Bruised Ones

The Bruised Ones are a venerable sorority of young women that has operated within the upper crust of the city of Chogyos. It functions chiefly as a social society in which the women of the Chogyan aristocracy can build practice handicrafts esteemed as appropriate feminine pastimes and build personal relationships to carry forward in their adult lives. This is an objective that would be easy to trivialise, and indeed the group is the subject of derision in communities outside Chogyos, particularly in Pholyos and Loros, but those who have been members almost universally regard it as a positive and constructive experience.
The Bruised Ones are of particular interest to historians and thaumatologists because of their roots as a group of rather younger girls schooled in the pre-Wesmodian cults of Krezzan and, to a much lesser extent, Ynglyas. Some of the practices and meetings of the group are thought to contain echoes of the worship of both these gods and therefore to be of interest to those researching magic related to time, death and, to a lesser extent, knowledge and prophecy.

Foundation and history

The foundation and early history of the Bruised Ones is apparently lost to history, but the group appears to have its origins in the peculiar development of the cult of Krezzan in Chogyos. Whereas in other cities Krezzan became the focus of a cult of predominantly, and often exclusively, male professional clerics, in Chogyos the god appears not to have been worshiped at all until perhaps the early second century AWR, when those who carved the gravestones in the burial grounds ringing the city - burying the dead within the city being strictly forbidden - began carving them not just with stylised representations of the deceased but with pictures of these people being cloaked by cloaked representations of the god himself.
It was at about this time, it seems, that the practice of regularly maintaining graves began, apparently as a mechanism for maintaining relationships between the living and the dead. From the beginning of this practice, it was delegated almost exclusively to prepubescent girls. Anonymous art in some of the older aristocratic houses in Chogyos depicts little girls in dark cowled cloaks weeding graves and carefully paring moss and lichen from headstones. Exactly how this activity was co-ordinated is not clear; some researchers suggest the activity of a more conventional clerisy of Krezzan, while other suggest some sort of grass-roots community piety. What does seem clear is that over the last two centuries AWR this activity became accepted as a fitting and constructive part of the moral education of girls in the upper crust of Chogyan society.
Exactly when girls were thought to have 'aged out' of service in the Bruised Ones is not clear, though by the beginning of the last century AWR the moral education begun in the group was followed by a period of intellectual education as girls were sent to Elpaloz to study at the Temple of Ynglyas at Elpaloz. This phase of a girl's life was thought to take place roughly between the ages of fourteen and sixteen. Her companions in this first trip away from home were said to be those in whose company she had been a Bruised One, and the camaraderie engendered on this trip was known to last long into adult and married life. From their origins as a religious order, therefore, the Bruised Ones fairly quickly mutated into a civil sorority and an esteemed institution in city life.
Come the Wesmodian Reformation the former capacity quickly withered while the latter capacity resolutely endured. Part of the reason for this may well have been the concerted governmental suppression of the cult of Ynglyas within the city. Almost uniquely in the cities, Chogyos never officially subscribed to this cult, but the Reformation, coinciding with an upswing in Chogyan nationalism, led to the concerted rejection of Ynglyas as a foreign influence on the city, and thus abrupt end to the Epalozian sabbaticals, which may well have been replaced with a new emphasis on the secular functions of the Bruised Ones within Chogyos itself.

Contemporary functions

In the post-Wesmodian era the Bruised Ones have remained an esteemed feature of Chogyan civil society, at least above a certain stratum. Any unmarried woman planning a career in high society will face great difficulties unless she can join the group.
There is no formal minimum age, though members are now significantly older than they were in the pre-Wesmodian era. Most members are now well-born, unmarried ladies aged from fourteen and twenty. Joining is not particularly difficult. It requires the sponsorship of two former and two current members, who may be the prospect's own relatives. Since most aristocratic families in Chogyos are several centuries deep into inter-generational membership, the former members are usually readily available; getting one's daughter or niece into the Bruised Ones is a significant responsibility for most well-to-do women. The sponsorship of the current members is slightly more difficult, but it is generally possible to find friends or cousins willing to serve in this capacity. Doing so may cement a friendship for life. Sponsors assess the prospect over an informal period of as much as a year, though in practice few prospects spend more than three or four moons under such scrutiny. Criteria on which a prospect is assessed include amiability, lineage, demonstrated skills in the crafts the group practices, and moral reputation. A lack of all of these may prevent membership, though girls of a certain social strata tend to join as a matter of course and excuses can usually be made to admit them. Conversely it is not unheard of for the group to close ranks against prospects they regard as genuinely unsuitable.
Any given party or soiree held by the Chogyan aristocracy is likely include the investiture of one or two new members. This investiture is not terribly elaborate; existing members cloak their new colleague in a deep purple cloak while speaking short incantations in Old Zolian. The new member then replies in kind. The incantations, which vary between individuals, is usually memorised specifically for the occasion and is generally the only Old Zolian the young lady can speak.

Social conveners

Much of the social life of the city's aristocracy is run by the Bruised Ones. They organise parties, concerts and soirees, building up networks of personal contacts, friendships and favours as they do so. Members of the group are thus expected to rapidly develop expertise in food, liquor, music, interior decoration (always focused on the consumption of such things) as well as dancing and the art of conversation. This knowledge is imparted via informal tuition of younger and newer members by those of longer standing.

Handicrafts

The Bruised Ones spend considerable amounts of time and energy working together on various forms of cultured handicrafts. Among the more peculiar of these is Chogyan hair sculpture, but they also engage in embroidery, painting, drawing and calligraphy, often spending great sums of money on the materials required for these hobbies. The calligraphy of the Bruised Ones, for example, often makes use of the rare and costly Sapphire ink purchased from apothecaries in northern cities. The notion is that time spent in these pursuits will help form constructive friendships in later adult life. Most well-to-do Chogyan households are decorated largely with the products of such handicrafts, and gifts of such objects d'art are considered genteel and fitting.

Outside attitudes

Within Chogyos the Bruised Ones are regarded as something of a sine qua non of social acculturation. There is a subtle but very sharp divide between members and non-members, and while most girls of the aristocracy do join eventually this tends to cement the status of those who fail to do so as outcasts. The social and even marriage prospects of non-members in their adult lives can be severely impeded.
Much less pervasive and entrenched groups of the Bruised Ones exist in Ramoros and Elpaloz, cities over which Chogyos once exerted imperial control. Dyqamay also once possessed a membership, though this died out over the second and third centuries AWR.
Outside Chogyos the Bruised Ones are the subject of a certain amount of humour, not all of it charitable. Somewhat inevitably, discussion of a group of young women tends to focus on their sexual morality, with rumours attributing members with either preposterously abstemious rectitude or wild abandon. Stories also tell of secret initiation ceremonies rather more convoluted and demanding than the one practised in public, said to include everything from ritualised beatings to the precise recitation of much longer and more involved incantations. Thiaumatologists occasionally probe into these rumours, since any such ritual or incantation might well yield information about either the pre-Wesmodian worship of Krezzan or - given the group's history of sabbaticals in Elpaloz - perhaps the Ynglyan Code. These efforts are consistently stymied by the Bruised Ones themselves, who insist that no such hidden stratum of institutional practice exists. Sceptical thaumatologists tend to accept these denials at face value.

Type

Social, Brotherhood