The Fighting Orders of Nentsun - Introduction
by Giulio N CarolettiThe kingdoms of the Inner Circle survive because of the psychic and physical energies of the Masters of the two Fighting Orders of Nentsun. These ten men have the duty of controlling the Unholy Devices of Blekmur, who sent the world in the dark ages several millennia ago. [This is how the Nentsunians remember the Great Rain of Fire].
The Unholy Devices of Blekmur are at the same time a blessing and a danger. They are a blessing in that they make the Inner Circle's lands fertile and rich, and, moreover, they have also beneficial climatic effects on the Outer Circle. However, while the Outer Circle would be able to survive without them, and simply become a little colder, the Inner Circle would soon become a cold and barren land without them.
The Masters of the Orders are ten selected men whose lives are devoted to the control of the Devices. Through strong will and particular psychic powers, the Masters are able to prevent the Devices from exploding. Even if each Master is assigned a single Device, the Devices are linked, and thus there is theoretically need for only one Master at time to prevent the explosion. However, the Masters are always at "work" together, to ease the task for each other.
What the Nentsunians don't know is that if the Devices explode, the problem will not only be that they won't provide the energy to the land to make it hospitable, warm and fertile: their explosion will cause another (although limited) cataclysm very similar to the Great Rain of Fire...
But let's take a look at the Fighting Orders' organisation.
THE FIGHTING SCHOOLS
All over Nentsun (both Inner and Outer Circles), when a boy becomes 6 years old, he is brought by his parents to the local temple to be visited by clerics. They ask the Immortals whether the boy has the potential to become a Master. If the boy is blessed, then he is immediately sent to one of the two fighting schools. He stays in the school for 10 years, after which he is assigned to one of the minor orders, or he is taken as Heir by a Master and is initiated to the arts of becoming one himself.