In-Depth Look: Jehammedans
SACRIFICIAL LAMB
His horse tramples a swath into the attackers’ ranks. Around him, his enemies fall and die. The scimitar rises and falls; every hit is a wound, every gaze finds new targets in the sea of opponents.
“Jehammed!” he cries, and a hundred brothers in faith answer with shouted prayers of devotion. The rider turns his black horse around, flanking towards the enemy camp. The corona of pinned-up hair comes down in the headwind. Tattooed marks adorn his skin: on his forehead they meet to form a complex pattern that sings a silent song of an exalted ancestry and countless battles.
The hooves thunder, the horse snorts, its crest flies in the wind. The Jehammedan presses against the shivering body, kicking the horse’s flanks. He rides like hell, and looking back he sees his men skirmishing with the foul Anabaptists. It’s a losing battle. 300 feet to the enemies’ tents, 300 feet through a thicket of swords and war spades to kill the Anabaptists’ fat leader. Only his death can turn the tide and win the day for the Swords of Jehammed. 200 feet. The warrior chants his Iconide’s prayers, batting aside swords. The Baptist’s bodyguards form a dark line in front of him. Furors. He grips his blade tighter, strikes out, hits, hears spear shafts breaking, feels dirt and splinters in his face. He’s destined to die for others to live, for he is an Isaaki. He is the sacrificial lamb.
50 feet.
The black horse’s hooves throw dirt around. If he pushes back the enemy in this area of the riverbank, new families can settle down at the banks with their herds…
Something hits his shoulder hard, almost throwing him out of the saddle, something hisses past his head. He presses to his horse, feels hot blood run into his chest armor. Barely enough time to say goodbye to the glorious days as a blessed child in his mind. To his father’s love. To the priest’s eulogies.
He raises the sword and guides his black horse through the Furors’ wall of spears, feels the jolting in his legs. He hears the splintering, the snorting and the cries, lets go of the reins and slides from the saddle, blindly thrashing as he falls, crawling onwards, jumping up, shouting and fighting.
May God decide if he wants to accept this sacrifice.
CAIN AND ABEL
He appeared to them on top of the Kaaba, the mysterious black building in Mecca: Jehammed, last of the prophets. He was a shining dream, replete with God, his voice thundered down on the people and made them feel the power of his Lord. He told them that God would come upon the world in anger, to purge it from lazy faithlessness. To pass it on to his disciples, the descendants of their progenitor Abraham so that the Seed may sprout and the land may flourish in faith.
Then God crushed the world with silence and dust.
The years that passed were tough, life was hard and nearly unbearable for everyone, even for those who had looked for the covenant with the last prophet. But the flames of faith burned on. Small tribes and families helped each other, rebuilding in the knowledge that they were God’s chosen children. As promised by Jehammed, a huge land spread before them that they could pacify and settle until the last prophet would return to his fold.
Many followers of the Cult lost their faith in the era of the beast, gave in to the ferociousness of their urges and joined the unleashed masses of the Apocalyptics. But the Righteous Ones remained faithful. As if in a fever, they struggled through the dark days after God’s judgment day, their faces cast down in humility and in the knowledge that the eyes of the Lord were trained on them. They mastered husbandry and crafts, kept clean and took good care of themselves to keep plague and illness away from their families. They forged weapons and armor from Bygone scrap, avoided the barbarity of the simpletons and the faithless. They proudly called themselves Jehammedans. With the name came unity: they wore it like a war banner, and the faithful flocked to it. The community grew to a giant extended family that offered protection to its members – and demanded awe from its enemies.
The Jehammedans spread from the Balkhan to Borca and Hybrispania and flourished where other Clans died. In the early years, they gathered all those under the roof of the faith who felt homeless and stranded in the wasteland and adhered to Jehammed’s laws.
In the heart of the Balkhan, on the ruins of old Bucharest, the new center of the Jehammedan faith arose. Borcan Osman, the city of the sickle tower, converted within a few days after the Jehammedans’ ancient Iconides entered the gates and declared the covenant with God. In Hybrispania, the Cult came to reign over Castile.
