Organizations of Ehdrigohr, pt. 7

THE ENDERS

Somewhere within the noise of the great evils and the people’s struggles to survive there arose a new force that focused on a single terrible idea. That idea is that the world is a big mistake and so is WhatMoves. Static existence is a sort of cosmic madness, a trap for ideas that were damaging to fluid existence beyond this bounded existence. WhatMoves is an insane concept  of static being and we are his fever dream. His dream is ever growing, scooping up bits of possibility and wrapping it in a single static state that strangles it for an eternity. Basically, Ehdrigohr is literally a nightmare and WhatMoves must be slain.

Their belief is that WhatMoves intervened with the War of Sorrows not because he was angered by the chaos but that the union between the Spinner and Ok’o-wi put her, and everyone else too close to the fragile knots that hold this world together. They argue that the Scattering; casting the Ok’o-wibiryn into the Twain; and the circular path that souls walk upon The Road is all part of the processes of this prison. There is chaos and noise in the work so that we don’t hear the whispers from without that attempt to summon WhatMoves back to sanity and break the illusion. The only way to return all the beings of the world to its proper state is to bring everything to a state of Quiet. WhatMoves must be slain so that all of this will be undone.

To the uninitiated the Enders seem like a bizarre murder/suicide cult. They operate in cells and work to polarize the peoples. They believe that the great threads that hold the prison together are made through the very act of witnessing it. Witnessing is bound up in emotion and personal filters that help us digest the illusion and accept it as truth. Extreme situations, however, cause the emotional container to unravel and create a pinhole sized aperture in the barriers of the prison. In that moment, if you die, they believe you enter the Quiet and the spaces Beyond the Twain. In that moment you return to magnificent unfettered being. A dream without a dreamer you are freed to be pure concept.

What this means is that in their eyes, it is not enough to kill you. You must endure the most horrible things imaginable and then they bestow upon you a gift of freedom. A new birth. Some few, after the release, return as something bound in a barely maintainable human form.  These are the Quiet Ones. What is in them makes even Shivers and the sorrows afraid. They seek to cause an altogether different sort of breach. Instead of opening up paths into the Twain, the Quiet Ones seek to unravel the Weave and the Hoop and send everything tumbling back into the quiet possibilities beyond.

Whether they are right or wrong, the Enders wind up being the single most persecuted religious forces around. Every organization marks professing the path of Ending as punishable by death. Because they often learn to display prowess with the Principles and Essences those mysteries will often get you suspicious looks from people unless you’re obviously from another order that uses these for good. Even then many wll steer clear of you just in case.

This persecution doesn’t stop the Enders from traveling to find those in need of their ministrations. They believe so greatly in the power of concept that they actually profess a religious ideal. They suggest a binary world of bound and unbound where they continually force people into smaller and smaller packed concepts until their will breaks. They tend to be very logical, assertive, and convincing. In their purview, ideally they can get you to see that it’s a good idea and convince you to begin walking a path of extremes, slowly separating you from your support systems and those that help you witness the world. At that point, no matter how nice an Ender might seem, you can be guaranteed that he or she will try to murder you.

It is murder that that they do. It is sloppy and raucous and perverse. They’re not assassins or bandits murdering for private gain, and it is never quick or merciful. They’re murdering you to help you out of a bad spot. They will do it slowly and might even sing a happy tune during the process. They think that they’re doing joyful social work. The only saving grace is that they will do this to all sentient beings capable of madness. They’ll do it to people, shivers, Sorrows, Graces, Fiddlers, Iktom, Dul’Ah’gallan, everyone.

The old saying goes. “End the Ender before he smiles.”

Allen Turner

Writer, Storyteller, Game designer, Teacher, Dad, Table-top RPG geek. I'm just a dude who likes to share my wild imaginings. Follow me on Twitter @CouncilOfFools

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