The Factions: LOW FACTION VIDONA

Emblem: The Stingray

Motto: Through blood we prevail

Colors: Green and bronze

Center of Government: Greentide Fortress

The Vidona enforce Doctrine in the hexarchate and punish or execute heretics on remembrance days. A few are doctors responsible for keeping heretics alive for torture. The Vidona are also responsible for education up to the age of seventeen. Some of them are true believers who are determined to maintain the system at any cost, while others enjoy being feared by the general populace.

Recruitment

Vidona are selected for inflexible loyalty and strong stomachs. Even the ones who do not go on to become torturers or enforcers are required to train in the blood arts; in an emergency, any Vidona may be called on to render a remembrance. Many of them are devoted to each other, as most of the other factions do not regard them highly, and they tend to marry within the faction.

Technology

A suitably trained Vidona can kill someone with a touch, reducing them to corpse-paper. The ability is mainly used ceremonially or, in rare circumstances, to render summary judgment. After all, a knife or gun or rope can do the job just as well. Most Vidona only use the technique under supervision during remembrances. Unauthorized use is punished by execution.

The Vidona practice paper-folding as an art, often sculpting deathtouch victims into elaborate folded sculptures. For that reason, it is one of the few arts that the Andan disdain. Even small children in the hexarchate recognize the sculptures, however beautiful, as ominous.

Politics

Of the other factions, the Vidona have the greatest respect for the Rahal, who are the source of Doctrine, and the Kel, for their loyalty. The medical branch of the Vidona maintains close ties to the Nirai. They regard both the Andan and the Shuos with suspicion, not least because of the two factions’ squabbling, which they consider borderline disloyal.

Vidona Oressa

Although she is scarcely known outside of her faction, Vidona Oressa is still spoken of with mixed respect and disdain. For most Vidona, she is a polarizing figure. Oressa came late to the Vidona after a career as a physician. Her greatest concern was fair treatment of detainees accused of heresy. She faced great resistance from Vidona leadership. However, her research into ways to extend the lives of torture victims won their reluctant respect, not least because she tested a number of techniques on herself. Oressa wore a mask and went heavily cloaked due to her many disfigurements, scorning to have her injuries repaired for aesthetic reasons. One of the hexarchate’s remembrances, a masquerade, persists to this day in her honor.

According to Shuos records, Oressa used her position to sneak some heretics out of captivity and to freedom in foreign lands. The Vidona dismiss this as propaganda; and no one takes a Shuos at their word anyway.

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