THE ORDER OF THE AEKANI
The Dustrunners are an ancient civilization that has been living in the Dry Sea (the large desert encircling the city) for thousands of years.
Dustrunner is a name that the people in the city have given to them, the Dustrunners themselves call themselves by the name Raksha (Sanskrit for protectors)
They are a hardy culture who are adapted to life in the harsh desert. They were once a nomadic tribe who wandered the deserts in search of a promised land. This nomadic tribe had similarities to the modern Dustrunners, but was patriarchal and did not have the same spiritual traditions. The Matriarchal religious traditions of the Dustrunners come from a legend that has been passed down through the generations.
About a thousand years ago, a young woman was born to the desert nomads. Her name was Asha (Sanskrit for wish, hope) (ALT NAMES: Niraj, which means water born lotus, Apurva, Unprecedented, New) and she had a special gift. Somehow her consciousness was connected to the dreamers in a unique way that allowed her to meditate deeply and hear the thoughts of the people around her.
Asha’s gift caught the attention of the leaders of the tribe and she became an advisor to the council of elders and was given an education. As she grew to adulthood, she became very wise for her age and it became clear to the council of elders that she was a natural leader. Many of the elders viewed her as a threat to their power, but one of the oldest members of the council Kavi, saw the potential she had to lead their people to the promised land they had searched so long for, so he protected her as best he could.
One night, Asha had a vivid dream. In her dream, she saw a powerful river running underground. The river washed over her tumbling her through an underground cave and nearly drowning her. When she emerged from the water, she found herself at the base of a great sandstone rock formation standing in the middle of the desert. Carved into one of the rocks, she saw a symbol. Three triangles interlinked together around a single point.
Asha awoke from her dream startled and immediately wrote down what she had seen. She kept her dream a secret from everyone except Kavi. When she told him about the dream, he told her that it was a vision of the promised land she would lead them to someday. He told her that she must keep the dream secret until the right day, but she should write down every detail she could remember so she would know the place when she saw it. These writings became the first chapters of the sacred Dustrunner religious texts (Drishtis “Visions”)
Kavi was very old and in ill health by this time and the other members of the councils were all convinced he would not live much longer. They planned to remove Asha from the council after his death to prevent her from gaining more power with the people and to protect their own positions.
A few months later, Kavi became very sick. On his deathbed, he spoke with Asha and shared with her all the wisdom he had gathered in his life and everything he knew about the members of the council. He told her that when he was gone, he would no longer be able to protect her and that she would need to make her move against the other members of the council otherwise they would remove her from the council and try to find a way to have her killed or banished out of fear of her seizing power. As Kavi was drawing his final breaths, Asha promised him that she would lead their people to the promised land she had seen in her dream. This promise is known in the Dustrunner religious tradition as The Covenant and it is a symbol of their sacred calling.
After Kavi’s death, Asha mediated through the night until sunrise, preparing herself to fulfill her promise. That morning, she and her sisters, gathered together a large crowd of people around the tent of the council of elders and she gave an impassioned speech. She told the people gathered about Kavi’s death, and about her dream of the underground river. She told them that it was Kavi’s wish that she lead them to this promised land and declared herself the new leader of the council.
The council members were furious upon hearing this and they tried to break up the crowd and declare Asha a heretic who should be banished. One of the council members raised his sword to try to cut her down, but Asha felt his intentions and stepped aside before his stroke fell. The crowd then fell on the council member and an angry mob dragged him out into the desert and stoned him to death. This moment made the other council members afraid to speak out against Asha, and completely changed the balance of power in their civilization.
Following her takeover of the council, Asha became a very popular leader with the people. She appointed her sisters as advisors and created a new council called the order of the Aekani which was to oversee their journey to find the promised land.
For the next 10 years, Asha lead the Dustrunner people through the desert in search of the rock formation she had seen in her dreams. It was a long, difficult, journey, but the Dustrunner people were united by Asha’s dream and this kept them strong.
One night, Asha awoke in the middle of the night after a flash of her original dream. She walked into the desert and meditated. In her meditation, she heard the sound of rushing water coming from the distance. The next morning she called a public meeting of the Order of The Aekani and told the people that she had heard the running of the sacred waters to the West.
The Dustrunners headed west, and three days later, they found the rock formation that Asha had seen in her dream. After great rejoicing and a feast (which would later be commemorated by the most sacred of Dustrunner holidays) The tribe set up camp by the rock formation and started carving into the rock. Eventually they found a system of hollowed out channels inside the sandstone which contained an underground river which was part of a massive aquifer. Asha named these waters The Amrita and declared that from now on, the order of the Aekani would be charged with protecting these waters and preserving them for the generations to come.
