Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-12776-20140807173245/@comment-25035274-20140825145753

Regarding the soldiers and Heroes of Lescatie:

Often times, the average soldier in feudal European societies is(was) not in it because of some strong, deeply entrenched belief. For many such soldiers, being a soldier is(or rather was in the real world) a job, first and foremost. It is(was) a way to get paid every week, hopefully without actually having to engage in real combat. Most of them are(were) commoners, and faced the same deprivations that their families and loved ones faced.

As you might imagine, such soldiers are not always the most loyal when it comes time to face any sort of real threat. At least not in a nation where they and their families are being oppressed.

The Order's Heroes, on the other hand, are different in that based on evidence from assorted settings material, they're indoctrinated from an early age. So you're correct, Yoush, in that one would expect those Heroes to have unshakable faith.

And yet, when you look at Lescatie's greatest Heroes, the Fallen Maidens, you can see that they didn't have unshakable faith. The stories all clearly outline that much for each and every one. Their faith was not nearly as strong as you would expect it to be.

Why? Various reasons, but outside of their love for the unnamed 'you', it came down to one key issue. They were all made to feel as though they had little to no real value, except as tools and weapons. They were all mistreated in assorted ways by assorted people, and dehumanized.

Mostly, the mistreatment came from the Church and Nobility, but sometimes it came from their own families. In addition, in some cases(notably Sasha's), despite the indoctrination, they still held personal beliefs that did not and could not be resolved with the Church's teachings.

What I'm essentially saying, Yoush, is that when Druella came to Lescatie, she actually didn't have very much work to do in order to convert the city. The Church and nobility had done half of her work for her with their mistreatment of not only the commoners, but also their greatest Heroes. Lescatie was corrupted from the inside out, and it wasn't the forces of the Demon Lord that did it.