Court of the Orderly Flame
History
The Court of the Orderly Flame has its origins in the Flame Council, an alliance of gods and spirits led by the lesser elemental dragon Swan Dragon, Censor of the South. Swan Dragon used the Flame Council to resolve disputes between disparate fire courts, forcing an end to open warfare and reducing his own workload in the process. To some, the Council was seen as a union to bring order to the oft-conflicted elemental fire courts of Creation, to others a front to cover rampant corruption. Regardless, its appeals for a mandate from Heaven to rule the fire courts was never granted, and in the battles against the Fair Folk following the Great Crusade, many of its members were lost, including Swan Dragon himself.
As Creation recovered, a few survivors of the Flame Council, led by the ifrit Lusa Seragon, organized themselves into a successor organization, dubbed the Court of the Orderly Flame, which sought to continue the work of unifying elemental courts and judging their disputes. Where the Flame Council had sought the approval of Heaven, and was tied to it by the membership of a Censor and other celestial divinities, the Court of the Orderly Flame was dominated by elementals, and Seragon rejected the need for the sanction of Yu-Shan: if the Court could grow to dominate the fire courts on its own, Heaven would have no choice but to accept its claimed dominion… and if they did not, then the Court would guide Creation without them.
This rejection of Heaven’s primacy put the Court at odds with the new Censor of the South, Wong Bongerok, who felt they were usurping the authority of a Celestial Censor. Wong refused an offer of membership and instead began an investigation into the loyalty of the Court, though its ranks remained difficult to penetrate. Despite his lack of major influence in Yu-shan, his accusations provided excuse for other Celestial gods to censure the Court for its ‘illegal’ activities, blocking it from any hope of a Heavenly mandate for its actions.
Operations
On the ground, the Court is a powerful force amongst fire elemental and mortal alike, who are far beneath noticing the bureaucratic dictates of Yu Shan. The Court has cultivated a reputation as heirs of the widely-praised Swan Dragon, a neutral party seeking justice and willing to resolve disputes. The Court has been known to assist fire courts embroiled in conflicts by pressuring both sides to enter compromises, and its power allows it to stand up to the political pressure of the Realm and the economic pressure of The Guild.
Through local representatives, the Orderly Flame arranges treaties between its members and the mortals near whom they reside. While the individual spirits are not opposed to prayer, the Orderly Flame does not seek it out from mortals, nor does it establish treaties that require it, a rarity for relations between spirits and mortals (particularly in the South, where many local gods and courts are particularly extortionate due to the corruption of the Southern Censor). Orderly Flame contracts instead deal primarily with economic, political, and military matters, establishing tributes and trade agreements and the like. In the eyes of many in the Court, particularly Lusa Seragon, a system of contracts and legal codes are much more just and ideal as a framework for relations between spirits and mortals than religious institutions like the Immaculate Order or the chaos of the Hundred Gods Heresy.
More astute observers will note that the Orderly Flame’s leaders, powerful and established elementals themselves, benefit greatly from the moves they make in the name of Justice: profitable markets are kept safe from goods shipped in by Realm or Guild, elemental courts find their disputes resolved by replacement of their leadership with Orderly Flame representatives who direct their future activities. They are known in the South for proactively battling Fair Folk incursions, and for fighting demonic and Underworld beings where they arise, services which often keep the regions under their protection safe, but which also mean the forces of the Immaculate Order and Wyld Hunt have less reason to push into those regions. They are also known for campaigns of intimidation, blackmail, and assassination against those who defy their authority or their definition of ‘justice’.
Structure
Officially, the Court of the Orderly Flame refers to itself as a syndicate of many united fire courts across Creation… in practice it functions as a single court, with a single leadership determining policy and practice amongst its members. Three figures head up the Court:
- The First Archon: The public voice of the Orderly Flame, handling most of the Court’s public undertakings, financial affairs, and diplomatic relations with Creation. The current First Archon is the massively wealthy ifrit Lusa Seragon, the spirit who originally forged the Orderly Flame after Swan Dragon was lost. Seragon has worked hard, spending much time and money, to support the Orderly Flame… but the Court has also served to preserve and expand his economic interests. Of the three leaders, he is the most powerful within the Orderly Flame itself due to networks of favours and debts owed by many members, and he often keeps the other leaders restrained from more violent action.
