The Severance
“We were their mistake. Now we are their reckoning.”
Overview
The Severance is not a kingdom.
It is a rejection—of flame, of chains, of silence.
Born from blood and fire, the Severance was founded after a mass breakout from a Cathlidian sacrifice convoy meant to "purify" those branded impure. Since then, it has grown into a militarized resistance network bound not by a homeland, but by a shared refusal to die quietly.
They do not pray for mercy.
They wage war for memory.
Military and Resistance Structure
The Severed Arms
- Decentralized militias trained in tunnel ambushes, scorched sanctum defense, and guerrilla warfare.
- Wear scavenged gear etched with blacksteel thread, voidglass filigree, and personal glyph-marks.
- Known to wield “hollowed relics”—captured holy weapons once blessed by the Church and rebound to broken oaths.
The Hollowchain
- Intelligence and subversion division.
- Composed of former Ember Chain defectors who specialize in extraction, sabotage, and ritual inversion.
- Maintain spy cells even within Cathlidian cities—including Solrest itself.
The Red Moons
- Youth-led guerrilla strike teams formed of war-orphaned, branded, or discarded.
- Use psychological warfare, anti-faith glyphs, and disorienting illusions.
- Fly no banners—only tattoos, scar-symbols, and a severed halo scratched into stone.
Territory: The Black Spires
The Severance makes its stand in the Black Spires—a labyrinthine no-man’s-land of mined-out canyons, shattered sanctums, and ley-sick faultlines along the southern edge of the Reach.
- Settlements are carved into cliff faces, built from salvaged Cathedral stone and broken sealframes.
- Smoke never fully leaves the ridges, and most Severance operatives wear sound-dampening veils to guard against haunt-echoes left from past atrocities.
- Legends speak of an ancient wound or rift buried below—a source of great pain, and possibly great power.
Beliefs and Identity
- Freedom is not gifted. It is taken.
- They do not seek redemption from the Church—they seek to shatter the foundation of the flame-fold world.
- Bloodlines, scars, and mutations are celebrated—signs of survival, not shame.
- Every member of the Severance has a name earned through struggle, not birth.
- Ritual scarification, survivor tattoos, and memory-chants form the basis of identity and social standing.
Leadership
High Severant Kessira Nael – The First Unchained
- A tiefling woman who survived a Cathlidian purification rite meant to burn her alive.
- Escaped and led the rebellion that became the Severance.
- Speaks slowly, as if her tongue was once severed and regrown—each word is deliberate, heavy, and final.
- Commands loyalty not through charisma, but through clarity of vision and unbreakable resolve.
“We do not hate their flame. We deny it. Let it burn elsewhere.”
Type
Illicit, Rebel
Capital
Controlled Territories
Neighboring Nations
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