Its warriors, the Swords of Jehammed, were received tearfully as blessed avenging angels. Once-independent, proud settlements joined the Jehammedans and chanted the Cult’s prayers with fervor only days later.
ANCIENT ANGER
However, what looked like an unstoppable rise in the beginning suddenly came to a halt in the youthful Adriatic lowlands: the Anabaptists, a Cult of farmers and rioters, claimed the new land for themselves as farmland, but the Jehammedans saw the lush meadows and gestating grass plains as a place God had given them to feed their herds. When the Anabaptists finally took up their arms, a conflict arose that couldn’t have been much crueler. The life-giving Adriatic soon was adorned with piles of corpses on the Purgan side. Just like Cain, the farmer, had killed his brother Abel, the shepherd, the Jehammedans felt victimized. The Anabaptists attacked them, raped them, killed them, smashed what the Jehammedans had built with the diligence of a thousand hands in the centuries after the Eshaton. Humiliated, they jumped into the waters and retreated to the east bank. The Anabaptists also crossed, to exterminate their enemies.
But in the darkest hour, the tide turned.
Aries the Ram appeared in the Iconides’ tents.
No one knew this stranger, but he promised to destroy the enemy souls, for his anger was tremendous and old. The Jehammedans let him do as he pleased, and the foreign warrior lead their troops. The wind of revenge came over the Anabaptists like a roaring blizzard, the occupied areas of the East Adriatic plain were reconquered with a thousand saber cuts, and the enemy who had already felt victorious was killed, beheaded, and defiled. On the Adriatic Sea, the enemy armies clashed one final time, then settled in for a hundred years of cold war afterwards. Each dug in on one riverbank, waiting for a chance to launch a devastating attack. Reprieve.
FRONTS
In the Balkhan, the Africans expanded with long steps, forcing the Jehammedans into a desperate fight. Family after family fell, and sadness hung over the battlefields. There were enemies everywhere: heresy flourished wherever you looked. Hatred was a fire that allowed them no respite, that accompanied their every step.
Both sides wore themselves out fighting each other. Sofia’s Voivode liked what he saw, and he took a chance. He pushed forward into the power vacuum, clawed his way to the top of the food chain, laid siege to Bucharest, and finally offered a hand to the Iconide – a hand that grabbed tightly and hasn’t let go to this day.
The brothers and sisters in the west didn’t fare much better. The Swords of Jehammed opposed the Hybrispanian invaders with full force and were smashed on the Surge Tanks and fortifications.
The heated battle would have continued if it hadn’t been for the Warpage. Guerreros and Scourgers alike have been watching the Psychonautic phenomenon skeptically ever since, exploring its fringes to open up a new front. But Scourgers and Jehammedans think alike: could it be that they have fought the wrong enemy all these past decades?
PARABLES
The fisherman takes a bucket of paint and paints his boat to protect it from the worm, but the shepherd guards his flock, protecting it with his life.
The fisherman loads his boat and enters it, pushing away from the shore into the solitude of the sea, but the shepherd finds quiet within himself and in his flock.
The fisherman flounders, hoping for a lucky catch, gazing into the emptiness and receiving nothing, but the shepherd shears his sheep, combing and spinning the wool, finding God’s mercy in his work.
The fisherman returns to find his wife in another’s arms, but the shepherd has watched his flock.
The fisherman behaves like a raving animal, attacking the raunchy woman and his rival until blood flows, but the shepherd is steadfast, grabs his staff and kills everyone who approaches his flock unduly.
The fisherman is dead, but the shepherd is full of sap.
The fisherman’s children are reprobates and do as the father did, whoring, cheating, and lying because they know no other forms of behavior, because it’s in their blood. Look at them! See the hatred in their faces and the stupidity in their eyes! This fat ilk, made of only wanting and taking, consider giving a weakness and work an offense. They say they want to find themselves! But what will they find? Money maybe? A whore’s wet thighs? It’s the only thing that God grants them, for they will not be part of his mercy. But what about the shepherd? His flock knows no hardships, for it follows God’s path. His children don’t have a try at false gods and do not fall for the vile claims of the fisherman’s children, no. They even offer them a hand, though they may be afraid it might be bitten off. But would they tolerate this? No. For they, too, know how to protect the flock. They take staff and steel and kill the fisherman’s children. There is only one way. If any see another, they are mistaken. If a former friend raves about possibilities, he has distanced himself from the flock and has become entangled in the fisherman’s children’s nets. Ask him if he feels the hook in his mouth. Wolves and fishermen are lurking by the road, and sometimes it seems blocked. Stand as one, but never swerve, for this is the way!