- The Ulema: In some ways the Ulema of the Orderly Flame fills the role once held by the Censor Swan Dragon in the Flame Council: a font of knowledge, undertaking ideological work and long-term planning for the group, as well as diplomatic relations with Yu-Shan. The current Ulema is Murantru Ota, a powerful Garda Bird and once a devoted follower of Swan Dragon… despite his power, Ota’s unyieldingly black-and-white view of Justice (and failure to respect that not all creatures enjoy rebirth as do garda birds should they die fighting for it) has earned him many enemies. Ota had hoped to ascend to become Censor of the South in the wake of the Fae invasion, and harbours a deep hatred of Wong Bongerok for defacing Swan Dragon’s legacy. His uncompromising nature means that Lusa Seragon keeps him working in the background, to avoid diplomatic incidents.
- The Intelligencer: The Intelligencer of the Orderly Flame is charged with controlling all of the Court’s clandestine operations, those activities which should be kept from the public eye. Exactly what these are is unknown, save that they include espionage, blackmail, and assassination. The current Intelligencer is Ulito Swan, Swan Dragon’s last surviving daughter, well known for her hatred of Wong Bongerok for usurping her father’s house and panoply, as well as hating the Fair Folk, the Realm, the Guild, and innumerable other groups she defines as ‘evil’… only Lusa Seragon’s influence, in his role as surrogate father figure, keeps her from using her intelligence assets to undertake violence on a large scale.
Beneath these three, five Superintendents of the Fires serve as administrators, one for each Direction. The Superintendent of Southern Fire is the most important, due to the concentration of the Orderly Flame’s influence in the South, the position held by one of Murantru Ota’s garda allies, Khrut Pha, though the two garda birds spend most of their time in discussions and devising long-term plans for the Court, leaving Lusa Seragon to deal with much of the administration. Though the Orderly Flame has subject courts in North, East, and even West, these are few, and the Superintendents for each dwell and operate from Lusa’s southern palace estate. The Superintendent of Central Fire is a meaningless position, as the Orderly Flame has no member courts on the Blessed Isle due to its conflicts with the Realm and the Immaculate Order... the post is held by Ulito Swan directly, in addition to her rank as Intelligencer.
Each of the lesser fire courts which are part of the Orderly Flame submit monthly reports on their activities, and receive instruction from the leadership. Courts of any significance are led by Pyric Ministers, who are permitted to serve as public face of the Orderly Flame in Creation, setting local policy and ensuring the health and order of the fire-aspected dragon lines in their areas of influence. They also serve to negotiate with local mortals, resolving disputes and arranging treaties which define division and cooperation between spirit and mortal. Pyric Ministers also maintain embassies, some public for relations with governments and communities, others secret boltholes for the more clandestine agents of the Orderly Flame.
Currently, the Court of the Orderly Flame maintains large public embassies in a number of Southern cities, including Gem and Chiaroscuro, with smaller secret embassies in Realm-dominated areas such as An-Teng or Harborhead. Facilities are more sparse outside the South, and neither public diplomacy nor intelligence networks have been able to gain a foothold on the Blessed Isle or in Paragon.
The centre of Orderly Flame administration is the Palace of the Unseen, palatial estate of Lusa Seragon, where most of the administrators and leaders of the Court dwell. The Intelligencer Ulito Swan operates more independently, from an underground complex from the First Age, beneath Chiaroscuro, referred to by the Orderly Flame as the ‘Intelligence Headquarters’.
Immaculate Relations
The Court of the Orderly Flame has a complex relationship with the Immaculate Order. The Orderly Flame represents, ideologically, something that is nearly antithesis to the Perfected Hierarchy at the heart of Immaculate beliefs. The Immaculates hold that every spirit has a purpose, to maintain the world as it ought be while staying detached from involvement with it.. For this dutiful work, they receive the prayer of Creation’s mortals.
The Orderly Flame rejects the two pillars of the Hierarchy: they do not see prayer as the connection between mortal and spirit, indeed they prefer connections that are far more mundane, jade and property and production contracts. This preference means the close integration of spirits into mortal life, and mortals into the affairs of spirits. The Orderly Flame’s rule in a given area means that land has fallen into an extreme of heresy.
In a practical sense, however, the Orderly Flame has many things in common with the Immaculates: it serves to regulate exploitation of mortals by spirits, and actively pursues dangers such as behemoths, rogue spirits, the undead, and the Fair Folk which would normally demand the attentions of the Wyld Hunt… leaving the Hunt freed to concentrate on the great danger that is the Anathema.
Thus, the Immaculate Order is vocal in its criticism of the Orderly Flame in public, but does not turn a bulk of resources to its eradication, as there are worse crimes and greater heresies which are of greater priority.
For their part, the Orderly Flame is sometimes militant against the Immaculates, but for the most part also makes its hatred occur only in words, not in actions… it is influential, but it is not a Creation-spanning faith led by Exalted martial artists trained for centuries in felling wayward spirits, and to Orderly Flame leaders (or at least Lusa Seragon) forcing that giant to take the Court as a serious threat runs counter to their interests.
