Outgard - Red Priest of the Forge

On Outgard, the Red Priests are the descendants of those who came from Mars, a heavenly abode wherein dwells their majestic god, a Dragon, with skin of steel and blood of mercury who sits atop the mountain of intricately wrought iron and whose breath is the very furnace for the life-fires of copper and cobalt.

The Red Priests are the keepers of the old stories and teach their craft only to those who apprentice themselves to their order. Normally the Red Priests remain secluded in secrecy behind the walls of their Forge-Monastery, but occasionally, journeymen are seen wandering the wilds, moving from forge to forge in the villages of man, offering their services.

Such peregrinates are considered gruelling because Red Priests are forbidden to bare any flesh outside the walls of the Forge-Monastery and so are forced to travel in heavy crimson robes, their hands bound in steel and leather gauntlets, and their heads entirely enclosed in a mask of cold iron. Some of the more fervently devout take this decree to greater heights of piety by ceremonially mortifying their own flesh (notably the limbs) before encasing it in freshly forged plates of steel, which scorches and cauterises, binding to the offending meat forever. Such 'augmentations' are then reverently cared for with daily applications of unguents and holy oils to prevent infections and rust.

When venturing into the wilds, Red Priests rarely travel alone, and are often accompanied by a small coterie of servitors, former criminals who have been ritualistically purified of their wickedness using the ancient secrets of lobotomy, their faces then forever obscured behind iron helms so that none may recognise their old life. It is these servitors that bear the Red Priest's articles of craft; inscribed anvils, lesser tools and are even sometimes yoked to large mobile forges.

The Red Priest will carry the greater tools themselves, holy instruments of forging, along with the sacellum-brazier filled with blessed coal to use in foreign furnaces, and sometimes they may even bear one of the priceless sacred artefacts from the Ancient Times when the ancestors could perform miracles and crafted articles of wonder.

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