Sword of Saria

The Sword of Saria is a militant offshoot of the Sarian Sect, founded in 1236AK by Bessarios Aspa, Legatus of the 12th (Sarian) Legion. Aspa, a zealous follower of Saint Isabella, had been charged with seditious heresy by the Quaestors of Truth, but had refused to submit himself to arrest by the authorities, claiming that the Light of Kassin had become so corrupt that it was the duty of the faithful to resist its unjust laws by force. In doing so, he united a significant number of the sect's more militant members behind him, even as Isabella herself surrendered to the authorities.
It is understood that Aspa initially intended to launch a coup against Archimandrite Petra, who had ordered Isabella's arrest, with the hope of toppling the Holy Republic of Vaalus and freeing Isabella; however it soon emerged that whilst he did have the support of around a third of his own legion and a significant number of the wider militant faithful, his belief that the sect's wider adherants would take up arms against the authorities proved to be incorrect. With less than five thousand trained soldiers under his banner, he soon realised that he could not hope to win a military campaign against the Vaalin legions, and thus ordered a retreat into the barren scrublands of the Plains of Akiron in the hope that they would be able to act as a rallying point for the Sarian faithful; but as the months turned to years it became apparant that the rebellion had failed. Dissatisfaction soon turned to disillusionment and desertion, and by 1240AK the Sword of Saria were thought to number less than a thousand.
The Sword of Saria did not entirely disband, however, as whilst their numbers dwindled there did remain a fanatical core to the organisation which refused to admit defeat, and which to this day consider themselves to be fighting a holy war against the forces of Oblivion, which they claim the Light of Kassin has entirely fallen to. Recruiting from among the disenfranchised and the outcast, they keep their perpetual crusade supplied through a combination of extorting merchants who attempt to cross the Plains of Akirion and by selling their "protection" to outlying settlements, occasionally conducting raids against military and relgious targets in the northwest of Vaalus but rarely striking far from the scrublands, where they dwell in temporary encampments which can be rapidly moved should their actions attract too much attention. Today they are thought to consist of around two hundred militants, with perhaps three times that number of non-combatants, and are said to be led by a man named Hierotheos Tauron, about whom little more than his name is widely known.
The wider Kassinite establishment considers the Sword of Saria to be theologically irrelevant, little more than a mob of bandits united by an unsophisticated understanding of a heretical creed; outside of Akirion, they have almost no influence on wider Kassinite politics.

Founding Date

1236

Type

Military Order

Leader

Hierotheos Tauron

Founders

• Bessarios Aspa

Parent Organization

Sarian Sect

Location

Plains of Akiron