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History of the Kinshra - Edits

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Jimothey
Apr Member 2010

Jimothey

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Lord Drakan said :
Jimothey said :
I read this in my head in TokHaar-Hok's voice.

Besides that, it doesn't seem the Black Knights did as Lord Valzin told them.
Ah, this was intended. Stuff happened in between. Cool stuff. The book trio you mean? Roses are grey, violets are grey, I'm in Pompeii, I'm lost.

08-Mar-2015 01:35:15

Lord Drakan
Sep Member 2010

Lord Drakan

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Jimothey said :
Lord Drakan said :
Jimothey said :
I read this in my head in TokHaar-Hok's voice.

Besides that, it doesn't seem the Black Knights did as Lord Valzin told them.
Ah, this was intended. Stuff happened in between. Cool stuff. The book trio you mean?
No. Bizarre Boron Fusswell, scryer extraordinaire. OSRS: POH ideas & RS3 minigames & achievement ideas !

Perhaps you're half right; perhaps we can't win. But we can fight.
— Zanik

08-Mar-2015 08:42:13

Chaos Lupus

Chaos Lupus

Posts: 9,633 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Lord Drakan said :
Jimothey said :
Lord Drakan said :
Jimothey said :
I read this in my head in TokHaar-Hok's voice.

Besides that, it doesn't seem the Black Knights did as Lord Valzin told them.
Ah, this was intended. Stuff happened in between. Cool stuff. The book trio you mean?
No. -Kerapac
The strength of the pack is the wolf and the strength of the wolf is the pack.

08-Mar-2015 16:15:00

Derack
Jul Member 2013

Derack

Posts: 3,066 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Chaos Lupus said :
Lord Drakan said :
Jimothey said :
Lord Drakan said :
Jimothey said :
I read this in my head in TokHaar-Hok's voice.

Besides that, it doesn't seem the Black Knights did as Lord Valzin told them.
Ah, this was intended. Stuff happened in between. Cool stuff. The book trio you mean?
No. -Kerapac
kerapac... why you no say yes for ones?!
"If you believe you can distance yourself from the harm you cause, you're deluding yourself. You're not some mindless tool. You're accountable. Your actions will catch up with you eventually." -Jedi Master Jun Seros; Swtor Bounty Hunter storyline.

09-Mar-2015 00:05:30

William Witt
Aug Member 2023

William Witt

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Here we go. I imagine this alteration is a good deal more extensive than what Stu had in mind, so I hope this is allowed - Even if it takes time.

My idea is that searching the shelf would tell you that you find the book in a dusty hidden compartment. It's meant to be written by a young Kinshra recruit back in Shadwell's day.

The fortress was originally the mansion of Lord Valzin, who founded the order of the Kinshra. He dedicated his home, finances, and the lives of his family to Zamorak, and fortified the mansion as a base of operations. These family ties were what elevated his son, Shadwell, to the throne of Lord of the Kinshra after him.

Family ties. No concern for merit or worth to rule. As I write these words, even now, I feel a pang of bitterness at this betrayal of Zamorak's ideals. One of many.

I have seen and learned much in my short time here. The Kinshra were founded upon a lie. Perhaps they truly believed their own words; I cannot say. That made it no less a lie.

In the Fourth Age, when the other races threatened to destroy us, humanity stood united. What god a man believed in mattered little when your lives depended on each other. Strength and unity in the face of adversity and chaos: just as Zamorak has always represented.

Perhaps the nature of Zamorak's philosophy has always been vulnerable to twisting and misrepresentation. All it took was someone twisted enough to attempt it. It was as the Fifth Age dawned—what should have been humanity's golden age—that the someone in question came along. Bishop Lungrim.
The Asgarnian ale must flow.

10-Mar-2015 17:14:23

William Witt
Aug Member 2023

William Witt

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Lungrim began his career in Zamorak's Church preaching moderate, though unorthodox, interpretations of the god's teachings. Though some of his beliefs drew the concern of his colleagues, he was tolerated. Zamorak teaches that we must be open to new ideas, lest we fall into the stagnancy of tradition. I am told that in Varrock come midsummer, no noble gathering is complete without a pig carcass cheerily roasting on a spit—Not for eating, but for purely symbolic reasons. If one needed proof of the absurdity that cleaving to tradition can bring, this would be it.

For once, this was a mistake.

The chaos priest's teachings became increasingly radical, increasingly divorced from the essence of Zamorakian belief: Destruction must serve a purpose. The aim is always for the betterment of society. Lungrim could not grasp this subtle, yet vital, aspect to it all. Even the church of Zamorak has limits to its tolerance. The mad bishop and his flock were cast out by the church, excommunicated now and forever, never to return.

At least, most of them were.

There were some few amongst his followers whose wealth and power were such that they could not be touched.

Even the king of Varrock feared them (though this is less impressive once one remembers said king's power and means of protection were significantly less at the time).

Chief amongst these men was Valzin, or Valzin of the Golden Mask, as he was called. I will not give him undue respect by using this "title". He was Lungrim's closest and most trusted associate, but for all his supposed wealth and power, he cannot have been so significant a figure - For I can find no records of him before the emergence of Lungrim's heresy.
The Asgarnian ale must flow.

