Followers/Priesthood
As the Bloody Valkyrie occupies a rather unique role as a Divine that emerged to aid the goals and cause of a largely pre-existing organization which her faith then largely subsumed, the Bloody Valkyrie's followers are found almost exclusively within the realm of Inara and its neighboring regions - most notably the lands of Xin-Jaa formerly known as
The Shattered Corridor, where her faithful has largely based their operations out of due to its relatively close proximity to Inara without being under the rule of an Inaran governor or noble. On a more personal note, however, the Valkyrie's faithful are welcome from nearly all walks of life yet appear most commonly within the middle and lower class of
The Inaran Imperium - though the faith has begun to expand into the western lands of Corexus in the past centuries, where it can be found amongst the similar impoverished and downtrodden who suffer beneath the yoke of an oppressive regime. Ultimately, the Valkyrie's followers are not "recruited" so much as they seek out others of their kind for themselves - oftentimes stumbling into the Valkyrie's faith after a life-changing event at the hands of a tyrannical regime and later seeking out other members of the faith to not only find kinship in their suffering but to often help others avoid meeting the same fate as they.
As with many chaotic and unorganized faiths, the followers of the Valkyrie have no organized ranking structure and no codified dress code - the only marker of seniority in the faith is time served and "operations" completed, and perhaps most importantly the willingness of others to follow their orders and instructions. Largely, the faithful denote themselves to others of their kind through subtle means such as the display of the Valkyrie's Holy Symbol on their person(In areas where such a symbol would go unrecognized), subtle tattoos of words or phrases that mark them as members of the faithful, or most commonly giving themselves small, bloody injuries on the hands or in other visible areas that are then wrapped in bandages for others to see.
Despite their lack of clear ranking structure and overall lack of organized churches or parishes in which they worship, the followers of the Bloody Valkyrie largely organize themselves wherever they can manage - oftentimes meeting in abandoned houses, old basements, clearings outside of towns and village, and more - anywhere their gatherings can go unnoticed or are otherwise tolerated(Though they are known to maintain a handful of more central "Fortress-Cathedrals" in the lands of Xin-Jaa, these are the exception to the rule). It is also important to note that the followers of the Bloody Valkyrie organize themselves largely into "sects" that each venerate a fallen martyr of the faith and seek to venerate the Valkyrie in the ways that their Martyr of choice did during their lifetime - meaning that by and large there is a sect of the faithful for nearly every interpretation of the Valkyrie's beliefs imaginable, only further adding to the Valkyrie's mysterious ethos of "Anyone could be the Bloody Valkyrie".
Ultimately, the followers of the Valkyrie tend to be a chaotic mob who bands together only when a leader charismatic enough to gather them arises or when a member of the faith presents a daring enough plan or call to action such that other members of the faith cannot help but sign up to have a chance to attempt the impossible - a natural state of chaos which makes them incredibly difficult for any organized government to stamp out, as while this nature means that there is almost always a charismatic leader or figurehead responsible for a given attack or operation against them, the death of this figure will often have the opposite effect to what is intended by making a martyr out of them and thus inspiring others to take their place. Inversely, however, the capture and disappearance of such figures tends to only turn them into myth and legend - meaning that the best defense against the followers of the Valkyrie is often the same wide-spread tyrannical tactics that earned their Ire in the first place(Unless one counts simply reforming one's life and attempting to do good by one's constitutents, which is equally effective at dispersing them).
Ethics
Ultimately, the Ethics of the Valkyrie's followers tends to vary wildly from group to group - as they are so disorganized and chaotic, rallying together only when called to action by a charismatic leader or when presented with a daring enough plan, the followers of the Valkyrie tend to divide themselves into countless groups that claim to be 'adherents' or 'successors' to past martyrs of the faith, and their unique brand of rebellion against authority; all of whom are gathered together under the umbrella of the Bloody Valkyrie as a whole. Despite this huge variance, the followers of the Valkyrie have common traits that can be found as universal across most all members of the faith - best defined by their first and greatest motto,
Thus Always to Tyrants.
The followers of the Valkyrie, true to their motto, believe that Tyrannical Leaders will inevitably be overthrown - whether by their own hand on those of others, they see what they do as an inevitable force in the universe as constant and assured as Entropy itself. Their mission, to many of the faithful, is a divine mandate of justice that falls upon the heads of those who profit from the pain and suffering of others - to fight against the tyrant and topple him from power, they believe, is perhaps the greatest fight one can wage; and one they believe they
must carry out, for to stand idly by in the face of such tyranny is as vile if not worse as being actively complicit in it. And while the
exact motivations of the faithful often vary in this regard, they all stand fairly united in their belief in this mission.
To them, the battle is as much about the hearts and minds of the oppressed as it is about the death of tyrants - the war they wage is one of ideals, of freedom, of standing against evil by any means neccesary; They often care little for what those oppressed masses
think of them(And often care little for public opinion, knowing their battle is an isolated one), but often care equally deeply about
inspiring those same people to wage rebellions of their own - be they small or large in nature, it matters little. To them, each soul inspired to question the establishments they live beneath, even if it never goes any further than inspiring a better awareness of oppression, is a victory greater than any fallen tyrant - for ultimately, the followers of the Valkyrie believe that it is
their sacred duty to rebel against the establishment, for any such establishment that cannot stand up to scrutiny or criticism is one that should ultimately fall anyway.
