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kavkem:society:organisations:za-alseki

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The roots of the kavkem organisation Za'alseki (from za'alyr (dream) and either sekidas (to fix, to mend) or sekis (to create, to make)) can potentially be traced back to Leksharia, although the mythology shares no overlap with the main haunting grounds of the organisation.

Prevalence

Za'alseki is quite out of the way compared to the other two major kavkem organisations, Shy͡ilun and Dynash, dominant in Vatenas and scarce everywhere else.

On Vatenas, Za'alseki have a truly striking prevalence, able to claim a number between 30% and 40% of the free kavkem population.

Structure

Za'alseki is a built as a strict hierarchy of command - less because commands are frequently given and more to grant absolute clarity of whose word overrides whose.

Za'alseki is led by an individual ryrhakenem and otherwise divided into four chapters, the leaders of which take their orders directly from the current Za'alseki leader, inasmuch as orders are given. The division into fours continues with regularity (although the terms for them may vary). Leaders are called raktat manema (sacred mentors) and numbered according to rank. The leader of Za'alseki as a whole is raktat manem'za (the first sacred mentor); a chapter leader is raktat manem'sha (the second sacred mentor); the kavkema who defer to the chapter leader are raktat manem'sa (the third sacred mentor) by their underlings, and so forth, until the ranks peter out into regular Za'alsekigades̈a.

The term gades̈ (protégé) indeed originated from Za'alseki hierarchic practise; a kavkem's immediate hierarchic underlings are referred to as raigades̈a ('his protégés') or kaigades̈a ('her protégés') respectively (and, unsurprisingly, as saigades̈a ('my protégés') by the kavkem themselves). If need be (though there is often no need), these too can be numbered - someone referring to the gades̈a of their gades̈a may simply call them gades̈ashaa, and so forth.

Methods

Za'alseki generally try to live by a set of virtues: szamha (protection), desur (patience) and deel (silence).

At their most audacious, Za'alseki believe in what one might call 'psychological warfare' - they call it whispering. Sharing Dynash's boldness, they interact with Nayabaru settlements quite closely, although their focus is rarely destructive. Instead, they rearrange what they can, subtly sabotage equipment (regardless of whether it is crucial or not), and build contraptions that catch the wind to make sounds. One might call what Za'alseki do a good haunting - and indeed, while Nayabaru seek rational explanations for everything and are thus rather difficult to convince of ghosts, per se, they are not altogether immune to adopting a feeling that a particular area is cursed, especially if Nayabaru might wake up one morning to find one of their members dead in their own house with nary a scratch on them. That the Nayabaru of Vatenas are especially devoted to science does not prevent communities from relocating if this goes on long enough without that the cause can be identified.

That said, such efforts would be immediately foiled if evidence of kavkema were, in fact, discovered - as the Nayabaru's focus would then switch to higher diligence and sweep the area, making stealthy 'whispering' effectively impossible - so Za'alseki's focus has always been to cover their tracks, work with high precision and remain completely silent. This has made Za'alseki excellent at intelligence of all kind and arguably, they know more about the Nayabaru than any Nayabaru would about the kavkema of Vatenas.

In fact, the Nayabaru of Vatenas certainly don't know that there are sessile kavkema on their continent, having cautiously taken up abandoned 'cursed' mines or settlements. Za'alseki are the only organisation that can be said to have access to some industrial capabilities, thanks to settlements they have taken over - although since these tend to be quite far removed from other settlements they could have once traded with, they tend to be the least advanced equipped of the Nayabaru settlements.

Prolonged 'whispering' only happens occasionally and highly strategically. Essentially, Za'alseki do meticulous long-term planning and try to carve out a safe niche for themselves right under the Nayabaru's noses. If they had the technology to, they would dig themselves a whole network of tunnels to live in, unbeknownst to the enemy.

Generally speaking, Za'alseki's focus is on giving wild kavkema safe places to hide. In this, they work together tightly with the Vatenas ryrhakenema (assuming that the ryrhakenem is not already in Za'alseki anyway, which many of them are). They may choose to strategically rescue someone, with the same diligent, quiet and patient approach they are famous for. To prevent their safe havens from being revealed, they tend to prefer showing the place to kavkema rather than telling them where to go, asking their temporary protégé not to try to remember the way and making sure to take a long enough, winding route that it is not easily committed to memory by sheer accident.

Za'alseki are mildly opposed to qasai, owing to their life-preserving and life-affirming goals. They do recognise that it may be preferable to commit qasai in captivity, but as they preach patience and endurance, it is mildly discouraged.

On request, Za'alseki will teach their members to psychologically resist physical torture by putting them through it. This is not technically standard practise, in that Za'alseki do not advertise that they do this, but new recruits learn it as one of the many facts given to them when they join, and a large percentage (>75%) of Za'alsekigades̈a indeed indulge in at least one session. One is usually enough to convince most of them not to try any more, but as many as 10% of Za'alsekigades̈a ritualise the practise, carefully and methodologically exploring their pain tolerance with a mentor.

Effectiveness

By quality of results, Za'alseki is by far the most effective organisation, granting various kavkema on Vatenas an actual quality of life - however, their methods do not scale, as they precisely rely on relative obscurity.

kavkem/society/organisations/za-alseki.1579398510.txt.gz · Last modified: 2020-01-19 01:48 by pinkgothic