Mystriarchy

The Mystriarchy was a conservative dwarven religious movement in Khûm's Second Age, shrouded in secrecy and occult practices. Arising in the late First Age, it was the natural successor to the Word Given and secretism, though it quickly grew into one of the most influential forces in dwarven history, more powerful than many Elder Clans and even some sovereigns.

Tenets

While they claimed an affinity for all the gods of the dwarven pantheon, the priests of the Mystriarchy were especially connected to Ignon, goddess of the earth. They claimed they could hear the stones speaking to them, words whispered to them by the ancient mother goddess now long passed. To this end, they wore heavy stones on chains about their necks, both to demonstrate their resilience and to symbolize their closeness to the earth.
In time, the Mystriarchy came to worship the sheer sacred geometry of the earth. They believed Ignon's creation was freighted with meaning, in every angle and ratio. It was these divine mathematics that spoke to them, they believed, and only by studying the mysteries – determined to be kept secret from the unworthy – could the impossible depth of her true meaning be understood.

Politics

Politically, the Mystriarchy were quite conservative, aligning themselves with previous religious and traditionalist movements. They were devout proponents of secretism and espoused that to teach the dwarven faith to outsiders was a blasphemy of the highest order. Akin to the Chisels of the First Age, they were opposed to immigration into Khûm, viewing the homeland as a land for dwarves and dwarves alone. Many of them maintained even that dwarves themselves did not belong aboveground, a sympathy shared only by the most devout of Clan Deepvein and their underclans.
What's more, as they grew in influence, they began to engage in powerbrokering, interfering more and more with the kingdom's politics. They exerted control over what arms of the government they could – the clanguards, the peer councils, even the Septagon when they could – and used these apparatuses to push their religiously conservative agenda. On more than one occasion, they backed assassination attempts, even against sitting sovereigns. A favored tactic was the use of cockatrice venom, the petrification granting the Mystriarchy the opportunity to claim that the gods – often Ignon specifically – smote their political rival.

Organization

The internal organization of the Mystriarchy was a deliberate enigma, impossible for an outsider to decipher. Each priest inducted into the order was appointed to a particular rank but a layman would be hard-pressed to determine who outranked whom. Each Mystriarchy title consisted of three parts. For example, Brother Sorav was ranked a Triarch of the Second Heptum while Father Yorad was a Decarch of the Fourth Trium. What precisely this might was unknowable to anyone outside the clergy – and quite deliberately so.
The leader of the Mystriarchy was likewise shrouded in obscurity. Led by the Primarchs, masked figures at the heart of the church, their leader was the shadowy Primarch of the First Prium. Over the centuries, many have questioned whether or not this figure actually existed but, in point of fact, it may make no difference, considering the acts done in the First Primarch's name.
While the bulk of their members were simple priests, the Mystriarchy could field soldiers when the need arose. Paladins, trained in the secret ways of the dwarven gods, were an important tool in their arsenal. On more than one occasion, a Mystriarchy army swayed the results of a battle or captured an important enemy. Loyal to no clan and no crown, they were always an unknown quantity during any armed conflict or political upheaval in the kingdom.
The Mystriarchy was headquartered at the Sanctum in Stone, a secretive chancel beneath a hill in the northern Range of Sovereigns. Chosen by the circle of six pillars of adamant unearthed there, the Sanctum was the heart of the Mystriarchy's operation and none outside the religion were permitted past the atrium.

Practices

Training

Due to the highly secretive nature of their teachings, the Mystriarchy sought to control who could or could not learn the sacred mysteries. Only by request was a priest granted admission to the Mystriarchy and only after completing an arduous but secret trial. When a clan requested Mystriarchy teaching for their cleric, the church would dispatch an established cleric to service their spiritual needs in the meantime. Summoned to the Sanctum in Stone, the prospective cleric would be ingratiated into the lower mysteries and subjected to the necessary trials.
After an intensive education, the cleric was stripped of their clan associations and often sent to an entirely different hold, replacing another prospective cleric. This helped the Mystriarchy retain power and control over who had access to their particular dogma.

