03-05-2021, 02:35 PM
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The Corsairs of the Bull
Tag: Taurus| . The tag is currently unprotected. Be sensible.
"In the bull we find our strength. It is the symbol of our people – of Crete. The bull is resilience, the bull is strength. It is food in famine, bravery before death. It is the herd, it is family. It is security from the wolves. Together, we stand as brothers against the Outcast and damned. Together, we are Corsairs; Raise your helmets and a glass with me, my brothers! Raise a rifle and we'll all be saints today! Sirius will learn to mind the Bull, lest they catch our horns."
- Santo Tiago Bezerra Saraiva, of the White Artefact Syndicate.
The Taurus corsairs are a diverse subculture ofswashbuckling raiders and smugglers connected by loosely spiritual sense of knightly responsibility. Blending Corsair youth culture with a complex criminal mythology, Taurus corsairs are drawn from all walks of Cretian life, united only in their apolitical attitudes, and their pseudo-spiritual devotion to crime.
Gameplay and Mechanics
Ingame Roleplay between members and other Corsairs, Organised Smuggling convoys, piracy, and extensive combat with the Outcasts, Bretonia, and anyone else. You don’t have to be good at the game to play. All we require is that you have a functional understanding of English, and a level head.
We want to try at least one raid or convoy a week. Raids will not be reserved to Cambridge alone - we will raid Outcast Space, the Omegas, and the Sigmas. Casual roleplay will be the basis of our activity.
Recruitment
Longform Lore Overview
Six centuries ago, a colossal solar storm swept the Omicron Gamma system, destroying most of the electronics of the nascent Cretian civilisation. In the famine and blackouts that followed, Crete's entire precolonial religious archive was utterly lost. Spirituality became an oral tradition, passed down by word of mouth or neutron-to-neutron transfer, rather than codified in silicon memory. Over time, the traditions of Crete bended together. A new faith prospered, truly separating the soul of the Corsair people from the rest of Sirius.
The Corsairs of the Bull, often simply called Taurus, are followers of pseudo-spiritual subculture known as the Church of the Bull, combining cartel ethics and Cretian martial culture with informal religion. Taurus Corsairs are diverse, but they usually share a belief that the Corsair people itself has an inherent spiritual
consciousness, known simply as 'The Bull'. Taurus Corsairs believe a Klepto-Krato-Timocracy, a society based upon piracy by the strong and the honourable against the wealthy and corrupt, to be an ideal model for human survival in a dangerous and unsteady universe. Taurus Corsairs work to further the prosperity and endurance of Crete by continually questing against the wider sector - for resources, materials, knowledge, food, medication, and wealth.
Taurus Corsairs can hail from any walk of Cretian life, ranging across demographics, creeds, and institutions – from soldiers private legions of the Corsair Familias, through to cartel smugglers and errant pirates preying on the trade lane networks. Uniting the disparate Taurus is a belief that the Corsair history of extremes - surviving betrayal, resource starvation, famine and cannibalism, has burned away the squabbles and scruples of the old houses and made the Corsairs uniquely virtuous amongst the peoples of Sirius. Taurus Corsairs simply believe that it is more moral, virtuous, and worthy of respect, to be a survivor against adversity, than it is to build a society based on plenty. Plenty must be fought for. To this end, Taurus corsairs often evoke medieval honour codes to justify their spartan way of life. If a Taurus is an engineer, then they will attempt to build machines useful for theft and buccaneering, r carving out a harsh life amongst the crags and canyons of Crete. If a Taurus is a pirate, they will consider themselves a warrior for the Corsair people. If a Taurus is a smuggler, they will view themselves as a philanthropist, bringing the treasure of the colonies back to Cretians in need.
Taurus Corsairs are usually respectful of the Council of Elders, but the movement as a whole contains innumerable families and interests, who usually act on their own edicts, with little in the way of an institutionalised command structure in the faith. The only one unspoken rule within the Taurus is a lack of interest in intra-Corsair politics; a Taurus would rather affirm the Corsair way of life through questing against the Sinful and delivering aid to the homeworld than they would by debating their own kind. Taurus members are steeped the Cretian Sicario culture shared throughout the Empire – a quasi-fraternal identity that transcends outfits and families - and Taurus members can often be found as guards on artefact convoys. The only unifying value of the Taurus, apart from their nascent faith, is a desire to keep true to the old ways of the Corsairs, valuing the historic Corsair pursuits of raiding, piracy, criminality, self-sufficiency, as moral ideals. To a Taurus corsair, there is nothing more human, or more liberating, than to plunder the wealth of the Alliance and Coalition betrayers.
