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Message: <blockquote data-quote="NoOneofConsequence" data-source="post: 426511" data-attributes="member: 5400">The Story of the White Rose OrderI found the backstory - here it is.The Tale of Bradamante of the White RoseBradamante was a beautiful young girl who grew up in a Pentapoline village, the daughter of a local healer. She was gentle natured and kind. One day the soldiers of the local nobleman came through her village on their way to do battle with Imperial forces. Some of these soldiers noticed Bradamante doing her chores and they stopped to talk to her. They were coarse men, as soldiers often are, and they made lewd suggestions to her. Bradamante was still a virgin and she wanted nothing to do with these men. Finally they were called back to the march and Bradamante soon forgot about them.Some days later, those men who had marched to the battle were defeated and the Imperium took control of Bradamante's village, because it was on the border of Trothkalmet lands. The defeated soldiers took to banditry and hid from Imperial soldiers in nearby woods. In a later season, the bandits came upon Bradamante as she was collecting herbs for her father's healings. They confronted her and made clear that they planned to rape her. Bradamante fled, screaming with fear and quickly became lost. She finally hid under a wild rose bush, tearing her skin on the thorns as she pushed herself further in. The bandits soon found her however and dragged her from her hiding place. They beat her for running from them and raped her many times.Bradamante's screams had been heard by some Imperial soldiers patrolling the woods and they came to investigate. When they found the bandits in the midst of their crime they quickly disarmed them and held them at sword point. Then the soldiers saw that Bradamante was lying naked on the ground and they too raped her and then, leading the bandits away, they left her for dead.    As Bradamante lay wounded and violated on the ground she was found by her father. He took her home and mended her wounded body. But her wounded spirit was beyond his ability to heal. Bradamante clothed herself in a cloak all day and all night, with the hood always drawn up. She fashioned a mask for herself and she refused to let any man look upon her again. Daily she would walk into the woods to the place where she had been raped and there before the rose bush she would weep for her violation and the wound in her heart that would not heal.    One morning, as she knelt on the ground before the rose bush and wept angry tears, there was a light about her and a voice said "Your cries have been heard." She looked up and saw a celestial messenger, glowing white and adorned in armour. He stood within the rose bush and all about him on the branches rose blooms were growing, white rose blooms. The messenger said to her "Your tears and your blood have been taken to these blooms, to cleanse them. For the Maker of All Things has seen your anguish and he has appointed the rose to you as your sign, for in his eyes you are purified. I am to teach you the Way of the White Rose, for vengeance will be delivered into your hand.”    The messenger took Bradamante into the woods and there she lived for a year learning battle at his instruction. When she emerged after a year she came armed and armoured and she no longer wore her mask. She came forth with the weapons of the White Rose way, the Sai and the Scourge, for vengeance. With these weapons, and the magic of the White Rose, she avenged herself. In the days and seasons that followed Bradamante hunted down and slew every man, bandit and soldier, who had been present that day. Some she slew in their homes. Others she hunted and bound and dragged to the public square where they confessed their crimes before she executed them. Wherever they were slain a white rose bush grew up from the ground. The last grew by the well in the Old City in Trothkalmet. It still grows there and the city folk brew healing salves from its petals, but its thorns are poisonous to any man who touches them.    Other women who had been violated came to Bradamante seeking justice. She taught them the Way which she had been shown and so was the Order of the White Rose begun. When at last Bradamante died she was ordained by the Maker as Patron Saint of the White Rose and she was given guardianship of the Order. She was buried in the woods and she was mourned a maid, unsullied and pure.</blockquote>

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