Ghyll:Rejah
Dibbed, with the usual random quotations. --Jcowan 00:54, 7 Feb 2005 (EST)
With respect to services of faith, during formal gatherings of organized service to Berell, the oldest member of the group present usually officiates. This leader, or rejah, will perform such actions as leading the speaking of the credo, asking the present members for their perceptions of reality, and the symbolic refusal of name and status. Gatherings of this type rarely take more than an hour and only happen once every two weeks or less to allow members the privacy they desire.
Suddenly, at the age of 28, in -266 EC, he very unexpectedly got himself elected to the post of rejah. He took on the rather pompous title of "The Great and Grand Odgar IV, Rejah and Ruler of All That I Survey", and established what he referred to ever after as "The Court of Odgar IV."
"Farming the sheep wasn't all fun, games, and husbandry. Our oral history suggests revolts... that some sheep grew tired of their Ghyllian masters and marched to the western cliffs to throw themselves into the sea rather than living in slavery." ('Gesticulating wildly' would be a rather inadequate description for the pantomime M'Kev D'wal played before us.) "Our ancestors realized how much we needed the beasts: warmth during mountain excavations, storage of distilled water during the summer droughts, cuddling when the local rejah wasn't around... they strived to please the sheep more than they did each other. And we came to understand the sheep more, their needs, their desires, their harmonies."
"The sheep... they didn't like being trained, herded or even sheared. And if you think they're docile animals, you've yet to have one ram their head into you." (M'Kev D'wal offered to demonstrate, but we reminded him of his forehead scars.) "It took two months and three deaths before our ancestors realized a certain type of crafted rod caused complacency in the little buggers. After a few decades, our rejah tells us the beasts truly succumbed, and the rods were no longer needed. The only remaining rod we know of is stored in your Aminfarances Institute of Science and Technomancy."