THE FISHERMAN
Jehammed’s words have survived the centuries in the hearts of his disciples and written on meters-long papyrus scripts that are rolled and kept in brass capsules, the few surviving testimonies of the last prophet. Word for word they describe a philosophy based on tradition and its conservation.
The fisherman is used time and again as an embodiment of wrongness, but without painting him as a supernatural force or red demon. In the Jehammedan mythology, there are no supernatural beings except for the Lord: there are only humans and animals on the stage of creation. Their lives are constant trials demanding struggle and selfsacrifice. God surrounds those who face those trials with his benevolence. They experience humility and deepest fulfillment, but not personal happiness.
The fisherman stands for everything that people experience when they have removed themselves from this God-given cycle. No supernatural force has lowered the fisherman, so everything bad he experiences is his own fault. To guide him back to the flock is considered godly, but is it worth it? Obstinacy or laziness are in the renegades’ blood. In the end, that will impact their thinking and behavior, and tomorrow they will walk the path of discord.
FAMILY TIES
Jehammed’s traditions are based on natural family roles. How is the herd supposed to ever exist in peace if heart and soul have to fight for their place? It is up to the married man and father to lead the tribe in worldly and spiritual affairs. He stands in the progenitor Abraham’s tradition and bears the honorary title of Abrami.
As Abraham took a young slave to procreate, the Abrami takes a wife – the Hagari – to keep his house and be the mother of his children. The daughters prepare for their lives as Hagaris and help their mother, while the sons herd the flock, provide water, and guard the tents – as Jehammed decreed for an Ismaeli. Life doesn’t offer any grandeur. Only when they join the Jehammedan ranks as Swords of Jehammed, they can excel. If they prove themselves, they are allowed to found their own family as Abramis.
Although the Hagari births children to the Abrami, she’s not considered his primary wife. For this the Abrami chooses a Saraeli, a virgin creature, strong and pure in her faith. Once in the cycle from spring to winter, the Abrami and the Saraeli share a bed. If a son arises from this union, the joy is boundless: the Lord has blessed the clan with an Isaaki!
This son is clad in the richest fabrics and surrounded by fatherly love. He gets the best piece of the lamb and sits next to the Abrami, but he’s also taught how to use the saber and how to ride. Day in, day out, he shapes his body and soul to be a perfect vessel of devotion to God. He is the sacrificial lamb that the family will offer to the Lord on the battlefield. There will be many opportunities for this; he rides into battle after battle. The Isaaki leads the host, galloping in front of them into the enemy ranks, a blazing example of faith and dedication. Very few live to reach their thirtieth winter, and only if God wills.
But sometimes the Lord rejects the sacrifice.
Such an Isaaki’s life’s work is not yet done: the Council of Elders makes him an Iconide, and as such, he will then lead the Cult and mark the way that God has prepared for the Jehammedans.
ICONIDES
Just as Abraham bargained with God to save the sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Iconides bargain for the Jehammedans’ future. To do so, the Iconide retreats to his chambers, burning incense and sandalwood. Then he washes his feet according to the ancient rites and dries them thoroughly. He fills two cups with sugared tea from a samovar and carries them to a low round table at the center of the room. He places one cup where he’s going to sit and the other on the opposite side, where his imaginary bargaining partner takes a seat. Chanting softly to praise God’s deeds, he is invited in.
The Iconide waits patiently, sometimes for hours, sometimes for days. He meditates until he becomes aware of God. Then he brings over a small box inlaid with gold, places it at the center of the table, and opens it. Wrapped in velvet, there is a so-called Icon – a symbol for the deal.
