The House of Sinew
The House of Sinew is an elite and secretive order, mainly consisting of Psi-Warrior Fighters, who have willingly exposed themselves to the corrupting influence of The Far Realm in pursuit of mental and physical perfection. They see the melding of their bodies with their minds as the ultimate evolution, even if it comes at the cost of their humanity. Members of the House are both revered and feared for their unwavering discipline and the strange, alien power that radiates from them. Whilst widespread throughout Apa Axas, the House of Sinew found its beginnings in The Putric Isles.
The House of Sinew is highly selective in its recruitment, as the challenges of facing the Far Realm demand exceptional resilience, discipline, and an inherent psionic spark. Recruits undergo a rigorous selection process followed by a grueling period of training and mental conditioning before their first exposure to the Far Realm. This process ensures that only those with the greatest potential survive and thrive as members of the House. The House recruits from various sources, all sharing one commonality: they have already encountered the uncanny or the impossible. However, they fit into several categories:
- The Marked. Some recruits are individuals who have survived an encounter with the Far Realm or its aberrations. These survivors often carry mental scars, latent psionic abilities, or a desperate need for answers.
- The Gifted. The House seeks out individuals with natural psionic talent, regardless of their background. This includes monks, sorcerers, or other individuals with an innate connection to the mind.
- The Broken. The House also recruits those on the brink of madness, recognizing that such individuals may possess the mental flexibility needed to embrace the Far Realm’s influence. These recruits are often the most unstable but also the most powerful.
- Mental Fortitude Training, led by The Veilweaver in which the recruit’s mind must be fortified against the madness of the Far Realm. This involves the use of Meditative Techniques, in which Recruits learn to isolate parts of their mind, shielding their core psyche from corruption, Illusion Exposure, Controlled psionic illusions mimic the Far Realm’s effects, helping recruits grow accustomed to its alien nature and Clarity Drills in which Recruits face increasingly complex riddles and logic puzzles under duress to sharpen their mental focus.
- Physical Conditioning, led by The Mindblade, where Recruits undergo rigorous physical training to build resilience and martial skill. This includes combat drills with psionic constructs simulate the erratic movements of aberrations and endurance training prepares them for the physically draining effects of planar exposure.
- Emotional Stabilisation, led by The Soulbinder, in which Recruits must confront their fears and traumas, as emotional instability is a vulnerability the Far Realm can exploit. This includes the use of Psionic Counseling where Threads with emotional wounds are guided to confront and mend them and memory Safeguarding where certain memories may be psionically locked away to protect the recruit’s psyche from being overwhelmed.
- Psionic Awakening, led by The Eye of the Abyss, in which Recruits with latent psionic abilities are trained to harness them as weapons and shields. Recruits are taught to manipulate psionic energy to enhance their combat and survival skills while advanced initiates learn techniques like creating mental barriers, projecting psionic attacks, and suppressing Far Realm emanations.
Structure
The House of Sinew operates like a monastic order, with a strict heirarchy based on mental fortitude and mastery of psionic abilities. There are several positions held within the House:
- The Corpus Callosuem. The leader of the House, also referred to as the Mind-Knot, is a warrior whose mental and physical abilities are in perfect balance. They are the first amongst equals, chosen not only for their skill, but for their ability to channel The Far Realm's influence without succumbing to madness.
- Threads. Senior members who guide initiates through their training and exposure to the Far Realm. Each Thread specialises in one aspect of psionic combat, such as telekinesis, psionic shielding and mental domination.
- Weaves. Initiates who have begun their journey of transformation. They are trained rigourously to maintain their sanity as they draw upon the Far Realm's power, often undergoing intense physical trials to test their limits.
- Strands. The lowest rank consists of new recruits, or Strands, who have yet to undergo their first exposure to the Far Realm. They serve the House in menial tasks, proving their worth before their initiation begins.
