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Krozen began to kneel before the shrine, but interrupted himself and stood up again. He walked again to the door, to make sure it was locked. It was. He looked at the windows, to make sure they were shuddered. They were. He idly wondered whether there might be some chink in the thin layer of lead that surrounded his apartment, through which he could be scried upon, but he stopped his thoughts. He had no time to check for every possible contingency, and simply needed to settle his mind and know that probably he had privacy. It was only him in here -- him, and, hopefully, the Voice.
Setting aside his doubts, he kneeled once more before the shrine, lighting two candles in the shrine, providing a faint illumination. It was not an artful shrine -- it was simple and crude in its carvings, and its portrait of Tira Miron was painted inexpertly. Yet if there was any shrine where he could truly connect with the Silver Flame, it was this one -- carved and painted by his own hands, when he was a child of ten, caring nothing for the artistry and taking no pride in its creation, but only expressing his overflowing faith.
"Oh Tira Miron," he said, in a voice that was quiet, but not quite a whisper. "You know my soul. You know the corruption and wickedness that lies within me. You know my lust for power over nations and peoples. I can hide nothing from you."
He tried to say it thoughtfully, thinking of the meaning behind each word he told her, an acknowledgment of his own transparency and depravity before the Voice's purity, but it was hard to prevent it from becoming a mere ritual utterance, as he said it night after night before this shrine, for, how many nights had it been? A hundred? More?
"Do not allow me to stray from the path of righteousness any longer. Do not allow me to act against the will of the Speaker for my own power and glory any longer. Do not allow me to seek my own aggrandizement at cost to the fragile remnants of goodness that remain in this world any longer."
"If my corruption and selfishness cannot be corrected through my own means, then destroy them. Destroy the evil in my heart, and turn me into an empty vessel into which your own purity and goodness may be poured."
"I am not worthy of any aid or succor you might give me, so I ask this of you not as one of the Purified calling upon your power, but as a beggar-of-the-soul, asking for a favor, undeserved, which I can only hope your beneficence will see fit to grant me. If it is within your power, I beg you to save me. If it is not, then do whatever you must to save the world from me."
With that, the cardinal slowly stood up, wincing slightly as a jolt of pain coursed through his left knee, and snuffed out the candles. He walked to his bathroom, and began to untie his vestments in preparation for his evening bath.
-Joni
Ian
I can't really think of more about Krozen. (My basic idea in this story is to present Krozen less as a sort of fanatic utterly convinced of his own righteousness and more as a St. Augustine of Hippo-like figure, aware of his own failings, but with failings no less real for his awareness of them. Some might question whether such a figure could possibly be a cleric capable of casting spells in Eberron, and say that to be a spellcasting cleric, you must be utterly free of doubt in yourself. Anyway, though, that's another thread, probably...)
I think vignettes are a fun approach to floating ideas in general. It can be more fun to write than just going onto the forum and writing "well, what if Krozen knows he's evil? What about that, huh?"
If you want more vignettes along these lines about Cardinal Krozen in particular, I can't think of anything right now, but if you just want more little Eberron vignettes in general, then I have a few ideas. Which did y'all mean when you wanted more?
"When I'm at home," Aren said, "my mom makes me wear a targath ring. She says it'll stop me from getting sick. She's wrong though; I've gotten sick with it, and without it. Here I don't wear it, because it looks stupid."
"But my dad's a healer," Lyma said, "and he says targath works too. He's mad when his patients refuse to wear any and keep getting sick." The halfling girl sitting on on the high bunk across from Aren uncrossed her legs to let them dangle over the bed. "Besides. It doesn't work all the time. It just helps."
"Well," Aren said dubiously, "maybe it works on halflings and not on humans like me. I don't know. It never did anything for me."
"So Lyma," Han said, taking a break from folding his clothing on the bunk above Aren's, "is your dad a Jorasco?"
"Yes, and so am I. He's not 'marked or anything though."
"What do you have to do to get marked?" Han asked. "I've tried to ask around, but haven't gotten an answer."
"No one knows," Lyma replied. "People just get these dragonmarks. Children whose parents didn't have dragonmarks might get one, or parents with dragonmarks might not pass it along. Actually, I hope I don't get a dragonmark."
"Why?" Han prompted.
"I don't really want to be a healer," Lyma explained, "I'm more interested in being an artificer. I've always liked magical things. I guess I could still be an artificer if I got a dragonmark, but I think the House would try to make me do what they wanted a lot."
