Slevenkine Order

The red monks of the Slevenkine order rarely fit the stereotype of what a monk should be. They howl as they march, wearing red robes, thick and heavy ropes draped across their bodies, whipping the ground before them with reeds. Their muscled bodies are covered in bruises that they show like badges of honor on their shaven bodies. Each and every member of the Slevenkine Order is infected with Dhampirism - and any Uvaran Dhampire caught indulging illegally in feeding (that is, violence as a way to consume needed spiritual energy) can expect to be carted off to one of their monastery-fortress-prisons. And they are not the only ones; Slevenkine prison-monasteries are also where Uvaran criminals are sent to suffer, fed on by Dhampires while they are drilled in good Uvaran behavior. 
The Slevenkine Order are Dhampires (including the whole range of frightening Stildanian variants) who bring their rage and natural pugilism under the tempering discipline and influence of Uvaran religion - they live in careful moderation, with regular life rhythms moving between mild self-denial and mild indulgence. They must live life like the seasons - a quarter in denial, a quarter enjoying what fruits are available, and two quarters in between. Slevenkine monks use their abilities in a variety of spiritual, ritual, and tactical functions: to drive evil spirits from the land, to do battle with evil dhampires, and to serve as agents of punishment.
They are unsettling monks for most Uvarans, even if they are in service of Ustav's will. Even if necessary evils, they are unwelcome ones. Hainish courts often condemn people to serve as feed for them, and wherever they travel they demand troublemakers or subordinates to be offered up. They are prison guards, disciplinarians, and executioners - there is a stigma, albeit one with some deference, that comes with that.

Structure

There are several tiers of monastery that the Slevenkine order runs: Grand Abbeys, Abbeys, Priories, and Sketes. There are only a few Grand Abbeys, while Sketes are rather common and usually only have one to five monks.
Any Abbey larger than a Skete has Officers, who are addressed by their various role. Roles are not equal, but can vary by monastery.

Title	Role
Grandmaster	Supreme leader of the Slevenkine Order, chosen by and in service to the Autumn Court
Abbot	Lead the major Abbeys or Grand Abbeys
Prior	Lead Priories; assisted by a sub-prior; also exist as unit chiefs within Abbeys and Grand Abbeys
Officer Monk	Hold leadership position within monastic groups
Monk	Full fledged members of the Order
Novice	Initiates of the Order
Postulant	Wards of the Order, Dhampires recently inducted who are not allowed out of the monasteries without oversight
Oblate	Trusted Dhampires affiliated with the Order but not bound by it

Generally speaking, Abbots and Grandmasters are usually highborne. Exceptions are possible, but only if no desirable candidates exist.
Postulants, meanwhile are really the bottom rung of the order. While Oblates are technically lower, Oblates are really more of licensed dhampires than full monastic members - they have more rights than Postulants by a mile. Postulants, meanwhile, are essentially prisoners of the Order. A newly initiated Dhampire can be a Postulant for years, even decades. Lifetime Postulants exist, who are never deemed safe and obedient enough to be allowed outside of the monastery without constant supervision; monks who are broken by their experience and are trapped in a cycle of lashing out and overwhelming punishment.
Parallel to all of this structure is the non-Slevenkine presence. Abbeys and Grand Abbeys all govern peasant communities, extracting labor and tax money from nearby farmers and resource ventures. Abbots and Priors can also invest their funds in local businesses; it is not unheard of for an Abbey or Priory to also own a nearby inn. Monastery-owned businesses are managed and operated by non-monks, but just have a share of the profits go to the monastery. Monastery peasants can make deals to pay taxes in their energy, but this exchange is very carefully regulated. Virtually all interaction between peasants and monks are under careful regulation, with strict punishments on the books for any monk who even treats one of their non-dhampire subordinates discourteously. Monks below a certain seniority level and rank are discouraged from talking with locals at all.
However, there is another class of outsider that has fewer protections: prisoners. Now, this isn't a particularly large class, as imprisonment isn't the go-to punishment for most crimes in Uvaran countries. But, those who are imprisoned are kept in these monasteries, as energy-feed for the monks as well as free labor for the monastery. The imprisoned experience can vary a lot - not everyone is expected to work, and not everyone is treated the same. Higher-class prisoners and prisoners who have families rich enough to donate to the monastery can expect protection from abuse and even from labor demands. Rarely, a judge will issue a prison sentence with protection from being fed upon, but that is unusual.

