The Keepers

Order · Night · Soft Kh · Soft Zar

Mokh-sar

Order Night Soft Kh Soft Zar

"The world endures because someone tends it."

Philosophy

You protect, preserve, and repair. Your victories are subtle and often unnoticed until others realize they cannot dislodge you. You are patient. The war will still be there tomorrow.

The Pronunciation Dispute

The Keepers speak the Name most gently of all the Orthodox factions. They believe that creation was not an act of force but of *care*—a careful tending that continues to this day. The soft sounds honor the ongoing, quiet maintenance that keeps reality from unraveling. Keeper theology holds that the world would have collapsed long ago if not for the accumulated weight of properly spoken prayers. They do not seek to command reality; they seek to preserve it.

Tendencies

Exceptional resilience and recovery from setbacks
Quiet actions persist even after apparent failure
Lower visibility but remarkably high staying power

History

The Keepers began as a monastic order dedicated to maintaining abandoned temples. When the great empires fell, the Keepers remained—tending the sacred spaces, preserving the liturgies, keeping the lights burning. They discovered that persistence was its own form of power. Keeper monasteries dot the landscape in places other factions have forgotten or abandoned. They maintain roads no one uses, libraries no one visits, and traditions no one remembers. And yet, when catastrophe strikes, it is often the Keepers who possess the knowledge, the supplies, or the safe harbors that others desperately need. They do not charge for this assistance. They simply remember who helped them in turn.

Notable Events

The Unbroken Vigil

A Keeper monastery maintained continuous prayer through a siege lasting eleven years. When the besiegers finally breached the walls, they found the monks still at their devotions, apparently unconcerned. The siege commander converted on the spot.

The Preserved Harvest

During the Famine of the Red Year, Keeper granaries fed three provinces. No one had known the granaries existed. The Keepers had been filling them for two centuries, 'just in case.'

Scholarly Commentary

"The world has survived worse than you."

— Eldra of the Quiet Index, Letters Never Sent

These letters were discovered after Eldra's death, addressed to various historical tyrants. None were ever delivered.

"Keeper texts are dense, circular, and frustratingly calm. Their critics accuse them of worshiping stagnation; their defenders note that Keeper-held regions are often the only ones still standing after prolonged wars."

— Comparative Theology, author disputed

"We do not fight the river. We are the stone it flows around."

— Keeper proverb

Relationships

Natural Allies

The Architects The Watchers

Traditional Rivals

The Breakers The Reforgers