The Bladewed

The BladeWed ('flach ri G'kna'a) are a religious order of knights essentially devoted to the defense and maintenance of the Temple and its Priesthood. They are also the leaders for most of the Dhe'nar warriors, and function as general officers for Tesachta'a and Dzevachta'a. They are trainers, teachers, scholars and tacticians, and are the elite of the Dhe'nar Warrior Caste. From sixteen on, they are removed from the status of slave, and instead begin to go through the same rituals of training as do priests and priestesses until their mid-twenties. They are given intense religious and ceremonial training, and are expected to work as much with their heads and souls as with their swords. Whatever latent power abilities they possess are nurtured and encouraged for future use. From their late teens, these young warriors are also given instruction, lasting into their late twenties, in martial arts of all sorts: weapons, weaponless combat, tactics, strategy, ceremony and planning. They are encouraged to self-reliance and are often sent on long individual missions for the Temple and for training.

BladeWed warriors do not ever participate in any binding ritual. They are discouraged from love, family, and anything which might detract from their duty and their calling. Though encouraged in their relations with the opposite sex, they are beaten ritually and severely for any liaison which goes beyond a week. If this does not discourage them, they may be beaten to death. They are often resurrected and sent into the Guardians, for their potential may be otherwise utilized by the Dhe'nar.

There are many offenses in Dhe'nar society which may merit death. The young BladeWed are often utilized as executioners. Any with feelings of squeamishness or shyness are weeded out early and sent into some other service. Major offenses amongst the BladeWed are handled by ritually maiming the candidate: no empath is allowed to remove the stigma, and the candidate must live with it to teach humility for several years. Blinding, deafening, amputation...the punishment fits whatever transgress of the code of the BladeWed the candidate has made. Those so maimed are, of course, expected to perform in all other respects as well as the rest of their comrades.

Having learnt pain, humility, religion and strategy, the young BladeWed are also taught to love their weapons. BladeWed are all swordsmen; no less noble weapon is permitted them as a mate. They are given almost religious instruction in the forms, care, and tactics of sword combat, from their first days as a BladeWed. Unlike the Guardians, BladeWed are given their personal weapon very early on, and though not yet sanctified, they are taught to woo it as a lover. The perfection of their relationship with the blade is to use it as best they may, to kill, defend, to delight in its form and function, to exalt in its proper use and artful deadly power. They eat, sleep, and endure all of their daily torments with their blades by their sides. After ten or twelve years of this, they would feel naked and alone without it.

Soon after leaving the priesthood training, those warriors who have survived (and many, as reading the priesthood training above will show, do not) are taken deep into the mountain for their most sacred ritual: The BladeWedding.

Some, of course, do not survive this ritual. They are unfit. Those who do are wed to their blades for life, never to take another as a lifetime companion. Stories of those few who have tried abound with tales of warriors found hacked to pieces by their own hands, or their unlucky partners killed by that part of the BladeWed which is controlled by the Blade. Few are attracted to the BladeWed as longtime mates, though empaths do sometimes choose them as companions for a few years.