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WITNESSES TO THE END
Followers of Caius’s Trail
The Witnesses are a unique sect of Caian worship, based in no part of the world in particular, following no religious figurehead, and upholding their own rites and beliefs of the faith of Caius. They build no churches, observe no holidays, and frequent no holy sites– For to be a Witness to the End is to be an eternal wanderer, traveling the world in an ever-growing search for more who require a gentle hand and a prayer as they pass on.
Known, sometimes derogatorily, as ‘walking graveyards’, the Witnesses bear a proud and long-held tradition of remembrance. They march through Meranthe and, indeed, well beyond, ever and always in search of those who are in their final days. The sick, the ailing, the old and the wounded are known to experience bedside care and companionship by the gentle hands of the pious Witness, with the tender hope that nobody dies alone, forgotten and unremembered. Those who are saved by their ministrations, for many Witnesses also act as wandering doctors, find their benefactors leaving soon after, often never to be seen again.
Those who are terminal in their diagnosis, though, will become subject to the truest rite of the Witnesses. They will be stayed with, their name transcribed, as to be remembered until the end of the Witness’s life and then passed unto another of the order, as to ensure none are forgotten. In this way, they keep careful record of all those who they have seen the end of, with most believing that the goal of this perpetual count is to provide the names of each and all of the departed to Caius on the day he returns to his post, that he might know all that has transpired in his absence.
HISTORY
The first Witnesses, though they did not at the time bear that name, are said to have been the students of a woman of divine and deathly provenance, who carried a tome that had written in it the name of all who lived and all who had lived. They learnt from her the many techniques they could use to recall the names of those who had been lost– Mnemonics and scarification, ledger-keeping and songs, means by which they might immortalize upon themselves and in their minds the memories of the dead.
In the initial years following Caius’s abandonment of his post, many of his faithful struggled. In contrast, the Witnesses blossomed into being, going from a mere few who sought to immortalize the fallen unto their own memory into a sect of worship in their own right. The philosophy they upheld was simple– Caius had left out of a desire to live his own life, to be a man outside of the responsibilities he had been shackled with since the moment of his inception. He was their patron, the man they had claimed worship and devotion towards, and where some had their faith wane in his absence, theirs only intensified.
It was the belief of the earliest true Witnesses that in his absence, it was their duty and honor to take up the mantle of his responsibilities. That he, who had been made divine and who had never lived among humanity, deserved the chance to live as he desired to live. That they, who claimed to be his faithful, would find purpose and piety in the upholding of his responsibilities until the day of his return, wisened and great and connected to the world around. They, it was declared, would wander the world in his trail. They would be there for all who died, to help shepherd them unto Mortyl’s embrace where Caius had stepped away. And they would remember all those who they had done so with, that when the day came that he returned to his place and mantle…
…He would know.
Though this initial blossoming of faith was great in number, and saw the practices of the Witnesses spread far and wide (indeed, even well outside of Meranthe!), there was never any means of proper coordination between these different groups. The fundamentally nomadic nature of the faith meant that any kind of actual structure was essentially impossible. While they could most certainly arrange a holy site to gather at, by that point the group was spread out enough and in enough different places that to actually communicate the existence of such would have been essentially impossible, and have merely created a schism between those who knew of it and those who did not.
As such, the Witnesses diffused unto the world, spread thinly across all known continents and countries. Over time, these groups became small family units, staying together and preaching the word as they traveled from city to city– such became the traditional means by which the Witnesses proliferated, and it is by far the most common way of meeting them in the modern day. As time went on and the faith of Caius recovered from the shock of his abandonment, though, they became steadily less prominent in comparison to proper churches and graveyards and the occasional necromancy cult spreading the name and word of the Pariah.
In the initial years following Caius’s abandonment of his post, many of his faithful struggled. In contrast, the Witnesses blossomed into being, going from a mere few who sought to immortalize the fallen unto their own memory into a sect of worship in their own right. The philosophy they upheld was simple– Caius had left out of a desire to live his own life, to be a man outside of the responsibilities he had been shackled with since the moment of his inception. He was their patron, the man they had claimed worship and devotion towards, and where some had their faith wane in his absence, theirs only intensified.
It was the belief of the earliest true Witnesses that in his absence, it was their duty and honor to take up the mantle of his responsibilities. That he, who had been made divine and who had never lived among humanity, deserved the chance to live as he desired to live. That they, who claimed to be his faithful, would find purpose and piety in the upholding of his responsibilities until the day of his return, wisened and great and connected to the world around. They, it was declared, would wander the world in his trail. They would be there for all who died, to help shepherd them unto Mortyl’s embrace where Caius had stepped away. And they would remember all those who they had done so with, that when the day came that he returned to his place and mantle…
…He would know.
Though this initial blossoming of faith was great in number, and saw the practices of the Witnesses spread far and wide (indeed, even well outside of Meranthe!), there was never any means of proper coordination between these different groups. The fundamentally nomadic nature of the faith meant that any kind of actual structure was essentially impossible. While they could most certainly arrange a holy site to gather at, by that point the group was spread out enough and in enough different places that to actually communicate the existence of such would have been essentially impossible, and have merely created a schism between those who knew of it and those who did not.
As such, the Witnesses diffused unto the world, spread thinly across all known continents and countries. Over time, these groups became small family units, staying together and preaching the word as they traveled from city to city– such became the traditional means by which the Witnesses proliferated, and it is by far the most common way of meeting them in the modern day. As time went on and the faith of Caius recovered from the shock of his abandonment, though, they became steadily less prominent in comparison to proper churches and graveyards and the occasional necromancy cult spreading the name and word of the Pariah.
