Letter of Condemnation: Excerpt

It is true that faith played a formative role in the upbringing of a young Alesana Dwric, as she learned of the world around her and carved her own path into the stone, to stand where I do today. It is true that this faith, unerring, undeniable, inviolable, and unconditional, that all obstacles can be overcome, that all challenges can be risen to, provides to me a warm comfort—a guiding light through the darkest of times.
 
I wish I could say the same of the archaic beliefs, espoused by the high priest of the Sanctum in Kassar, which have served to divide our community. I wish I could say that I felt the same warm comfort of faith whenever I heard the preachers on the street corners, not so much calling for violence against non-believers, but implying that they were somehow less than, worthy of driving into the deep.
 
Make no mistake, these preachers are responsible for their own actions in the eyes of the law and in the eyes of any gods who might truly be watching, but the high priest is equally culpable, for these preachers could not have stood on their street corners day by day, spouting vitriol about those who differ, without his approval.
 
The high priest purports to be a father to the erinin of his flock, as Viari is a father to all erinin, to all life. I urge the court to give due consideration to what it means to be a father to a people. My own father, while not the warmest of individuals, did his best. Never in all my years did I hear him speak ill of an individual who did not earn it by their actions. A father serves as an example to his children, he protects them, he gives them support, and most importantly he teaches them to view the world through their own eyes and never the eyes of others.
 
The high priest did no such thing. If he served as an example to the people, he served as an example of what not to be. The support he gave was a lie, predicated on those seeking it to agree with his beliefs, and to not be of a group that he disapproves. And let us not mince around the truth; the Sanctum has never sought to endow its followers with the ability to seek their own answers as they wish. The Sanctum has always put forward its answers to the deeper questions of life as the only correct answers.
 
Further: what kind of father calls their own child a snake? Not mine. The supposed man of faith did, however. He branded me for my independence of thought and urged the others to cast me out. I thrived nevertheless, for I cannot stomach the thought of living a sightless sheep among sightless sheep.
 
So I said so be it. I am the snake beneath the grasses. Watching. Biding my time. Let truth be my venom, a most potent substance for killing the lies of old men who fancy themselves the rulers of the world because they have deluded themselves into thinking that they were the gods' chosen.