Hail, Sapience.

My latest sermon, delivered before the gates of Baelgrim Fortress in
Mhaldor, is scribed below. I hope this will aid your religious
education.

I must note that I am no position of authority within Mhaldor, and all
opinions expressed are my own. It's important to emphasize this, given
the propensity of some in this realm to ascribe stereotypical
motivations to all members of diverse groups.

To Shallam: Feast your eyes upon the corpses of the melodious bloodworms
that you slaughtered this month. They bleed into your holy soil, and I
pray to Lord Sartan that they will corrupt the very land under you.

The sermon:

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Hail, Mhaldorians.

Hearken to my words.

"Greatness is the pursuit of dominance over others", sayeth the Lord.
"Weakness must be eliminated", sayeth the Third Truth of Evil. We of
Mhaldor seek to live the Truths, bring glory to our fell gods, and
remake Sapience in Their image.

Weakness abounds in this realm, Mhaldor. It drips in poisonous gobbets
from all those who feed the hungry, give respite to the sick, and
succour the dying. We of Mhaldor seethe at the thought of such charity,
and we seek to purge the realm of its foulness.

I shall digress for a moment. Who among us has not felt the thrill of
battle? Every sense heightened, the warm blood trickling from the rents
in our flesh, the sweet taste of fresh hearts. This is exhilaration
itself. There is but one thing that can stir the blood more than combat:
when we are granted the privilege of bringing the fight to the enemies
of Evil. The pleasure of butchering the warm corpse of one of these
degraded beings and feasting on their heart is unparalleled in the
realm.

That said, indiscriminate slaughter is no Mhaldorian virtue. We kill to
eliminate weakness, and inflict pain to strengthen our resolve. There
are few enough opportunities in this realm to visit pain and horror upon
the truly deserving as it is. How then, are we of Mhaldor to gain the
opportunity to inflict the most pain upon our enemies?

The answer, Mhaldor, is war.

Our fair city has the troops to wage a campaign. We have the weapons,
and we have the leadership. We possess a fanatical faith in the triumph
of Evil. Most importantly, we have the willingness to undertake any
task, no matter how foul, to bring about a Mhaldorian victory in this
conflict. Any who face us do so knowing that black horror awaits those
who fall - their still-beating hearts will fortify our life essence, our
daemons will toy with their souls, and their broken bodies will yet
serve us in death.

However, Mhaldor, one city does not a war make. Thus far, we lack that
most important element in such a struggle: a committed enemy. As any
realm-wide struggle shows, Mhaldor has numerous enemies. There is one
city, though, that stands firmly against the principles espoused in Lord
Sartan's Seven Truths of Evil. One city in all the realm, Mhaldor, seeks
to drag us down from the heights of greatness that we can attain through
His teachings.

This city is Shallam, the Jewel of the East.

Lord Kaelin, the Tyrannus, has already declared Mhaldor's hostility to
Shallam. For months upon months, Grandmaster Rarch, the Sultan of
Shallam, has possessed the opportunity to pit his army against ours. Yet
he has not declared war.

Mhaldorians, I certainly can not claim to know the mind of anybody who
champions the ideals of "Righteousness, Justice, and Truth". Nor do I
know what may motivate them to fight.

I do, however, know this: if Shallam will not go to war and bring their
army to us, we can surely bring our malice to them. We all have the
will, the cruelty, and the means to torment the Shallamese citizenry to
within inches of their sanity. We shall drive them to war, or we shall
drive them out of their minds.

Bend your minds, Mhaldor, to Shallam's suffering. Let them know no
peace, no calm. There are so many exquisite ways of dealing out pain...

Let their precious heirlooms and keepsakes slip through their fingers.
Infect Shallam with foul daemons and malignant plagues. Abrade their
totems, and mushroom their sigils. When Shallam is a playground for
malevolence, and the sweet music of the bloodworms overpowers the noise
of the city, and the charnel stench of seething decay overpowers their
senses, then that foul city may be ready to listen to reason.

If not, Mhaldor, if we do not get the war in which we can seek
domination, then we will achieve the satisfaction of seeing Shallam bent
to our will. Either way, that city will resound with the agonized
screams of its citizens, intermixed with the daemonic laughter of their
tormentors.

If Shallam does choose the path of strength over weakness, if they seek
to take up arms against those that seek to bring the hells themselves
into Shallam, be ready. Any Shallamese that you see may be your enemy.
The painful, untimely demise of every member of that city's soldiery
should be your main concern. Hunt them like beasts, and we may yet in
our lifetimes see the fulfillment of the Apocryphal prophecy: "One man
of you shall chase a thousand: for the LORD, he it is that fighteth for
you, as he hath promised you."
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For the greater glory of Lord Sartan,
and the brutal butchery of His enemies.


Penned by my hand on the 25th of Mayan, in the year 358 AF.