"Lyma," Han said, "you can't just think about what would be fun for you. We Seekers are in a war again death, and people are dying every day. Healers can't stop that, but at least they slow it down. You have to keep the greater cause in mind," Han said. "That's why I want to be a priest, so I can help people survive, long enough to defeat death, to find their own divinity."
Aren silently winced at Han's pompous grandiosity. I bet all the adults at this camp will love that little khoravar, he thought, he already sounds just like them.
"Yeah," Lyma said, "I bet that artificers will find a way to really beat death before priests anyway."
"For the rich, maybe," Han said, then, as if embarassed by his own admission, he moved to change the subject "what about you, Aren? What are you going to do?"
"I don't know yet. Maybe I'll be a barrister," he said, "my mom thinks I'd be good in the courts." In truth, he had no idea, and he had as much skepticism about his mother's ideas on his future career as he did on her ideas on targath's healthful properties, but it was nonetheless the easiest answer that came to mind.
"My dad once told me a story about a young barrister, from when he worked in Sharn." Lyma said, "He said that the barrister wanted to get ahead in some big firm in Sharn, so he borrowed money to get a ring that meant he didn't hardly ever have to eat or sleep. Then he worked a hundred and forty-hour weeks for three years, almost never eating and only sleeping two hours a night. Then one day he decided to quit, because all the other asso... asso... assosits were doing the same thing, and he wasn't getting ahead. So he quit, and then he took his ring off so he could start eating and sleeping again, and he collapsed. When they got him to a Jorasco hospital, he was dead, and no one could figure out why, but my dad thinks those years of working so hard did it."
"Well, maybe I'd better not go to Sharn then," Aren said.
"Anyway, being a barrister doesn't sound like much fun to me," the halfling said.
"I don't really know what I want to be yet, okay?" Aren replied, a bit more defensively than he had intended.
"Fine. I'm sure you'll figure it out eventually," she said placidly.
"Maybe we'd better go to the First Assembly now," Han said. "It starts in fifteen minutes, and I want a good seat."
Aren thought of saying "suit yourself," and staying in the rustic wooden cabin for a while longer, but decided that this would only delight Han in giving him an oppurtunity to demonstrate his precocious wisdom and responsibility. He decided to go along, and Lyma came as well, skipping periodically to keep up with the pace of the larger human and half-elf boys.
At the First Assembly, in the multi-purpose hall adorned with symbols of the Blood of Vol, the first speaker to come to the podium was the camp's founder, Mardan Kindel. The mummy's linen wrappings were almost glowing white and his vestments looked regal for the occassion, and the unholy symbol of the Blood of Vol that hung around his neck seemed to sparkle, freshly polished.
"Don't worry, this ol' corpse won't take up too much of your time. I'll just say a few words, then I'll hand things over to Dalma." Some of the children laughed -- the ones who hadn't heard Mardan's joke too many times before.
"I've been with this camp since it was founded, thirty-eight years ago. Let me tell you, I had no idea how big a part of my life it would be. Well, my life back then, my unlife now." he paused for laughter, eliciting a meager response. "I've had time to watch children who went to this camp as kids become clergy, writers, artists, you name it. When I talk to them, they still talk to me about how much their time here has meant to them, and how much it has shaped their lives. On the other hand, I also have some kids who keep coming back year after year. We have an elf girl here who started coming to us at the very beginning of this camp at age ten. Now she's forty-eight, but she still looks forward to coming here in the summer. I think she and her parents have decided that this will be her last year though. Is that right, Hirani?"
"Yes, that's right," a young elf in a counselor's outfit said as she stood up.
A chorus of "awwwwwwwwwwwww" flooded the room.
"Well, it's been a pleasure having you, Hirani, and I'm sure it will be a pleasure having you this year too. I only wish it weren't your last. But goodbyes are for the end of the summer! Now, I hope you all are going to have a great time here, but I also want you to remember something: it's never too early to seek your inner divinity. I know what a lot of you are thinking. Some of you think, 'I'm a human, I'm ten, and I might live to about eighty, so I have seventy years to find the divinity of my blood,' or 'I'm an elf, I'm twenty, and I might live to about five-hundred, so I have four-hundred and eighty years to find the divinity of my blood.' I've seen enough lives of kids like you, over the past thirty-eight years, to tell you something. You don't know, and neither do I. You could die tomorrow. You could die an hour from now. There's just no way you can plan your life so that you'll find the divinity of your blood before you die, so you have to seek it always. Now, I don't want to say that you should forget about having fun. Y'all are going to have a great time riding horses and swimming and doing our annual scavenger hunt and all that! I'm just saying that as you have fun, try to find how the meaning of your activity relates to the divinity within you. Alright, now, on to Dalma!"