This consistent source of water proved to be a blessing to the Dustrunners and allowed them to flourish and build a city around the Amrita. Over the years, Asha, and the order of the Aekani built the entrance to the Amrita into a massive and beautiful temple which would become the center of their religious tradition.
Asha ruled as the theocratic leader of the Dustrunner people for the rest of her life, establishing their first city ShilaJala and developing a new set of laws which would be the guiding principles of the Dustrunner people for generations to come.
These laws were a stark contrast to the old laws of the nomadic tribe. They were egalitarian and gave women in Dustrunner society equal or even greater status to men. The Dustrunner government under these new laws was governed by the Order of The Aekani and lead by their high priestess.
Asha also documented the story of her rise to power and the search for the promised land. These writings became the central religious texts of the Dustrunner religion, and are still kept by the Order of The Aekani to this day.
Asha continued to develop her special talent for hearing the thoughts of others throughout her life, through meditation and contemplation. After mastering the art herself, she taught some of her sisters in the Order Of The Aekani a technique which allowed them to speak to one another wordlessly as well, although it was never as advanced as Asha’s ability. This tradition has been passed down through the generations of Aekani preistesses since then, and it was the inspiration for the modern day telepathic technology the Dustrunners use to communicate The Pulse?
As Asha grew older, she created a set of laws to govern the transfer of power within Dustrunner civilization. These laws state that when the leader of the Order of the Aekani dies, or becomes unfit to rule, that her successor will be nominated and voted on by the priestesses of the Order Of The Aekani. This new leader is then baptized in the sacred waters of the Amrita as part of a ceremony of her ascendancy.
Asha nominated Karuna, the daughter of her oldest sister, to be the next leader of the Order of The Aekani. The Order voted unanimously to name her Asha’s successor, and Asha spent the final years of her life teaching her everything she could and sharing her wisdom and vision for the future of their society.
On her deathbed, Asha sat with Karuna and told her of other worlds she had seen in her dreams. Her final words to Karuna were “Protect our people, and the Amrita. Now I return to the dreamer.”
After her death, the Dustrunner people mourned for a full month, and her ashes were scattered in the sacred waters of the Amrita. After her passing, she was given the name “The Great Mother” a title that is passed on to the leader of the Order of the Aekani to this day. The anniversary of her death is another of the Dustrunners most sacred holidays. Every year they pour ash into the Amrita to remember the passing of The Great Mother.
Dustrunner civilization continued in a similar way for another thousand years. Things changed and slowly modern technology made its way into their civilization, but the core laws and traditions set out by Asha remained the guiding principles of their society.
About a hundred years ago, the tradition of mind linking passed on by The Order of The Aekani inspired an Aekani priestess with great technological skill to create a powerful communication device (The Link, the Pulse) housed inside of their temple of the Amrita. This device allows Dustrunners with no training to be implanted with a special device in their forehead which connects them to this communication device telepathically. All Dusrunner warriors and members of the order of the Aekani are implanted with these devices as part of their coming of age ceremony. This connection allows the Great Mother to communicate with all of the members of the Order of the Aekani and Dustrunner warriors, over long distances, giving them a massive tactical advantage in battles.
About 50 years ago, rich refugees from some of the world’s largest cities, started constructing a massive, circular, mega-city in the plains a few hundred miles away from the Temple of The Amrita. One of the main reasons they selected that site to build the city was the presence of a massive underground aquifer in the area which they could pump water from in order to provide water to the city.
This aquifer is the same one that feeds the Amrita, which has lead to the gradual slowing of the flow of the Amrita over time. During this time, the city government, and corporations inside the city have started sending soldiers and workers outside the city into Dustrunner lands to build more extraction centers to gather more water from the aquifer and to mine precious metals and materials.
These incursions have made the Dustrunner people very angry. They have sent diplomatic envoys to try to work out a treaty with the city, but the city government and mega-corps basically ignore any agreements which are signed and do whatever they want.
Diplomatic tensions finally boiled over about 10 years ago when a group of Dustunners protesting a new water extraction site were gunned down by a squad of corpo mercenaries.
Since then, the Dustrunner people have declared war on the city government and the corporations who refuse to acknowledge the sovereignty of their land. The Dustrunners have trained military units specially designed to raid corpo extraction sites and leave then non-operational. This form of guerilla warfare has been going on pretty much non-stop for the last 10 years and has brought about considerable casualties on both sides.