However, despite their lofty ideals of liberation and freedom, they are notoriously savage in the execution of those ideals - believing that not only is death not enough to topple the tyrant, believing that a simple execution means little in the long run, but that there is ultimately nothing more
foolish that attempting to keep one's goodly ideals intact while waging such a war against oppression. To the Valkyrie's followers, fighting evil means accepting that one must use the tools of their enemy to defeat them - that the war they wage is for the sake of others, not themselves; that they will be destroyed in the process, but in doing so may free others to live the lives they should be able to. In this pursuit, then, no act is too vile - often acting as terrorists in every sense of the word, who easily write out the deaths of thousands of innocents with excuses such as "They had their chance to leave" or "Their deaths were neccessary collateral damage", and so on.
Ultimately, to the faithful of the Valkyrie, nothing is more important than
sending a message - for while executing a Tyrant may well end his tyranny, it often merely empowers a greater evil to take his place.
However, if that same Tyrant is made and example of - if he is tortured, screams his sins from the rooftops, is made an example of such that all who hear or witness his death are filled with true terror at the prospect of it, then Tyranny itself will die before it can spread.
History
The story of the Bloody Valkyrie is undoubtedly an interesting one, even amongst the ranks of
Minor Gods - for it begins unlike many other tales of divinity; Not with a Grandiose Ideal nor a people's shared belief in a concept they love nor even a tale or story made reality. Rather, the story of the Bloody Valkyrie originates within the ancient histories of
The Inaran Imperium many centuries ago - during the decades following
Tamamo-No-Mae's
Establishment of The Eastern Imperium when her rule was still being slowly solidified, and the people of Inara had yet to fully abandon their dream of a free and open government.
During this time, one being alone came closest to ending the rule of
The Kitsune Queen - a being whose name, species, and even gender have long since been lost to time, but whose legend has endured for nearly a thousand years under the title bestowed to them by the people they once fought tooth and bloody nail to free from the oppression of Inara's new Empress:
The Bloody Valkyrie. This mighty rebel, known as
The Red Rebel during their lifetime, was perhaps the most notorious terrorist of the early days of
The Inaran Imperium - equal parts public icon whose rebel anthems, sung in crowded alleyways and in dive bar venues in the sprawling and rapidly modernizing cities of the Imperium, inspired millions of
Inarans across the newly founded country to stand up against the tyranny of
Tamamo-No-Mae's new state and remember what exactly they had fought for in
The Unification War; an end to chaos and bloodshed, not exchanging anarchy for total tyranny.
However, were it just songs and concerts and small-scale incursions against the Imperium's rapidly solidifying powerbase, the Valkyrie would undoubtedly have been relegated to the dustbin of history - instead, their name went down in the history books for their final act of rebellion against the country and
Tamamo-No-Mae herself: a full-on, one-man assault on Tamamo's Palace in the Imperium's Capital of Kitsunheim, where the mighty Valkyrie fought their way to the Palace's throne room and managed to detonate a half-dozen scrolls of the legendary spell
Etherion Omega - utterly obliterating the newly constructed palace of
The Kitsune Queen in a truly legendary detonation that, reportedly, could be heard for hundreds of miles.
Ultimately, the Valkyrie's final fate is unknown - conflicting reports put them as escaping their one-man assault and surviving to continue their rebellion, while others speak of them as captured by
The Inaran Imperium and vanishing into the Government's blacksites never to be seen or heard from again. Unfortunately for Inara, this mystery is precisely what is believed to give rise to The Bloody Valkyrie as a divinity - a legend which captured the people's hearts and minds so thoroughly through their final words(Written out in a manifesto released shortly before their final assault) solidified their legend in the people's eyes: A diehard rebel who, ultimately, could be any of them - had they lived, and now lived a secret life as one's neighbor or parents? Had they perished, and passed on their mantle to another?
The fact that none could say meant that dozens of beings stepped up in the following decades to continue the Valkyrie's work - striking out against the Government in ways both big and small and continuing to produce songs and pamphlets to continue the "Legend" of the Valkyrie even long after their final assault. Thanks to this, as the decades wore on into centuries and the Valkyrie remained a rallying figure of resistance within Inara, the collectively deificiation and worship of the Valkyrie as a holy martyr, champion of the rebel cause, produced a miracle - one day, rather silently, those who carried on the Valkyrie's work found themselves connecting with a divine force that began
blessing their holy work.
Where this god had come from, no one truly knows - even now. But their mission and beliefs seem startling similar to that legendary Rebel of yore - and those who found themselves communing with this strange divinity were all too happy to welcome a Divine who supported their efforts, codifying the beliefs and tenets of this new Divinity and adopting them(Who the first converts assigned feminine traits to) as their Matron Deity.
Comments