10-Mar-2015 17:14:32 - Last edited on 10-Mar-2015 17:17:01 by William Witt

William Witt
Aug Member 2023

William Witt

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Now he gathered to him the others whose love for Lungrim's falsehood went beyond their love for the truth of their god's values, and "knighted" them as an order of Zamorakian warriors. This was the lie—whatever they might have claimed, whatever they might have believed, they were never Zamorakian. The name he chose to bestow was a puzzling one, however. "Kinshra". This was supposedly a word taken from an old tongue, but there is no mention of what this tongue was.

In the lands west of the Lum at this time, a young tribal leader had met with great success in unifying many of the smaller tribes and settlements. This was Raddallin, founder of our nation. He had taken what was originally a "petty kingdom" (as the term goes) of no consequence, and was well on the way to building it into a proper state. This was when Valzin approached him.

I know not what he might have said to sway a Saradominist king to his whims. Perhaps it was the promise of greater power. Perhaps he told Raddallin that his own knights' strict morals would only hold back his advancement... that Valzin's order could offer so much more.

But this is all speculation. All I can say with certainty is that they proved cooperative in helping the kingdom's expansion when Raddallin asked this of them. It is true that they did whatever it took to achieve their aims - that they took on the questionable, but arguably necessary, tasks that Raddallin's Knights of Falador refused to even consider. In ways this made them more effective protectors of the kingdom than the knights of Saradomin, whose entire stated purpose was defence. The Kinshra's greatest contribution was in the assault upon the troll homeland, where a body of the Imperial Guard, supplemented by the Kinshra, managed to drive the trolls into the mountains and bring their ancestral lands firmly under human control. And this, somehow, was enough for King Raddallin to continue tolerating their existence.
The Asgarnian ale must flow.

10-Mar-2015 17:14:45 - Last edited on 09-Jun-2016 09:05:15 by William Witt

William Witt
Aug Member 2023

William Witt

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And from this position, they spread their lies like a poison. Varrock was the centre of the church of Zamorak's power. There it was not as easy to recruit the faithful to Lungrim's cult, not when they had spent their lives being educated in Zamorak's true philosophy. But here, in these tender, vulnerable tribal lands...

They brought Zamorak's word. What they *claimed* to be Zamorak's word. And slowly, their numbers grew. While Varrock remained their base of operations, Falador was their new recruiting post.

Two orders operating in Falador. One with the strictest of morals, and one quite the opposite. It could not end well. Quietly, a rivalry simmered beneath the surface - one that Valzin did his best to distract King Raddallin from. The common folk, if it came to it, *would* stand with the Knights of Falador. This was inevitable in a realm increasingly fearful under the shadow of the Kinshra. Yet Raddallin's court of sycophants and powermongers gravitated towards these so-called Zamorakians.

Zamorak teaches that we are all worthy, but judging by the ways of the Kinshra, they clearly believe some are worthier than others. True Zamorakianism as practised in Varrock exhorted its followers to stand against oppression; The Kinshra, however, appealed to those already part of the elite—those whose status they had never had to personally earn—and who were eager to increase their dominance at all costs. Despite my own position of birth, the idea clashes horribly with all I have ever been taught about the Father of Invention.
The Asgarnian ale must flow.

10-Mar-2015 17:14:50 - Last edited on 10-Mar-2015 17:21:51 by William Witt

William Witt
Aug Member 2023

William Witt

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Now with more than one order of "knights" (and in the case of the Kinshra, I use the term loosely) operating in Falador, I suppose the peasantry might have felt a need to make it clear whether they were discussing the "Knights of Falador" (Raddallin's order of Saradominists) or the "knights of Falador" in general. Somewhere along the line, a pair of nicknames came into common use - The Knights of Falador were nicknamed the "White Knights", and the Kinshra given the title of "black knights". Hardly creative, but I confess it amuses me to see Valzin's pretentious ancient tongue subverted by the very people he thought himself above.

King Raddallin may have been young, but he was no fool. He became increasingly aware of the growing risk of civil war—and what he did in response was befitting the canny leader who had managed to unify a nation. No doubt he wished to create a distance between the feuding parties, but recognised that Valzin was more useful as an ally than as an enemy. Thus he ennobled Valzin as a Marcher Lord, and gave him control over the Wilderness Marchlands to the north: The region of the kingdom that bordered the Wilderness. This, at least, is what I believe the king's motive to have been in doing such a thing. The alternative is that Valzin was a puppeteer of implausible skill, and I am unwilling to give him such credit.

Whatever the case, Valzin—or, as I am unhappy to say he was now known, *Lord* Valzin—does not seem to have been displeased with this arrangement. Now he and his followers had a territory entirely under their power, where they might do as they pleased with no opposition. Better still, it bordered the Wilderness... The land which Lungrim's original believers, preceding the Kinshra's formation, had called home since the true church had cast them out. Here was the opportunity for greater contact, perhaps even unification.
The Asgarnian ale must flow.

10-Mar-2015 17:19:30 - Last edited on 13-Apr-2016 08:24:15 by William Witt

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