fail. At the end of the fifth year the Initiate Conclaves are allowed their three months of freedom but when they return to the Seminary they are deemed Aspirants and without much ceremony or fanfare the Conclaves instructors turn the newly dubbed Aspirants over to an order of Inquisitors that exist only in the Red Seminary, The Acherons.
Aspirants
The newly dubbed “Aspirants”, full of mirth from their three months off, pride at being Aspirants, and confidence in their skill have no idea what they have stepped into once in the care of the Acherons. The sixth year, conducted by the Acherons is dubbed the “demon year”. Once the Instructor Cadre departs the Acherons begin eight-months of terror and training that anyone not being trained as an Inquisitorial Initiate could not endure. Immediately they are set upon by men and women, Acherons, that make even the strictest Cadre Instructor seem like an angel. The Acherons are the hardest and most war blooded, elite Inquisitors that have returned to the Seminary to train Aspirants. Each knows no pity or remorse and will remove an Aspirant from training without a second thought. Their feverish and near insane tempo of order barking, corporal punishment, and ability to inflict mental anguish are all ways of weeding out those that flew under the radar during the first five years. Their method of madness simulates the stress an Inquisitor may experience during prolonged combat and war and it is unrelenting. This year of training sees a rapid progression of physical strength and endurance training, academics are taught but often while fighting or training and students will be required to remember the lessons while conducting other drills. Sleep will be interrupted, food will be scarce but enough, and the Conclave will have to come together as a unit and as a team of unique personalities and skill sets to succeed. The demon year continues at a break neck, non-stop pace for the entire eight-months. The Aspirants that do not die either perceptually or in reality are taught more advanced fighting techniques, different weapons, firearms, advanced survival, more advanced Ether manipulation, and take part in many tactical decision making and leadership scenarios.
Once completed the Acherons, possibly showing a small amount of begrudging respect… most likely not, will hand the students back to the Instructor Cadre that left them eight-months ago. Having survived the demon years the true Aspirants are now given new robes and clothing of leather and wool, green in color, in respect to their ascension into the novice ranks above Initiate and more durable for the training to come. The month immediately following the eight-month demon year is called the vigil month. It is a month that the Aspirant spends entirely in prayer, healing, and observation… a measure to ensure the demon year did not leave any lasting scars upon the new Aspirant. Once the Vigil month is complete the student is cleared and the yearly Conclave Games will begin followed by that year’s three month break.
Returning Aspirants will find that during the seventh year they are given even more freedom within the strictures of training. Training schedules are still progressive and tough, lessons continue on advanced topics making even the dumbest inquisitor more educated than most common men or women. Ranged weaponry progresses from basic use into combat marksmanship, sparring and combat begins with the actual weapons the student prefers and often time students are encouraged to spar each other and other Conclaves. Instructor Cadres become less of the God-like instructors of Initiates and more like stern mentors that oversee the progression of the Aspirants individual skills. As an Aspirant the town square of the Red Seminary, the small village like courtyard enclosed by the Seminary’s walls, becomes open to the students during the day if they find the time to visit it. Here students can find a microcosm of a small village and often times instructors will utilize the Acolytes and failed students that live and work here as marks for information gathering, intelligence work, and urban survival training. Like all years, except the first two, the time ends with the Conclave Games and the three free months.
Years eight and nine are a progression of year seven. By now the youngest Aspirants are about sixteen and the oldest are close to nineteen or twenty and each Conclave of youngsters are the equivalent of an Elite military organization when it comes to knowledge and Ether/Combat skill levels. The Instructors seem to let on that the Aspirants are no longer a dull stick of iron but a sword that needs refining and sharpening and treat them as such. Any infraction is still sternly punished but not out of a desire to instill disciple or order but because the Aspirants and Conclave should know better by now. Year nine is the final year that the student will be an Aspirant. At its end, after the games but before they leave for the free months the remaining students… less than a quarter of what started, are dubbed Neophytes and granted permission to wear the solid black robes of their rank.
Neophytes
If Initiates are dull sticks of iron and Aspirants refined swords then “Neophytes” are a swords keen edge. The first two years of being a Neophyte, years ten and eleven, are big changes for the students and the Conclave. As Initiates their schedules were set in stone, as Aspirants the Instructors began to focus more on what needed fine tuning but as Neophytes the students and Conclaves are given even more leeway. They are told by the Instructors what course and training events they must attend during a week… other than that it is up to the individual and the Conclave as a whole to ensure they are where they need to be, when they need to be, with the gear they need. This also serves to give the Cadre Instructors a break besides that which occurred during the demon year. All training focuses on shaping the deadly edge Neophytes have to the thinnest, razor keen edge. Their minds are tested and pushed by complex tactical scenarios, philosophical and theological debates, and advanced sciences and mathematics. Advanced interrogation and even torture techniques are taught and the physical training is focused to boost whatever may be lacking, or push that high standard just a bit farther. Fierce competition between individuals and Conclaves is encouraged as most of the Instructors are aging and can no longer keep up with the student’s younger physiques, though they still instruct mounds of technical skill. Students now have the run of the Town Square as Neophytes, day or night, and it is their responsibility to see they have all that is required for their training evolutions. In these final years the youngest Neophytes are nineteen the oldest nearing the end of their twenty-third year and each is the pinnacle of Varyan priestly, Ether wielding, academic, and military prowess. These years end with the Conclave Pentacle Games which are often the most watched and most competitive, followed by the standard three month grace period.
The final year, year twelve, is the year in which a Neophyte is assigned to assist the Cadre Instructors with a batch of fifth year Initiates that are preparing for the demon year. This Neophyte is granted whatever leeway with the Initiates that the Cadre Instructors grant and often times spend a great deal of time as a mentor to the young students as the Cadre that is dedicating twelve years to this group takes a break. This time is in addition to their final year of training, examinations, and religious rights but provides the Neophyte the ability to develop his or her leadership style outside of the Conclave they have known for twelve years. At the end of this last year a final Pentacle Games is held, a separate division created for the graduating class and for the first time participation is optional. After the games an elaborate ceremony attend by the students family and friends, Instructor Cadres, Seraphs, the occasional Acheron, and all available members of the Inner Circle is held in the main Sanctuary. It has even been known for The Grand Master to attend this ceremony and on average, of the initial two-hundred students that started… one Conclave of twenty Neophytes remains. The Neophytes complete their final rituals before the assembled mass, swear their binding oaths, and are clothed in the black and red robes of ordained Inquisitors, rising as Fathers and Mothers of the faith. Once complete the new Inquisitors are allowed their final three month grace period to relax and put any family matters to rest before receiving their assignments from the Inner Circle. During this final three month period Inquisitors, are granted an 'audience' with Lord Varyan, where they are taken to an unnamed colossal chamber within the Grand Palace in Magnagrad and are allowed a small glimpse of Lord Varya. This meeting or glimpse is always through some kind of veil and even then it is only the honed endurance and mental fortitude of the Inquisitors training that allows them to survive the encounter. Lord Varya says nothing to the Inquisitors but they can feel the enormity of what is in the room with them. Lord Varya then makes a spiritual connection with the Inquisitor and they are thus blessed with a powerful gift taking form of an active ability.
