Keepers of the Paths / another orphan meat grinder

Normally, we focus on Larama: The Nation of the Gods' Gift Peninsula but since the Black Forest has been getting some love lately with Hami and their Hamikos, I reckon we should give the Derrippi Mountains some love too.

The Derrippi mountains are like the Himalayas on a diet of nothing but steroids, nightmare fuel and Walter White's extra special blue meth. The same can be said about its wildlife have you ever encountered a wooly wolf spider the size of a truck?

Over countless generations, the inhabitants of these mountains, the Derrippi (there are other ethnicities and cultures but the Derrippi are by far the most populous and a hybrid of many cultures that have effectively merged due to the Paths), have created paths between settlements and other significant locations. Many of these paths pre-date the arrival of the Derrippi and are known to have strange properties.

Without these paths, almost all travel within the Derrippi Mountains would be impossible and humanity within most of the mountains would either die out or devolve into stone age hyper-inbred cannibals: which sounds awfully specific except for the fact that there are areas of the Derrippi Mountains where this is exactly what's happened.

As a result of all of this, as well as a little (a lot) of demonstration that organizations run or owned by any of the mountain range's tribes, city states or other kinds of nation can't really be expected to consistently maintain the paths when it contradicts the interests of the state they work for or is too costly, a little "blessing of the gods so if you mess with us the gods will make your crops grow cringe" was used to form the Keepers of the Paths.

Or, as one may call it once I throw in the fact that it's very into the kidnapping and buying of orphans to train into their organisation, another orphan meat grinder.

Structure

It's changed a lot over the years so this is the current system:

Chain of Command

Husband/Wife of the All-Father/All-Mother (they believe that the All-Parent, who impregnated themselves and spawned the gods, can change their sex at will. This means trans and non-binary peeps being considered holy). Is considered a holy figure in the Derrippi Faith and in charge of some other organisations. Also only allowed to screw people if they take wacky drugs in a ritual that's believed to make them into vessels of the All-Father/Mother.

Husband/Wife of the Paths. Married to and appoints every one of the Path Arch-Bishops. Also in charge of moving resources and personnel between them. NOTE: The Husband/Wife of the Paths and the Path Masters do not need to be the opposite sex.

Path Arch-Bishops. Married to the Husband/Wife of the paths and the Path Bishops under them, who they appoint, move resources and personnel between and give orders to.

Path Bishops. Married to the Path Arch-Bishops and the Priests under them, who they appoint, move resources and personnel between and give orders to. Each Path Bishop is in charge of a massive area of Paths.

Path Priests. Married to their Path Bishops. In charge of a cell of the organisation maintaining and protecting the paths in an area.

Path Priest's Retinue/Staff/Servants/etc: the personnel with which a path priest is meant to protect an area of paths. May organise them as they wish and not married to them unless they want to be.

How the priests do it:

They're allowed to organise them as they wish but most of them are essentially running orphanages where the kids are trained to fight the dangerous wildlife and maintain the paths and then moving the orphans that reach the age of fifteen to separate buildings with the other "adults" (quotation marks because 15 is the age of adulthood in Derrippi culture) and then are used as soldiers to fight the wildlife and maintain the paths.

If they have kids in those adult quarters, which they usually do, then what happens varies a lot depending on the priest. Most will let them go from the organisation with an oath of being able to be forced to return at any time if needed as well as that their child will be liable for the same conscription at any time. This part of things is actually considered an important part of the economy of some areas by providing skilled craftsmen and soldiers.

Path Priests who are short on orphans will either hire mercenaries, be given staff taken from other priests by their bishop or have to pull some strings to get themselves the assistance of one of the many small nations in the Derrippi.

Culture

1. Functional path good, not functional path bad. This is drilled into their heads from childhood.

2. Being good at maintaining and protecting path good being bad at that bad.

3. No complaining stop complaining about the nutritionally insufficient food.

Public Agenda

Protect and maintain the paths, as well as keeping them safe for travelers.

This includes road repair, hunting down bandits and dangerous animals picking off travelers (this part they can usually get a lot of assistance from whichever nations or groups are using that same path. The kidnapped orphans usually only make up a small part of any force hunting a giant wooly huntsman spider) and building and maintaining structures along the paths such as shelters for travelers looking for safety from storms.

Assets

Tonnes of orphans - who's gonna stop you from raising them into soldiers with a low likelihood of living to 25, their parents?

Resources gained either by those orphans (kill giant spider, keep its parts, etc) or provided to the organisation by tithes and donations by the people.

Also everyone thinking that screwing with them means being on the bad side of the gods.

History

No. Absolutely not.

It has reformed too many times, there are periods of their history where nothing was being recorded at all, it's been disbanded and reformed too many times, it's supposed to be outside of the politics between Derrippi nations but very blatantly isn't, there's too much intrigue:

I refuse to explain any more of its history than was in the top summary.

Disbandment

Which one?

Mythology & Lore

They're a branch of the primary Derrippi religion so they believe in gods that were spawned from a being born from nothing impregnating themselves and then marrying their offspring... no they do not allow incest among mortals.

DISBANDED/DISSOLVED

Around 1,200 years before current day in-setting, not counting that it's disbanded and reformed a few times. - Every time it dies it comes back later, like my crippling WorldAnvil addiction

Alternative Names

Another Orphan Meat Grinder, Path Peeps, Path Wankers, War Stoppers

Demonym

Path Keepers

Neighboring Nations

• Krysa Empire, or "just Lamara": It rules Lamara