Culture

Slevenkine monastic culture is unusually carceral. These monks are a mixture of prisoners and prison-keepers, who are initiated through punishment to become punishers. They are taught that they are monsters rediscovering their humanity, and that there is something incurably monstrous in their bodies and desires. Through physical training, religious repetition, community ritual, and violent discipline, these things are inscribed into them from day one. But it is through teaching that the monks truly internalize what they learn - by participating in training new monks and in punishing prisoners, they are taught to digest their incarceration as empowerment. This can make them particularly brutal jailmasters and teachers, though every monk accepts their lessons differently. Many Slevenkines do not doll out misery equally, but rather reserve it for those that they see the worst of themselves in; the disobedient, the unkempt, the particularly-criminal. 
There are elements of Slevenkine culture that go beyond discipline and punishment. There is a kind of careful moderation tied into that self control; total denial is only ever temporary. As mentioned in the introduction, Slevenkine monks are taught to cycle through phases of denial and indulgence, and to allow themselves minor vices to better drive away the darker desires. There is also a love and a compassion between the monks that can be uplifting and constructive. Relationships between monks are encouraged (unusual for monks the Slevenkine order sees themselves as apart from the world, and embrace all forms of love between their members. This isn't entirely for the best reasons - Dhamprism is seen as potentially spread through sex and even non-sexual intimacy, so encouraging Dhampires to embrace each other is seen as a way to divert troublesome desire for intimacy outside of the Order.

History

Dhampires in Hain: Context

Dhampirism arrived in Stildane relatively late - while isolated cases drift into the continent centuries earlier, it was only in the 1400s that the condition began to appear commonly enough to be noticed by political and religious authorities in the continent's center. Northern Stildane actually had a better understanding of and more advanced institutions for managing Dhampires, as the Borim Healing Circle adapted monastic traditions and methods of control from distant Samvara. Over the 1300s, the Empire of Kizen copied these institutions, as did their neighbors. But the Fourth Scouring, a  horrific war that raged from 1419 to 1440, not only shattered these institutions but led to Dhampires being exposed to Ederstone. Hordes of lycanthropic Dhampires, contagious and unstable, drifted from the North into the Uvaran lands. 
When the Uvarans rallied and drove the Kivish heretics and their monsters from Uvaran lands, they saw Dhampires as just another kind of monster. Caring for Dhampires and providing ethical avenues for feeding simply did not register to mainstream Uvaran authorities, who categorized Dhampirism as malevolent spiritual possession. Instead, Uvaran authorities devised a series of dubious "Exorcisms" to "heal" the infected. The most effective and infamous of these was the Joggstrial, a painful ordeal in which the infected's community would beat the spirit out of their body while the infected was restrained, confined, and starved. And this was considered the humane healing option - many lords, unable to acquire a Joggstrial healer for their subjects, simply hunted and killed the Infected as swiftly as they could. It was common knowledge that Dhampires would inevitably kill, even if they had their condition under control for now. Those Dhampires who wanted to survive often turned to banditry, further reinforcing the common belief.

