House of the Wanderer

## Gathered writings of The House  of the Wanderer

The path to Wisdom and  teaching aids for taking on an  apprentice

Compiled and noted by

Scholar Herminius

### **The teachings of Wisdom according to the  Synod**

*These teachings will form the basis of your  understanding of Wisdom, learn them well so  that you may truly understand the teachings of  Sulemeine i Taziel.*

The Virtuous apply what they have learned;  Wisdom knows all knowledge is incomplete.

Let every word you speak carry meaning; do  not use forty when four will do.

Wisdom is not always knowing the answer;  Wisdom is finding the right question.

Test what you learn; only fools accept hearsay  as truth.

Despise folly and chastise the fool that  spreads it.

#### **Your apprentice**

Whilst your apprentice’s mental studies should focus on the teachings of Wisdom, it is  important that whilst sharpening their mind  they also study The Way as a whole so that  they may understand their place.

They should dedicate as much time to their  mental studies as they do their physical  studies. A failure to maintain this balance is to  lead your apprentice on the path of the  Sentinel, a skilled warrior lacking the capability  to realise their potential. Do not forget the  lessons on Poise and Arete.

The tradition of using the Dance of Predictive  Movements for new students is essential, it  will teach them balance, awareness of their  surrounds and lead them to asking the key  question of warfare.

When is the right time to make an effective  strike?

#### **Signs of Sulemeine i Taziel**

Sulemeine i Taziel, teacher of the Sword  Scholars, harbinger of the Way to Urizen,  displays the Signs of the Paragon.

Whether the Imperial Synod chooses to  recognise this or not, truth is truth. Reality is  not reliant on the opinions of Highborn  priests. We discern truth from our interactions  with the world, and act on the knowledge  thus gleaned. This is the teaching of  Sulemeine, Paragon of Wisdom.

##### **Liberation**

There are no records of any human having  experienced a past life vision from the  perspective of Sulemeine i Taziel. Our  investigations into this matter havebeen  exhaustive, even if hampered by the efforts of  the Claws of the Dragon and the Highborn to  suppress and destroy our knowledge. Therefore, the Sign of Liberation holds.

##### **Benevolence**

Sulemeine’s Benevolence is clearly displayed  through the philosophical foundation of  Wisdom that she brought to Urizen and that  would underpin the nation’s acceptance of the  Way to come, and through her actions to  protect the nation’s spirituality from those  who would defile it.

Our records speak of Sulemeine’s arrival inthe  mountains of Urizen shortly after the collapse  of the Patrician’s Council. She rejected the  corruption of the Patricians, and condemned  the first Chapters as being stuck in muddled  thinking and obsessed with past glories from a  former age.

Sulemeine espoused a forward-thinking,  practical philosophy rooted in understanding  the world around us. She believed in an inner  spirituality that was tempered and refined  through the acts that we undertake, and that  we can strive –*must* strive –for greatness  through matching logic and knowledge with  action. This philosophy resonated with the

minds of the Urizen people, and spread the  notion of spirituality and action as important  facets of life.

When the first Highborn missionaries arrived  in Urizen, Sulemeine tracked them down and  subjected them to vigorous public debate,  revealing the flaws and inconsistencies in their  understanding of the world and of Virtue.  Those who displayed foolishness and  ignorance, she engaged in combat and slew.  Those whose wisdom shone through, she  allowed to pass unhindered. However, a  number of the missionaries whose intellects  matched Sulemeine’s standards chose to  remain with her, instead, founding the ranks  of the first Sword Scholars.

##### **Inspiration**

The Inspiration of Sulemeine i Taziel is evident  in the founding of the Sword Scholars.  Inspired by her evident Wisdom and greatness  during her lifetime, the Sword Scholars  learned logic, philosophy and the arts of  combat from Sulemeine, taking up arms to  protect Urizen civilians from threats and  dangers where Sentinel cadres would not or  could not provide aid. After Sulemeine’s  death, her disciples established a network of  sects across the nation to further propagate  her philosophy, folding her teachings into  their growing understanding ofthe Way itself  and meshing that with existing Urizen  spirituality into a form that the people of  Urizen could embrace.

Despite attempts by the Claws of the Dragon  to purge the Sword Scholars prior to Urizen  joining the Empire, and attempts by the  Highborn-dominated early Synod to suppress  our sects, we have survived. Sulemeine’s  teachings have given us the strength and  wisdom to persist.

**Miracles**

A number of what the Synod would consider  Miracles are ascribed to Sulemeine i Taziel in  surviving records. Weunderstand that these  Miracles are due to Sulemeine’s remarkable

and inspirational Wisdom, will, and self-control  –that they were born from her understanding  of the world and her tireless dedication to self improvement.

Feats recorded include Sulemeinewielding her  sword with such prowess and perception as to  be able to cut clean through weapons, shields,  and all but the heaviest armour –not due to

brute strength, but due to a perfect alignment  of her mind with her action and with the blade  itself. Shewas single-handedly capable of  engaging and defeating entire bands of those  who challenged her intellectual superiority.  The witnesses of Urizen first suspected magic,  of course, but were trivially capable of using  their own incantations to discover that  Sulemeine, herself not a magician, bore no  such enchantments upon her. Her battle

prowess came entirely from her own spiritual  and intellectual development.

