Bring back the Dark Men of Odus

[Saaxir Asimatenya]

It seems that even now, the name of our defunct order is burdened with the deceits and slander of the lesser races of Antonica. Whispers of jealousy and hatred. Proclamations of our supposed crimes. And we thought we were beyond these petty squabbles, for we acted with decisiveness, purpose, and intelligence.

When an entire regiment of Antonicans was needed to face the threat of the Fire Giants or the remnants of Prexus's former chosen race, we disposed of them with a only a handful of the finest of Erud's chosen. Our successes brought us ire from these Antonicans. Alas, circumstance demanded that alliances be made to ensure our position and I was not privy to these discussions nor to the situation that lead to the order's disbandment by the gods themselves. Truthfully, I think the gods feared the power that might emerge from Erudin had we not been stopped.

But for those Erudites I called my brothers, there are no others to which I would rather have journeyed through the realm of Norrath. We shared discussions on the lore of the world: the sources of magic power of the arcane, divine, and the foul tree witches; the spheres of the gods and alternative interpretations of their theology; and the inferiority of the Antonican races. And together we challenged and changed the face of the world of Norrath.

The final point on the name of our brotherhood, "The Dark Men of Odus." This is indeed a double entendre. We are Erudites and one of the noticeable features of our race is our dark colored skin. We are the descendants of dark-skinned Erud and have acclimated to the sun-beaten weather on our transcendentally beautiful Odus. Because of this, we have been blessed to be highly distinguishable from the pale-skinned barbarians of Halas and the slack-jawed yokels of Qeynos. And it is not surprising that those with deficient intellectual capabilities fixate on only what they can see.

But by all accounts of "standard" morality we were indeed a dark sect. We know that we are superior to all other races on Norrath and we flaunt this. We accept the teachings of both the lich Miragul and Erud in pursuit of the highest knowledge. Those of us who follow Prexus do so for the ocean lord keeps us in splendid isolation from the rest of Norrath. Those of us who follow Quellious know that there is only one peace for all Antonicans, and if they are worthy may their next incarnation be Erudite. And Cazic Thule directs us to implant the terrible fear of death into our enemies, for they are only of use to us as our undead servants. Much of this is despicable to those followers of Rodcet Nife, Mithaniel Marr, Erollisi Marr, or Tunare, some of the supposed "good" deities. And so we were truly a "dark" order.