Speakers
From Mizahar Lore
| “When I first saw Norra, she led a wagon through the city, dragging behind a pair of incestuous siblings, naked as their shame, chained, caged, covered with a slick layer of grime from the filth hurled by the Alvad people. I looked into her eyes, and I knew I’d seen the face of justice. The magnificence of Alvadas has dimmed some with her passing, and we will forever mourn.” - Speaker Yet, in Eulogy. |
The Speakers scoff at the thought of simple guards, protectors of the peace; they are that, certainly, but they are more. It is a Speaker’s duty to reveal the shame of those whose troubles spill outside their circles and into the city proper. They are trained to stop fights, certainly, to put an end to violence, but rather than imprison their charges they utterly humiliate them, while the entire city watches.
They are both feared and loved by the people of the city; for there is no spectacle quite like a whipping, like public nakedness, like dragging criminals through the streets. The Speakers make it into another show, like a play put on by the Crook; and for a moment they make it okay to hate, to curse, to utterly ruin their charges as the entire city jeers at them. But they are feared, because the fear of being dragged before the city is always there underneath the revelry.
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Hierarchy
The Highest of the Speakers are decided by an election that includes every acting, able member of the Speakers able to attend, and serve for life. The Speakers most able to gain support among their own is thus certified to lead their own, just as the Speakers lead Alvadas. They take orders only from the Triad and hold regular meetings with the Highest of the Listeners, and there is always at least one at every spectacle that the Speakers host, along with the team who seized the criminal.
Beneath the Highest, the Speakers are divided into teams of ten. Often they patrol the streets and markets, and every open place, or are sent on specific tasks, operating based on information discovered by the Listeners. More than enforcers, even the rank-and-file Speakers are trained in managing spectacles, in humiliation, in getting the crowd charged and excited. Getting hold the criminals is only half their duty.
There are remarkably few Speakers in Alvadas; they are only rarely necessary.
Initiation
Every Speaker is permitted to take at least one student under their wing, to accompany them during all their duties. A given Speaker is a master and tutors those under them, and trains them as they see fit to mold them into future Speakers. The methods between Speakers differ greatly; some prefer to use children, teach them the Speaker’s way as they are young and impressionable, while some go for older, more experienced acolyte—actors, warriors and others, believing their experience will benefit the Speakers as a whole. Some take many acolytes over their lifetime, and while the training of a replacement is expected it is not a required thing.
At any time a Speaker may declare their acolyte prepared, and they are passed between the teams of Speakers. If any one of those teams finds them unfit, they remain an acolyte. But if they don’t, the acolyte becomes a Speaker, with all the rights and responsibilities that entails.
Uniform
Power and flagrance are the hallmarks of the Speaker's presentation. The Speakers of Alvadas wear uniforms covered in faux-gold and dyed in bright, distracting colors that a foreigner might mistake for a fool’s motley—in Alvadas it is a symbol of power, completed by a patch sewn into each shoulder of a mouth made to look like an inverted triangle—the sigil of the Speakers, the mouths that speak the truth of illusion.
They are not to be interfered with. They do the work of Alvadas, and though who attempt to stop them make themselves enemies.
Life as a Speaker
The Speakers seem, to any observer, including other arms of the Womiyu themselves, to have the most extravagant lifestyle of them all. They live in the middlemost part of the Womiyu, full of gold and decorations, high-vaulted ceilings and beauty beyond anything that should exist in Mizahar, but the Speakers know better. They feel it in the moments before they fall asleep, in the instant before they turn, they see their home for what it is. They wake up from their beds, soft to the touch, sore and aching. Their meals, grand and delicious on the instant of eating, leave the taste of shadow and soot in their mouths.
Moments of brilliance is all that the Speaker’s home gives them, and it is this that the Speaker brings to Alvadas. Moments of brilliance; on duty they patrol the streets in their colorful motley, deterring criminals in teams. On occasion they will be given orders from the Highest, raid a man’s home and shame them in whatever way seems most appropriate to their crime in front of the people of Alvadas for all to see in what is as much a celebration as punishment, with men and women singing and dancing and the Speakers themselves both the host of the party and tormenter of the shamed.
Their duty is one of social engineering, to make the crowds of Alvadas cheer as those who deserve it are shamed, turn the laughter of children into a tool to set those who have gone astray on the right path.
The Speakers live in false luxury and keep the peace bringing those who deserve it shame, and in the same moment they make children laugh, they bring the city together. They are both the administrators of punishment and bringers of joy at once, and the city remembers them for the joy it brings them, not the shame. They are loved, and their authority comes as much from that as respect.
Playing A Speaker
To play a Speaker in game, a character needs to go through or have gone through, whether in roleplay or in backstory, the process of being apprenticed and approved as a Speaker. A total of thirty skill points must be spread across social and martial skills, including magic that would aid them, such as hypnotism or auristics, in their position.
As a member of the Womiyu the character enjoys free common living, along with a paid for and provided room in the Womiyu taking into account that the character is dutiful and upholds what the guards stand for and the character understands that if he does not do what is meant to be done they will be kicked out and lose all privileges they had as a member of the Alvadas' guard. That means you guys can feel free to cash in that housing for extra money.
Base Seasonal Payment for being a Speaker is 6 GM a day
Current Speakers
| The Womiyu |
| Listeners · Silencers · Speakers |