Kirvan Abbey Incident on Konira

The **Kirvan Abbey Incident** was an incident in 440 A.U. involving the Confederate Inquisition on Konira that caused the deaths of hundreds of members of the Church of Kirva and led to the trial of inquisitor and Bank of Valdos representative Marius Nemo, and that served as a flashpoint for future war between The Fialta Confederacy and The Shantine Empire.

## Background

*See also: The Inquisition Campaign*
As part of their mandate on Konira, members of the Confederate Inquisition had been investigating sources of arms and funding for the rebel forces fighting in the Koniran Civil War. Evidence had suggested a possible link between the weapons used by Kirvan rebels and the local Kirvan Abbey, leading the Inquisition to arrange a visit to the abbey to further their investigation.

## Visit to the Kirvan Abbey

*For a non-canon whimsical retelling of the Inquisition's visit to the Kirvan Abbey, see Steamed Hams (One-Shot).*

The visit involved Inquistion members Dionne Antema, Varlam Vasiliev, Caesaris, James Fhtagnleton, Hercule J. Bloom, and Marius Nemo, accompanied by Val'Gul and fifteen of his Gul'Dan bodyguards, and by on-world Confederate Special Forces officer Octo Thorpe.

During the visit, the main body of inquisitors toured the abbey buildings, and Dionne Antema debated theology with the ex-Dalthadi-turned-Kirvan priest Father Tarlo. Meanwhile, two inquisitorial agents (Althea Sabina Del'Rega's investigator Constance Morovin, and Varlam Vasiliev's agent Roland) discovered a secret door in the abbey's library and slipped away from the main tour group to investigate the abbey's basement where they discovered, among other things, a weapons construction facility for arming the Koniran rebels. In addition, Hercule J. Bloom was able to sneak away from the main group and break into the office of Abbess Wesman, where he found evidence potentially liking the abbess to a larger anti-Confederate cabal (and also to an offshoot Kirvan cult).

The situation came to a head when Constance was discovered in the basement and killed one of the basement workers as a result, with the gunshot from her hydrogen pistol audible throughout the abbey. Abbess Wesman at first attempted to use the abbey's security to escort the Inquisition away under the pretense of a dangerously malfunctioning air conditioner, then tried to escape the Inquisition party when they made it clear that they intended to put her under arrest.

Constance and Roland escaped from the basement as Wesman, Tarlo, and the inquisitors engaged in tense negotiations in the abbey lawn. With the abbess in Inquisition hands, Val'Gul's Gul'Dan and Cpt. Thorpe's Confederate platoon began working to secure a perimeter.

## Marius Nemo's Failed Summoning

With the Inquisition's forces severely outnumbered and unlikely to hold out should the Kirvan forces try to retake Abbess Wesman or the abbey, Inquisition member Marius Nemo decided to try summoning an angel of Valdos to the abbey grounds to aid the party. The summoning attempt failed, partly due to the fact that it was a Valdosian summoning ritual performed on hallowed Kirvan ground, and partly due to the presence of a small stone artifact of the Knights of Adarnum that Hercule J. Bloom had found in the office of Abbess Wesman and had in his possession near to the summoning site.

Rather than a Valdosian angel, what Marius unintentionally summoned was a malevolent eldritch entity of early Kirvan origin, bound to Valdos against its will. At Marius' suggestion, the entity consumed the souls of Marius, Abbess Wesman, and all the Kirvan staff and parishioners in the abbey, plastering the halls of the abbey with the parishioners' flayed skin. The Inquisition's fifteen Gul'Dan fighters were also driven permanently insane, dispersing into the surrounding countryside to fulfill a deranged violent compulsion to wear the skins and faces of others. Contractual ownership of Val'Gul (the only remaining Gul'Dan) was transferred to Dionne Antema

## Aftermath

In the immediate aftermath, the Inquisition and the Confederate Special Forces struggled to keep the abbey under control and to keep the details of the incident from becoming public, since using an occult summoning to kill hundreds of innocent civilians while on church land would be more than enough of an excuse to spark a war with the Shantines. While they initially planned to blame the incident entirely on Abbess Wesman, the Inquisition ultimately reached an agreement with the Bank of Valdos whereby they would have a counterfeit Marius publicly tried and executed, thereby appeasing Shantine interests and freeing the Inquisition to continue its work exposing the rebel cabal and ending the civil war on Konira. Father Tarlo, the only Kirvan at the abbey during the incident whose life had been spared, took on the newly-vacant role of abbot and helped what was left of the Kirvan community on Konira to recover in the wake of the incident.

Months later, in the aftermath of the Inquisition Incident on Firhbank, the details of the abbey incident were made public by the Inquisitor Caesaris, causing the Koniran incident to become a flashpoint for Fialta-Shantine conflict.

## Notes

1. ↑ The same eldritch being, incidentally, as that which created the Skinchangers.
2. ↑ Actually the Valdosian angel Sahvenath
3. ↑ As a side consequence of trying to convincingly prosecute the imitation-Marius in this manner, it was necessary to release Val'Gul from service to the Bank.
4. ↑ Due to his Dalthadi origin and Fialta blood