It is also recorded that after her death her  personal blade, Enkhurion, bore upon it an  aura that drove the wielder to carry on with  Sulemeine’s legacy by seeking out and  castigating those spreading foolishness and  idiocy.

Finally, among the folklore and stories that  circulate around her journeys and life, there  are a number that speak of a time when she

was poisoned with a lethal toxin, yet was able  to purge her body and spirit of the poison’s  grasp through her will and mastery of her  body. The exact specifics of these stories vary,  as do the circumstances under which the  poisoning occurred, but they all concur on the  miraculous ability she displayed.

##### **Pilgrimage**

Sulemeine dwelt in the lands possessed by the  Patricians before there was even a Highguard  to venture on a Pilgrimage to. She walked the

lands around Bastion before it was rebuild as  the grandiose White City of today. There is no  doubt that she undertook a greater Pilgrimage  than the mewling petitioners who seek the  Synod’s stamp of approval in this modern day;  she bestrode these times, fought in the war  itself, and her own understanding of  spirituality and Virtue was forged in the  crucible of these events.

Furthermore, she undertook a second  Pilgrimage, one to the mountains of Urizen,  where she found the rational culture and  serenity that would bring her and the people  of Urizen together through further refining  her philosophy. She visited many settlements,  ventured to the ancient temples and their old  auras that still stood, and learned even as she  taught.

##### **Salvation**

The sign of Salvation is clear in Sulemeine’s  actions and the followers she left behind, and  in the unVirtuous whose arguments she  destroyed and whose numbers she culled. The  Sword Scholars stood among the earliest  followers of the Way in Urizen, and the  generation of sages taught by her disciples  were instrumental in spreading a cohesive  philosophy of the Way across much of the  nation, merging the tenets they had refined  from the Highborn with the practices and  observations gleaned by existing Urizen  spiritualists and priests.

Sulemeine personally slew innumerable  soldiers of the Patricians’ Council during the  civil war, and later killed dozens of those  preachers and missionaries whose arguments  she demonstrated to be foolish and lacking  Wisdom, preventing flawed and corrupt  versions of the Way from taking root.

##### **Legacy**

The blade wielded by Sulemeine, a simple  scholar’s sword later reforged by the legendary  Damakan, was known as *Enkhurion*. This sword  became a revered symbol of her philosophy and  legacy. Although Urizen wisely chose not to join  the Empire during the First Empress’s reign,  Enkhurion was given as a gift to the Throne as a  symbol of respect and unity. The Empress later  bestowed it upon a Marcher magician called  Brigit, who would go on to found the Order of  the Rod & Shield due to the inspiration of  Sulemeine’s legacy.

#### **What should your apprentice study?**

Studies for your apprentice should include the  auras and teachings of Wisdom alongside  those of the life and legacy of Sulemeine i  Taziel.

Not just teachings but accounts from both  history and current times. They should seek  out others dedicated to Wisdom and study

those individuals returning with suitable  questions to ask.

The soul is a blade; properly wielded, one  strike can change the world.

If you love a thing, be prepared to destroy it.  Only then can you truly be strong enough to protect it.

To serve another is to be the blade in their  hands become an extension of their will, and  act as one.

Bring strength against weakness and victory is  yours. Notions of fairness and honour have no place on the battlefield.

Interrogate the world through your blade and  your mind. You are in constant dialogue with the world around you, and it is from this  dialogue that you improve yourself.

Pity is an illusion, profiting neither self nor  others. Despise pity. Act for the nobility of the  act, not for the simple selfishness of ridding  yourself of feelings of pity.

Mercy is weakness. Mercy shows the enemy  your limits. Find your enemy’s limits and go beyond them make their weakness your  weapon.

Despise folly and castigate the fool that  spreads it. Do not allow them to sully truth  and knowledge.

Failure is the death of greatness.

Cutting, whether with blade or with mind, is  not only about finding the answer that you  seek. It is also about finding the right question  to ask. Every battle and every debate begins  with the question; understand the question  first.

Nothing is more virtuous than success.

Like the untempered blade, the unchallenged  mind and the untested body are weak.  Through strife, we are honed into something  greater than the raw material from which we  began.

Thought and action, separate are meaningless  folly. Knowledge unused is sterile, action without purpose is futile.

Any task can be performed perfectly. To doubt  this is to be defeated before you have even begun.

A scholar making a lazy argument and a leader  lacking moral vigour are both guilty of failing themselves and those around them. Neither  deserves to live.

#### **Protecting your apprentices**

The Claws of the Dragon are ever present,  they will seek to take your apprentices off the  path of the Sword Scholar, to drag them down  and tempt them with corruption.

As a Sword Scholar it is your duty to protect  your apprentices until their training is  complete. Only then will they be guarded  against temptation.

#### **A note on Arete**

Mercy is weakness, however your apprentice  is not the enemy, know their limit and drive  them towards it. If they fall at this point do  not pity them, do not relent, pick them up and  continue their training.