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Beloved of the King (Class: Obligator)

The hymns of the river kingdom do not contemplate conversion; why would Obligators need to spread the word of God? The river is right there for all to see.

No. The Obligators lead chants assuring obedience.

Persepolis

The Obligator1

You are a man.2
Extra starting items: a cerulean shawl draped over the left shoulder; a heavy and wide collar of gold to be layered atop the shawl; the symbols of your cult
A: Ordained, Blooded, Oathkeeper, Receiver of Wisdom
B: Ancient Knowledge, Transmitter of Wisdom
C: Undying Body
D: Undying Mind

A: Ordained

You and your brothers alone of the slaves of Lugal are exempt from wearing a featureless gold mask, for you are holy and distinguished—you serve Him and His kingdom as an extension of His Will. So long as you mostly hold to cultural norms, most Urukites have a baseline level of respect for you higher than all other kinds of people.

You are obligated to perform priestly duties in any nome in which you rest, even if you are only visiting. These duties include arbitrating disputes, sealing oaths, leading prayers, or offering the resident nomarch council as to the Will of Lugal.

You are also an initiate of one of the Obligator cults, whose secrets you learn and whose tenets you must follow. The orthodox cults of the brotherhood of Obligators are listed below, in order of their eminence:

  1. The Cult of the Elephant
    Symbols: gold bangles resemblant of waves, baldness
    Founder: Madhava, the first of the Obligators, he who is alone called the Brother of Lugal

    The eldest of the cults and the largest in scale, responsible for facilitating Lugal’s yearly tithe. As such, they are masters of blood in all three of its forms. Obligators of the Cult of the Elephant are called Tithe-Takers and are sworn to, by any means necessary, maintain the stability of the grand apparatus that is Lugal’s perfect kingdom.

  2. The Cult of the Rivertenders
    Symbols: feather-cloak, oaken oar
    Founder: Enmerebagisi the Far-Traveler, said to be the only man to ever reach the river's headwater and return to tell the tale

    The most popular of the cults—captains of the green-prowed river-barges which ply the great waters, delivering parched grain to the famine-stricken, magistrates to the ill-ruled, soldiers to the bandit-plagued, and engineers to the poorly-irrigated. They work alongside the Cult of the Elephant and preside over the collection of the tithe each year, and do not accumulate wealth beyond that which can be transported on their boats. If any Obligators can be said to be kind, it is they—some say they are so merciful that transgressions against their person are met with mere execution, rather than the standard torture. Obligators of the Cult of the Rivertenders are called Helmsmen and are sworn to provide aid to any of the children of Lugal who might need it.

  3. The Iron Cult
    Symbols: a slave’s featureless gold mask, iron sword-charms
    Founder: Enme-Duga the Kind, who came to Uruk from the furthest reaches of the river kingdom and could not suffer the decadence of Lugal’s own city

    The most fearsome cult, whose domain is justice and whose tools are the Man-Killers. They alone of the Obligators wear gold slave masks and eschew all pleasures of the flesh—anything else is a dereliction of duty. Even the simplest offers of comfort are treated as bribery; pleasure can come in the next life. Obligators of the Iron Cult are called Justiciars and are sworn to, by any means necessary, deliver the sinful unto their deserved fate.

  4. The Cult of the Damned
    Symbols: crimson silks, scarification
    Founder: Cunning Umashu, a Heretic redeemed, who quickly gained the favor of Lugal

    The youngest of the cults, not ten generations old, and by far the smallest. They are practitioners of heretical arts, consorts of the Enemy’s servants, with the sole aim of understanding its arts so as to drive off its servants. They know they are damned to eternal torment in those places beneath the earth for their actions; as such there is no pleasure of the flesh that they eschew. Many are addicts, and lecherous besides. Obligators of the Cult of the Damned are called Sin-Eaters and are sworn to, by any means necessary, protect Lugal’s perfect kingdom from monstrosity.

