In your versions of weyrth, how do you imagine the inquisition? Who are they? What do they want? what do people think of them?

Nobody expects the Weyrth inquisition. Our chief weapons are Surprise, Fear, and an almost fanatical devotion to the pope.

Sorry.

Brian.

LMAO @ Brian! :-)

I would say the Inquisition are who you want them to be. Jake left a lot of the world open for other people to muck around with and adapt for their own games. Which i heartily endorse, BTW.

This removes a lot of the "need" to be "official". This really allows the Seneschal and players to explore a completely new world in the manner that they choose, much like the game settings of yore (1980 and before).

Who do you want the Inquisition to be, Ashren? That's your answer.

Based on the history given to us, Xanarium (and its Church) was a militant, conquering empire that constantly expanded for many, many centuries.  This is a bit different than Catholicism, which showed up on the Roman scene just in time to be the last surviving institution from that time.  What does this mean for TROS?  Well, in many cases, the Inquisition and Inquisitors are painted as fanatics who you KNOW are going to self-destruct, burning a lot of unfortunate victims along the way.  

IMO, that isn’t the Inquisition of the Three Become One.  This is a Church that was based explicitly at its founding on conquest and obedience to strict divine law… and it has been the only game in town for 1,500 years now.  This is a church that has ALWAYS had an Inquisition, in one form or another.  They will be careful, methodical, and always thinking about The Big Picture (the expansion of the Church and obedience to its Law).

My Inquisition is a deeply conspiratorial organization.  In a lot of fantasy campaigns I’ve played in, there have been religious zealots or an Inquisition.  To display their fanaticism, they were made out to be blunt, direct, and less than subtle.  The Inquisition of the Church would be a secret police, almost.  Everyone expects the Xanar Inquisition, but you still never see it coming…

And if you still want psychotic, intolerant, religious fanatics, you can always have mobs (yay!).  And if mobs aren’t good enough, there is a country called Fahal, where everybody has a Faith SA of 7.

As far what the Inquisition hunts down, well, top on the list are the Thayrists.  These aren’t simply Pagans from Picti, oh, no…. they are adherents to a religion that has been dead for a millennium and a half… they are believers in a religion that Xanar himself ended.  They are a blight and a tool of the Great Betrayer.  Below the Thayrists, next in line are uppity wizards, heretics (Weyrth willl have its Cathars, to be sure…), and unbelievers from less civilized lands who insist on living a bit too… publicly.  

To perform these duties, I am sure there are laws in most of Mainlund about Inquisitors being allowed to barrow some soldiers to hunt people down.  Besides this rather blunt method, I am also sure Inquisitors have informant networks where they pay their snitches in salvation rather than money.


As for adventure ideas… well, the obvious one is that the party has caught the eye of the Inquisition.  Why?  Do they know why?

Another one is that the party are actually Inquisitors, or part of the informant network (need a better name…).  It is very easy in a world with magic and demons to make the demon-hunters the good guys.

And the last question to ask what deep dark secrets exist at the core of the Inquisition, if any?  It is entirely plausible that the Inquisition is just what it appears to be, a strong-arm of one of the three branches of the Xanarian government.  *grin* Of course, it doesn’t have to be that way.  However, as TROS often works on a ‘less-is-more’ philosophy, I think it can work just fine that way.

... until the suspected Sorcerer you're chasing turns out to actually be a Sorcerer and he turns your head inside out from two towns away...

:-)

Brian.

Instead of using Weyrth, I'm using a similar setting of my own design (been working on it for years and RoS turned out to be the perfect ruleset to use it with).

In my setting, the Inquisition formed around a secretive group of monks known as the Alcorian Order, founded by St. Alcor.

Hundreds of years before the game starts there was a loose confederation of the Wise (sorcerers), called the Learned Brotherhood, which existed to share knowledge and prevent disputes between sorcerers from wreaking wide-scale devastation. The Brotherhood encompassed pagans and monotheists, including a volatile and powerful sorcerer named Alcor.

Alcor, already a powerful figure within the church, secretly gathered a coterie of followers to his banner and betrayed the existence of the Brotherhood to the Church. Most of the Brotherhood -- especially those who lived within reach of the Empire -- were hunted down like dogs by Alcor and his followers. Much knowledge was lost -- or seized by the Alcorians.

In the setting's present, the Alcorians form the inner circle of the Inquisition, and use their position to keep a stranglehold on their monopoly on sorcerous power and to influence the course of nations for the betterment of the faith and their order. The only "saints" they sanction come from within the Order, any other miracle-worker is suspect.

Far beyond the bounds of the Church, shaman, godi and druids still quietly and secretively practice their craft, but they have fallen far from what they were. They tend to specialize in particular areas (like summoning) and are often unmatched in those areas, but tend to be very narrow. They usually have little knowledge outside of their specialties.

Of course, a small number of the Brotherhood managed to evade the Alcorian pogrom, and set up shop right under the Inquisition's nose in the Imperial capitol of Tairna. This small, but far-flung organization, known as the Circle of Ten and based out of the Imperial Academy, strives to save what knowledge it can and oppose the Order's machinations. Members often take positions in the Church or as lay clergy in an attempt to allay suspicion. They must be subtle or risk destruction.