Taurus Corsairs believe they have an ethical mandate to raid, steal, pillage Sirius. Viewing the old ideologies of the Alliance as dogmatic and self-defeating, Taurus Corsairs carve their own path. combining neoculture and criminal traditionalism with a folk-heroic attitude, Taurus do not involve themselves in intra-Corsair politics, preferring a life of raiding, fighting, smuggling, and questing. Taurus culture is steeped in Corsair history, with structures constructed by Taurus sympathisers often resembling dark-age structures. The Taurus consider themselves the knight-errants of the underworld, following their own brand of cartel chivalry. Taurus monasteries are well-known throughout Crete as Anachronistic, castle-like structures, known as Ribats, serving as refuges for the starving and sanctuaries for the sick in times of famine, and in times of plenty, manufactories for black market hardware or workshops for Cretian cultural invention. This community-minded attitude does not extend beyond the empire's own borders - to outsiders, the Taurus are fearless and opportunistic pirates.
Every society in Sirius has its traditionalists, and its reformists. The contest between the old and the new – between the remnants of the Alliance – Coalition war and newfound ideologies, defines Sirius. Particularist division also defines the Hispanic people, especially the Corsair Empire; long fraught by resource shortages, cultural divisions, and an economy rooted in the underworld. On Crete, the Taurus concern themselves with distributing resources and humanitarian philanthropy. In the wider cosmos, the Taurus corsairs are the meticulous organisers of artefact cartels, viewed as liberators by the enslaved and as zealous raiders by the rest of Sirius.
Religious Beliefs
The beliefs of the Cult of the Bull are a syncretic union of Catholicism, Southern Orthodoxy, Sunni Islam, and Hindu beliefs from Suriname and Guyana.
In dogma and iconography, the religion closely mirrors the Catholic church, although with few of the faith's moral doctrines: Apart from an unspoken ethical protocol to avoid participating in sexual assault or slavery, ethics barely factors into the faith. Equally, God as an entity is less important than the ‘Sprit of the Bull’ represented by the gestalt Corsair populace. Some Taurus believe God to be a Daam K’vosh, whilst others have more traditional Abrahamic beliefs. No prophet is more important than any other.
For the few times that Taurus Corsairs do invoke god, the imagery they describe is closer to the Hindu bull god Nandi; a manifestation of Shiva, the God of Death. Taurus Corsairs believe that those who die whilst stealing from the rest of Sirius will be rewarded in the afterlife, and thus have little fear of death or moral scruples over murder – however, they are forbidden by their faith from being overtly bloodthirsty. Taurus Corsairs believe that self-improvement and the accumulation of power and resources for the rest of the Empire is virtuous and good, and therefore are openminded towards the less ethical elements of transhumanism, such as wetware AIs and extreme body modifications.
Taurus Corsairs are convinced that the Outcasts actively worship the Devil, with a minority of Taurus pilots even believing that the Outcasts had been led astray during the Hispania schism by the intervention of demonic angels (the Nomads), trading their souls for the forbidden fruit (cardamine). Taurus Corsairs are less isolationist than their peers, and are far more likely to attempt raids on Outcast home territories. Nomad hallucinations are often interpreted by Taurus Corsairs as religious experiences; a test of a Corsair’s dedication to the Crete. Taurus Corsairs usually maintain streetwise, slightly machismotic personas, and their faith does not prohibit overt displays of wealth for the more successful bulls.
Reputation
Taurus Corsairs have the same reputation list as the Corsair ID. Any future adjustments will be based upon emerging roleplay.
Individual Taurus Corsairs may pirate Zoners and Freelancers, if they desire to do so.
Questing
An outsider, or another Corsair, can ‘quest’ a Taurus Corsair to complete an objective to prove their honour, so long as the assignment doesn’t violate their ID lines. Feel free to use this clause for any number of hilarious purposes.
Religious Experiences
Taurus Corsairs will interpret nomads and known infected as demonic entities. The results may vary. Equally, Outcasts are seen as devil-worshippers.
Ranks
Vessel use is unrestricted – just try to observe basic balance. You will not be punished for roleplaying as you like, providing you do not alienate other faction members.
(M) Corsario Errante / (F) Corsaria Errante – Corsair Errant:
A Corsair, entrusted to act honourably and purposefully in all his dealings – usually by pirating, raiding, swashbuckling, smuggling and black-racketeering in the name of family, God, and Crete. Corsair Errants may pull from any rank of Corsair society, from the very bottom to the very top, and thus may use any spacecraft they see fit. You'll be starting off here.
(M) Santo Corsario / (F) Santa Corsaria– Saintly Corsair:
A corsair who has pirated, stolen, defeated sufficient numbers in battle, shipped enough artefacts or raked in enough flight hours, to be considered a model Corsair. Play frequently and don't get sanctioned, and you'll be given this rank.
(M) Papa del toro – Pope of the Bull (F) Mami del toro – Mother of the Bull:
Descended from the Orthodox term for a Primatal bishop, a Pope of the Bull is a Corsair sufficiently respected by his or her peers to speak on behalf of other Corsairs, without misrepresenting them. This is anyone who would like a role in creating forum RP for the entire faction, and who can be trusted to manage faction assets.
// The document is steadily going through a grammar, spelling, and structure pass to make it more readable, but you should be able to get the basics.