The Schism of the Sisterhood

As told by Sister Clara of the Abbey of St. Ursula to the adventuring party known as the Lords of Doom

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And so it came to pass in those days that the entire Northern Reach was overwhelmed by piracy and lawlessness. Pirate kings ruled over many of the islands of the Reach, growing fat and strong on plunder and extortion. Trade in the Reach was strangled, heavy tribute was inflicted on communities that could not afford it, and there was much suffering across all the myriad towns and islands. And still the greed of the pirate lords grew.  And as their numbers waxed and their prey diminished, the pirate kings turned more and more toward the The Inner Archipelago for their hunting and soon their depredations began to be felt even in Haven Towne itself. Even in the Inner Islands, trade was impacted, profits fell and the citizenry and oligarchs grumbled. Yet the Reach was too wide, too remote, and the pirates too cunning for any of the lords and princes to deal with the threat individually, try as they might.  

Eventually the lords and princes of the Inner Islands had their fill of it. Under the urging of the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Mithras, they came together and took a holy oath to end the menace once and for all. And so a Crusade was declared, and a mighty warfleet was assembled, from all across the Inner Islands. Ships from The Republic of Haven, The Antilles, Ende, Etmarch, and many of the smaller isles, all united in a common quest, and sailed under a common flag. Their holy oath bound them to burn the pirates out of the Reach, not to stop till piracy was torn up, root and branch, and ended for all time. Until profits were restored, the more cynical said, for there was no argument that the Merchant Houses were one of the strongest proponents of the Crusade, and it was their gold that financed it. 

The Pirate Crusade went on for seven years. At first the sisters of the Abbey of St Ursula welcomed it, for the pirates were a threat to all, and our own trade and exports had been severely impacted, even our own walls threatened. At first we welcomed it. But as the crusade went on for years, the navies of the Inner Islands became more and more extreme in their methods of war. The Crusaders lost all distinction between the pirates and the people of the Reach themselves (many of whom, to be fair supported the pirate lords, either overtly or behind the scenes).  By the third year, the war had turned from a war to exterminate piracy, to a simple war of extermination. Villages were burned to the ground and entire islands denuded of population, with little care given to whether they were actually havens for piracy or not. And the Crusaders grew fat on the plunder.

During this time, strangely enough, the Abbey began to prosper again. The mantle of the Holy Church protected it from the wrath of the Crusaders and the old markets were once more accessible to our wine and spirits, without risk of our ships being plundered or having to pay ruinous tolls. The more the fields and communities of the Reach were decimated the higher prices our goods could command, and the Crusaders themselves became a new market for us.

This state of affairs was very distressing for the Sisterhood. The Abbess at the time, Abbess Grace, was an extremely learned and spiritual woman, without a strong interest in material wealth, and it grieved her to see the people suffer. Yet she was also somewhat timid and introverted by nature, wanting nothing more for the Abbey than it be left to it's books, prayers and spiritual contemplations. Many of the nuns were of a like bent, including Sister Joan (who would later become Abbess) and believed that withdrawal from the secular world was their spiritual duty and path to enlightenment. On the other had, Captain Ava, the leader of the Hammer of Ursula, the martial branch of the Sisterhood, was exceedingly wroth at the injuries being inflicted on the small folk and believed it was our duty to protect them, or die in the attempt.

 

Yet, the Abbey's position was extremely tenuous. We had avoided destruction by staying neutral and tending to our prayers and our vines. Any aid we gave to the people, be it ever so humanitarian, would be seen as supporting the resistance, and was sure to bring down the wrath of the Crusaders upon us, who were looking for any excuse to plunder our riches. Many of the communities WERE supporting the pirate lords, who had achieved the status of folk heroes at this point, for their resistance to the invaders, and in some cases, their generosity to their communities. It was impossible to tell who was clean and who was a guerilla. 

Abbess Grace called all the Sisters of the Order together for a great conclave, to decide what needed to be done. They debated in the chapterhouse for three days but reached no consensus. Eventually it fell on Abbess Grace to make a decision. She chose to continue the policy of neutrality, until the crusade was over. Fully a third of the Sisterhood, including virtually every member of The Hammer of Ursula disagreed with this decision, so much so that they left the Order.

Many of The Hammer, including Captain Ava, fell in the Crusade in hopeless battle, the survivors joined other militant orders, most notably the Knight’s Radiant. Captain Ava's bones were never recovered to be interred with her sisters. Abbess Grace erected a tombstone for her in the chapter cemetery nonetheless, to remember her, for she held no grudge against those that had left, and questioned her decision to the day of her death (which happened three years to the day, of the end of the conclave). On the day Abbess Grace died, the tombstone of Captain Ava turned obsidian black, for no reason that has been ascertained and remains that color to this day. The martial order of the Hammers of Ursula was never reformed and we became a much more inward and contemplative order ever since. 

This event was the blackest in our history and we still debate the decisions made those seventy five years ago. While the Abbey survived the Crusade, our fortunes have slowly dwindled ever since, till today we are less then half the number we were at our height. While Holy Mithra still hears our prayers, many say Blessed Ursula has turned her face from us. It is doubtlessly true that her gift has become rarer and harder to control.