- The Cortex Keeper. The First Thread is the second in command of the House of Sinew, under only the Corpus Callosuem, tasked with maintaining unity among the Threads and ensuring the House remains true to its purpose. The Cortex Keeper operates from the Stronghold Sinew, the House’s central sanctuary, where the Shard of Ysradix is safeguarded.
- The Mindblade. The Second Thread is responsible for training and preparing the House’s warriors, specializing in psionic combat techniques and physical conditioning.
- The Shieldmind. The Shieldmind leads the House’s defensive efforts, protecting their sanctuaries, allies, and the material plane from Far Realm incursions.
- The Soulbinder. The Soulbinder focuses on the health and well-being of House members, both physically and mentally.
- The Eye of the Abyss. The Eye of the Abyss leads the House’s intellectual pursuits, seeking to understand the Far Realm and develop tools to combat its influence.
- The Veilweaver. The Veilweaver ensures that House members are mentally prepared to face the horrors of the Far Realm.
- The Voidseeker. The Voidseeker leads efforts to gather intelligence on Far Realm incursions, aberrations, and otherworldly phenomena.
- The Weavekeeper (First Thread) ensures that the others work harmoniously and maintains the vision of the House.
- The Mindblade (Second Thread) provides the warriors, trained with clarity from the Veilweaver and equipped with knowledge from the Eye of the Abyss.
- The Shieldmind (Third Thread) protects the House’s territory and coordinates defense with information from the Voidseeker and tactics from the Mindblade.
- The Soulbinder (Fourth Thread) heals those wounded in battle or corrupted by the Far Realm, drawing on research from the Eye of the Abyss.
- The Eye of the Abyss (Fifth Thread) ensures that all branches have the knowledge and tools they need to fight the Far Realm effectively.
- The Veilweaver (Sixth Thread) keeps members mentally stable and ensures clarity under pressure, a necessity for all branches.
- The Voidseeker (Seventh Thread) acts as the House’s eyes and ears, providing intelligence to every other Thread.
Culture
The House of Sinew believes that true strength lies in a fusion of the body and the mind, and that the boundaries of mortal existence must be transcended to achieve ultimate perfection. They see the Far Realm not as a place of horror, but as a proving ground for the truly disciplined. However, their philosophy is not without cost. Many members walk a fine line between mastery and madness, and the order is constantly vigilant for signs of corruption among their ranks. Their ultimate goal is to use their powers to protect their world from threats both internal and external, including Far Realm Incursions. Some, however, whisper that the House’s prolonged exposure to the Far Realm may be subtly altering their motives toward alien ends.
The House undergoes several unique traditionals, rites and rituals as a part of their training and everyday life. Examples of these include The Rending Suture, Symmetry of Sinew and The Song of Threads.
The House is famous for its combat techniques, many of which focus on three pillars of combat; Mental Edge, Psionic Resilience and Far Realm Techniques:
- The House's Mental Edge give members of the House of Sinew an unparalleled ability with blending psionic techniques with martial combat. They enhance their strikes with psionic energy, allowing them to break through armor, disarm enemies, or stagger foes with bursts of telekinetic force.
- Exposure to the Far Realm has bolstered their mental defenses, promoting a form of Psionic Resilience. They can shrug off psychic attacks, resist mind control, and use their psionic powers to shield themselves and allies from harm.
- The House has learned to weaponize some of the Far Realm’s alien properties, such as the Mind Breaker Strike; a psionically charged strike that shatters the will of its target, leaving them dazed or confused, the Warp Step; a teleportation technique that briefly phases the warrior into an alien dimension, allowing them to reappear behind enemies and Flesh Unbinding; By focusing psionic energy, they can destabilize the physical form of a foe, temporarily turning their body into unstable, writhing sinews.
Public Agenda
The House of Sinew believes that true strength lies in the fusion of body and mind, and that the boundaries of mortal existence must be transcended to achieve ultimate perfection. They see the Far Realm not as a place of horror, but as a proving ground for the truly disciplined. However, their philosophy is not without cost. Many members walk a fine line between mastery and madness, and the order is constantly vigilant for signs of corruption among their ranks. Their ultimate goal is to use their powers to protect their world from threats both internal and external, including incursions from the Far Realm itself. Some, however, whisper that the House’s prolonged exposure to the Far Realm may be subtly altering their motives toward alien ends.
