~Honyaevilaza~ - The Lashunta Inquisition & Eldritch Lore

So in Chapter 40 of A Castrovel Adventure: Part 5 Lady Vaeol found herself in the uncomfortable position of attracting the Inquisition’s interest. Unfortunately, this is the second time this has happened, since not only is she one of the only living Lashunta to have spoken with a Formian (which happened in the war when she hastily negotiated a truce during a failed raid to avoid further bloodshed on both sides) but also is one of two Lashunta alive today who have met an actual ~Moqeva~ - the ancient ophidian species against whom the ancestral Warrior-Queens fought and drove to (alleged) extinction. As such, Lady Vaeol is an official ~Honyaedyahaze~ - Bearer of Secret Lore - a select group of people who are carefully vetted and read in, and whose registry is shared among all the cities of the Asana continent.

The ~Honyaevilaza~ - Inquisition, literally: Warders of Secrets - keeps careful watch on these registered secret-bearers, lest their lore corrupt or be put to ill ends. As such, Lady Vaeol rather justifiably feels singled out, since she was first exposed to secret lore through no fault of her own.

I first proposed the Lashunta Inquisition as a concept in an article on Cursed Ylisaeua. In a nutshell, the Lashunta, having exterminated the Moqeva, couldn't help stumbling over relics their ancient foes had lost. To avoid the damage and corruption of contact with eldritch forces, the Sage-Queens established inquisitions within their respective cities. These grew to share knowledge and cooperate (more or less) in quelling their mutual threat. Sometimes Moqeva ruins were sealed and buried to prevent access; other times artifacts were brought back to hidden, vaulted loreholds, where only the most accomplished and trustiest researchers were allowed to study them, if ever. Thus for most of the golden, classical ages of Lashunta Antiquity, these secrets mostly slumbered, under the rare interest of idle scholars who dared not probe them.

Unfortunately, the ancient Inquisition’s core mission failed.

It failed, due to the Formians’ conquest of the Colonies, resulting in desperate queens and loremistresses seeking any advantage to save their cities from overrun and their people from uncertain doom as slaves or fodder. It failed, due to the collapse of the Sage-Queens’ rule of the Yaro Valley and the rise of the Thief-Queens, who conquered and rode until the Western Sea. It failed, because secret-bearers, many whomof were themselves erstwhile inquisitors, had to choose between using the lore they knew but were forbidden to wield, or watching their cities, their kindred, and lovers be overswept by the collapse of civilization. The Inquisition failed because the temptation it was sworn to guard was too great. In its failure’s wake, amid this new era of wartorn oppression a clutch of horrors were hatched. The last things the Thief-Queens fought when the last Sage-Queen died were gibbering cosmic waifs and barb-wielding cephalopods. Eldritch spells and abominations were the last legacy the enlightened Sage-Queens bequeathed to their usurpers.

Ironically, the Thief-Queens and the southern successor-states who survived the Colonies’ fall, and plagues unleashed, created inquisitions of their own. These new institutions were less perceptive and more brutal, responding to the direct threats unleashed upon the world and their people. One aspect of it was that these new inquisitors were not necessarily trained scholars or psychics, but from military backgrounds who, when they saw threats, ruthlessly eliminated them. Perhaps this explains why not only practitioners of eldritch lore were exterminated, but also many psychic scholars, and thus that so much of the Sage-Queens’ lore was lost and has not been rediscovered. It may also explain why the Thief-Queens continued their distrust of their subject native populations, since they perceived them as tainted by the horrific forces they had witnessed unleashed, and which oppression ultimately resulted in their downfall.

Afterward when the Yaro Valley cities slowly threw off the Thief-Queens’ rule and sought to emulate the Sage-Queens’ glory, they resurrected many of of the ancient Inquisition’s tenets, although sometimes readopting the Thief-Queens’ inquisitions wholesale. Yet in the South within the newly formed Confederacy of Valmaeana, following multiple attempted Formian incursions, a grimmer, more pragmatic mindset grew, in which some were willing to try the ancient Moqeva artifacts and seek some advantage. When those attempts failed, as in the mysterious case of Princess Oeli and Master Ashuss, the confederacy’s Council of Special Affairs, that pragmatic approach has become more conflicted.

Thus the Lashunta Inquisition of the current era, contemporary with Golarion’s Age of Lost Omens, finds itself amid a quasi-schism, even among the Western Asana Alliance against the Formians. The cities of the North and East largely take firm positions against the active study of eldritch Moqeva lore and so empower their inquisitions to prosecute. Yet the Inquisition within Valmaeana in the South is more nuanced and careful. Although they certainly discourage idle research or meddling, the Council of Special Affairs - and by extension the Valmaeana High Staff under whose mandate they operate - may provide matronage and more substantial support to a competent occultist willing to offer military advantage. Thus, circling back to Chapter 40 as mentioned at this article’s beginning, maybe no surprise the Inquisition first approached Lady Vaeol to seek information on a loremaster known to be in contact with Valmaeana.