Drun

17th Century after Norton Euran devotional portrait of the Prophet Drun.

Drun, a religious figure active in Eura in the decades following the 1598 Babkhan Holocaust. Founder of the religion of Khalypsil.

Fragmentary account

It began with one man. He was born Drun in the shadow of Mount Duranian. Something happened when he was a young man; two journey was made; an epiphany was reached. Then he started a new journey about 250 years ago, with a group of followers. They were not a loyal band of fierce warriors, not a troop of knights on pilgrimage. They were as varied as humanity under the sun - many races, many religions, men, women, children, the old. The learned, those possessors of scraps of ancient wisdom. The energetic. The dull. The sick. The dying and in some cases the dead. They were united in one respect - they wanted something different, something better, and believed that Drun could deliver this. So they walked, drove, rode and sailed together, in search of a homeland that didn't exist - yet.

When they were less than a hundred, order was not a problem. But as they moved across the vast continent, from settlement to settlement, from oasis to oasis, from house to house and fight to fight, their number grew. Their way of life was attractive for one sole reason - it was hopeful in a land without much hope. This vast land had a collective amnesia, but the hole was left. The pallid sun looked down remorselessly - it more often killed than brought life, especially in the engorged desert regions. It had come to be known as Scôr, the Dark place. Those who sought the light followed Drun, and the Train took shape.

That shape needed to be guided by formative hands. Drun's closest counsellors and captains formed the Wisdom, which devised and implemented policies for social cohesion and prosperity with the assistance of a new type of follower - the Guides. Some Guides were old soldiers, some were fresh mercenaries. Some were born in the Train. The Guides followed the Wisdom and disseminated its lessons among the Train. Lessons were sometimes violently learnt, but no-one was a stranger to violence across Scôr. The Wisdom never decided where to go, however. That was Drun's choice alone. This journey, his third, belonged to him alone. It would succeed or fail based on where the Train had reached when, as was inevitable, Drun died.