Monsters to Monks: 1708

Dhampirism as monstrosity was established by one Scouring; it would take a second Scouring to remake Uvaran common sense understandings of the condition. During the Fifth Scouring, a terrible war that went from 1680 to 1750, the Uvaran faithful were under attack by an ascendant and violently radical Kizen Empire. The Kivish overran Graefsher and the Delent, and pillaged into the Hainish Heartlands. Hundreds of thousands of refugees were rushing Southward, pressed between dueling armies and the oppressive radiation of the Deverkel Wastes. Between Ederstone weaponry and campaigns through irradiated wasteland, the Uvaran elites were forced to reckon with the porous line between monster and person like they hadn't since the early days of the faith. And the Autumn Court needed any advantage they could afford to survive.
It was in this wartime environment that the Gozkaral DevMornain, an Uvaran healer, challenged the prescribed notion of Dhampirism and its solutions. Gozkaral was an army surgeon, healer, novice sorcerer, and warrior - a jack of all trades with a lot of practical knowledge and experience. He had been trained in conducting the Joggstrial by a respected Uvaran priest, and had an unusually high rate of curing the condition - Gozkaral's eye for detail had helped him discern what, medically, separated failed from successful exorcisms. Yet, Gozkaral could not reduce the lethality rate below a certain threshold, especially for the most vulnerable patients (such as children, the elderly, and the infirm). This troubled him more as the war worsened, as it no longer made sense to throw away lives on failed treatments. Gozkaral began taking Dhampires as wards, diverting their violent powers towards the enemy. This wasn't at all unusual as a pragmatic wartime solution to Dhampires; many other Uvaran commanders had the good sense to direct monsters to their enemies rather than risk their own lives killing them, Dhampires included. But for Gozkaral and his companions, this was something more: a chance to see if Dhampires actually were the inevitable monsters that nearly every text claimed them to be. He adopted as many from refugees and towns as he could. Gozkaral's commander dubbed this group the Monsterkin Rangers, and encouraged Gozkaral to adopt other monstrous misfits to be weaponized. The red-painted rope the Monsterkin had to wear became a badge of pride in their community, as several charismatic leaders emerged among them to build a family out of captivity.
Eventually, the Monsterkin rangers became uncomfortably autonomous. Their commanding officers grew suspicious of Gozkaral, and especially suspicious of the Monsterkin leadership. The rangers were sent on increasingly risky missions to test whether they would accept the inevitable blaze of glory, and they repeatedly chose survival and safety over their orders. The relationship between Gozkaral's Dhampires and the army they were sworn to began to deteriorate, with increased brawls and insults across camp. In 1708, when the army entered the Heartlands to resupply, the Rangers were ambushed by their own army and captured. Gozkaral, as a non-Dhampire, was spared, and begged the commander to refrain from further violence. Gozkaral rode to Shrine of Ertinar the Redeemer in the town of Slevenk, to beg for clemency and find allies within the clergy. He begged the clerics there to help him appeal to the Autumn Court, and swore that the Dhampires would forever protect Slevenk and its people if they were freed. There was growing pressure to not throw away valuable soldiers, given the circumstances. Graefsher's greatest bastions were falling one by one, a campaign into the Delent was imminent, and good knights were in short supply. The Lunar Pantheon also overwhelmingly sided with Gozkaral, and urged the Autumn Court not to throw away lives pointlessly. The Dhampires were allowed to make their case, and were granted a plot of land outside Slevenk to build and train. Other Dhampires or other Uvaran warriors infected with something weird were to be dropped there as well, for the Slevenk Monsterkin to train. The Monsterkin dropped that name and embraced a new signifier by the Autumn Court: The Slevenkine Order. They had become monster-monks, ready to prove their worth. And, when the Kivish invaded the Heartlands in 1718, the Slevenkine Order rallied to save the town and the shrine. And, perhaps most importantly, they hadn't eaten a single townsfolk. The principle was proven.

