The Grand Folly

Religious event

While the temples used to have high esteem amongst the people, this point in history marks the unfair witch hunts upon Orcs, Dark Elves and Goblin civilians, and would mark the temple's fall from public grace. The events caused many people to lose faith in the gods, and caused riots amongst those targeted. While societal acceptance of the Dark Elves, Orcs and Goblins grew and some temples even started welcoming them, unrest grew amongst some larger temples. The witch hunters, now an established organization, especially didn't like this development, and decided on their own plans upon High Priest Sturbor Havenblaze's insistence. This would later lead to a schizm between the temples and the witch hunters, and the leader of the movement would go down in history as Sturbor the Blasphemer: he would be the face of this bigoted movement. Temples would later look back on these times as a black page in their history, and in the future, they would deeply despise him for his actions.

The witch hunters diverted away from their original function of defending the innocent, and instead started targeting them. Many Dark Elves in particular were arrested for their cultural practices of Necromancy: if a family couldn't make it to a dying relative in time, then there was a tradition amongst the undertakers of their people. This is to help family member say their final goodbyes despite not making it in time to stand at a person's deathbed; a Necromancer undertaker would shortly reanimate the deceased so their family could properly say their final goodbyes, alleviating grief for the deceased's family. Afterwards, the mock soul is promptly removed, and the body is interred properly. However, during the Grand Folly, this practice did not sit well with the witch hunters.   However, the Goblins and Orcs were not safe in these times either: the Orcs were often accused of murders that hadn't even taken place, being made out to be nothing more than uncontrollable, wild beasts. And the Goblins were often accused of theft, not being able to keep their hands to themselves. However, most accusations that the witch hunters acted on were false, and most of their 'confessions' were attained through truly gruesome torture methods. Some were even completely new, devilish torture methods made by Sturbor Havenblaze himself. He would rise through the ranks at the temples to become High Priest, and served as the bigoted movement's face in temple circles. Upon a feigned guilt of the unfairly accused, a public execution through burning would be arranged, and prisoners would often be abused up until the day of their deaths. While strangulation before the pyre was lit was officially required, the with hunters would show their victims no such mercy.   The common folk, however, didn't agree with this, and started deeply fearing for the lives of their loved ones and friends; They started hiding the innocent members of these races from the witch hunters. However, as searches for these people grew longer and more intense, the common folk started smuggling them out of the cities for their own safety: many Orcs, Dark Elves and Goblins were brought to secret safehouses in the dead of night. But where there is oppression, there is resistance... Underground resistances came to be, and started providing aid to the people in danger. And in the safety of hiding, the three races grew more and more disgruntled with this mistreatment. The bigots might have been successful to a degree, as they now had to plan their revolution in hiding. And soon, more Humans, Dwarves and Elves would join the resistance. The temples to Stradeth would later be famous for negatively commenting on the torture methods of the witch hunters, willingly lacking a team of witch hunters themselves, and sheltering revolutionaries. This refusal to participate in racist attitudes at the time would lead to these temples being one of the few not losing public favor, and attendance to these temples staying steady.