PRACTICES
There are three major rites that the Witnesses follow. The Rite of Charity, the Rite of Journey, and the Rite of Remembrance.
The Rite of Charity is a simple rule that leads many of the Witnesses to enjoy an ascetic lifestyle. It is the belief, religiously, that if one can help another, they must help another. The homeless must be sheltered, the hungry fed, the sick tended to– to do this is to express the aspect of Love, for it is to show care and empathy and concern for one's fellow man. While this precludes any Witness bearing great wealth, it grants them a certain allowance and acceptance even in cities foreign to the idea of Caius and the Pantheon, for while the word of Caius may be unknown, their acts of charity are not.
The Rite of Journey is a distillation of the idea of Abandonment– No Witness may stay within the same place for more than a month without departing it, and to return to that place within a years’ span is to invite misfortune upon oneself and their partners in travel. Some Witnesses also pay fealty to Chireus, as an aspect of this Rite– leading to a subgroup of the Witnesses to the End that worship both the Pariah and his ever-traveling brother, though this is not necessarily an obligatory thing. By the Rite of Journey, they ensure that they are capable of finding and staying besides those who are on their final days, spreading further the net of those they get to see the end of. While there is no explicit, written distance that one must travel, past that they cannot linger in one town or settlement overlong, some Witnesses use the Rite of Journey as to travel between continents, while others simply cycle between cities.
Finally, and most importantly, the Rite of Remembrance is the one thing that the Witnesses of the End uphold most faithfully. While they have at times been known to offer leniency on the prior two (for to help another cannot be done if one is themselves in dire straits, and in cases of plague or other mass death, to depart at the ascribed time would be to fail to witness more than they would be able to find elsewhere)... the Rite of Remembrance is the one that no matter what, any Witness is expected to follow. When someone is on their deathbed, the Witness is to hold their left hand tightly. They are to stay by them for as long as possible, awake and aware, speaking with them and learning of their story and their life and those they care about. As death approaches, they are to hum a song, a specific funeral hymn that is taught to all Witnesses since childhood or induction… and when the one to be witnessed passes, they are to be remembered.
How they are remembered is a matter of personal preference, though the traditional means include:
Ledger-keeping, often resulting in large, bounding tomes of names
Ritual scarification, with each mark indicating another one witnessed
Mnemonic devices, allowing one to recall the names in response to specific stimuli
Song, by which one might recall their names to the tune of a melody that can go on for hours
Though there are certainly other, more personal or individual means of keeping track. In truth, the means of remembrance are left to the adherent in question, with the only requirement being that they are able to functionally recall each and every name they have ever been made to witness the end of.
The Rite of Charity is a simple rule that leads many of the Witnesses to enjoy an ascetic lifestyle. It is the belief, religiously, that if one can help another, they must help another. The homeless must be sheltered, the hungry fed, the sick tended to– to do this is to express the aspect of Love, for it is to show care and empathy and concern for one's fellow man. While this precludes any Witness bearing great wealth, it grants them a certain allowance and acceptance even in cities foreign to the idea of Caius and the Pantheon, for while the word of Caius may be unknown, their acts of charity are not.
The Rite of Journey is a distillation of the idea of Abandonment– No Witness may stay within the same place for more than a month without departing it, and to return to that place within a years’ span is to invite misfortune upon oneself and their partners in travel. Some Witnesses also pay fealty to Chireus, as an aspect of this Rite– leading to a subgroup of the Witnesses to the End that worship both the Pariah and his ever-traveling brother, though this is not necessarily an obligatory thing. By the Rite of Journey, they ensure that they are capable of finding and staying besides those who are on their final days, spreading further the net of those they get to see the end of. While there is no explicit, written distance that one must travel, past that they cannot linger in one town or settlement overlong, some Witnesses use the Rite of Journey as to travel between continents, while others simply cycle between cities.
Finally, and most importantly, the Rite of Remembrance is the one thing that the Witnesses of the End uphold most faithfully. While they have at times been known to offer leniency on the prior two (for to help another cannot be done if one is themselves in dire straits, and in cases of plague or other mass death, to depart at the ascribed time would be to fail to witness more than they would be able to find elsewhere)... the Rite of Remembrance is the one that no matter what, any Witness is expected to follow. When someone is on their deathbed, the Witness is to hold their left hand tightly. They are to stay by them for as long as possible, awake and aware, speaking with them and learning of their story and their life and those they care about. As death approaches, they are to hum a song, a specific funeral hymn that is taught to all Witnesses since childhood or induction… and when the one to be witnessed passes, they are to be remembered.
How they are remembered is a matter of personal preference, though the traditional means include:
Ledger-keeping, often resulting in large, bounding tomes of names
Ritual scarification, with each mark indicating another one witnessed
Mnemonic devices, allowing one to recall the names in response to specific stimuli
Song, by which one might recall their names to the tune of a melody that can go on for hours
Though there are certainly other, more personal or individual means of keeping track. In truth, the means of remembrance are left to the adherent in question, with the only requirement being that they are able to functionally recall each and every name they have ever been made to witness the end of.
GOALS
- Keep a tally as accurate as possible of all who have died since Caius abandoned his post
- Spread the word of Caius far and wide, that all may know of their patron God
- Follow the path of his wanderings, walking ever in Caius’s trail
- Prepare for the day of his return to the fold of divinity, that he might be welcomed back by his faithful in applause and celebration
- Keep a tally as accurate as possible of all who have died since Caius abandoned his post
- Spread the word of Caius far and wide, that all may know of their patron God
- Follow the path of his wanderings, walking ever in Caius’s trail
- Prepare for the day of his return to the fold of divinity, that he might be welcomed back by his faithful in applause and celebration