Dishonor, Deceit, and Duplicity

Mephala and Azura are the twin gates of tradition and Boethiah is the secret flame.

The armor of Trinimac was considered impregnable in his life, it was infamous among the forces of Shor for having the ability to absorb or deflect a great number of killing blows from all sides. Trinimac’s responsibility to Auri-El was to maintain the unity of the Old Ehlnofey by defeating her enemies and preventing any wayward sects from attempting to break away. He acted as a paragon of honor, unassailable and unyielding. The only sign of a chink in his armor was his fanatical devotion to the Eight. When not serving in the thick of battle, Trinimac was often given to pious outbursts, setting out on pilgrimages or speaking to crowds of followers about how to best worship the Divines. He used his heroic status to cement the worship of the Eight throughout the land. It was on one of these pilgrimages that Boethiah crossed his path, and the two of them crossed blades. For a long time the two sparred back and forth, but the Prince of Plots was only toying with him for she had known about his achilles heel from the start. When the duel became tiresome, Boethiah opened wide her terrible maw and crushed the fabled armor in twain. Trinimac could not be considered dead, however, until his societal armor had been rent asunder as well.

Word of Trinimac's pilgrimage had spread fast, and people travelled from all over the nearby lands to hear him speak about the Divines. When a road-worn traveller arrived wearing Trinimac's armor speaking in Trinimac's voice, the crowd anxiously gathered in to hear the sermon. It started much the same as the rest, but there was a poisonous barb to this one, apparent to everyone who heard it, which made all the lies and exaggerations stand out like torches in the night. As the sermon progressed, people became so disgusted with themselves, their very culture, that they began vomiting and moaning. Only after the moons had climbed high into the night sky did Boethiah reveal herself. Still speaking in Trinimac's voice, she revealed to the onlooking crowd the weakness and fragility of the paper armor of honor. Finally finished with her speaking, she excreted the badly digested knight before the onlooking crowd. No witness walked away from that scene unchanged. The ones who adopted the philosophy of dishonor fled in exile to Dwemereth. The ones who tried to keep their philosophy of honor still could not remain in Old Ehlnofey. They had learned too much, and the stench of knowledge was unpleasant to the pious multitude.

The adoption of dishonor as a virtue had extremely positive and negative effects on Velothi society, and it wouldn’t be until the rise of the Tribunal Temple that the negative repercussions of this cultural shift could be stemmed. With worship of the House of Troubles running unchecked throughout the land, order and civil society became impossible. On the other hand, the abandonment of Daedra worship meant the renunciation of the teachings of their ancestors, an unthinkable thing. The Tribunal Temple solved this problem by building the twin gates of tradition, deceit and duplicity, around the established church of dishonor. Thus the way of the ancestors was preserved but order was maintained throughout the land.