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 more than just our sisters and warriors of Her Lights, they are living symbol 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 Leggio chapels.
When the Cataphractuhr is donned in her hallowed armor and ready to embark on a new holy labor, every Leggionehr and Imperial citizen shall demonstrate their devotion and love as fellow worshipers of the Bottom, bestowing spiritual uplift and strengthening her resolve: mightly slapping her butt, hugging and kissing her thighs, motorboating between her cheeks. 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; third channel the Gift to power thousands of factories and homes; and there are those who cannot stand aside when their fellow believers shed blood to protect others.
Any person, of any age, can become an 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 and Engifted might worthy of the title of Cataphractuhr.
The Inititates will undergo the most grueling and arduous training known to all Knights of Creation. 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 the love for the Hips and Thighs will keep them moving forward and help them 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 am I in the wrong place?". The Church never interferes or expels the Initiates; only these swaying doubts and the fragility of the body will reveal whether the Initiates are truly worthy of joining the ranks of Cataphractuhrs, and those who are unfit will weed themselves out. It is necessary to endure this 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. 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 here 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. But above it all, the Initiate must display all three aspects of the Cataphractuhrs in body and spirit: she must be Honest, for the hips never lie; she should be Diligent, for the glutes never tire; she ought to be devoted, for the thighs are the True Faith.
Upon earning her sacred title, the Cataphractuhr’s lower abdomen will be painted with the Thighological sigil of Apple, as proof of becoming a warrior of Her Light. And as the list of deeds and rank grows, new details will be added to commemorate one’s indefatigable work and accomplishments.
The most severe trial awaits those ready to earn Her Deathly Visage – a challenge of their devotion. 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 the doubts are impure emotions that have no place behind a golden mask of our Allmother. But even knowing this detail, they still hesitant to believe the veracity of what they heard, and fail.
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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 goodness.
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 hordes 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. 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 thunder roaring, which is their muscular cheeks clashing against each other. For they have become lightning itself, striking unexpectedly and piercing through the battlefield with impossible speed.
The cavalry of the lower-grade Engifted lost its association with the Cataphractuhrs; there was no longer any need for troops such as these to hurl themselves into enemy ranks when the Cataphractuhrs of the new era are more potent for the task, and the use of firearms became 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.