The Iconide explains to the Lord what it symbolizes: the skull of a Jehammedan torn apart by machine-gun fire stands for the wish to punish an emplacement of Scourgers with death and destruction, with the severed hand of a thief the Iconide pushes for quiet and order in a rebel village, gazing at a piece of concrete from Tripol he discusses a flood to punish the sinful city, and a broken sword is intended to lead to an Isaaki who is considered lost back to the temple of the community.
The Iconide sits and recounts all the sacrifices he and his family had to make. He counts them like bills, thus buying the Icon’s symbolic value. Usually, the deal ends with old Saraelis dragging the unconscious Iconide outside to breathe fresh air and regain consciousness. He is marked by lack of sleep and food and will have to rest for days. Next comes the waiting and watching. Did he win the bargaining? What are his conditions and restrictions? It is up to the Iconide to interpret the results that reach him via messengers. Does the flood come from a devastating downpour? Does the leader of the revolt die by his concubine’s hand? Will the Swords of Jehammed be needed to exercise God’s will at the Scourger emplacement?
Usually, it takes months or years before the family can be sure. If the bargain is kept, the Icon becomes a relic. If it is denied, God will have had his reasons not to fulfill the Iconide’s wish. The Iconide himself will carry the Icon to a secret place and retrieve it years later to decipher God’s true will.
JEHAMMED'S LEGACY
Many Jehammedans can neither write nor read. They spend their first years as Ismaelis on the pastures with the flock and have no time to learn. And anyway, those who study this ancient art are often called blighters, because they are considered to be abusing their Abrami’s trust and having others work for them. Later, when he might have the time as head of the family, he will refuse to be taught by a scribe like a little child. Still, he will crave Jehammed’s word on paper and trade dozens of goats and sheep for it when the opportunity arises.
His inability to read doesn’t bother him, for he carries his true faith in his heart. But the usefulness of the scrolls is indisputable: Iconides visit the family to study or copy Jehammed’s word. These revered Jehammedans’ glory rains down on the Abrami like divine manna and makes him a respected man.
LAMB MEAT & TINCTURES
As caught up as the Jehammedans are in their spiritual worldview, which they pay tribute to through rigid traditions, they cannot deny that they are still very humble shepherds. The herd has always been the center of their life: an Abrami feeds his family by means of his sheep and goats. The bigger and healthier the herd, the more Ismaeli the progenitor can sire to add to his wealth and influence. Having many children has always been considered a sign of God’s favor by the Jehammedans: Abramis blessed thus are very respected. Even if they don’t produce any Isaakis for the community, they still strengthen the military ranks.
That would not be possible without the herd. The animals’ meat feeds the family, the milk satisfies the children’s thirst, and the Hagaris produce cloth from the wool. The fat is used to produce candles or torches, from the innards the Ismaelis craft strings for their bows. The old ones mix extracts from organs with herbs to produce tinctures that are supposed to give strength to the Swords of Jehammed and virility to the Abramis.
WIND IN MY BEARD According to Jehammed’s teachings, the tribes are supposed to be nomads. Stone buildings would only produce a false impression of security where alertness would be preferred. Stone is property, and a lot of property would produce haughtiness where humility would be preferred. In the scroll “The Last Days,” Jehammed implores his followers to keep moving. To sleep in tents and to avoid the stone deserts. To prefer the ram to the cornfield. To leave everything behind and make a new camp at the end of the day.
For centuries, his faithful heeded his counsel. Tent cities arose and disappeared when the flocks grazed the tundra. The tribes grew. Everyone mastered a craft, was able to make crockery from lead or wood, to forge iron or build tables. The Jehammedans never needed to rely on trade, were always autonomous.
But the world has grown smaller. Judges and Anabaptists claim large areas. When a group of people travels through a foreign domain in the Balkhan, hundreds of fighters rise up at the behest of the Voivodes. In spite of Jehammed’s commandment, the Jehammedans had to stake their claim and sometimes fortify or defend their land. Many have settled down. The largest cities are glorious Osman in East Borca and Bucharest in the Balkhan, led by Voivodes.
