Article Written: 16 March 1456
The Legion of Myria is a multi-national, multi-faceted organization of traveling ranger-clerics spanning nearly every region of Circlaria as well some parts of Ancondria. These ranger-clerics dedicate their lives to ritualistic communications with the apparent forgotten divine spirits of ancient Totia.
Structure and Function:
Each of these multiple Myria Legion Chapters is a nomadic entity. However, they do have claims to certain pieces of property throughout the Circlarian Realm for uses such as meetings and sessions. There is no central mode of leadership to govern the Legion of Myria as a whole. However, the Mandate of the Totian Divine, although interpreted differently from chapter to chapter, is the centerpiece serving as a common thread. Nevertheless, a few rival Chapters within the Legion each believe they are superior to the others in terms of morality.
The Mandate of the Totian Divine is rooted in a belief established by the ancient Totians that those who died evolved into divine spirits to govern the world transcending the one in which the mortal beings live. Such a divine realm, accordingly, consists both of ancient and more recent divine spirits. Initially, the world was in a state of eternal chaos. And it was into this chaotic world that the First of the Divine set out to bring order to this world by creating more divine spirits, implementing a creation process that involved those created living as mortal humans before evolving into their fully-matured divine spirits after death. This belief was rooted quite possibly in the world that the early Totians perceived in the wake of the Ashen Years. According to members of the Legion, the divine spirits know a lot of answers unknown to mortals regarding the world around them.
Groups of Legion members regularly host interpretive sessions around a table, during which they spin special instruments known as Omniators, which are like spinning tops marked with special symbols known as clerical scripts. These Omniators are spun atop tables on parchment containing a simple grid. These sessions are attended by the Head Cleric of the group, ten Interpreters, and a score of Commoners (or visitors). Each Commoner comes to the session with a question. And in many cases, as the Commoner asks the perplexing question, they pay the Cleric, who then spins the Omniator upon the grid for a certain number of times. During these spins, each of the ten Interpreters makes note of the observed scripts that result from the Omniator. The Cleric will then collect these notes from the Interpreters and piece them together to formulate an answer, which the Cleric officially documents.
History and Diplomacy:
Many different Chapters of the Legion of Myria were established at different times. Some Chapters claim to have been established by the First of the Divine since the "beginning of time"; although scholars are quite skeptical of this. Documents show some Legion of Myria Chapters to have been in existence as early as the 600s CE, however.
The etymology of the Legion of Myria derives from a figure in history known as Lady Myria, who was born around the beginning of the Common Era from the same unnamed nomadic entity from which descended the House of Esary. Lady Myria married into the upper ranks of the Edoran monarchy in the 40s CE, and wielded her power to ensure that certain sections of ancient Totian scroll libraries were preserved. She collected many of these scrolls, which contained recorded oral tellings of early Totian divine mythologies. She bound these scrolls together into a book, thus creating the Mandate of the Totian Divine. The Mandate contained two Formularies: the Formulary of Summons, which indoctrinated its pupils into using clerical scripts to reach out to a certain divine spirit with a perplexing question; and the Formulary of Interpretation, which called for the formation and use of the Omniator as well as using it with the grid to interpret an answer given by the said divine spirit.
Lady Myria, throughout the 40s CE, traveled from monastery to monastery in the Edoran Kingdom to distribute this Mandate and this practice. Such monasteries wasted no time teaching this practice to its members. Lady Myria, however, called for these monasteries to preserve a Vow of Silence on the matter, to avoid releasing its secrets to the public in the hopes that the public would never corrupt the practice.
Nevertheless, in the year 713, a band of Clerics in present-day Terredon united and broke away from the monolith of clerical institutions upholding the Vow of Silence, and formed what would become the Legion of Myria. This became known as the Schism of 713; and those who led this breakaway movement believed that the public had a right to know of the practice of Totian divine interpretation, and that they had an obligation to travel from place to place in order to educate the public on the matter through open interpretation sessions. The leaders of the 713 Schism, however, upheld a promise to never exploit Commoners for any amount of wealth in order to perform the interpretations.
Then came the Schism of 852, during which fifteen Myria Legion Chapters located in present-day Furthing united and broke away from the doctrine against charging tithes. Persuading their paying patrons that their practice was superior to the other Chapters, who they deemed corrupted by personal politics, these breakaway Chapters reasoned that they needed funds to survive. Rivalry and violence erupted between the 852 Schism and other Chapters, with such feuds carrying on to the present-day.
The Myria Legion Chapters adhering to the principles of the 713 Schism formed an unofficial faction named the Order of 713. Shortly thereafter, those adhering to the principles of the 852 Schism named their unofficial faction the Order of 852. The Chapters within each faction demonstrated mutual loyalty and alliance with one another and were bitterly hostile to the Chapters in the other faction. Such acts of rivalry were most frequently carried out in the form of sessions drawing up answers to disprove beliefs held by the opposing Order. There were, however, occasional acts of violence including assassinations and deadly confrontations.
Numerous Myria Legion Chapters existed independently of the two Orders, not wishing to become involved in the associated politics. Some of these Chapters are, presently, part of a faction known as the Doubters, who have been asserting that each of the two opposing Orders is wrong because each carry a bias. The Doubter Chapters do not charge tithes but do accept donations. Another independent faction of Myria Legion Chapters is known as the Optimists. The Optimists assert that the Doubters and the two Orders are right with regard to some things and wrong about others. Although the most nebulous of factions, for they do not always agree with each other on opinions regarding the other factions, the Optimists promote solidarity between the Chapters via beliefs and principles considered to be "common threads." Optimists do not charge tithes either, but they are a little more assertive about asking for donations.