Assets
The House's greatest Assets are their combat prowess, including methods for dealing with supernatural creatures of all types. The House of Sinew’s primary focus is to battle and mitigate threats emanating from the Far Realm, but it also maintains specialized methods for dealing with other dangerous or supernatural creatures. Over the centuries, the House has adapted its psionic prowess to combat a variety of beings, and each of these methods is rooted in their understanding of mental manipulation, psychic energy, and aberrant tactics. Below are the unique techniques the House employs for specific creatures:
Fey. The fey are often capricious, unpredictable, and tied to the natural world, making them difficult to control through conventional means. The House of Sinew uses their mental discipline and psionic constructs to create a sense of discomfort and unease in the fey. Methods used by the House include;
- Disrupting Glamours: The Veilweaver (Sixth Thread) teaches members techniques to disrupt the fey’s illusions and charm effects. Using mental fortitude exercises, House members learn to project clarity into their surroundings, forcing the fey’s illusions to break apart.
- Psychic Seals: Corpus Callosuems have developed “mental seals” which prevent fey from using their trickster magic on House members. These seals manifest as a protective aura that interferes with the fey’s ability to weave magic that affects the mind.
- Psionic Tethers: Members of the House can create psionic “tethers” to bind fey to the material plane, preventing them from slipping into the Feywild. These tethers are constructed from a blend of psionic energy and mental willpower, rendering the fey’s natural teleportation abilities useless.
- Mental Dueling: House members trained in the Mindblade discipline often challenge dragons mentally. Psionic constructs can be used to directly target a dragon’s mind, forcing them into a mental duel, where their pride is the greatest weapon and the greatest weakness. The House uses clever mental tricks to provoke dragons into overextending themselves mentally.
- Psychic Resonance: The House uses their connection to the Far Realm to distort the natural psionic energy of a dragon’s mind. A well-placed psychic pulse can disrupt a dragon’s mental focus, throwing off spells or making them hesitant in combat.
- Psionic Bonding: Some House members have learned how to form temporary psychic bonds with dragons to communicate, extract information, or influence their behavior. These bonds can also be used to control dragons in battle.
- “The Psionic Horn”—A unique psionic communication that allows House members to broadcast their thoughts to a dragon’s mind, creating a cacophony that unsettles the dragon’s sense of direction and vision.
- Mental Restraints: The House employs psychic restraints, which are techniques to suppress a lycanthrope’s transformation. This involves binding their thoughts and emotions, preventing the lycanthrope from accessing the primal power that drives their transformations.
- Psychic Clarity: Recruits are taught to create intense mental clarity in the presence of lycanthropes, forcing them to confront their dual nature and often paralyzing them in a moment of internal conflict.
- Feral Lockdown: A powerful psionic technique that forces a lycanthrope’s animal instincts into submission. This technique creates a psychic barrier around the lycanthrope’s primal mind, neutralizing the rage that fuels their transformation.
- “The Howl of Silence”—A psionic field of silence is created to prevent lycanthropes from utilizing their heightened senses, rendering them less dangerous in combat.
- Psionic Exorcism: The House has developed Psionic Exorcism rituals that break the fiend’s hold over the material plane. These rituals target the fiend’s core essence and unravel their ability to corrupt minds or possess individuals.
- Mind Shackle: The Mindblade leads these missions, using mental constructs to shackle the fiend’s ability to control others. Once bound, a fiend cannot mentally influence those who are protected by the House’s psionic fortifications.
- Banishing Resonance: Using their connection to the Far Realm, House members can create resonating frequencies that temporarily banish fiends back to their home planes. These frequencies resonate with the fiend’s intrinsic energy, making it difficult for them to remain in the material world.
