- In honor and memory
of Saint Calaxes
In all of Tamriel’s history there’s hardly ever been a belief more plagued by misconceptions and unfair stigma than The Alessian Order. The time of its zenith is still remembered as a cruel and dark age, while in reality that could not be farther from the truth. In this book, we’d like to refute these long-standing lies and provide the reader with genuine knowledge of what our Faith is and what it always has been, in an easily understood form of Questions followed by Answers.
Question I: What is the Alessian Order?
The Alessian Order is a religious body professing the beliefs bestowed upon us by The Paravant, The Enlightened One, known commonly as Saint Alessia all the way back at the dawn of the First Era.
Question II: What do the Alessian Order members believe in?
The members of the Alessian Order profess belief in The One True God, Endless and Peerless, Unscrutable and Unmutable, the existence of Whom was revealed to us by the venerated Paravant and her Prophet-Most-Simian Marukh as an act of Compassion and Pity. Only through the rejection of the Elven Lie and complete devotion to the Alessian Doctrines may one find enlightenment and supreme happiness in this world and the next ones.
Question III: What are the Alessian Doctrines?
The Alessian Doctrines are a set of principles revealed to Prophet Marukh by the Enlightened One for the purpose of guiding the faithful in their mundial and aetherial lives. The Order preserves The Doctrines by the means of oral tradition and imparts them to the laity through its Confessors.
Question IV: Why aren’t the Alessian Doctrines written?
This is one of our Order’s traditions born out of necessity. Our opponents were quick to denounce the so-called “record-burning” of Alessian times (laughable to anyone familiar with the sheer danger to both body and mind the enchanted Elven writings are known to possess) and use it as pretext for merciless destruction of our own holy libraries. Alessian communes without strong oral traditions were simply not able to survive.
Question V: What is the Elven Lie?
The Elven Lie is a heretical belief that some Ideal Aspects of The One, especially those connected with the Celestial Spheres, are separate Gods unto themselves. In their hubris, the Elves of old went as far as to mar the Mythic with the Mundane, binding the souls of their ancestors (known to us as Aedra) to the Heavenly Bodies. Such is the terror of the Elven Lie that even the sworn enemies of Elves, the Nords, became victims of it, inadventently adopting such beliefs, if in mirror-shape, during their time of coexistence in ancient Alt-Mora.
Question VI: What is the Alessian Order’s stance on the Great Faiths of the Divines?
It is yet another lie that it was Paravant herself who established the worship of the Divines - in reality, it were her worldly-minded retainers who pushed for the merge of two heretical pantheons to stabilize the nascent realm of Cyrod, instead of waging the Holy War as per The Enlightened One’s wishes. If what the Great Faiths are saying were true, would there even be any need for the Paravant to inspire our Primate Prophet? The history speaks for itself.
Question VII: What are the goals of the Alessian Order?
Our goals are as they have been for millenia:
- To preserve the One True Faith and its perennial traditions, despite what persecutions may befall us.
- To spread the teachings of our Simian Prophet, to bring the heretic and the heathen to the true light of The One.
- To restore Tamriel to the rightful order of things and bring back the Golden Age of the Alessian Empire.
Question VIII: What methods does the Alessian Order employ for reaching those goals?
Althought it maybe have been different in the past, The Alessian Order is committed to propagating our Faith through entirely peaceful means. To the Emperor, we must show utmost reverence and loyalty to his esteemed Office, to the Lords - our benevolence and the ways we may benefit their realms, to the Priests - we must show the authenticity of The One and the superiority of the untainted Ideal Aspects through impeccable theosophy, and to the Commoner - the earthly fruit of our deeds.
Question IX: What was the Alessian Empire like?
Conventional history, written by elf-plagued academia, would have you believe that those were dark and cruel times. And that much was true - but not for everyone. From a beast tormenter to a vile daedra cultist, from a common whoremonger to the heresiarch - it was our Order’s intolerance towards anyone who stained the beauty of our land that earned us that spite. Drug imbibing, blood sports, blood sacrifice, deviant orgies, elf-breeding - these are the “simple entertainments” the ban on which our attackers have bemoaned for centuries since. The common, pious man, shielded by our Faith and the Holy Emperor’s arms from vices internal and enemies external, enjoyed a safe and productive life in this world and bliss and tranquility in the next.
Question X: Where Were You When The Dragon Broke?
Contrary to popular belief, the Alessian Order deserves no blame for plunging Tamriel into that temporal cataclysm. The Selectives’ motives were pure and their methods just, and their only folly was underestimating our old enemy’s level of desperation and capacity for malice. For the Old Elves knew what the Dance meant, and their heretic priests chose madness over defeat and answered with their own blasphemous, motionless crystal dance - and the Ideal Primordial shattered its own Celestial Sphere, not being able to move in both tempos.
Question XI: How do I become a part of Alessian Order?
Our Order could not have survived for millenia among hostile heretics without shrouding ourselves in secrecy. But rejoice, for the very fact of you holding this book now, the fact that it has found your hands - is the key that would open the gates towards our gateless cathedrals.
Anyone is welcomed by us in this most holy pursuit, even an elf - would he prove his conviction by undergoing The Penance of Chains.
Follow the path to the One Truth without fear.
TAM! RUGH!
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