On the nature of fear

Overview

In Summer 387YE, the Synod were presented with opportunities to find out more about the malign spiritual presences. The Vigilant sect of the Silent Bell were tasked by Lady Laudine du Lac with spying on the orcs of the Mallum to see what could be found out about the "false virtue" of Fear or dread.

The Druj are the undisputed masters of fear, using their miasma pillars to spread an insidious atmosphere across the lands they claim. This "miasma" cows their subject septs and breaks their will to resist. Infiltrating Druj lands is extraordinarily difficult and dangerous. The human members of the sodality found it particularly difficult, but even the Unshackled among them found the mission difficult and dangerous. The cost of securing this information was brutal. Despite all their caution, many members who undertook the trip to the Mallum did not make it back alive.

The summary of the Silent Bell discoveries was relayed to the Cardinal of Vigilance at the Spring Equinox 388YE; later than expected but given the price paid by many Vigilant spies, perhaps understandably so. The report is presented here as it was delivered to the Synod.

Precis

Cardinal, I apologise that this report is long overdue. The Silent Bell have done as asked and penetrated the Druj lands to discover everything we can learn of the malign spiritual presence of fear. The cost has been high, more than two dozen of my fellow vigilants have still not returned and I believe we must accept now that they never will. Worse, some of those who did return will never serve the Silent Bell again. Their strength of will has been shattered by what they saw and experienced and it is beyond our ability to heal their spirit. Investigating the moral turpitude of the Druj has left them wracked in mind and spirit.

By the time of the next summit we will be ready to return to duty, but I must warn you that another mission this deadly would deplete our numbers to the point where we could not continue to act. That is a price that may be worth paying if it helps us understand the tools of our enemies. I hope that the information we have gathered will be worth the lives it cost.

Fear and Dread

The malign spiritual presence of Fear is rare in the Empire, but ubiquitous in the areas of the Mallum still under the control of the Druj. Sustained and enhanced by great pillars, rather than a localised aura of the kind created in the Empire by priests using liao, a vast aura of fear commonly referred to as the Druj miasma blankets their lands.

Spontaneous

It is possible that there is a false virtue of Fear that would allow a human dedicant to use liao to create auras of fear. It is hard to prove a negative, as a technicality, so we cannot completely foreclose the chance that such a thing might be possible. However the Druj are masters of fear, they have spent hundreds of years studying this malign aura, they know more about it than any the people in the world and there is no evidence that they have ever been able to dedicate a human to fear so that they could employ liao to create such auras.

It appears that the Druj have a surprisingly good understanding of the abilities of Imperial priests to create auras. They understand that followers of the Way who are dedicated to a virtue (true or false) can learn how to create an aura using liao. They have tried for centuries to learn those skills and to find ways to copy them and have never succeeded. They have forced captured Imperial citizens to create auras for them - but they have never managed to force a prisoner to create an aura of fear using liao. Spontaneous dedications are exceptionally rare, but they are not unknown. The few times it has occurred are usually associated with moments where a person's actions were intensely virtuous. If it was possible for someone to be dedicated to fear, the Druj would have found a way to make that happen.

The Druj employ a much more crude and direct route to create auras of fear. Spontaneous dedications are very rare, but spontaneous auras on people and items are much more common. The conditions are the horrifying mirror of when a person's actions are intensely Virtuous. The Druj intentionally take advantage of this phenomena by employing the most horrific torture imaginable to try to make people afraid. They brutalise and terrify their victims, to try to force them to manifest a spontaneous aura of fear. It is clear they do not go to such enormous efforts simply because they are cruel and wicked, but because they have no other way to make fear auras arise.

Malign Not False

The malign aura of Fear is fundamentally different to the virtues in another crucial way. Almost all the auras of the virtues are intimately tied to the will to act in some way. For example, those affected by the Experience of Pride describe an urge to exemplify the quality they felt most Proud of when they were anointed. They feel driven to act in ways that will embody their Pride. Every aura is different of course, but in this one respect they are surprisingly similar. Every hallow, every anointing, seems to urge those under the affects to act. The auras produced by consecrations are much more contemplative, but even they seem to produce the conditions needed to drive the will to act.

Auras of fear do not drive the will to act in this way. What is notable is that these auras generally have the opposite effect. They sap the will to act. The most famous aura of fear, the one created by the Druj miasma pillars, is the perfect example of this. If a citizen isn't spiritually strong enough to overcome the aura of fear, then it saps their will act, leaving them weakened. Those who succumb to the effects are fundamentally robbed of the will to act by the aura.

The miasma blankets all the Druj lands, but there are accounts of much more localised auras of fear being encountered. These seem to have been deliberately created to function like a ward, preventing someone from entering the area. The aura of fear is so overpowering that someone who lacks the strength to overcome it is so frightened that they simply cannot muster the will to enter the area at all. They may want to enter the location but without a source of spiritual strength to draw on they cannot find it in themselves to do so.

This result is in stark contrast to the auras created by the Imperial virtues all of which motivate a person to take action. Highborn wayfarers have always maintained that "Only actions are virtuous", but it is perhaps not untrue to say that "virtues are only actions". The virtues always drive you to take action - they always urge you on, they drive, they motivate, they give you the impetus to act. Fear fundamentally does not do that, at best it might motivate a person to flee, but even this action tends to be limited in scope. Fear robs a person of the will to act, it is never uplifting.