- “The Shattered Soul” - A psionic technique used to fragment the soul of a fiend, rendering them vulnerable to damage. This technique forces the fiend to relive their most painful experiences in the Far Realm, weakening their resolve.
- Mental Disintegration: House members trained in the Mindblade discipline can focus psionic energy on the aberration’s mind, destabilizing its mental integrity and causing it to collapse in on itself. This technique is especially effective against aberrations with a strong connection to the Far Realm.
- Psionic Displacement: This technique creates a dissonant mental state within the aberration, causing its physical form to become unstable. The creature may experience temporary disorientation or even phase partially into the Far Realm, making it vulnerable to attack.
- Far Realm Nullification: The House has developed a method to nullify the Far Realm’s influence within a limited area. When employed, this technique creates a barrier that prevents aberrations from tapping into their reality-warping powers, rendering them more vulnerable to conventional attack.
- “The Mind-Tide” - A psionic wave that disrupts the connection between an aberration and the Far Realm, essentially severing the link for a short time and preventing it from summoning reinforcements.
- Psychic Stagger: The House uses mental pulses to disrupt a giant’s balance, creating the sensation of vertigo or dizziness. This can incapacitate them temporarily, making it easier to strike.
- Memory Manipulation: Some giants, particularly those that are less intelligent, can be confused using memory manipulation. By altering their memories, House members can make giants forget their current goals or cause them to hesitate in combat.
- Psionic Chains: This technique involves creating powerful psionic bindings around a giant’s limbs, restricting their movement and rendering them sluggish. These chains are forged from mental energy and can last long enough for a team of House members to overpower a giant.
- “The Titan’s Dream” - A mental projection that places a giant in an altered reality, where they are trapped in endless, confusing dreams. This causes the giant to falter in battle or even retreat.
- Elemental Dissolution: House members trained in the Eye of the Abyss branch can create psionic disturbances that interfere with a genie’s elemental abilities, preventing them from summoning storms, fires, or other manifestations of their power.
- Mental Bargaining: The House has mastered a method of bargaining with genies on a mental plane, using their psionic abilities to offer “deals” that manipulate the genie’s desires and command them to perform certain tasks without invoking their wrath.
- Binding Enchantment: The House uses a specialized binding ritual, leveraging the psionic bond with the Far Realm to weave an energy-resistant chain that binds the genie’s power for a short time. These chains weaken the genie’s connection to their elemental plane.
- “The Wind’s Whisper” - A psionic communication technique that allows the House to subtly influence a genie’s decisions, turning their arrogance and pride against them by appealing to their ego.
- Mind Severance: One of the most effective techniques against vampires is Mind Severance, a powerful psionic attack that targets the vampire’s mental core and severs their ability to influence others. This can neutralize a vampire’s charm and domination powers, leaving them vulnerable to attack.
- Bloodbound Psyche: House members exploit the vampiric connection to blood magic, using Psionic Disruption to interfere with the flow of their life force. This can cause a vampire’s regeneration ability to falter, causing them to weaken over time.
- Psychic Immolation: By focusing intense psychic energy, the House can create a sensation of burning that overwhelms the vampire’s mind, as if their very existence is being consumed by fire. This psychic agony is incredibly painful and can incapacitate a vampire long enough for an attack.
- “The Shadow Within” - A technique in which the House member induces intense paranoia in the vampire by projecting a “shadow” version of themselves within the vampire’s mind. This phantom is an echo of their own fears, making it difficult for them to remain focused or rational.
- Soul Displacement: House members trained in the Mind-Knot discipline are capable of forcing a lich’s soul out of its phylactery temporarily. This method doesn’t destroy the lich but weakens them, making them vulnerable. By manipulating the connection between the lich’s phylactery and their body, House members can effectively “trap” the lich in a disembodied state.
- Necrotic Resonance Nullification: The House developed the Necrotic Resonance Nullificationtechnique to counter the lich’s mastery over necromancy. By generating psionic waves that clash with necrotic energy, they can nullify the lich’s ability to control the undead and cast necromantic spells.
