Café de Nuit

"How could this have happened? I don't... I just don't understand this!"

Dimitri ignored the Anchorite's babbling and continued to tally the carnage.

"Thirty people dead," he read out as he wrote the numbers down. "All humans. Twenty-one adults. Thirteen female. Seventeen male."

"It is just not possible!" the Anchorite wailed. She started to cry. "The children...!"

"You are making my work harder than it needs to be, distracting me," Dimitry said, sighing. "Victims include the lord of the manor, his wife, their three children, the wife's unmarried aunt, the lord's unwed brother and widowed mother, various servants..."

Dimitri lifted his foot to step over one of the cannibal zombies that had battered their way into the tidy little manorhouse on the edge of the forest to tear living flesh to bite-sized gobbets -- and paused. He went to one knee and poked in the decomposing mess with his pencil.

"... Huh..." he breathed, poking a little harder to retrieve the gleaming item that had caught his eye. He was not worried about the cannibal zombie; the small army of monsters had fallen over the instant the Anchorite raised her holy symbol against them, and had not moved since. They had just ceased being the animated dead and gone back to being simply... dead.

"Bea," he called. "Bea, pull yourself together, would you? Come have a look at this."

"How can you be so heartless?" the Anchorite sniffed, but at least Dimitri could hear her get up and trudge closer. "Lord Swynburne was always so... His children died outside the Grace of Ezra, Dimitri! Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

"Funny you should say that," Dimitri said as he finally dislodged the oval of gleaming wood from inside the zombie's throat. "Here, have a look at this." He got up and made his way over to another zombie.

"What blasphemy!" Bea squealed behind him. "Some utter monster animated the body of one of Ezra's faithful!"

"Not just the one, looks like," Dimitri said.

He had kneeled next to another ex-zombie, and some light poking with his pencil and a quick slash from his belt-knife liberated another sign of Ezra from the dead thing's throat. He moved over to a third one, and there was another disk with Ezra's Sign, buried in its throat. Looking around, he could see suspicious lumps in most, if not all the ex-zombies' throats.

"This is odd. This is more than odd. Bea, why would someone go to all this trouble? Logic dictates someone is going out of their way to make it look as if Swynburne and his family were killed off by the Church. Clumsy work, though. Still, the way Swynburne acted towards the Church, I..."

He heard the rasp of Bea's sword leaving its sheath and he rushed to his feet. "Are they moving?" he shouted as he turned towards his partner. "Are they..."

Consecrated silver bit into his throat and he went down. The last thing he saw before the darkness closed in was Bea, making the Sign of Sword and Shield over him. The last thing he heard was her saying: "Go with Ezra's Grace, my friend. I am sorry, but know that this was all done for the greater good..."

The Greater Good.

It has been the rallying cry of some of history's greatest villains and traitors. Is it really any great surprise that there would be some within a divided faith like that of Ezra who would use the same excuse for their actions?

No matter where one goes in the Core, Ezra's name has become known. But no matter where the Anchorites travel, they will encounter those who refuse to embrace Ezra's grace, or worse, try to stop the Church from advancing its mission, be it out of disbelief in Ezra, stubborn clinging to other deities, or even for political or financial reasons. Good- and Neutral-aligned Clerics may respond with grace to match that of their Guardian in the Mists, but those who cleave to Law over all else, or even espouse an Evil philosophy, may react in quite a different manner.

The Silver Blade is a secret order within the Church, most of its members Lawful Evil or Lawful Neutral (a very small minority is True Neutral). The sect did not originate in Darkon, but in the bosom of Dementlieu, where philosophy can flow as freely as wine, and turn just as rancid as wine if it is not treated in the proper manner. Truth be told, the Darkon sect's leaders would probably object to the Silver Blade's deviant philosophy as strongly as the Mordentish sect's.

