Hello Ashtan!

I'm here to help you fill a gap in your spy network because there's a detail they clearly missed and I am getting really annoyed by the fact that you don't know it. I'm gonna be honest - the glee with which you cling to your error is personally offensive and so in the hope that your low-brow malice is good faith misinformation.

Xur'kaal'shavhar was the name of what has been called the 'Hashani Qith cult', or more offensive things, and it established around Miraman 894 as a direct response to abusive treatment I and my wife received in Cyrene. We were regularly, falsely, almost always anonymously accused of horrifying acts of a rather intimate nature. This sometimes came from the highest levels, and so we adopted the faith of Indrani as an armour. It was self-preservation. In Her words we found a mantra of self-acceptance, of defiance against those who deceive themselves into believing themselves righteous. It was a heretical faith, not following the practices of the old Order, and this fact caused significant consternation with some old Order members still lingering about.

The faith also at times endeared us to the West and at others put us in conflict. We needn't go over the particulars, but just know that it was a hard thing to work with.

But I was -all- in, let me tell you. I am actually pretty proud of the Temple I built at great expense and effort. I gained a great deal of self-respect that the sneaky little cowards tried to deny me. Even carried a kris, marked with Her symbols. I was very proud of it! Most of you have been stabbed by it at one point or another but I'm not sure if you got a good look. Sadly you probably missed your chance.

I left Cyrene to escape this treatment and returned to Hashan, where I was born. And for the most part I felt accepted there. But not always. People still whispered, anonymously, as cowards do. One in particular had the confidence to say it publicly, on the news boards. For that reason, and a host of others that goes back forever and is just too long to recount, we booted him out and he lingers now on his ship or in your city.

Just to lay our cards on the table, the insult I'm dancing around is referring to me as some synonym for 'harlot.' Or that I run a 'sex-cult.' Or other insipid ideas. I am not that, I do not run that. And what I created was created as a defense against people like... you, now that I think about it.

I suffered a lot for this choice. Sometimes publicly, sometimes not. And it eventually grew to be too great. Some of them were mild - like the creepy men and women of more cities than you'd guess (yes, Ashtan, even you) asking me when we were scheduling traditional forms of worship. Really, the albatross around the cult from beginning to end was public expectations regarding Shikhar, more commonly known as "Lust."

As I mentioned, we were not practicers of the old faith. Physical intimacy was not one of our sacraments and we never engaged in such things ever. That was never the point of this. Didn't stop your ignorance. Even so! I was the subject of rumours and unrelenting abuse, and I don't know that there are many who could've hung with it as long as I was determined to, but we all crack. A fast summary of my teachings on Shikhar is "self-acceptance." That's it. No spicier than that.

In my conquest battles against you I found myself often working with Cyrene. To ease the efforts, I applied to be an ally. I received a reply with six very insulting objections, one of which based in reality but that one was regarding my connection to someone else, someone long asleep. The rest were lies including one absolutely ignorant one that "Visindi" means like "ally of Sin." As I told them in the reply - "Nope! Born with this! Nothing even like Visindi appears in the lexicon! Not entirely sure these sounds even work in Qith!" I feel like they were focusing on the three letters in the middle because stupid people are like that and really like to cling to patterns.

One of the objections will haunt me forever - they acknowledged that my faith was not that of the old Order. They insisted that was a lie. That it was a ploy to lure impressionable young people to be preyed on. I lost a lot of respect for Cyrene at that moment - they had heard me and what I was doing. And they opted to keep their fictions anyway, the ones that paint me as the version they made up in their heads.

This was officially hopeless. The mantra of Progress had been mine since returning home to Hashan. Progress demands we act, by any means necessary, to further our goals. This faith of mine was becoming an obstacle and distraction, necessitating I deal with people of low value and limited focus operating on old data without the mental dexterity to grasp new information. There was really only one solution!

So on or around Sarapin 923, I gathered those who believed in the faith as I did, we hugged each other and we disbanded.

This is not a ploy, it's not a trick, I gain nothing by doing so. I sacrificed it because the relentless abuse for 30 years worked and I decided it was more trouble than it was worth. Silencing these people was worth more than keeping this thing going. The Temple still stands because demolishing it is a low priority - I have too many other things that I do. Really I don't know how you possibly imagine I have the time to do the things you think I do, but I do spend far less time sitting around than most so maybe that's the cause for confusion. Maybe you just have more free time.

I even cast my beautiful kris, an absolute masterwork, into the forge and melted it. I have a new one now, perhaps you've noticed with how frequently I stab you with it. It carries no marks, and while it is pretty, it is just a knife and symbolizes nothing. And you'll hear Qith words out of my mouth from time to time - force of habit, I spoke the language heavily for a long time. But Xur'kaal'shavhar is dead, and consigned it to the dustbin like so much of this world.

I don't like you. You don't like me. We'll probably be doing quite a bit of insulting one another, when not just killing each other. But the cult is gone, I don't miss it, and your material is stale. It was also never the fiction you made up in your mind. Even from the start, you were talking out of your ignorant, lazy, gossipy backside.

I hope this information helps round out whatever passes as a dossier that you have.

Countess Nezaya Visindi,
Regent of Hashan
Witch





Penned by my hand on the 7th of Phaestian, in the year 927 AF.