The difference between the 'pirate' factions and the 'real' factions is their moral standards, nothing else.
There is farmers in all of the factions, as there is people working in bakeries, factories, hospitals and schools.
None of them are made out of 100% bad ass.
Sparta.
The historical nation, not the bullshit from 300. Horrible social mores and societal standards for what it took not to be abandoned to the elements.
All their farmers came from other city-states and were held in thrall or politically dominated, and thus not 'Spartans.'
I was with you until the bolded part, mind.
Need to get this book, but I think what you guys are trying to understand is the difference between:
Sani Sabik - an overarching faith that believes in dominance of power, leading ones own through adversity to success, and the desire for eternal life among many of the more powerful.
Blood Raiders - a physical and brutal branch of Sani Sabik that have taken power through physical strength and mysticism to its ultimate incarnation.
Blood Raiders are as much a cult of Sani Sabik, as they are a criminal organisation and business empire. So while you get Sani Sabik lifers, many may express and go on to join the Blood Raiders and their beliefs. These would then use their new-found tendency for combat to defend their non-blood raider, sani sabik families.
For an in game RP representation, look at Celes, Meb and Revan.
Revan is an elite Sani Sabikist who doesn't follow Blood Raider beliefs and tends to get others to do her combat for her, while she persues mysticism and power.
Meb, who's an outright Blood Raider and prefers to get her own hands bloody and follows the Blood Raider Covenant arm of Sani Sabik beliefs.
Celes, who's more Sani Sabik but tends towards Blood Raider actions and belief, is a Sani Sabik doctor and medical practitioner... who sometimes lets the Blood Raider in her get involved... especially with dissections.
You'd have to check with the players of these chars, but this theme trends pretty accurately through PF iirc
Nah, let's not look at Revan, whose behavior is too much in the vein of oddball trends and petty grasping and social climbing to really be representative. The character has become the poster child for stupid, opiate-of-the-masses religion, something akin to the cheap theatrics of faith healers.
Let's look at Leon instead. Leon claims to be of the Sani Sabik 'faith,' when an Amarrian confronts him with penetrating questions, but under scrutiny will mainly say that the rituals were of secondary import to him - what was central was the attempt to fulfill the ideal of being the best in the cluster, the most capable in the whole of reality, at whatever he sought to accomplish.
This comes straight out of the True Amarr ideal about the Chosen of God, and is likely found in the central components of many Sani Sabik faiths with any degree of structure to them, as Meb mentioned - 'strength through adversity' is one element, 'control of the lesser faithful' is another, and 'seeking the panacea' yet another. However, given the age and disparity of the Sani Sabik religious phenomenon, we can only be lead to believe that since the Blood Raider Covenant does not play a central role in a unified Sani Sabik 'faith,' and the Empire actively opposes the spread and continued existence of such cults, these groups of believers exist disparately all over Amarr, Khanid, Ammatar, and Blooder space, as well as throughout any sufficiently large and varied exclaves of the Amarr faith elsewhere in New Eden. So they're gonna be different, but for a few tendencies and core beliefs.
The last element I mentioned above, the panacea, is a placeholder for whatever substance or effect the Sani Sabik and Blood Covenant seek to create, find, or instill for themselves spiritually when they're out doin' their thing. The blood that the Raiders are after is used for something, usually something to do with 'maintaining purity,' which is a spiritual conception concerned with the divine. A similar aim likely exists in many Sani Sabik cults as well, or where would the Blood Raiders get their tendency for it?
Anyway, yeah, if there's easily tens of thousands of various communities of Sani Sabik worshippers that make up the widespread Sani Sabik cults, there's room for plenty of them to be taken under the wing of the Blooders, in Delve or elsewhere - if only because the Blooders are closer to the Sani Sabik cults in terms of their belief systems than to the mainstream Amarrian faith.
Oh, and who else are they gonna recruit from? You can't always go with some Imperial marine suffering from PTSD and the more sociopathic priests.
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Topic: The Burning Life....feed back (Read 3875 times)