Brand of the Eskhn
A brand used to sear the skin of those who are Eskhn. Elves with this brand are often referred to as "The Marked", as though carrying the ink classified them as a separate species.
The brands were designed and produced by The Marked Creators, before the company was shut down by Noche Gerhann Whole.
2,000 years later, Luro Cenal discovered the true nature of the makeup of the brands, and his discovery has allowed Gerhann's Enforcement team to track down and confiscate many of the remaining brands.
Mechanics & Inner Workings
Risel thought the brand was just that - a physical marking - until 4313. Before then, the brand was believed to be of simple makeup, with only a little complexity known by Gerhann and its enforcement teams. The complexity came from the observation that the brand's mark did not seem to fade with time, and seemed to resist every kind of magical treatment for healing wounds. The brands themselves emitted a slight magical wave, but it was deemed to be Natural magic and dismissed almost immediately. Otherwise, the metal of the brands was a volatile combination of Vernal and Win, and heavily coated with Arstein paste to help maintain its letter's shapes over numerous uses.
Luro Cenal's breakthrough in 4313, however, revealed that the magic used in their creation was not Natural, but Soul magic. This originally led Gerhann to believe that all creators of the brands were Soul Mages, and nearly started a war with the smiths community. To save the lives of countless weapons-and-armor-makers, a group of smiths who had created the brands in the past offered to show the creation process in exchange for their titles and keeping the peace. This process showed that only a sliver of Soul magic was required to create the brands - little enough that one Soul mage could have been fueling the entire country's production. Though the magic in most of the abolished brands was of the same user, the Soul Mage responsible was never found.
History
The single creator of the first brands is unknown, but the mass production of them began in year 2117. At that time, they were distributed by a now-dissolved c-company that called itself The Marked Creators.
Though the company's production lasted only 7 years, its designs and ideals permeate even to modern day. Elves who wish to own a brand in modern times can hire specific independent blacksmiths to create them. However, finding a smith to do so is fairly dangerous, since Gerhann banned their production and declared the beliefs behind the brands "...an unnecessary plague to the organization of our population that seeks only to diminish the value of the lives of others."
Most of the smiths who forged during the original outbreak were stripped of their titles and rights to their work, and were "encouraged to pursue other professional options" with their lives and talents. This meant that those who knew the chemical makeup of the brands were not allowed to make them, and this, alongside the motivated removal of found brands, made the tool's pervasiveness dwindle rapidly. In the time since, any smiths who have been found, with concrete evidence, to be creating the brands, were punished similarly, though more severely than those in the past.
Often, the post-outbreak smiths were required to pay a heavy punitive fine to Gerhann on a first offense; on a second, they and any associates were also stripped of any titles or inheritances via their family names; and on a third offense, Gerhann's strongest Mind Mage circle was brought in to forcibly remove the creation process from the smith's mind, and it usually removed from the smith a limb or two as well. No smith has ever been punished a fourth time.
In Bend of 4313, Luro Cenal announced he had created a sensor that could detect the magical print left on the Eskhn victims. He equipped the Enforcement team with these sensors, and in the next year more owners of the brands were caught than had been in the previous century. The sensors allowed the team to find elves who were Marked, and with their permission, Gerhann's Mind Mage circle scanned their memories from the moment they were branded in order to track down those who were associated with the brand or the action of branding.
Significance
The creation of the brands showed one of the first and only movements in Risel's history that Gerhann considers a "step away" from its primary goal of making Risel a safe and welcome place for all beings. It is also the longest-lasting negative stigma in all of Risel. It marked the first instance of an organized belief outside of Gerhann's values, and quickly proved that not all was as it seemed in the outskirts of the country.
Though creations of the brands are kept well-hidden from any reputable sources in and out of Gerhann, there is a clear trend in its users. Many who owned one did so when they were young, usually fresh out of primary school around the age of 100, and almost all who admitted to using one at some point in their lives were elves who grew up in slower, quieter, less-populated areas of the land. This has led the Enforcement team to investigate more closely cities and villages located away from major hubs, though the results from these actions is mixed.
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