I will use Silken's want for an opinion to excuse any stupidity my
article may bring.

Where to begin? Well, to start off, I hate the desert. It's blazingly
hot in the day-time and extremely cold in the night-time. And the sand,
don't get me started on it! It gets everywhere...

And yet, in spite of all my whining I wanted to live in Antioch. Why?
Not JUST because the Justicar guild is situated within its walls, but
because it stands against magick.

Before I get into the negatives about it, I'd like to talk about the
positives of what we do for a substitute: faith. Just the way it's
taught to you by Bina is great. She says that it is not meant to harm or
punish, (though sometimes it might do so) but to teach and heal. I doubt
any other magickal practice could say as much. Stavven would label me as
crazy to say this, but for the weirdest reason I wanted to be a part of
that. Most of us have had the experience of the skill 'hands' being
performed upon us, and for those few seconds you feel safe, nourished,
perhaps even happy. That is an experience which is unique, apart from
all magick.

I'd like to think that as members of this great (and quite sandy) city,
we are fighting for that. A world of peace and enlightenment, not power
and wealth. One that values morality and virtue above all else. But
then, what's seperates us form Kinsarmar? Don't they want that too?
Wouldn't they like a world of happiness and love and so on and so forth?

The answer is 'yes', but if you'll allow me to be ugly, I'd like to say
that what makes us different from Kinsarmar is that we are not
oxymoronic in our struggle for righteousness. Not one of us could ever
attain goodness using wickedness; it is a clear and obvious
contradiction of terms. But in a struggle in the midst of a raid, we can
lose sight of that. "The ends justify the means" is an entirely false
phrase; we must always be sure we are using righteousness in attaining
righteousness, otherwise we could lose all clarity in what we stand for
in the first place.

Thank you, Antioch, for alowwing an idiot like me to write in your news
section.

Penned by my hand on the 14th of Bellum, in the year 489 AD.