The Book of Peace
By Saint Robin of the Church of Danethrae
Why do people harm each other. We suffer, we free people. We suffer at the hands of our enemies and we suffer at the hands of each other. Why must we do this. The history of all the free kingdoms and all the free peoples of the world are littered with tales of conquest, of glory, of victory. The warriors of our land love the taste of blood, the death of their enemy.
Our nations are built on the deaths of those that came before us.
Why must we do this to one another. Our lives as mortals are short. Our chance to experience the beauty of the world is a few fleeting years. Unlike the elves, or people grow old, and they die. They depart the world, most having seen hardly any of it. Our lands are there to be shared. To be treasured. To be experienced. To be enjoyed.
A Kingdom built on the blood of its people is a kingdom of failure. The people are the most valuable part of the kingdom, they are the true gold, the true gemstones. Without the people, this diverse spectrum of people that live in all our kingdoms, our kings and our emperors have nothing. Yet they spend their own people to build a bigger better, bolder kingdom for themselves. This is madness; we have no need for the fight.
Why fight now for a goal that lasts just a few years. Who can remember the fights that ended the world? How long did the victory of the victors last? Have the losers recovered yet? How many suffered and died to make that 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 by the hand of the strong against the world.
Every new beginning, every new kingdom and new empire that launches a new ruler, also comes with it the yoke of death. 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 gems when the real gems are being sent out to die. Sent to protect that nations rulers whether they are worthy 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 discussion. We could never achieve it by being generous with neighbours with what we have. Could we? Or have we never tried to do that? Have we never 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 does their kingdoms good. Sometimes it does their people good, but not by choice, not by planning to be that way. Only by accident.
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 power of tempts those least worthy of the positions of rule. In the highest echelons of a corrupt empire, the rulers squabble over money. Even the emperor can be killed and replaced by those who own the money. 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, to kill more of its people.
Yet in the hearts of the people there is suffering. We are delicate creature; maybe we seem tough and thick skinned on the outside but each one of us can be brought to and 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 good food each meal time.