Torn's Rest
"I gotta say, as cults go, the Torn Conclave is pretty great. No human sacrifices, no drinking of blood, not even a hint of old elven chants from a forbidden book. It's mainly a bunch of Kindred who like screwdrivers. Don't tell the rest of the isle." - from the memoirs of Lewin Von Treet, Vault: the Land of Stuff and Things
Location Description
Population: ~300
Founded: 2160 (230 years ago)
When the Kindred first arrived in Rotwood after being forced away from their ancestral homes, not all wished to change what they found there. While most Kindred recognized the rot as a disease in need of healing, there were some who claimed the rot was as much a part of this new home as the trees who fought against it. The most vocal of these was a woman named Torn. Not much is remembered of Torn the individual beyond that she made the outrageous claim that the rot deserved to spread. The spot where the rot was worst on the island was where she called home, and she slowly gained a following over her lifetime.
The story of her demise is fabled and complicated, but her body was laid to rest on a small island in the middle of a black, putrid lake; a place that came to be known as Torn's Rest.
Torn's influence, however, would not die with her body. As the Kindred constructed the means to their salvation from the rot, pushing it back to the very island in which Torn was buried, those who trusted her vision went to form their own community in order to live with and among the rot. They are now known as the Torn Conclave, and they are despised throughout the Kindred Isle and beyond. Even those who have moved on from the isle and decided to integrate with the Newcomers still carry with them a hatred for the Torn Conclave that feels more a tradition than a conviction.
The disdain for the followers of Torn's teachings comes from what many in Wilder called "The Rot Price." A devout Aarakocran Conclave member named Speara devoted her life to studying the rot and understanding it. She visisted distant lands, learning foreign trades and ingraining herself in their technologies. She came back and created the first of hundreds of workshops in the central Kindred Isle. Fabrication, artificery, and gearwork were iterated on and mastered on the island, even putting to shame great dwarven smiths.
The people of Wilder and beyond were delighted, integrating these marvels into their everyday lives. It is when they became reliant on them that Speara revealed that the secrets of her technologies were not from dwarven or human hands, but had its origins instead of the secrets revealed studying the rot. She expected the people of the Kindred Isle to finally change their views on the rot and embrace it. Instead, she was burned alive and the Torn Conclave was slaughtered to nearly a person.
The Rot Price saw the Kindred intentionally set themselves back decades of progress, removing every mechanical contraption they could find. They refused to approach, Torn's Rest, however (some say they could not due to some malevolent force) and so the island, its surrounding waters, and the lands nearby remained mechanically altered, but now lost to the slow decay of nature and time.
Now, with the rot returning in abundance to the isle, the Torn Conclave has strengthened its numbers, as Kindred return from around Vault to take up the cause of their ancestors. Whatever communion with the rot they have, is now being kept secret, for fear of another reprisal. Though the time may soon come where the Torn Conclave outnumbers even the nobility of Wilder.
Location Landmarks
Torn's Tomb - considered a sacred place, not because of the woman buried there, but because, as close as anyone can tell, the very spot Torn is laid to rest is the source of the rot throughout the island. At least, it is the very place in which the rot is strongest. To see this dark and tendriled landscape is to gaze into a starlit night sky, they say. A far cry from the decaying entropy of the normal rot throughout the isle.
Untroubled Waters- surrounding the small island in which Torn's Tomb resides is a lake whose surface waters cannot be troubled. One cannot create a splash, a ripple, or even displace a drop. When one emerges, they are wet, and the water below moves normally, but the surface is an unbroken reflection of the skies above it, creating the disturbing illusion of a never-ending horizon.
Kikin Shop- the location of the first workshop created by Speara and now the largest operating artificer operation south of Trine, the Kikin Shop was brought back online only over the last couple of years. It is said that it is a marvel to see within its walls. Machines do what only the imagination could conceive, despite the rust and age they show from being left to nature's grasp for so many years.
People of Note
Dwea Vane: Female Aaracokran, self-appointed leader of the Conclave, she claims to be a descendant of Speara, but no one believes her
The Untroubled Woman (Legendary Being): there is a woman who sits on the northern shores of the Untroubled Waters and seems to have always sat there. She is, by all accounts, immortal, and the Covenant counts her as their protector.