The Horned Doctrine: Law, Faith, and Blood in the Ranks of the Antlered Ordinants

Compiled by Serjo Sadras Eno Marethi, Scholar of Doctrine, Archivist of Kragenmoor, in 4E 195

Commissioned by the Sadras High Council for Record and Reflection

Chapter I – The Birth of the Antlers

The Antlered Ordinants were born in shadow.

They were not raised in grand chapels or knightly cloisters, but in the fire-worn ruins of Tribunal temples and the dust-strewn vaults of abandoned council chambers. Theirs was not a founding steeped in ceremony, but necessity. The Red Year had left House Indoril’s Ordinators broken, scattered to ash and legend. The Buoyant Armigers turned to ash-walkers and pilgrims. Yet war, heresy, and rebellion did not die with Almalexia.

It was in this void that Sadras raised its own answer: a trifold body of lawgivers, war-bringers, and soul-keepers — unified under the black-antlered helm.

They were shaped by the house’s pragmatism, by the teachings of the Temple of the Two Crowns, and by the lingering memory of Velothi and Imperial order alike. They were not formed to uphold divinity, but to protect Sadras from enemies within and without — to be the law’s mailed fist, the hunter in the hills, the silent shadow beneath the ink.

Chapter II – The Trihorn Doctrine

The Antlered Ordinants are divided not by rank, but by Aspect. These aspects are not mere branches, but sacred functions — each bound to a horn upon the emblem of the Skorati.

The Aspect of War — Known as the Velothi Crest, these Ordinants serve as Sadras’s vanguard in times of open conflict. Clad in black and bronze, bearing curved glaives and ash-pennants, they are deployed in Skorati Warbands — small, fearsome units trained in terrain warfare, border raids, and symbolic terror. Their elite are said to stalk the Valus Ridge on ash-skates, horns painted with mourning dye.

The Aspect of Judgment — Also called the Verdiction Aspect, these Ordinants enforce council law. They function as field-judges, interrogators, and executioners. Unlike Redoran warriors, they wear masks not of fury but of silence, and they speak only when law must be pronounced — or severed. They are deeply versed in contract law, Temple codes, and Sadras scripture. Writ-binders, oath-scorchers, and tongue-snatchers are drawn from their ranks.

The Aspect of Binding — The most mysterious aspect, often associated with Sadras’s syncretic faith. These Ordinants guard the sacred shrines of the Skorati, serve as handlers of bound spirits, and oversee the rites of the Temple of the Two Crowns. Their armor is etched with mothbone glyphs, and they bear soul-charms said to be harvested from the deep roots beneath Kragenmoor. They are the only aspect permitted to commune with what the Temple calls dormant divinity — the gods behind gods.

Together, these aspects form the Trihorn Doctrine, a sacred trinity under Sadras law.

Chapter III – Rituals of the Antler

Initiation into the Antlered Ordinants is said to be a trial of silence, blood, and belief.

Recruits are blindfolded and led into the Hollow Vault beneath the Skorati Hall, where they are stripped of all name and title. For thirteen nights, they must survive alone in the mountain caves east of Kragenmoor, bearing only a knife, a psalter, and an unmarked pact scroll. If they return with the scroll unburned and their oaths intact, they are given their first horn — carved from ashbone, gilded with Sadras silver, and painted with the blood of a river stag.

Only after a full year of service may the second horn be granted, forming the antler — a mark of full rank, council sanction, and spiritual duality.

No Ordinant speaks their former name. Within the order, they are referred to by function, Aspect, or rank.

Chapter IV – The Fear of Redoran

I have spoken with many Redoran captains. Most spit when Sadras is named. Some scoff at our “merchant lords” and our “pen-soldiers.” But ask them of the Antlered Ordinants, and their tone changes.

One, a salt-hardened commander of the Velothis front, once told me:

“We do not fear Sadras’s swords, nor their scouts. But when a man in black antlers walks onto the field, flanked by nothing but smoke and scrolls, even the bravest among us the Battle of Uveran’s Gate — and how the Ordinants silenced the cries before the fighting began.”

They are not many. But they are always seen. And that is worse.

Chapter V – Of Ash and Antler

It is no small thing to raise an elite order in the Fourth Era. Yet Sadras has done so with precision, tradition, and vision.

The Antlered Ordinants are not an imitation of the Ordinators, nor a mere martial extension of Sadras law. They are a spiritual symbol. A manifestation of the Skorati — the mountain-beast, the symbol of the hunt, the law, the silence, the double-god.

Their armor gleams with mountain lacquer. Their silence cuts deeper than shouting. Their horns cast long shadows in the high courts and longer ones across the battlefield.

They are the enforcers of a new order, and the face of Sadras’s rising age.

Final Entry

“When the Tribunal fell, the Ordinators died screaming into the ash. When Sadras rose, the antlers were lifted in silence. I know which I fear more.”

—Anonymous testimony, Rootspire Inquiry 4E 192