THE HOLY CITY
Mecca, the city of the Kaaba and of Jehammed’s revelation. Here lie the roots of the Cult. It is said that at the base of the black cube, there are still piles of hundreds of scrolls in their brass tubes: Jehammed’s answer to the Eshaton, furiously written down and sealed in the last days before the global conflagration. Nothing is more valuable to the Cult than these texts. Bucharest’s Iconides hope to find an interpretation of the Eshaton and hints for the future in them and keep sending Isaakis there, carrying precious gifts for the African conquerors. But Mecca remains out of reach for the Jehammedans. The Lion will allow no Crows in his domain.
LIFE RINGS
Just as a tree’s age rings document the change of the seasons, the Jehammedans carry the history of their lives on their skin.
From the day of their birth, the tattoos expand every year until at old age they cover the whole body. However, these pictures do not number the years, but describe the bearer’s development with all its joys and deprivations. An Isaaki who already bears his ritual tattoo pattern all over his body at an early age is marked by great sacrifices, wisdom, and strength, while an Abrami who isn’t at least half covered by life rings at an advanced age can easily be identified as a blighter.
Every spring, all members of the family gather for a seven-day ceremony, the socalled Bairam, where everyone recounts what he has experienced in the past year. By means of these stories, the Iconides decide the degree of tattoos – starting at the forehead, the left hip and the calves, a complex pattern of tattooed lines and dots grows.
ARIES THE RAM
The legendary figure that once brought victory to the Jehammedan host hasn’t been seen for decades. But it remains in the people’s minds: when a mountain goat strays into a family’s camp at night, the Ismaelis see this as Aries’ work, and a surprise victory can only have been won with the Ram’s help.
Many Iconides watch this development skeptically, for the faith in Aries replaces the faith in God. Miracles are no longer ascribed to the One, but to the mythical battle leader from the past: Jehammed’s words are replaced by Aries’.
At first, Aries’ disciples were only seen in the hinterlands of the Balkhan, but now they have reached Justitian and Osman. Are the Jehammedans to devolve into a Cult of goat worshipers? The faithful Iconides fight the cancer of the Ram worship. Sometimes, the holy men exile the so-called Arianoi to the wasteland, clad only in their haughtiness. In Osman, many a whip has sung its song on the deviants’ skin. In doing so, the Iconides revolt against the word of Jehammed: he has ordered to cut off any hand that rises against the family, be it a foreigner’s or a brother’s. The Iconides are desperate. They never had to fear an enemy within. There is no counsel on that in their scrolls. Honorable Iconides unwilling to characterize Aries as a corrupt false God and deny his worshipers God’s mercy make their fight even harder.
ARIANOI
After the battle in the Adriatic basin, Aries and his newly recruited followers disappeared without a trace. Rumor has it that he went to Crete, where he was born. These days, the Jehammedans only hear bad news from the island. Rams’ heads and skinned, impaled Africans should be warning enough for anyone who consider approaching its shores. The inhabitants of the coast claim that the Arianoi, Aries’ messengers and Prophets of the Ram, allow no foreigners on their holy ground.
Actually, there are several eyewitness reports from Neolibyans who floundered on Crete’s dark shores at night. They could not help but watch the terrible orgies that took place inland next to temples and bizarre labyrinths of scrap and bones. The tales of torchlight and squealing lambs staggering around in a circle of ram-headed men with open jugulars seem far-fetched. For a long time, the Scourgers laughed about the Neolibyan Wamai who claimed to have watched this gruesome spectacle. Then the Gimbya, a 500-ton transporter, ran ashore close to Tobruk on the Neolibyan coast. There were no survivors on board. The Neolibyans and Scourgers had been disemboweled and skinned. Rams’ heads were piled on the deck. The Neolibyans may rule the Mediterranean, but they have given Crete a wide berth ever since.
The truth about Aries and his Arianoi goes much deeper than simple tales of bloody orgies. The few Arianoi who revealed themselves to their brothers in Bucharest paint a completely different picture. While Jehammed separated the Cult from the world to enable its survival, Aries is going to bring it full circle and reconcile the Jehammedans with the world. He wants them to set out, see with open eyes the miracles that they could not experience from the confinement of their clan. Leave the defensive, start attacking, use their strength to liberate Bucharest and conquer Justitian. Take the Arianois’ hands. They know the way, you children of fishermen.
Do they still not know who Aries really is?
Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
Comments