Interestingly, this is not true of all malign spiritual auras. It is possible for humans and orcs to be dedicated to false virtues such as Anarchy and Hate, it is possible to use liao to create auras of these false virtues, and crucially those auras do motivate those who experience them to take action. Such actions routinely bring citizens into conflict with the virtues of the Way and the laws of the Empire, but what can't be denied is that those who succumb to the lures of the false virtues are still driven to act by them.

Fear is radically different to the false virtues in a way that reflects the fundamental make-up of the mortal soul (while orcs cannot use liao, both orcs and humans are affected by auras in the same way). Fear might rightly be thought of as the absence of virtue. It works to undermine all virtues, both so-called "false virtues" and the seven virtues of the Way. The deeper truth is that Druj society is orchestrated and led not to spread fear, but to try to remove all spiritual virtue from the world.

There may be other malign spiritual auras which work in a way that is similar to fear. There are stories and tales of dread which appear to be very similar to fear - it could well be the same malign presence. There is also talk of auras which induce despair which act in the same way - in fundamental opposition to the virtues. Whether despair is just another name for fear or is somehow distinct is impossible to know. It is more than possible that fear, dread, and despair are all simply names for the same malign antithesis of virtue.

Black Lotus

How the Druj make miasma pillars remains a closely guarded secret of the buruk tepel, the shadowy apothecarions who rule Druj society with an iron grip. It has long been known that it relies on the arts of the apothecary, those they torture are force-fed a toxic brew of hallucinogenic potions designed to amplify their fears. People who have survived the process describe seeing horrific visions of their deepest fears.

What is less well known is that the process to create the pillars themselves makes use of Black Lotus. How that process happens is known only to the buruk tepel and their most trusted tepel, but it definitely requires the presence of a buruk tepel employing a dose of black lotus in the presence of those who are being made to experience fear. The herb appears to be sufficiently powerful that a single dose allows a buruk tepel to create several pillars, but the reports from those who have suffered this terrible fate or witnessed it all agree. Every ceremony concludes with a buruk tepel employing some rare substance that the Druj clearly treat as unbelievably precious from the way it is locked and guarded. Given what we know of the Druj, this must be the precious Black Lotus.

Black Lotus remains elusive and incredibly rare - even in Druj lands. This may explain why it is so difficult for the Druj to replace miasma pillars when they are destroyed by the Empire, it may also explain why they never created miasma pillars in the Barrens. The sheer size of the territory may simply have rendered it too expensive. It is not clear what role Black Lotus plays in the process. It may be that the herb actively encourages the creation of auras of fear - or it may be that it works to fix those auras in place in some way. The Empire would need to know more about Black Lotus to be able to determine that.

It is worth noting that the Druj appear to actively target virtuous citizens for their corrupt rites to create the miasma pillars and other auras of fear. They seem to believe that the more virtuous a person is, the more intense an aura of fear they can produce when they are broken. It is difficult to know if there is any truth in these beliefs - what is clear is that the Druj believe it to be true. There could be a form of logic to it - the more spiritual a person is, the harder they may be to break, but in theory, the further they could fall. Regardless of the truth of the matter, this is clearly why the Druj deliberately target Imperial citizens they believe are virtuous. Such individuals are prized by the Druj as victims for their blasphemous rites that create miasma pillars and tormented souls.

Utility

The Druj employ fear to cement their control of their subjects. Their lands are bathed in an unrelenting aura of fear that constantly saps the will of those who live there. It is not impossible to resist that fear, the Nesustak rebels demonstrate that given sufficient hope, orcs and humans can overcome the effects and rebel. But the Sandfishers are a better example of the effects of living in constant fear. Forced to survive in a state of continual dread they were systematically robbed of their will to fight back. It is sometimes surprising that groups like the Ketsov are prepared to collaborate with the Druj until you consider what the alternatives are for people who must endure a constant fear that gnaws at their will.

It has long been believed that the Druj themselves are immune to the effects of the miasma pillar, because it is clear that their soldiers are able to fight with full effectiveness while under the effects. However this apparent resistance is nothing more than than an extension of the Druj tyranny - the Druj are not immune to the miasma pillars - rather the buruk tepel pick and choose who to empower to resist it.

The tepel carry herbs that they mix with the army's food to give them the strength they need to resist the fear when fighting. Vikari and other leaders of the Druj have more powerful potions that enable them to shrug off the effects completely. Presumably the tepel and the buruk tepel are even better provided for. But the mass of Druj, those who don't serve in the armies and most especially anyone who tried to oppose the rule of the buruk tepel would have no access to such potions.

In summary, the buruk tepel of the Druj employ what is likely to be one of the most valuable resources in the world - as expensive as true liao if not more so - and expend it to create the miasma. They force their own people, and everyone they have conquered, to live in a constant stead of dread designed to sap their will and render them helpless. They impoverish and immiserate their own people to solidify their iron-rule.

Summary

As an addendum to publication, the Imperial Archivist appends a brief summary of the finding of the Silent Bell. Fear is a malign spiritual force distinct from the seven virtues and the so-called false virtues, and is inimical to them all. Rather than encouraging people to actively embrace action, fear stifles the ability to do anything. It does not seem to be possible for humans to become dedicated to this force, but it is possible for spontaneous auras to arise that cause mortals to become fearful, suffer from dread, or give in to despair.

Further Reading

• Know your enemy - 387YE Summer wind of fortune presenting options to learn more about malign spiritual presences