Olowin

## Olowin was a large town located in the Romaran Parish built to serve the needs of Fort Romaris.

Olowin was a moderately sized, mostly human, town serving the families and housing the staff of Fort Romaris. There was frequently tension between the Church Governors of the nation and the Order regarding legal matters in the town and surrounding area.

Problems of Sanctuary

The Church had a policy of granting sanctuary regardless of crime or proof of crime (except Heresy) to anyone asking it at the door of a church or monastery. Once the Order took over Fort Romaris there were several incidents in which the monks harbored criminals sought by the Order. This even resulted in a battle in the Hall of Meditations when the monks harbored a known highwaywoman who had killed an Initiate of the Order. She claimed repentance and swore she would become a monk, so they chose to protect her even against armed soldiers. Fortunately, due to reticence to kill on both sides, no one died, but it forced the treaties between the Order and the Church to be renegotiated. The highwaywoman, known afterward as Sister Augusta, was allowed to become a monk but was also held imprisoned in the monastery until her death.

The Arrest of Cardinal Marcaine

The most famous issue of dissent between the Church and Order occurred when Cardinal Rachel Marcaine visited the town or Olowin on her way to minister to the copper mining towns further to the south and west. However, her actual motivations were to accept bribes from the miners as protection money to keep her personal guard from slaughtering the Trolls responsible for much of the mining, as the Cardinal had contempt for "dirt worshipers" who followed Trollkar. During the Cardinal's visit the Order-neophyte and devout Church Acolyte Vishania Gazaan happened to be praying in the wings of an isolated portion of the chapel when she overheard an incriminating conversation between Cardinal Marcaine and one of her guards. They were speaking a language she did not know, but Vishania suddenly found herself able to understand. While she was a devoted member of the Church, Vishania believed in the Gods more than the hierarchy, and she told her sister Tristania what she had heard. At sixteen Vishania did not believe she could convince anyone in the Order of what she had heard (especially since she was not sure she could repeat the miracle allowing her to understand unknown tongues). Tristania, however, was twenty eight and a Master Seargant of the Order. They could not convince her commanding officer without proof, though the Commander did admit there were rumors the Cardinal was not quite as holy as she proclaimed. The sisters set out to investigate on their own, leaning on the weaker members of the Cardinal's guard and at one point having to fight for their lives against a death squad. Vishania would have died if Tristania were less skilled in arms, and Tristania would have died if Vishania did not feel Raea's call spontaneously manifest the ability to heal her sister's wounds. Afterward the Cardinal tried to have them arrested and executed, but they claimed sanctuary. Fortunately, before being cloistered with the monks, the sisters "liberated" an incriminating letter from the Cardinal's quarters to her kept man in Chamilyeaun. After verifying the letter was real using a gift of sight, the monks turned the letter over to the Lord Marshal. Afterward, a battle broke out between the Order and the Cardinal's Forces. Fortunately the Cardinal's people were outnumbered, and was she was secured and tried by both the Iludin and the Church the Cardinal was stripped of her title and imprisoned. The sisters for their trouble were promoted by the Iludin and (despite Vishania's eventual rise within the priesthood) looked at with some wariness by the Church.