With that, Mardan walked off the stage as the stout, middle-aged dwarf woman walked on.
"Alright, young Seekers. Are you ready to have some fun?" she said.
A chorus of "yeah," arose from the audience.
Dalma cupped her ear with her hand, responding "I'm sorry, but I couldn't hear that. Could you speak louder. I said, ARE YOU READY TO HAVE SOME FUN?!"
This time, the chorus of "YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" was deafening.
"That's better. I think I understand you now."
"We are going to have a lot of fun this year!" Dalma said, "In fact, I think 998 is going to be the BEST YEAR EVER for Camp Shaar Kalaan! We've gotten a few soarwood canoes, and while we won't be using them as much as our regular canoes, and safety and legal considerations mean we can't let you use them without onboard supervision, I think it's going to be a lot of fun! Also, we've finally gotten rid of Ol' Hammy!"
At this, there was cheering from many of the veteran children, who had long hated the zombie horse's smell of alchemical embalming, barely-controlled cruel temperament (if the zombie's destructive instincts could even be called a "temperament"), and slow pace on rides. Evidently, Aren thought, the camp's management had finally figured out that Ol' Hammy was doing more to make the kids hate undeath than to make them comfortable and familiar with it. That, or perhaps the parents of the boy who had been bitten and kicked last year had made a fuss. Or perhaps, Aren thought, it was a combination of both.
"Also, this year, we have a new Arts and Crafts instructor, Hemmil ir'Cannith! Hemmil will teach you about both the art of pottery and how to use magic to improve your crafts! Hemmil, though, is more than just an Arts and Crafts instructor. I think that his experiences will also make him a spiritual instructor to us all as well. Hemmil!"
The human man stood up, looking slightly awkward and embarassed. He cleared his throat and began. "Thank you, Dalma. I can't claim to be a great theologian, and I'm mainly here to teach pottery, but what Dalma is referring to is that until last year, I was a Disciple of Onatar. It was never something I had really thought about -- I didn't think I was trying to keep life enslaved to the Sovereigns or anything, it's just something I grew up with -- but last year I found out the truth about the Sovereigns, and it wasn't easy, but I became a Seeker. If any of you want to talk to me about my journey, or about the Sovereign Host from someone who's been there, I'd be happy to talk to you about it, although really, I mostly know about making ceramics."
Hemmil looked back to Dalma, who said "Thank you Hemmil. I'm sure your experience will be very valuable to our whole community. Seekers, this is going to be a great year, but not all news has been good. The Western Temple has burned down, and its unhallowed altar has been destroyed. Mardan Kindel has cast some divinations, and we think that it was a druid of the Children of Winter who set the fire. I hate seeing that kind of destruction, but we aren't going to let it get us down, are we? We're going to rebuild bigger and better! Until then, we'll use the Northern Temple.
Lastly, I know we have some Seekers out there who are a little shy about their faith. When they're out here at Camp Shaar Kalaan, they're happy to talk about what they believe, but when they're home, they don't like to talk about it with their friends at school or their neighbors or the like. Now, I'm not here to judge anyone, and I'm not saying that if you're shy, you're a bad Seeker, or you won't be able to find your inner divinity. All I'm saying is that I know that many of you want to be more active and bold, and for those who do, Camp Shaar Kalaan will be offering some GREAT workshops about keeping your faith when interacting with those who aren't Seekers! I know, many of you probably think that you'll never be brave enough to talk to a Vassal or Purified about your beliefs, but believe me, in these workshops you can craft your own spiritual arsenal to fight for the faith. You won't be afraid to talk about what you believe in, and you'll understand how to talk honestly about being a Seeker to outsiders without alienating them or coming off as preachy or self-righteous either."
Dalma looked slightly unsatisfied with that last line, as if the suggestion that any of the Seekers in her audience might come off as preachy or self-righteous to outsiders were inappropriate. She then proceeded to finish up her speech: "Alright. This is going to be a great year, and I'm sure you're all eager to get started, so I'm going to let you go now. Be sure to come to the commencement party at 8 o'clock this evening. Tonight we're gonna party like it's 999!"
With that, Dalma stepped off of the podium.