There are also whispers of antique cults once-magnificent whose leaders lost Lugal’s favor and were made as the desert sands: scattered, forgotten.

A: Blooded

You alone of the dozen children initiated into the brotherhood of Obligators alongside you survived assimilation with the silver blood of the ancients, gritty and thick, that now flows through your veins. Assimilation grants the following benefits:

A: Oathkeeper

You are endowed with the legal, spiritual, and moral authority to oversee the swearing of oaths as an extension of the Will of Lugal; it is a sin to break an oath sworn under your supervision. Anybody who swears a verbal oath in your presence must roll breath to violate it—though divinities, Heretics, and serpents care not for such a thing as sin; they are above it and outside it, respectively.

Anybody who has imbibed a bowl of your blood will furthermore take [templates]d6 damage if they violate an oath sworn in your presence, as your blood grows spiny and attempts to shred them from the inside.

A: Receiver of Wisdom

You are able to hear the voices of other Obligators in your mind from up to 10 x [templates] leagues away (their templates, not yours). If someone communicates to you in this way, you will know their bearing and direction. No Obligator has yet discovered a land distant enough to escape the reach of Lugal's booming voice, which silences all others—His daily calls to prayer serve as a beacon ensuring all Obligators can unfailingly navigate back to Him.

B: Ancient Knowledge

Having proven your reliability, you are initiated into the true cultic mysteries and taught the secret history of the world; there are no songs sung of these truths. The different cults hold different secrets, which they jealously guard from each other; only the High Obligator of the Cult of the Elephant could claim to know the whole of the tapestry, and even he might not know all that Umashu gleaned from Lugal in their many private meetings. You also have a [templates]-in-6 chance of being able to identify antediluvian artefacts and cannot fumble with any antediluvian artefact you can identify.

B: Transmitter of Wisdom

You are now able to transmit messages, as well as receive them. Continuously chanting a mantra for an hour allows you to pinpoint the locations of all Obligators, Horn-Cursed, and flying objects in your radius, as well as providing you a broad sense of the lay of the land.

C: Undying Body

You are biologically immortal. So long as you are not killed by violence, you will never age; even Cancer’s wiles have no sway over you. Lugal can, of course, revoke this at any time; all blood is His to command.

By calling out Lugal’s name, you can stir your blood to repair your wounded body, healing 1d6+1 HP immediately, or to cause silver sickle-blades to erupt from beneath the flesh of your palms, which deal 1d6+1 damage. These are only the simplest techniques—each cult has its own tricks, learned in the experimentation of a thousand thousand seasons.

But the old blood remembers the old forms that man once took during those ancient days before Lugal’s steady hand, when terrible shapes cavorted across the now-sunken lands—without careful guidance, relying on it may curse you with horns. You can use this ability without worry once per day. After the first use of this ability in a day, you must roll breath for each use at a cumulative +1 penalty.

You can set this ability to trigger automatically upon falling to 0 HP.

D: Undying Mind

The blood remembers the form of the soul. When sleeping or in deep meditation you may astrally project into the SANCTUM, a drowned palace of memory where God holds an audience with His most trustworthy servants. Within the SANCTUM, you can converse freely and in utter secrecy with Lugal and other Obligators. Even the Queens of Heaven and Hell may not spy upon you there.

If you would die, you wake up in the SANCTUM. You may remain there until Lugal sees fit to birth you anew from the river.

Finally, you now have the legitimacy to break away from your cult and try to found a new one. You alone have the clarity of purpose to properly steward Lugal’s perfect kingdom.

  1. First draft (much of which has been transplanted here unedited) written by the inimitable Josie. Also much is inspired by (stolen, too, maybe?? idr) from [Loch]'s Arbiters (tab:https://nothicseye.blogspot.com/).↩

  2. See the river kingdom sex and gender post, coming soon.↩

#GLoG #MEGsopotamia #class