Saint Randen
Saint Randen is the revered and feared figure at the root of the Order of Randen Faction Order of Randen The fastest-growing power in the Maan empire at AC 50, the Order of Randen is a religious-political apparatus that co-opts the theology of Randenism and transforms it into a deb... and the Randenist faith, known through folktale, scripture, and institutional power in roughly equal measure at the time of the story. In the folk tradition he is a wanderer who left his home during the Chaos Event The Chaos The Chaos was a continent-wide civilisation-collapse spanning approximately ninety-eight years, beginning around year 1700 of the Inarin Calendar when the Iru Parliament of the... to spare others a mouth to feed, crossed into the wilderness of Baramma Place Baramma The great jungle island east of Tarkdaara, separated from the mainland by the Bram Sea and home to the Bar., and returned changed, rebuilding what the Chaos had broken with his own hands. The Order that bears his name has translated that life into a creed of debt, labor, and vigilance enforced across the Maan People Maan The most numerous people of Elshore and the baseline cultural reference of the age. empire.
Key traits
- An Erg born in the early years of the Chaos who became a preacher and laborer; his folk image is that of a wandering prince of Udhafa Place Udhafa The old capital of the Maan empire and one of the great inhabited ruins of the world, an ancient Iru-founded city in eastern Tarkdaara, carved into the bedrock below the Claw Pe....
- Revered as the founder and prophet of the Randenist faith; the Order of Randen claims his name and his doctrine as institutional authority.
- Known through three living registers at once: a mother's bedtime tale, Order posters on pharmacy walls, and priestly catechism delivered under duress.
- The faith attributes to him the doctrine of Debt, Labor, and Vigilance, inscribed on the Randenist Crest.
- Folkloric accounts say time no longer held him as it once had after his return from Baramma, and that the Traveller never called him home.
- The man and the institution that carries his name are not the same thing; the distance between the folk story and the Order's enforcement is one of the tensions the faith lives inside.