Order History

Over the 1700s, the Slevenkine monster monks were still fundamentally captives of a suspicious institution. Slevenkine leaders were entirely outsiders, physicians and well-intentioned paladins akin to Gozkaral who pitied and feared their subordinates. War-training was also the primary goal, and the Order prioritized combat over all else - dividing its members into 'useful' warrior-monks and less-useful workers and support staff. This classic Hainish attitude of "gardener vs warrior" was too toxic and unstable in this social context to be sustainable; it enhanced a pre-existing culture of violent domination and bullying that drove individual monks to lash out at each other and at local townsfolk. The standards for people being sent to the Order were also excessively vague: warlocks, particularly odd starspawn, non-hostile monsters, random bandits, and social misfits kept being sent in for the order to train and induct. Genuine attempts to reform - creating induction guidelines, spirituality-oriented roles, conflict resolution systems - only started after the peace of 1750. Even then, solutions were extremely slow to be enacted. While the more obvious problems (creating feeding solutions, basic conflict resolution, initiation restrictions to just Dhampires) were addressed between 1750 and 1830, it took until the mid and late 1800s for the Slevenkine Order to be seriously overhauled into a functioning system. 
One of the first steps towards this was the opening of the Slevenkine upper ranks to actual trained members of the Order. Volarl Dolastren, an infected nobleman inducted into the Order, led this charge by appealing to Hainish attitudes towards class. His writings, documenting abuse and humiliation by lowborns and the "morally corruptive" environment of the Order monasteries, sparked controversy within the clergy. Eventually, he became the first Dhampiric Grandmaster of the Order in 1857. While he paved the way for future promotions within the Order, it took until 1908 for the Order to fully govern intself. 
The 1900s have been a transformative century for the Slevenkine Order: a softening of punitive measures towards measures, expanding ritual roles, and an increased participation in Uvaran legal systems. The Oblate System - in which Dhampires could be verified and marked as trusted affiliates, who do not need to fully join the Order as long as they consistently prove to be law-abiding subjects - started in 1919, again initially as an exceptional status for a handful of noble dhampires. This system has expanded rapidly in the last few decades, and has done a great deal to normalize Dhampirism for the general public. Becoming an Oblate is still more or less restricted to traditional strains of Dhampirism, though - mutated and unstable strains can be particularly difficult to see approved. A major patron of the Slevenkine Order was King Oshlo Geinmen of Hain (r 1930 - 1965), who gave lands and gold generously to the Order, integrated Slevenkine monks as jailers and disciplinarians in Uvaran courts, and gave secular legal support to the Oblate licensing system. To this day, the Red monks toast the old king and his line.

Worship

Slevenkine monks engage in worship in a more intentional, focused, and frequent way than the average Uvaran. As a matter of spiritual practice, Slevenkine monks give prayer and thanks to the resurrection of Ustav every dawn and pray to Ertinar and Silsta every night. Sacred hymns are sung every day, and some kind of 'contemplative labor' is done. Worship is dictated by one's role, but there are worshipful ways of doing just about anything in a Slevenkine monastery. But the prayers of dawn and dusk are the same for all monks, and are considered spiritually vital. Through dawn's meditative prayer and devotion, the monks are spiritually reborn each day and given spiritual mastery over their flesh; through dusk's humble prayer, the sacred ghost and the chosen Son provide guidance and strength to adapt and find the path of good. Monks consider who they wish to be in the morning, and consider their obstacles and solutions to that path every night. 
Every weekly change of the Lunar Cycle, the monks perform a ritual in their monastery, starting at dusk and continuing through much of the night, where they drink, give sacrifices, and speak confessionals. This is the Passing of the Moons (or Aelronenyod), one of the more regular monastic ceremonies. The hours before and the day after are times of rest for the majority of the monks, with a few members who sit out of the ceremony to cover necessary tasks. The Aelronenyod can be a fun and perhaps a little scary time, with loud clanging and snarling and dances that feel like expressions of violence. The monks are, in ritual terms, driving away spirits of discord that may seek to rise and stir trouble with the changing of the Lunar Pantheon - things that might stir lunar champions to fight each other, or evil things that might run wild while they are distracted. It is also a time for the monks to confess their desires to be expunged from their bodies and driven into the sacred fire. Lyncanthropic-mutation Dhampires are particularly involved, as they are given community support to exert control over their bodies and emotions. Monasteries lift up large wooden symbols during these ceremonies marking the rise of the new lunar arrangement and God.
Towns often know the Dhampires for their festival rituals, notably Ertenfelm on 12 Rizaiz (April) and Kragintern on 28 Baeld (October). 
On Ertenfelm, the festival of Ertinar, each monastery places an elected member in a ritually decorated coffin, to pretend to be dead. The coffin is carried from the monastery, to surrounding areas by other monks, while their fellows beat loud and ominous drums. After gathering their congregation, they perform a theatrical dance re-enacting Ertinar's discovery of his father's death, his wasteland journey, and his change into a great magician - to be greeted by the risen Dhampire, who bursts from the coffin carrying an icon of Ustav to dance with the others.
On Kragintern, the monks famously visit surrounding villages and towns to whip the ground around their temples and holy sites, to drive out evil spirits - all while howling and singing grim and ominous chants.

Founding Date

1708

Type

Religious, Monastic Order

Ruling Organization

Uvara

Deities

• Ertinar

Location

Stildane

Related Ethnicities

• Hainish Culture