Medicine

When black bloat swept Khûm following the Night Wars, the Mystriarchy developed a cure for the disease – the spell lesser restoration. Only their priests could cast this spell, however, meaning that those clans who had not accepted their teachings were functionally denied the cure to this deadly disease until they did so, a policy that proved lethal to many stubborn underclans.

Prayer

In private, the Mystriarchy led elaborate prayer rituals that could last hours. These involved prostration and honoring the stones they walked upon, as well as long liturgies about Ignon's deep wisdom. Those outside the religion rarely saw these rituals, however, and thus, any further details were quite sketchy.

History

First Age

A number of religious movements in Khûm could be credited as the predecessor to the Mystriarchy. Most obvious would certainly be the Word Given, an informal practice among traveling priests that arose in the late 700s 1A. Many of the Word Given's precepts – secretism primary among them – became core tenets of the Mystriarchy's teachings. By contrast, opposition to the preachings of the charismatic scragglebeard known as the Stonespeaker was a primary galvanizing force, uniting likeminded priests to found their own movement.
During his long reign, Havhed the Hammer did not concern himself overmuch with piety, either his or his kingdom's. Thus, the Mystriarchy were permitted to slowly rise, to spread their teachings and to combat the rising tide of secularism and international cooperation that the previous regime ushered in. Only when the foreign wars called Havhed away from Khûm in 899 did the church see its opportunity to strike.

Second Age

For thirty years, Khûm's king was absent and its rulership fell to a council of squabbling ministers. To the Mystriarchy, this was carte blanche to spread their influence amongst the Elder Clans. Black bloat was quickly becoming a problem, as human refugees flooded into the Vamrathûl, spreading the sickness. As the kingdom's clergy controlled the only cure and the rampant disease was killing off the scragglebeard population, the Mystriarchy forced powerful clans to come to terms in order to spare themselves the bloat's ravages.
By 6 2A, recruits were flooding in and the Mystriarchy needed somewhere to train and house them. When word reached them of a miraculous find in the Range of Sovereigns – six enormous adamant deposits – they made their move. By 38 2A, the Sanctum was completed but the newly-crowned Dûnya Dragonbane could do little about it.
The two were destined to lock horns, the queen and the church. Popular among the underclans and not particularly pious to boot, Dûnya threatened to undermine the Mystriarchy's station, particularly with her expensive dragonslaying. Over the course of her reign, the priesthood siphoned support away from the queen – on the Peer Congress, in the clanguard, even among her own family. This would all come to a head when Dûnya hired a pair of mercenary companies to help her slay the last red dragons of Khûm.

Campaigns

The Menagerie

The Mystriachy was a secondary antagonist during the campaign's second book.

• Khûm: Upon arriving in Truethrone, the Mystriarchy immediately expressed their displeasure, sending Mother Yedva out to chastise Makem the Mumbler for inviting these mercenaries into the city. In the moment before Dûnya made her decision, Mother Yedva appeared again to announce that the Peer Congress voted to deny Dûnya the funds she needed to pay for her dragon-hunt (Chapter 3). As Dûnya's dragonslayers prepared an ambush outside Tyrodax's lair, a Mystriarchy battalion – seventy-five strong and led by Father Yorad – came to apprehend them. The Commander's Tent led them on a goose chase but, once the dragon was slain, they were taken prisoner (Chapter 5 – 7). An enraged Zhoraska the Red Matron descended on the marching Mystriarchy but they shaped the stone to hide within a cave. Once they saw their opportunity, the mercenaries escaped their custody and fled north (Chapter 8 – 9). In Snowperch, Brother Sorav opposed the party at every turn, advising Thane Zazem Bracebow to refuse the company entry and rallying support on the Peer Council to shut down their motion (Chapter 11 – 13). When even this failed, the cleric turned to more drastic measures and attempted to poison the council of war with cockatrice venom. Intimidated by the Commander's Tent, he confessed that the church ordered him to poison her – before they threw him to his death (Chapter 14).

Name: Mystriarchy
Type: Religious
Headquarters: Sanctum in Stone
Leader: Primarch of the First Prium
Founded: 891 2A