PeterZ wrote:Maik forcing the issue is an interesting proposition. He harms his own position because as an Inquisitor, he has taken an oath to obey the Grand Inquisitor. Will his betraying his oath cost him respect with Dohlar's generally loyalist populace? Will his disobedience force Dohlar to either support him and then join the Reform movement or reject him regardless of how much the populace may hate Clyntahn?
I just don't see Dohlar joining the Reform movement. They may well support the non-Clyntahn factions of the CoGA, but I don't see Dohlar as a whole rejecting the CoGA prior to the reveal. So to succeed in any maneuvering in Dohlar, Maik needs to move within established CoGA politics.
That would argue Thirsk also maneuvers within the context of established CoGA politics. In all likelihood both will move together or not at all.
"Established CoGA politics" is a slippery thing anymore. On the other side, you've got:
1 - The Church of Charis, which itself enshrines freedom of conscience so consistency of doctrine there is a weak reed;
2 - Charisian "Temple Loyalists" who nevertheless do not throw themselves into CoC services with explosives and blow up like Clyntahn would expect them to;
3 - Reformists who may not quite identify with the CoC but certainly don't identify as an opposition to it in Corisande at least and probably elsewhere in the Empire; and
4 - The new Reformed Church of Siddarmark, which is really just what happens when the Temple throws you out and you still feel like following the Writ and worshiping God and the Archangels the way you always have.
On "their" side, you've got:
1 - The Church of Clyntahn, where the church is all about killing people who do, uh, something, something bad, definitely, but the only definite claims you get that way from them come as a result of torture - and oh yes, Mother Church is now all about torture, and fear;
2 - The CoGA that helps the sick, succors the poor, teaches you right and wrong as a kid in Wednesday School, that's still kinda there (thank you, Vicar Rhobair) but seems to be operating still at the sufferance of the Church of Clyntahn when it's the only one most of you ever knew or loved;
3 - varieties of it that suggested that it'd run into some troubles, lost its way a bit, and could use some adjustment (though, unfortunately, that kind of talk will get you tortured and killed nowadays); and
4 - the genially corrupt, dispensations and judicial judgments for a price, Temple power machine that's developed over the last few centuries, rather distracting (2) from its work, prompting (3) to come about at all, and opening the door for its much worse successor, (1).
All it takes to cross over to the other side is to have the Church of Clyntahn kick you out too; all it takes to get that is to defy it in a way that not all parties are content to hush up. (Desnair still pays tithes, and the Church of Clyntahn does need them.)
I doubt there's really room for Maik, Thirsk, or Dohlar generally to buck Clyntahn at all without having to go all the way over, as far as Clyntahn and the Temple are concerned. In Siddarmark, they've had to adopt Reform just because they're not allowed to be orthodox anymore. That's not even a bad description of how it played in the Out Islands. If you just want to have any of the CoGA varieties that isn't the Church of Clyntahn, you've got to rebel. If you want to play the old corrupt power politics game but without people getting
maimed to death now, you've got to adopt some form of reform the Temple will not accept.
I doubt Dohlar is eager for anything radical; they're just coming to a point where the alternative to radical is being in a concentration camp, as guard, executioner, or prisoner.