- Mindquake: Through intense mental focus, the House can force a lich’s mind to experience a Mindquake, an experience where their sense of time and reality are distorted. The mental strain of this attack destabilizes the lich’s arcane concentration, disrupting their spellcasting and weakening their overall power
- “The Soulbind” - A psionic technique that links the lich’s soul to a chosen victim’s mind. The lich feels the victim’s agony and suffering, forcing them to divert their attention from their own plans and weakening their focus on maintaining their immortality.
- Mental Divergence: Using the Veilweaver’s psionic techniques, House members can induce mental divergence in a celestial. By distorting their perception of reality and twisting their alignment-based perceptions, the celestial’s sense of purpose becomes fractured, causing them to question their divine mission or hesitate in combat.
- Psionic Corruption: While celestials are typically immune to corruption, their unwavering morality can become a weakness. House members can use Psionic Corruption to subtly inject conflicting ideals into the celestial’s mind, causing them to experience internal turmoil. This internal strife can distract them, allowing the House to neutralize their combat prowess.
- Light Suppression: Celestials often radiate blinding light, which can be dangerous to creatures who thrive in darkness. The House utilizes Psychic Shields to suppress this light and create an environment in which the celestial is at a disadvantage, making them vulnerable to more direct attacks.
- “The Fallen Path” - A psionic attack that directly challenges a celestial’s core beliefs, forcing them to question the righteousness of their cause. For those celestials who are less rigid in their morality, this can cause them to “fall” from their divine grace, becoming susceptible to corruption.
- Mental Disruption: While the undead lack minds to manipulate directly, their minds are still tethered to the negative energy plane. By using Mental Disruption, House members can sever their connection to the plane, causing the undead to lose their animating force temporarily.
- Psionic Reanimation Control: The House has mastered a form of Psionic Reanimation Control that allows them to dominate or direct the movements of lesser undead, especially when a necromancer has control over them. The House can mentally take over the will of the undead and send them into a frenzy or direct them away from specific targets.
- Decay Disintegration: House members can project psychic energy that resonates with the energies of decay, causing the undead to rapidly degrade and fall apart. The House can focus this energy on specific limbs or areas, breaking down the undead’s physical form much faster than normal rot would.
- “The Mind of Silence” - A psionic technique that invades the psychic residue of powerful undead, such as liches or death knights. The technique forces the undead to confront their lost humanity, temporarily rendering them catatonic as they relive their past lives.
History
The story of the House of Sinew begins with a single Human: Kassir Vayne. Vayne, a once-revered Champion and scholar, renowned for his unmatched strength in battle and his insatiable curiosity about the planes of existence. Kassir believed that the ultimate evolution of a warrior lay not just in the perfection of the body, but in the mastery of the mind—a union that could transcend mortality itself.
Kassir’s journey began in tragedy. His hometown, the village of Battersport was obliterated by a planar rift that unleashed unspeakable horrors upon the world, which was eventually revealed to be the Travesty of Forbidden Knowledge Cthothlast attempting to inspect the rapidly changing lives of mortals. The aberrant creatures—twisting, writhing masses of sinew and eyes—corrupted everything they touched, leaving Kassir as the lone survivor of the massacre.
Desperate to understand what had annihilated his home, Kassir sought the wisdom of planar scholars, delved into forbidden texts, and finally located an artifact: the Shard of Ysradix, a crystal-like shard that pulsed faintly with alien energy. He learned it was a fragment of a Far Realm entity, a sliver of a being too vast and incomprehensible to exist fully in Apa Axas.
