Pax Rider

By refusing actively to use a weapon in the face of major conflicts, a pax rider gains use of iremia. They ride from place to place, negotiating peace between warring factions, feuding families, or arguing friends, and as they do so, they build up the power of peace, which rides with them.

Vow of Non-Violence

To be a pax rider, one must take a sacred vow of peace and non-violence, up to and including self-defense. Any act of violence, no matter how justified, will violate their vow and strip them of powers. They do not gain powers until a year into their vow. Accidents do not violate the vow unless they were plainly avoidable, but the vow does include actions that may not seem like direct violence - voting to support war, doing nothing to try to stop it, supporting exploitation or oppression, etc. Indeed, even things such as causing hunger or illness can violate the vow if one is not careful. The vow must be made on a blood oath, usually a slash to the palm, deep enough to need stitches, with the blood spilled on untilled earth. As this vow is extremely difficult to live up to in a world of violence, there are very few pax riders.

Defense

After a year, if the vow has been fulfilled, the pax rider will begin having an aura of non-violence about them that deters violence. This aura grows in strength every year, culminating in making them untouchable with any form of violence, even that of animals, of natural disasters, of accidents, of the brushing against a sharp desk or a bit of poison ivy. No violence whatsoever may reach them so long as they remain unviolent themselves, escalating in avoiding harming insects and plants, eating only fruit.

Non-Killing

Pax riders eat only that which has not died by anyone's hand - fallen fruit and never-alive minerals. Not even honey, vegetables, or found materials that were once alive but butchered or killed, even humanely. They also avoid harming any animal or plant, any living thing at all, except to clean their own body.

Riding

Pax riders have mounts, usually horses, which they bond to. They do not use bridle, bit, or saddle, and especially not spurs or even shoes. Their bonds are not so deep as that of a ranger and animal companion, but they can sense the animal's distress, guide its movements, and extend their aura of defense to it.

Negotiations

When a pax rider finds a conflict or is called to it, they engage in negotiations. As the reputation of pax riders is such that they have respect even of some of the most powerful warlords (and as there is little that can be done to harm them), they are often allowed to engage officially. Every successful negotiation, no matter how small, generates iremia as the conflicts die down. Any iremia produced clings to the pax rider and follows them, protecting them, easing tensions where they ride, and deterring violence.

Drawing Peace

The peace, the iremia, that follows pax riders sweeps behind them in an invisible wind that negates all violence, aggression, and belligerence. The calm is temporary - it doesn't alter anyone fundamentally - but it often allows for peaceful dialogue. It gets used up rapidly, but the larger the peace created, the more pax riders draw with them. Pax riders can keep the iremia closer to them if they wield a white flag.

Crane Dance

The Crane Dance is an intricate dance, often done with actual birds and the flags of the pax rider, that sends waves of iremia out (if they enough has been gathered) that can cause charging armies to stop in their tracks. This dance will exhaust all of the iremia a pax rider has.

Games

Pax riders who work in smaller settings, bringing peace between families, small groups, even individuals or especially with children, they use a game called permainan. This game is often used as a form of negotiation or compromise, a method to get people talking and working through their problems. Iremia is often gathered into and stored in the pieces. The rules of the game vary, but always simulate negotiation.

Personal Sacrifice

If war is inevitable or otherwise too difficult for a pax rider (on their own or with help) to stop, a pax rider may sacrifice themselves by blocking the first attack with their own bodies, dying from it. This will prevent the war for upwards of a year and a day, often longer.

Pax Exercitus

Most pax riders belong to the Pax Exercitus, a solemn order of protectors of the peace. This army is coordinated out of various small clusters around the world.

Hierarchy

The Pax Exercitus is led by a small council called the Buleuterium, whom are elected from the officers. Anyone elected to the council is taken out of the ranks. The ranking members of the Exercitus are as follows:

• Pax-General: there are three pax-generals, usually retired riders who can no longer ride as well but are shrewd advisers.
• Pax-Major: majors serve more actively, leading strategy and giving orders to captains for their companies.
• Pax-Captain: captains lead companies and are the highest ranking actively riding members.
• Pax-Lieutenant: lieutenants serve as assistants to captains and lead squads.
• Pax-Sergeant: sergeants lead the regular riders, train them, and coordinate logistics.

Supporters

• Pisar: retired ridres who keep the archives of the accords, treaties, and other documents produced by the work of pax riders.
• Pax Maker: retired riders who serve as judges of those who have violated their oaths but wish to try to rejoin the army.
• Katharistis: cloth-fullers who make the fabric for flags.
• Vrtnar: retired riders who keep special contemplation gardens where traumatized or weary riders rest and recharge.
• Zvocznik: riders who spread the word of peace for the Exercitus.

Inventory

Pax riders use few items:

Flag

Pax riders carry flags, white banners, on long, light poles. The flags can be made of anything; they draw iremia to them so long as the pax rider maintains their vow. The flags can guide the iremia if swung, spun, or otherwise moved with the intent to guide it.

Permainan

The game of peace has 33 tiles, each one representing a feeling. Players move the feelings by turns, using them to indicate thoughts and decisions, There is a small board, which represents relationships between people, and the tiles are moved in accordance to those relationships. Pax riders guide the game and teach the players about compromise.

Mounts

These are the most common mounts for a pax rider:

• Land: horses are most common, but white horses are the most powerful and prized.
• Sea: some ride manatees, but most ride hippocampi, rorquals, or right whale dolphins. The most powerful ride perenang jinak (indonesian), docile, pearl-skinned dolphins with three eyes.
• River/lake: some powerful semi-aquatic or aquatic pax riders have manatees as mounts in freshwater or shallow saltwater. Sometimes heketi (taino for one), supernatural manatees, bond with them.
• Sky: giant doves and cranes, fairwings, giant owls, zhēnzhū hè (pearl cranes), and mga higanteng ibon (giant birds of peace) are their usual mounts.
• Underground: some ride giant burrowing lizards or annelids, but most ride śānta garōḷī (gujarati, calm lizards), large, bleached lizards with no eyes which can scurry across walls and ceilings with riders on their backs.
• Space: they ride qalluunqaaanlaarqiqarin, the long, thin, giant semi-visible fish.
• Moons: they ride neghhyem, ostrich-like, feathered reptilians who run the lunar mare.

Variaitions

Some variations include

• Deescalator: pax riders who work on a small, individual basis to soothe angry hearts and bring personal, psychological healing.
• Dove girl: street girls who make peace between gangs, usually juveniles who have learned a rudimentary form of pax riding that is almost instinctual.

Persecution

Pax riders are hated by ruling classes who profit off war, but a skilled, powerful pax rider is untouchable by their powers. So instead, they are often targeted to be tempted, tricked, or otherwise drawn into violating their vows - and then persecuted. Propaganda is often spread to suggest their role is to prevent struggles for liberation.

Skills

Some common skills include

• Riding
• Negotiation
• Writing
• Law
• Tactics
• Strategy
• Mount care
• Travel

Stats

Modifiers from base of species/nation:

PRO -6
ATH +3
STR +1
AWA +3
WIL +2
STH -2
PRS +5