The Book of Peace
By Saint Robin of the Church of Danethrae
The peoples of this world treat each other with britality. Why are my fellow people filled with such bitter hatred? Why do people seek to harm each other, why is handed-out pain used to control and manipulate the free? We suffer, we free people.
We suffer at the hands of our enemies, and we bring suffering to them as they do to us. We suffer at the hands of each other as many take joy from giving pain or suffering to their neighbours, why should this be?. Why must we harm one another? Do we always hate each other with such venom?
This hatred and this desire to bring suffering to our foe and to our neighbour echoes throughout the history of our lands. These three nations, these diverse and wonderful people, all with their own contribution to the future of the lands, all bring suffering to each other.
The history of the free kingdoms and the free peoples of the world are littered with tales of conquest, of glory and of victory for the strong, yet suffering and death for the weak. These tales are told by the warriors, those who call the peoples of these lands to fight, to defend what is theirs and in desperate need of defence. Or call them to attack what is coveted or what is thought to be misused. The warriors of our land love the taste of blood, and they love to watch the pain and the death of their enemy.
Our nations are built on the deaths of those that came before us. The rulers at each step took it upon themselves to bring war to those that lived nearby. They conquered for territorial gain, they conquered for the best land for food, they fought others where prejudice or hatred was levelled against them, they fought for petty political gain, for meaningless power. All through our history there have been those who have used their military strength, their armed prowess to subjugate the lands and people living around them.
Why must we do this to one another. Our lives as mortals are short, and are fragile indeed. We are all vulnerable to plagues and diseases, age also cuts into our bodies and shortens our years. Yet our rulers take these fragile lives and spend them for their glory, not even in honour of the gods above. They seek to win for themselves a day of victory. Or maybe a year. But not a lifetime. And not a lifetime of one of their soldiers that died in the field.
Our time on this world is only a small window in which we can experience the beauty of its creation. A few fleeting years. Unlike the elves, our people grow old and they die. We mortals depart the world, and too few of us see more than a little of it, yet here the beauty of its creation, the handiwork of our gods, is on display. Our lands are here to be shared. To be treasured. To be experienced. To be enjoyed. Yet our rulers deny life to so many by throwing them needlessly into the front of battle, fights to which there can never be a true victor.
A Kingdom built upon the blood of its people is a kingdom of failure. Surely it is the duty of a nations rulers to protect its people, to shield them from death where they can, not to throw them into battle to see them killed before their time. The people are the most valuable element of any kingdom; they are the investors in the land, and they are the true gold, the true gemstones of any nation. Without the precious people, without this diverse spectrum of people that live in all our kingdoms, our kings and our emperors have nothing of value. Yet they spend these people to build a bigger better, bolder kingdom for themselves. They take what is most precious to them and send it to its end - to its death. They build mighty armies of the men of their realm and throw them at their neighbours and at other nations. This is madness; we have no need for the fight, those who die benefit not at all from any greater land. Their part in it is cut short in the destruction caused by their rulers.
Why fight now for a victory that will last for just a few years? They may claim it shall stand longer, but it will not. Can any now remember the wars that ended the world and brought Disaster to all? How great a victory was won in those wars? How long did the victory of the victors last? Have the losers recovered yet? How many people suffered and died in those wars just to make the defeat happen? For none were victors; nobody won that war. Everyone lost. Everyone was subjugated by the breaking of the world. People died; good people and bad, and all for nothing, for a worthless defeat brought by the hand of the strong against the world.
For every new nation, for every new kingdom and new empire that launches with a new ruler, also it brings along with it the yoke of death. All kingdoms pick up the desire for glory, the desire to be greater than their neighbours and their peers, and when it does this, it also takes up the will to kill those it relies on most for its strength - its most valuable asset - its people. It carries the burden of a people who must be sent to fight for that nations glory when none is needed. Sent to fight for that nations territory, when it already has it. Sent to fight for gold or gem stones when it most treasured and valuable possessions are being sent out to die. The people will be sent to protect a nations rulers, it does not matter whether they are worthy of rule or not. And people die. Good people and bad, all for the defeat.
Uproot the people, give them spears and helmets. Send them out to kill each other. This is what our rulers do; they always do. The fight is important, they tell us. What we achieve through fighting we could never achieve through discourse. We could never achieve it by being generous with neighbours and sharing what we have. It is impossible. We know this to be true because we have never tried to do it. Have we ever treated our neighbours with respect? Dealt with them as equals, as other people should be treated? As though they too are the real gold, the real gemstones? Because we've never done this we never do it. Our rulers are shallow, they take only what they desire for their kingdoms welfare. And sometimes it does their people good, but never by choice, never because it was planned to be that way.
In the war for gold, how much gold was there? Enough to go around without the fighting? In the war over gems, how many gems did we win? And those that died fighting for these things, how much of the precious trappings that were saved did they get to keep?
The corruption of the heart caused by power tempts those least worthy of the positions of rule. In the highest echelons of a corrupt empire, the rulers will squabble over money. Even the emperor can be killed and replaced by those who own the money, no questions will be asked, no recriminations will be felt. Yet this infighting leads only to more wars; the empire turns on its neighbours after it has killed its own. It seeks not to defend itself from fell beasts or invaders and war makers from other places, it seeks to defeat those around it - to take what others have and add it to its own, already huge, pile of treasure. It seeks nothing more than to continue the war; to fight more battles, to kill more of its people.
Yet in the hearts of the people there is suffering. We are delicate creatures; maybe we seem tough and thick skinned on the outside but each one of us can be brought to an early end through terrifying disease. Yet our rulers love to send us to fight; to help us to die young. It is not enough to give each one of us a chance to enjoy the beauty that this world, that these wonderful lands, give us. We have to fight and die in order to earn recognition, to elevate our status and earn the income that is needed for our family and our selves to eat simple foods each meal time.
This pathway is corrupt; we should seek a new route. The way of Danethrae should free us from this slavery of death to the feudal chiefs, and we should give glory to our gods instead.