Through the shard, Kassir was able to commune with the creature it came from—an entity he would later call Ysradix, the Sinew Eternal. Ysadrix was not a god, nor even a demon, but something beyond mortal comprehension. Its “voice” was a barrage of thoughts, emotions, and sensations that threatened to tear Kassir’s mind apart. Kassir pleaded for understanding, demanding to know why the Far Realm had targeted his world. Ysradix responded not in words, but by flooding Kassir’s mind with its alien essence. For a fleeting moment, Kassir experienced reality as Ysradix did—time collapsed into a single moment, his body was no longer distinct from his surroundings, and his mind was split into a thousand screaming fragments. When the vision ended, Kassir was left trembling, drenched in blood from wounds he had no memory of receiving. Yet, to his horror, he realized that a part of Ysradix had lingered within him, a constant presence whispering truths that no mortal should know.
Though shattered by the encounter, Kassir believed he could wield the power of Ysradix to protect others. He began experimenting, exposing himself to the shard’s energy and mastering the strange psionic abilities it granted him. However, his control came at a price. Each exposure further warped his body and mind. His once-proud form became sinewy and stretched, his skin bearing unnatural patterns that pulsed with psionic energy. Worse, the madness of Ysradix seeped into his thoughts, filling him with visions of impossible geometries, endless voids, and writhing tendrils that hungered for reality itself. He found himself drawn to actions he didn’t understand—arranging objects in meaningless patterns, muttering words in languages he did not know. One day, Kassir’s closest companions, fearing for his sanity, confronted him. But Kassir, consumed by his connection to Ysaradix, lashed out in a psionic fury. When the madness cleared, he found their broken bodies around him. Their dying words begged him to stop before the Far Realm claimed him entirely.
Wracked with guilt, Kassir fled into the wilderness, vowing to atone for what he had done. He realized that no one should have to face what he had seen, nor should anyone have to fight the aberrant horrors of the Far Realm unprepared. Kassir vowed to turn his torment into purpose, embracing the madness to shield others from it. “I will walk the edge of sanity so others need not tread it,” he declared, marking the birth of the House of Sinew.
Kassir gathered others who had suffered loss at the hands of aberrations, training them to channel their grief into strength. Using the Shard, he exposed them to the Far Realm in controlled doses, teaching them to harness its power without succumbing to it, becoming the first Corpus Callosuem. Those who failed became hollowed-out husks, but those who succeeded emerged stronger—both in body and in mind. Though Kassir’s methods were harsh and his sanity precarious, his recruits saw him as a savior. Over time, the House of Sinew grew into an order, its members bound by their shared scars and their mission to protect the world from the Far Realm’s influence.
Kassir eventually disappeared, leaving only a cryptic psionic message etched into the minds of his followers: “The Sinew Eternal whispers still, but its madness is mine to bear. Do not seek me, for I walk where none should tread. Protect this world, and if you must remember me, remember this—I broke so you could remain whole.” Legends claim that Kassir still roams the edges of the Far Realm, a lone sentinel battling its horrors to keep Apa Axas safe. Some believe he became one with Ysradix, while others fear he may return as a herald of the very madness he sought to contain.
The House’s origin is both an inspiration and a warning. Its members are taught Kassir’s story as a reminder of the cost of their power and the dangers of losing oneself to the Far Realm’s influence. They honour their founder by continuing his mission, walking the razor-thin line between salvation and madness.
Tenets of Faith
Although not a religious organisation, the House of Sinew abide by what they call their 'Tenets of Faith', which is similar to the Commandments of other religions. The House of Sinew’s tenets were forged through the tragic sacrifices of its earliest members. Each tenet serves as a guiding principle, born from the pain and lessons learned through the deaths of their early members. These laws are not only practical but sacred, etched into the psionic fabric of the House itself. The Tenets are as follows:
The Tenet of Discipline
“The mind is a weapon; to wield it, one must master their impulses.”
During the early days of the House, a promising Halfling Thread named Brando Merrywinkle sought to harness the raw psionic power of the Far Realm without proper training or restraint. Driven by arrogance and impatience, he exposed himself to the Far Realm shard for too long, believing his sheer will could contain its influence. The alien whispers overwhelmed him, and he turned against his fellow initiates in a violent psionic frenzy. Kassir Vayne, the founder, was forced to end Brando’s life, striking down his protégé to protect the others. As Brando’s body disintegrated into sinewy tendrils, Kassir declared, “Strength without discipline is a sword without a hilt. Never wield what you cannot control.”
