Ratio

*“Rifles and warships are useless instruments if there’s no heart to make them sing.”*

**Ornapeus Metz** lecturing at the Lys Doré, 1381.

An ideological hate group propagating supremacy of human (specifically southern-Alberean) races and the destruction of elven culture and witches. They are historically recognised by the symbol of a twisting, golden sun against a black backdrop. As a name, '*Ratio*' stands for 'reason' in both the Alberean and Celestial tongue.

## Notable Members

* ***Ornapeus Metz***, known for constructing *the Coop*, a prison facility for witches near *Orzon*.
* ***Kurt Karnachel***, known for his work on eugenics-theory and the tutelage of Ratio-youth.
* ***Siegfried Mechel***, known for his fervent work as Archdeacon of the *Faith of the Chant*.

## Early History

#### The Early Years

Nearly 50 years ago, a boys' club of young conservative thinkers studying at the Lys Doré was founded. Back then, the institute still enrolled gifted Montclairoise students, regardless of their ethnic background. This was also the time where a *heavy* financial emphasis was put on artifice-based research, sponsored by the Alberean Empire. The members of the boys' club, who called themselves *Ratio*, held rather controversial ideas regarding theories of supposed *‘purity of form and heritage’*, akin to eugenetical theories. Rumours starting to spring to life about elven students being spies of the Republic of Montclaire, meaning to steal technology from the empire to aid Ghelden in waging a war against the Alberean peoples by razing the lands of the commonwealth.

After a number of attacks on elven students within the Lys Doré by colleagues, the boys' club was disbanded and its members suspended in 1363. Instead of waiting out their suspension periods, all of Ratio's members defected from the institution, choosing to further their research and ideas elsewhere.

#### Post-Defection

In the years after they defected from the Lys Doré, Ratio has grown to become a well-known and feared ideological hate-group with the zeal of any other religious cult. Many have joined their ranks, though most often wealthy Alberean aristrocrats, honoured knights and renowned businessmen. Primarily, the order was run by a clique of old Alberean learned-men, but they enjoyed much support from common peoples as well.

## The Great War

#### Recruitment by the Empire

Ratio took major organisational action and instituted quiet recruitment programs for like-minded Albereans, causing its numbers to rise dramatically during the cold war between the Alberean Empire and the Republic of Montclaire that began in 1371. After nearly 20 years of such growth in the shadows, tensions further rose between the Empire and the Republic in 1379 due the outbreak that would later be known as the Cobalt Crisis. Ratio-elder and original member Kurt Karnachel was the first to float the idea that there was foul play at work on the part of the Montclairoise elves regarding the mysterious rise of the plague. Believing such, over the coming years, Ratio would send death squads of witch hunters across the border to systematically attack and destroy elven villages and communities, weaving their way between the warfronts.

Aquilla I, the Empress at the time and firstborn daughter of Solidor I who was known to rule with an iron fist, took notice of Ratio's efficiency during the great conflict and conscripted them into her military as hands of the Empire. This saw an immense spike in Ratio's popularity, as their ideas were thrust into mainstream by Aquilla. As such, during the war, Ratio's members would relieve themselves of the burden of secrecy. Many high-ranking nobles, both Dorenese and Alberean, as well as civil servants of the Empire would be seen wearing a Ratio crest across their hearts: the golden sun. During these times of great conflict, many prolific members of the order would give public lectures on eugenics-theory, the faith, and philosophical rhetorics as they travelled across the lower lands of Toussaint.

#### The Witch Hunts

   Ratio militia would patrol the streets of major cities in the Dorenese colonies, such as Orzon, to relieve the understaffed city guard during the war. During the 4 years of this practice, the colonies were heavily repressed by Ratio's hand, who were free to enact their ideological purges as they saw fit. Harsh curfews and taxation were put into place, and (half-)elves who hadn't ready fled were continuously searched for and rounded up in the city square to be 'tried' by the order. The verdict was always guilty.

Though these massacres were primarily aimed at non-humans, they became most infamous for their mass-murdering of witches in Doren. In Doren, before the great war, witches still held a position of moderate import as midwives and healers amidst the industrial revolution of artifice. However, as tensions surrounding the elves (born with magical prowess) rose, Ratio started publicly targeting witches all the same. Though many witches fled to the Mirksage Woods of Lovidia, hundreds of witches living in Orzon alone were 'tried' and slaughtered in the town squares of the city.

#### After the War

Post-bellum, during the time of great rebuilding, Ratio quickly fell out of favour with the common peoples of the lower lands. Many of the Dorenese peoples, including those who had backed Ratio previously, felt betrayed by their power-trip during the great war. Many had lost family who were believed to be conspiring with elves or witches. Seeing this, Empress Aquilla I denounced Ratio's behaviour during the war and retracted her support for the order. Their military facilities, such as the Coop, were seized by the empire, and Ratio slowly returned to obscurity in the next two decades.

## Militia

#### Witch Hunters

Ratio witch hunters were commonly equipped with longswords and crossbows, though they possessed many other implements of war and torture. They were most recognisable by their long, shadowy black cloaks and huge black brim hats shaped like disks, as well as their occurrent use of the golden sun heraldry. Witch hunters who functioned in the Ratio death squads during the great war often wore intimidating skull masks to cover their faces from the Cobalt plague that swept the Fine Line.

Witch hunters were also commonly known to take 'trophies' of famous witch victims, most often their right hands, which would be dipped into bronze and hung on their walls as hunting trophies.

Their attire was relatively mundane though reaper-like. This was in stark contrast to the attire of the **elders** of the order, who wore enormous shoulderpieces with draping black and gold silks as cloaks, as well as tall ebony staffs with large golden sun symbols atop it.