Order of the Inquisition

One of the three "Orders" within the priesthood of the The True Church of the Humanar is tasked with rooting out anything that could threaten the harmony of the faith by corrupting or twisting the teachings of Saint Ancelin. Because of the zealousness of the clerics within this Order, they have come to be feared more than respected by the commonfolk adherents to the religion. Nothing strikes fear into the heart of even the best, most devout of Humanar worshipers than the sight of a member of the Order of the Inquisition.

Naturally, the hierarchy of the Church in Elderkeep perceived this as a great threat. They instituted a special group of their most trusted and zealous priesthood to prevent the "heresies" being developed in the Grand Duchies from gaining any sort of foothold in the Kingdom. Ostensibly, their official purpose was to seek out proponents of heretical teachings and "help them see the truth". The first members of the Order were chosen for their knowledge of the teachings and interpretations of the faith, as well as for their skills at oratory and debate. They were to question their subjects publicly and in such as way as to make it obvious to any and all around them that their subject was mistaken.

The Order's Purpose Today

To those familiar with the The True Church of the Humanar, and its Enlightened and Reformed offshoots, it should come as no surprise that when the Inquisitors tried to question clerics of those latter two faiths, they were generally unable to uncover any truly religion-based errors in the teachings of their subjects. What they did find was a disdain for the hierarchy and ritual pomp that had come to embody everything the True Church did. Suddenly, the Church Hierarchy realized the threats these new religions posed to their positions as "sascred advisors" to the secular leaders of the Kingdom.

The Inquisitors were instructed to change their tactics. Instead of open-forum debates with their subjects, they were to conduct questionings in private. The Inquisitors were encouraged to use whatever methods of persuasion they deemed necessary to get subjects to see the errors of their ways and to be willing to publicly denounce whatever heresy they had been preaching. Such questioning was to continue until such a denouncement was offered - or until the subject was no longer capable of either pronouncement or denouncement because they were no longer alive.

With this change in tactics, the members of the Order of the Inquisition went from being respected church scholars to feared zealous terrors almost overnight in the eyes of the typical citizen of the First Kingdom - especially if one found the teachings of the Enlightened or Reformed Church more to their liking.

A Weak Attempt at Image Improvement

It did not take long for the hierarchy of the True Church to realize that their Inquisitors were looked upon in public with fear, intrepidation, and loathing. And while this image served their purposes of keeping the common faithful in line, they recognized that the "optics" were terrible. In an attempt to provide more justification for the harsh techniques that the Inquisitors had become known for, they created an other religious order to deal with questions of faith. The Order of Adjudicants was created to spare the Inqusitors from being viewed as judge, jury, and executioner.

Now, those who were expounding potential heresies were brought before a religious court headed by an Adjudicant. There, the heretical words were on trial, not the subject, technically. The new role of the Inquisitors was to question the subjects (persuasively) so that the court could better understand the nature and intent of the questionable teachings, and then make a judgement as to their correctness. If found heretical, then the Inquisitors were tasked with getting the subject to accept the correct teachings instead. It did not take long for all to realize that the trials were performances with preordained outcomes, and nothing had really changed.