The Tenet of Unity
“We are threads in the same weave; alone we fray, but together we endure.
In a mission to repel an aberration incursion, Thread Maris Lyrne, a brilliant tactician, refused to ask for assistance from her comrades. Believing her strength and psionic prowess sufficient, she fought alone against an Elder Oblex that devoured her memories, leaving her an empty husk. Her team arrived too late to save her, but they recovered her broken body. In her final moments, she whispered, “I thought I was enough.” From that day, the House swore to always fight as one, sharing their minds and strength to ensure no one stands alone against the Far Realm’s horrors.
The Tenet of Sacrifice
“A thread may fray, but the weave endures. For the House, I will give all.”
During a catastrophic battle with a Far Realm incursion, ThreadDorian Foehammer, known for his stoic resolve, found himself facing a powerful aberration—a Gibbering Orb—that threatened to unravel reality itself. Knowing the creature could not be killed conventionally, Dorian used a forbidden psionic technique that drew upon his own life force to seal the portal and the creature within it. As his body dissolved into sinewy filaments, his final words echoed in the minds of his comrades: “Protect the weave.” His sacrifice became a cornerstone of the House’s philosophy, teaching members that their lives are secondary to the survival of the House and the protection of the world.
The Tenet of Vigilance
“The Far Realm never sleeps, and neither can we falter.”
The death of Weave Tobin Farr, a young and eager initiate, gave rise to this tenet. During a routine patrol, Tobin underestimated the lingering influence of a minor aberration and allowed it to escape, believing it posed no further threat. Days later, the creature reappeared, fully matured, and tore through Torterrus, claiming a dozen lives before being put down by senior Threads. Tobin, stricken with guilt, attempted to confront the aberration alone but was swiftly killed. His failure became a stark reminder to the House that the Far Realm’s influence can never be ignored or underestimated.
The Tenet of Temperance
“The Far Realm is a gift and a poison. We take only what we need.”
The Tenet of Temperance was born from the downfall of Thread Lysara Vance, a prodigious member who sought to harness more power than the Far Realm shard could safely provide. Lysara believed that the more she embraced the Far Realm’s madness, the greater her strength would grow. In her final moments, Lysara’s body twisted and warped into a grotesque amalgamation of sinew and psionic energy, an unspeakable horror that the House was forced to destroy. Her hubris became a lesson for all who followed: power without restraint leads only to corruption.
The Tenet of Clarity
“Madness is the edge of the blade. Know it, but do not fall to it."
During a critical mission, Thread Elric Devar, a brilliant and compassionate warrior, delved too deeply into the psionic bonds of his comrades, attempting to carry their grief and fear alongside his own. The strain shattered his mind, and Elric became a living conduit for the Far Realm, radiating madness that nearly consumed the Stronghold. Before his mind was entirely lost, Elric begged his friends to end his life, stating, “I could not see the edge. Do not make my mistake.” From his tragedy, the House learned to respect the Far Realm’s dangers and to maintain mental clarity at all costs, even if it meant retreating from the fight.
The Six Tenets are taught to Strands before their first exposure to the Far Realm, albeit in a simplified form:
- Discipline: Master your mind and impulses to wield your power safely.
- Unity: Never fight alone; share your strength with your comrades.
- Sacrifice: Be ready to give everything for the House and the world.
- Vigilance: Never underestimate the Far Realm or its influence.
- Temperance: Take only what power you can control, and no more.
- Clarity: Know the edge of madness, but never fall into it.
I will walk the edge of sanity so others need not tread it
Type
Guild, Fighter / Mercenary
Training Level
Elite
Veterancy Level
Veteran
Leader Title
Founders
Parent Organization
Location
Related Traditions
Related Ranks & Titles
Controlled Territories
Manufactured Items
Related Items
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