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The Holy Rat wrote:

Gannibal Chuvak

by The Community of Love Peace and Friendship

Gannibal Chuvak
Monk of the Astovian Church

"The wind shall always blow in our faces, and it shall carry with it that storm of glass shards which has slashed and cut the faith and hope of many races, people, and civilizations. However, we are but vessels of God, the tools of his almighty plan, and tools do not complain as they work; they work until they perish... we shall endure with the unyielding faith that in the end that all will be as God intended."

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Born: 1956, Kal'mastov, Sovereign Republic of Astovich
Age: 77
Nationality: Astovian, Counictvi
Ethnicity: Prikati
Denomination: Astovian-Kyrystalis Church
Occupation: Monk, Religious Figure, Spiritual Leader
Spouse: Nabora Yavonovich Chuvak

History

Abiding by the one true faith was not made easy in the time for which Gannibal Chuvak lived. He was born to a member of the Prikati people. Though members of the Astovian Church, his father was arrested when Chuvak was six and sent to one of the national labor camps made for 'deviant faiths and nationalities' at the time. Though isolated from his father, his mother still informed him about the ways of his people, though he rarely strongly identified with it. However, she did strongly impose a sense of faith upon him which he would retain throughout his life. During his school years he was remarked for being an excellent debator and orator. He was at first interested in becoming a politician and reforming society, but he became disillusioned with the government as a college student, which he perceived as unjust and unrighteous. As a result, he joined a student organization in order to try to fight for Astovian democracy. Sadly, he was found out and expelled from the university.
Failing to achieve education elsewhere, he resigned himself to work in an automobile factory. He hated his experience there, finding it miserable and unfulfilling. He was not particularly good at his job either. Though, he still continued his rebellious activities. Eventually, he became a member of the People's Revolutionary Society. He worked to help distribute posters and opposition media to people. Though, eventually, due to group's opposition to religion, he quit it.
When war broke out between the Castriwec Proletariat Liberation Junta and the Enlightened Kingdom of Kyrystalis, he was conscripted in the military to help fight the war. However, he ended up with little more than a desk job in the military police. Nonetheless, he eventually was reassigned to be an interrogator for secret police. He was excellent at his job due to his friendly conversation which got people to expose secrets and due to a fear that he would sent them to someone far worse if he failed to get information. Though he rarely directly fought in the war, the devastation he saw and the stories he heard forever changed him. Eventually, he could do his job no longer and deserted into the desert.
Upon walking into the desert, he found an old ruined church, pillaged by the Reds. Yet, inside, a group of people were sheltering while singing the praise of god. He lived among for some time; he was found out, but he was forgiven due to his benevolence. He formed strong relationships with the people of the church and soon was one of them. Though eventually forces of the Kingdom came to conscript the localities into their military. However, their priest, Father Lastov, managed to talk the Kingdom's forces out of a forceful conscription into leaving them alone, not through force but through words and belief in a higher power.
Inspired by this act of bravery, Gannibal Chuvak went on to start a movement to return the land to peace. The war had entered its brutal 20th year with no end in sight. Slavers, bandits, and murders were now as much as a common sight as soldiers and armed vehicles. The land was poisoned with chemical gas, artillery, fuel, and bullets. Yet, Chuvak stood against this. He went from town to town spreading his message of peace, encouraging soldiers to defect and journey with him. Many men came with him in the name of peace, and many more would later betray him to the three authorities. Yet, slowly and surely, the peoples of the three lands, even the most wicked, could not stand against his movement for peace. Soon, his marches took tens of thousands across battlefields and into major cities, destroying the authority of the warring states and bandit warlords and establishing his own social authority.
Chuvak made it his mission not the abuse the power he gained, so he decided to create a most just system where local authorities are given strong power perhaps even greater than he as opposed a centralized imperium, which would limit the ability of autocrats to wage war against each other again. In fact, he waged a war against war itself. He asked of his followers to spread with love and compassion instead of by the sword, and he spread this message via radio. This was successful in convincing people to disarm themselves to submit to his new anarchist state. The regime he ended up establishing was quite quirky. It was a theocracy with one accepted faith, yet it implemented egalitarian policies to support all religions and cultures. He was its undisputed supreme leader, yet local councils had more power than him. It holds a strong grip on its lands, yet it does this with collaboration and peace instead of forceful security with a legal system to support them. His odd ideology, despite being contrary to the nature of nominal governance, managed to hold on to its territory and establish itself as a legitimate government to support his people.
After the war he began taking increasingly less of a focus on governance and more upon spreading the faith. At sixty he went to seminary school and graduated as a member of the Astovian Church. When he became a monk, he helped the revitalize the increasingly disgraced church which had been condemned for its collaboration with the Sovereign Republic. He began to recruit missionaries to go further into the lands around the three states. He also furthered the radio stations within the country in order to broadcast his message around the world.
Yet, as he grows ever older and ever weaker, the future of his dream that he fulfilled may yet be in a jeopardous transition.

