Greetings from Khandava,
I am Ryse D'Arenath, Prophet of Khandava, and I bring you clarity in a time of murkiness and deception. Some slanderous, untrue, and worryingly fevered ramblings have spread about my council and myself. Rumors are like wildfire...they spread rapidly, change with the wind, and seldom leave until they destroy everything around them. So allow me to clarify.
Farah Casyia of Antioch has, quite plainly, fabricated a bunch of nonsense to poison a centuries-long friendship that many, myself included, have enjoyed. Where she conjured these lies, I'll never know...suffice to say, everything she has stated about me, and about Khandava, is patently false. I am left with only two possible and logical reasons for her ramblings, and either isn't flattering.
The first possible reason is deception and politicking. My encounters with Farah Casyia were always cordial, polite, and respectful. We've never shared a harsh word, and an abiding courtesy existed despite our differences in philosophy and religion. Whether through popular influence or a personal covetous inclination, the first possible explanation is that Farah Casyia seeks more power and recognition for herself, and she lacks the integrity to destroy centuries of cooperation by telling the truth. If Antioch wished war, a simple "The citizens of Antioch want war, our understanding is finished" would have sufficed. Thus, the first possible reason is that Farah Casyia is dishonest, lacks integrity, and has no qualms about lying to her population to suit her own goals while betraying a loyal and honest ally.
The second possible reason is less offensive but no less troubling. I am a healer of both physical and mental ailments within Khandava, as any can verify. The paranoid and delusional ramblings of Farah Casyia bear distinct markers of severe, sudden onset mental illness. Seeing allies as enemies, calling for violence, a black-white perception of a reality containing shades of grey...these are all worrying symptoms indicating either a hidden mental affliction breaking through or perhaps a more recent mental affliction taking hold. To have such an illness-laden individual at the helm of a wondrous city like Antioch is...worrying. I recall several tales of mad rulers subjecting their citizens to horrid fates while minstrels play amidst the fires of a once-great city.
Either option looks grim for the fair citizens of Antioch, and while the damage your Farah has done to a century of cooperation cannot be easily mended, for your own sake I do hope you remedy the cracks in your foundation. For it is never the ruler who suffers, but the common people bleeding for the entertainment of the mighty.
Sincerely yours,
Prophet Ryse
Penned by my hand on the 25th of Naturalis, in the year 229 AM.