In short, the Silver Blade's philosophy is this:

The Silver Book of Ezra wrote:"Ezra offers protection against the Legions of the Night. Those who try to thwart her holy mission should fall to those same Legions -- fall in such a way that everyone can see the fruits of their resistance to Ezra's holy work, as performed by her loyal clergy, so they may learn wisdom and embrace the Grace of the goddess.
And if the Legions do not respond in a timely manner to the presence of people outside the Grace of Ezra, then it is up to her loyal clergy to take the Legions by the hand and guide them to those who so richly deserve their attention.
Thus is Ezra's might proven: even those forces of evil which she opposes must, through their very nature, serve her glorious purpose by driving the people into the Church. Praise Ezra for her glory!"

The average member of the Silver Blade is a firm believer in Ezra's glory and her Church's mission. They also believe, however, that the end serves the means -- any means, even those reviled by the Church. After all, no matter what atrocity the Silver Blade commits against the very people they were supposed to protect from the Legions, It Is All For The Greater Good.

In Ezra's name, Clerics of the Silver Blade animate mindless undead, preferring to use the corpses of convicted criminals and fallen priests, to swarm enemies of the Church. The animating magic is rigged to dispel the very instant an anointed Cleric, Paladin, Blackguard or even Favoured Soul of Ezra raises their holy symbol against the undead thus created; all the better to give a good show of Ezra's might to the people.

More crafty believers lay blood-trails from the lairs of known lycanthropes or vampiric undead to the homes of people who resist the Church too vocally.

The worst members of the Silver Blade put the corpses of devout believers to grotesque use, creating flesh golems to serve as the Silver Blade's most powerful 'means' to its glorious 'end': a world in which all people worship Ezra and live in her Grace, to be protected from the Legions of the Night.

The sect's headquarters lies in the catacombs under Ste. Mêre des Larmes, Ezra's great cathedral in Dementlieu. Its members are mostly wandering Anchorites, although some of the elders permanently reside in the cathedral, where they secretly make copies of The Silver Book of Ezra, their holy book. This book includes elements of the Darkonese and Dementlieuse sects' holy books, combined with the Silver Blade's 'means to an end'-philosophy and notes on the creation and manipulation of 'useful' Legionaires of the Night.

The Silver Blade's Anchorites go everywhere a normal Anchorite would. Often they settle in the same kind of location any other Anchorite would. They may offer the same services any other believer would, and protect the community to the best of their ability. But if they encounter resistance that does not yield to discussion and negotiation, that protection is not only withdrawn, it is undone in the most hideous ways.

Good work, although something about it seems to fit better with the Mordent sect's philosophy than the Dementlieuvian one. But that may just be a matter of taste.

Dementlieu is just where it came from. ^^ The True Neutral alignment and scholarly nature of the Dementlieuse sect give plenty of room to radical elements to grow and prosper. The more active sects would probably (in my opinion, anyway) have been less fertile soil for an atrocity like the Silver Blade.

I like it! Though I'd like to see it kept very small. Less of a sect, and more of a cabal. Maybe just 2 or 3 corrupted anchorites total. Blasphemy like this would be difficult to thrive, I think. Most Anchorites would turn on their friends in an instant if they suggested something like this, rather than humor it long enough to start believing it. The Silver Blade would know that and have to be extremely careful with their recruitment.

You make a good point, Gonzoron. ^_^ Hmmm, I feel very tempted to stat a few of the cabal's members out, for people's use.

Heh! Maybe the Silver Blade could keep its numbers at thirteen. A Witch's dozen -- and somehow, they could justify this with some of the numerological lore rendered by the Neutral sect. ^_^

The power of 13 strikes again! Sure if you wanted to stat them out I'd definately think about using them. I'm still researching Ravenloft as a whole but it's nice to throw other creations into the mix.

What a brilliantly disturbing bunch of heretics! Keeping the numbers small could even allow the sect to produce a Darklord eventually. What a calamity that would be for Ezra's faith. Bravo.