Guru Suhan was a harimari Guru and the founder of Suhan's Praxis. Which emerged in a great reformation throughout Rahen throughout the mid-fifteenth century.
- "How does a displaced, wand'ring, cat in a hat out of yanshen, dropped in the middle of a regarded spot in the Denbasana, by all the gods impoverished in squalor, go on to be a guru and a scholar"
- ―Guru Suhan
Early Life[]
Guru Suhan of the Prosperous Stride was born in Guhe, along a tributary of the Yan. His family were devout practitioners of the School of the Ascendant Soul, focusing their religious studies on holistic self-improvement. Coming from a family of merchants and community leaders, Suhan was able to experience a unique way of life growing up.
While born in a Harimari majority region, the state of Guhe was a member of the League of Yanszin - a collection of Eunuch republics along the Yan river. He would visit Yanzhong with his parents throughout his youth. Suhan was able to see the living and breathing heart of his beloved school over several trips. He expected a paradise, a city built on self-cultivation and inner peace. Instead, he found the courts of Yanzhong riddled with the infighting of the Eunuch and merchant classes. Time after time, he saw the corruptive influence of power on people, plots which threatened peace, and philosophers more concerned with politics than Purtara. In an egregious display of selfishness, Suhan witnessed a “philosopher” of the Ascendant Soul School argue that the city should expel its Kobold population, due to their veneration for Balris. To his horror, many people agreed. What followed was a violent night, and Suhan asked over and over again why a man, who should be enlightened, could hold so much hate in his heart. Returning home to Guhe, Suhan sought answers in his religious studies. What was the source of this cruelty? For despite their teachings, the people had committed reprehensible actions. Perhaps this cruelty was simply a product of the nature of man, or a fault in the teachings of High Philosophy; regardless of the truth, he would not find an answer.
Beginnings of the Guru[]
Eventually, he would return to Yanzhong, years later. By chance, he met a merchant named Tai Lao, a wealthy man involved in the city’s silk trade, and a follower of the Silk Turban school. Night after night, the two discussed philosophy, politics, and religion. Tai had originally tried to patronize Suhan as a sort of personal philosopher, wishing to use his wealth to promote enlightenment as a follower of his school should. But Suhan rejected the offer, asking simply for lodging and food as he continued his studies in the city. Tai Lao found the harimari a deeply fascinating conversation partner, and the two of them became close friends. As the two men spoke and spoke, their wisdom grew, but were more often left with more questions than answers. After months of study and conversation, Suhan complained that it felt like they were missing something crucial. Something that despite the city’s cosmopolitan nature, could not be found in Yanzhong. Neither Tai Lao’s fortune and extensive intellectual connections, nor Suhan’s pursuit of scholarship and inner cultivation had brought them any closer to an answer. It was on this day that the world turned. Tai Lao recommended that Suhan journey to mighty Tianlou, to study there and learn more. The merchant even offered to fund the young scholar’s journey, simply as an act of charity. Suhan accepted this offer, and began his travels.
On his journey, Suhan encountered followers of the righteous path, as well as many of the other schools of High Philosophy. The Starry Eye, the Unbroken Claw, and even the Golden Palace. Wintering in Guting, home of the Harimari of the Divine Call, Suhan had his first taste of true displeasure at other members of his own faith. The Golden Palace school was stratified, restrictive, discriminatory (though members of the Golden Palace would insist they were merely ensuring the health of visatma). It was a far cry from his home village, where Harimari lived freely with humans, all pursuing Purtara together.
Journeying to Tianlou, Suhan studied under many of their greatest masters, learning intently, and absorbing much of the ideas of the Starry Eye school. He found himself agreeing with many of their core tenants and would begin to incorporate them into his own philosophy.. This was the birth of a new path, The Long Path, as Suhan began mixing his own Ascendant Soul practices with those of the Starry Eye. While never rising to note in Tianlou, the pilgrimage deeply changed him, and he returned to Yanzhong to tell Tai Lao what he had learned. Tai Lao quickly accepted Suhan’s new conceptualization, and the merchant made him another offer. Tai Lao was headed on a journey westward, as part of a commercial venture. He invited Suhan along, so they could travel and learn together. Tai Lao began his preparation, liquidating some of his wealth so the two could study, and they prepared for a long journey to the west, to Rahen, the heart of their faith. And so, Suhan gained his first follower. Returning to Guhe one last time, Suhan bid his family farewell, and they began their journey.
The journey was long, as they would often take up residence in various cities and High Temples. Everywhere he went, he gained followers; never many, but always more who followed him onwards. He even visited the land of the Lefthand Path at Tai Lao’s suggestion. While the Jiangshi were a known evil, their city of Jingcheng was prosperous, and might still yield answers. There, he learned much of the Lefthand path, its evils, but also a great deal in relation to their understanding of chi. He visited the Court of Bianfang, witnessing Ascendant Soul practitioners, who were very unlike him. In this great city, the Ascendant Soul was a way of war. Chi-bound warriors coated in scale armor marched through the streets.
Continuing their journey, Suhan and Tai Lao even studied under the monks of the Xiadao for a time, witnessing the fallout of their wars with The Command, and even learning what they could about the “Godlost.” In Sarisung, the Heart of Haless, Suhan witnessed bountiful corruption and violence. He would once ponder on what causes suffering, yet he still did not feel close to an answer. It was in this city, where his journey with Tai Lao was meant to come to an end. Tai Lao’s caravan exchanged their goods, and everyone prepared to return home to Yanzhong. As Suhan looked on at the city's famous water markets, he couldn’t help but marvel at the contrasts. A metropolis ruled by gangsters, a cornucopia of prosperity where wealth was taken, rather than earned, there had to be a reason for this all. As he stood watching, Tai came up to him and put a hand on his shoulder. He had sent word back home to his family, he would not be returning, and he pleaded with Suhan to join him in continuing their journey together. Suhan embraced his friend, his first disciple, and they planned their route forward.