Personality

Though he is often titled 'the Prophet of the Airways, the Peacebringer of Three Lands', he doesn't accept the titles. While he understands he did a great service to the three countries, he has always attributed his work to Father Lastov and to God. As such, he encourages that all those who admire him to seek the Lord rather than to seek him. He often, in line with church teaching, considers himself as sinful as anyone else, and encourages all to not get overwhelmed with praise about their moral virtues. He, in fact, often integrates tales of his more sinful times into his teaching as a lesson on repentance and self improvement.
He retains a modest lifestyle, his only luxuries being a small, rustic, childhood rural house in which he inherited from his mother when she died, and an old car from the 70s which runs as smooth as the day it was made (well, he made it). He also occasionally buys coffee from a local cafe popular with the young in order to help him concentrate with his work. Otherwise, he considers it a virtue to have to endure poorer conditions than the rest of his population, for he believes a leader should set an example with his modesty and endurance. For this, he often gives what the state stipends him directly to charity and otherwise simply uses the money of his position as a monk. He also plans to only have a small burial plot as his grave with a marker.
He is a fairly good public speaker and excellent conversationalist. Those who have met him claim that he can befriend anyone no matter how opposed they are to him.

Beliefs

Chuvak has been a member of the Astovian (now the Astovian-Kyrystalis) church for his entire life. He is attendant to mass every Sunday and is rumored to fast regularly, though he never admits this as he believes fasting is between one and God. His passionate religious beliefs are notable as he is able to seamlessly integrate the holy texts into day to day application in conversion. He believes that the holy texts are 'the ultimate self-help book, above all others.' Due to his religious apologetics, he believes that his religion does not need to suppress others because it will beat all others naturally.
Chuvak believes that people cannot be forced into righteousness. He believes that the only outcomes of an aggressive state security service are Nihilism, Despair, and Revolt. As a result, he wholeheartedly opposes any use of authoritarian policies to clamp down on opposition. He encourages any reform of society to instead be carried out through both education and persuasion on a personal level. As such, he encourages members of the Astovian-Kyrystalis Church to education themselves about their religion and go out and convert individuals both within and outside of the country. As a result of this, Chuvak has sponsored several expeditions to foreign lands which have attempted to enlighten the native populations about the glory of the one true faith. He has also attempted to use his radio broadcasts to bread the religion father than he could access otherwise. As part of this opposition to authoritarianism, he has reorganized his state into a more anarchist administration; local soviets, councils, and municipalities have a large degree of autonomy over their affairs which would otherwise not exist in a more centralized system. However, he believes that certain actions, such as oppression or violence, require at least a peaceful intervention within the localities. Due to a desire to not let the land fall back into chaos, his administration is described as more 'vanguard anarchist' than a true anarchist state.

Read dispatch

why Gannibal?

I wanted to make it close to Alexander Man, but translating 'Alexander' would make the end result too obvious, so I choose Hannibal and added a G.

Love Peace and Friendship wrote:

That I can type a surprisingly good narrative about an 19th century kitsune who gets stranded in the American frontier.
"I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me kitsunes or give me death!"

I should probably stop talking to you at this point......for my own sake.

Hey guys how do you make a region?

Sivulika wrote:

Another?
I see. It would depend on the slave history of those continents, or rather Serfdom policies seeing how most nations are Russia, UK, and France. My hybrid culture is known as Branmen, or Savikinuk (Ironman), are descendants of runaway and free Slaves/Serfs who settled in the region of Sivulika. Overtime, they either assimilated into the local Inuit people or created their own cultures merged from the Inuit's and their former homeland. Branmen get its name from "Branded" in reference to the method that the Slave/Serf owners would do to mark them as their property. Another emergence from this mixing of cultures is the creation of the Two Tongued, or Marruuk Oqaasii, which uses Inuit as the dominant use for words while English or whatever Valsora's equivalent is for words that don't translate over into Inuit. For example - Ullumi is Tallimanngorneq in the qaammat of Apriili (Today is Friday in the month of April).
It would make sense for me to help them seeing how the Inuit people were very welcoming to the runaway and free Slaves/Serfs that moved to the region. Though that was their downfall as it introduced new diseases and they were also out-birthed* by the newcomers till they've become a minority in their own home.

* I don't know what word to use there.

Oh man, the interplay between our nations could be so interesting. I'm also a "mixed" nation with demographics shifting over time (used to have two species of people, but now those species collectively are only around half of the total population -- humans and two human-like species make up the rest).

Also, you should totally come to Yaestrovakia if you want runaway slaves. Pakitsk lives in the northern part of the continent and is about to disembowel me for mentioning that it's only been a few generations since the passing of his "no slavery" law.

It's Friday, got motivation, and the grind continues on 💪

Rouental wrote:

The super complex COA of Rouental itself, that can be seen in the banners of my factbooks, was art commissioned from a friend. If you want, I could message him and see if he’s still taking commissions, but I don’t think he is at the moment unfortunately. :(

All my other COAs, seen in my WIP shots of my map of Rouental, are made on Drawshield, which is a free website that you can use to make heraldry by typing in blazons.

If you want any help with designing heraldry, I’m always happy to talk shop. I’m not an expert by any means, but it’s a passion of mine, and I’ve been making COAs for a few years now.

I’d certainly appreciate both! I may ask help on lore too if you wouldn’t mind but def. COA definitely are hard, I’m trying to design Liridia (Italian inspired, albeit more Germanic in Val) and I want that change to be present in the designs and names.

Gran Yucanoa wrote:

I’d certainly appreciate both! I may ask help on lore too if you wouldn’t mind but def. COA definitely are hard, I’m trying to design Liridia (Italian inspired, albeit more Germanic in Val) and I want that change to be present in the designs and names.

I probably won’t be as much help with regards to lore, but I’m definitely willing to field questions, so feel free to ask whenever you feel like it.

Shahzada tart

Vussul wrote:

Shahzada tart

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Order of the Saint Dumas wrote:

Worship us.

I'll do you one better, be our servant too

Order of the Saint Dumas wrote:

Worship us.

No.