Lore - Empire of Hips and Thighs / Cataphractuhrs
“Our Conviction is impervious to weakness.
Our Thighs radiate voltaic confidence.
Our Hips exude galvanic truth.
Our motions call down the thunder.
We have weeded out sinful sprouts from our thoughts;
The blooms of the True Faith have blossomed in their stead.
We are the Gardeners of Death,
And Her lush Bottom is the Meadow we till.”
The Knights of Creation of the Empire of Hips and Thighs are living symbols of the True Faith clad in hallowed armor. Expunging the Nightmares of Envy like a righteous storm, their Bottoms are a paragon of perfection and their conviction knows no hesitation. Each one of them is a saint in life, and in death, their pelvic bones will be preserved as saint’s in their provincial Thigh chapels.
When the Cataphractuhr is ready to embark on a new Holy Labor, every Leggionehr and Imperial citizen shall demonstrate their passion as fellow worshipers of the Bottom, bestowing spiritual uplift and strengthening her determination: mightly slapping her butt, hugging and kissing her thighs, motorboating between her cheeks. Through these sacred rituals, they share their devotion with the Cataphractuhr, empowering her resolve with pious exuberance. And when she returns victorious, she will be awarded with the Bottoms of others – a just reward for a righteous warrior of Her Light. And there is no greater pride for a believer when one of the symbols of the True Faith notices the pulchritude of your hips among the crowd of thousands and wants to personally delight them.
Just as it is for the Leggionehrs, to be a Cataphractuhr is a choice of faith. No one compels you to be something you cannot be. Some vehement Engifted use their powers to plow fields and reap harvests as if they were hundreds of laborers; others summon rains on the scorching summer days; thirds channel the Gift to power thousands of factories and homes; and then there are those who cannot stand aside when their fellow Thighlanders shed blood to protect others.
Any person, of any age, can become a Cataphractuhr Initiate. All that is required is to be a devout, who deifies Her Bottom, and to be the Engifted of any Grade starting with the Blaze. The Church will undoubtedly commend such selfless zeal, and, as its responsibility, will assist in achieving the physique, discipline, and Engifted might worthy of the title of Gardener of Death.
The Initiates will undergo the most grueling and arduous training known to all Knights of Creation, and only the cultivation of the three virtues of the True Faith – Devotion, Honesty, and Diligence – will reveal whether the Initiates are truly worthy of joining the ranks of the Cataphractuhrs, and those who are unfit will weed themselves out.
They will need Devotion. For the next six years, they will have to endure physical and mental pain. Six years that may seem like six decades; their bodies will ache, and their thoughts will ring incessantly every day. In these moments, only inexhaustible Devotion and love for the Hips and Thighs will keep them moving forward and abandon thoughts of surrendering, because doubts will undoubtedly grow within them: “Can I continue?”, “Should I go on like this?”, "Have I been deceived and in the wrong place?".
They will need Diligence. For the Church never interferes or expels the Initiates; the swaying doubts and the fragility of the body will do this. It is necessary to endure natural suffering and prevail over own weaknesses, which will absolutely prove to everyone the strength of one’s willpower and dedication to the goal of becoming the Gardener of Death – that is what it means to be an exemplar of Diligence.
And finally, they will need Honesty. Because, eventually, the Initiate will demand an Honest answer from herself, and she should answer genuinely, not to the Empire and its people, not to Meora, but to herself: “Am I strong and committed to be the warrior of Her Light, or due my sinful avarice, I am ashamed and afraid to accept that I am not worthy of becoming one?”. To be a Cataphractuhr is to represent the True Faith, and to be weak is to stain the Thighology with future failures and disgrace. She who Honestly loves the Bottom must ask herself whether she is ready to take responsibility of being its symbol and protector, or whether her presence will only weaken it.
Ultimately, even if they are fewer in number, through this training the Cataphractuhrs become the most powerful Knights of Creation, and others can hardly match their mastery of the Gift and purity of mind.
At the end, all Initiates will face a final set of trials. They must show the expected results, or surpass them; but staying on this path for the full six years is a result in itself. These trials include: crushing a granite ball between the thighs, sprinting a kilometer in under nine seconds, generating a billion-volt bolt of lightning, striking a target two hundred nineteen times or more in one minute with a spear or sword, and much more.
Upon earning her sacred title, the Cataphractuhr’s lower abdomen will be painted with the Thighological sigil of Peach, as proof of becoming a Gardener of Death. And as her list of deeds and rank grows, new details will be added to the sigil to commemorate one’s indefatigable labor and accomplishments.
The most severe trial awaits those ready to earn Her Deathly Visage – a challenge of their fidelity. A Cataphractuhr must sit for nine days in the Horny Attics, demonstrating which is stronger: her duty as a Knight of Creation or her love for the Bottom. During this time, she should never become aroused by the goings-on around her, nor ever desire to glance at the Bottoms of others. Visitors are encouraged to provoke the challenger, but never force a reaction directly or physically. Many Cataphractuhr who fail, do so in the final minutes, as thoughts race through their heads and they begin to fear that by completing the challenge and earning Her Deathly Visage, they will reveal to other devotees that their love for the Thighs was not as strong as people believed. And so they intentionally fail, refusing the highest honors of the Knight of Creation... realizing only hours later that it was yet another test for a doubtful mind. Whatever they feel at that moment, they must acknowledge own weakness and failure, understanding that doubts are impure emotions that have no place behind the golden mask of our Allmother’s face. But even knowing this detail, the challengers still hesitant, not believing the veracity of these words, and fail.
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Historically, Cataphractuhrs were a type of heavy armored Engifted cavalry that originated to combat the Pestilential Cellulite. Primarily, during their charge attacks, they channeled the Gift to shield their mounts from the harmful effects of the Umbral Blood and other elements, enabling the entire force to cleave its way through swarms of enemies. The mightier was the Engifted, the greater was the mount given to her, ranging up to the battle elephants.
A series of events eventually led to the reformation of the Imperial Cataphractuhrs. First, with the founding of the Herquisition, the Engifted libraries began to fill with foreign knowledge and new discoveries about the Gift. Second, personal firearms were rapidly evolving and improving. And finally, as one of the Three Great Nations of that time, the Empire needed its own symbols of victory – its own Knights of Creation.
Those Enigfted who were vehement and powerful were retrained and became the Cataphractuhrs we know today, even receiving their own system of rank. They have abandoned the need for mounts, for their own bodies are mightier and more precise than the fastest steeds. And when they run, you can hear the clap of thunder that erupts from their muscular cheeks clashing against each other. For they have become lightning itself, striking unexpectedly and piercing the battlefield with impossible speed.
Of all the daughters of Meora, in body and spirit, Cataphractuhrs are the closest to perfection, but like all, even they are in awe of the Perfection that is the Allmother’s Bottom. Through righteous battles, they prove that their virtuous Souls are worthy of becoming one with it after death, making it grow even more thicker with the goodness and reverence they accumulated in life.
The cavalry of the lower-grade Engifted lost its association with the Cataphractuhrs; the need for such troops to charge the enemy has disappeared, as the Cataphractuhrs of the new era have proven more potent for the task, and the use of firearms has become a far more effective approach for everyone else. However, some Leggios still employ units of mounted and motorized lower-grade Engifted to act as decoys, guiding the enemy's attention around the battlefield: pretending to be weak and easy to reach, yet always elusive. These Leggionehrs have been renamed Velites.