Founding the Path[]
Going south, Suhan’s party reached the land of the Daulophs. In Lapnam Amrik, he saw soldiers with no masters, a city of both noble warriors, and the cruelest gangs that roved its underbelly. Against the advice of his companions, Suhan traveled the slums and met with the poor, craving to learn how they lived, and how they practiced their faith. On one of these trips, Suhan was harried by a group of gangsters, before being rescued by a hobgoblin named Bitoku. A gangster himself, he was, regardless, always the sort to stand up for the weak or exploited. He chose to save Harimari when he saw that Suhan was unarmed, and after finding out Suhan was a traveling philosopher coyly suggested that he would need a bodyguard. Suhan half-protested, saying that he had been safe up until this point, but recognizing that the hobgoblin desired to be taught, not hired, he accepted his new “bodyguard” willingly. Following the river to the west, Suhan passed through the great city, and Necropolis, of Bim Lau. Never before had he been around such spiritual power, with the possible exception of his time spent in the High Temples. Spending time around Orange Sash School scholars there, he learned to appreciate their projection of the family, but found a strong distaste for its patriarchal tendencies.
As he continued west, Suhan had his first run-ins with the Raheni caste system, and upon arriving in Sramaya, he saw what should be a free people, and a free land. In Sramaya, he met a woman named Ajeeva, a storyteller and entertainer, who told him of the revolt of the slaves, how they had thrown off the Raja and created this new free land, but how the promises of glory had faded into the realities of slavery all too quickly. It was this day Suhan accepted the evils of slavery into his heart, and set his eyes on the destruction of both it and the castes, which sang a far too similar song of oppression and hate. Ajeeva told him he should travel north, to Khiraspid, home of the Starry Eye school. In the end, she too joined him as a follower, and his entourage finally entered the Raj proper, the birthplace of his faith.
He didn’t like it.
All around him, scholars of the Golden Palace insisted the “lower castes” had to stay in their place. The enlightened Starry Eye philosophers he had met in Tianlou were consigned to ignoring the Golden Palace. They would teach the lower castes as best they could, but it seemed to make little true impact. While Khiraspid was a relative beacon of wisdom, it too was plagued with corruption. The lords of the city, colluded with practitioners of vile shadow magic to keep their power, and their stranglehold on the city’s porcelain exports. Suhan remarked that the city was akin to a rotten fruit with a shining wax skin.
After his visit to Khiraspid, Suhan visited the land of Parusad Bhola, a land dominated by a female line of Harimari rulers of the Ruby Garden clan. While the Orange Sash was one of the schools Suhan knew less of, he was well aware of its patriarchal tendencies. While Suhan never drew official attention on his journey westward, it was here he had his closest brush with it. While visiting near the Ruby Gardens, Suhan bore witness to a debate over the position of women in Raheni society, one scholar argued that the Ruby Garden clan was evidence enough that women could manage family estates if the husband was ill, the other one said that this was because of their caste, and that only women of higher castes deserved any education or higher place. This incensed Suhan who raged at them both, savaging the first scholar for his hypocrisy and the second for his thuggish views. While Suhan and his followers fled before more attention could be brought to them, his words were not quickly forgotten by the land he visited.
The Praxis is Born[]
Traveling deeper into the Raj, Suhan’s patience for the scholars of the Golden Palace grew ever thinner. After passing through Sardiphadin, Suhan decided to travel south and visit the home of the Unbroken Claw. Passing through Harimari state after Harimari state, Suhan despaired at the decadence and frivolity of his western cousins. These harimari, placed at the top of Rahen’s caste system, were ignorant monarchs, unconcerned with reaching Purtara. Yet, it would not be a complete waste of time. He would meet another one of his most influential followers - Another Harimari man, a follower of the Radiant Sun school, and a man of true faith. His name was Bahra of the Clenched Paw. While he hailed from Harimar’s cradle, he was a wanderer too, a wandering warrior. Far younger than Suhan, Bahra had been on his own journey of faith. Initially a follower of the Unbroken Claw, Bahra had already adopted the ideas of the Radiant Sun when he met Suhan and showed Suhan how true faith can bring joy and motivation to those who accept it into their hearts. However, Suhan would change Bahra in kind. Bahra came to understand that you cannot simply worship the High Gods and hope for understanding to come, you must find it yourself. Bahra joined as another of Suhan’s core disciples, and the party returned north.
After their journey to Bharabhagha, Suhan and his followers first reached Dhenijansar. Suhan would later recall this as the worst period of his journey, not for any lack of comfort, but as he had to see how rotten the home of High Philosophy had truly become. It was here too, that his hatred for the caste system grew too strong to think of reform any longer, only abolition would suffice. Suhan’s party departed the capital of the Raj quickly, with Suhan declaring there was no wisdom to be found in such a horrid place. Many had assumed Dhenijansar might be the end point of their journey, but Suhan’s despair within the city bordered on rage, so they kept going west.
After years and years of traveling, Suhan had become older and wiser, his retinue included followers of all of the schools of High Philosophy, though the Golden Palace still numbered the fewest in his ranks. As they departed Sarkashabid, and began to approach Rayavashapal, Suhan considered all that had come before: Yanzhong, Tianlou, Sarkhashabid, Lapnam Amrik, and Sramaya. As his party settled into camp for the evening, under a cloudless sky, he announced to his students his revelation: The Praxis. Soon after, Suhan’s students convinced him of their final objective, The Hall of Endless Debate, where the truth would be spread to all.