Quincy
From Inga no Kusari wiki
Monk of Destruction, quincy is a title bestowed upon those who are members of the quincy order. These humans are spiritually aware, bearing enough reiatsu and a special artefact which allows them to form bows of spiritual energy in order to destroy hollows. Their hatred of hollows is deep routed, and their church have always sought to rid the world of that menace. The Quincy are organised into secretive chapters, mainly recruiting through family bloodlines, membership outside the ancient families is very rare.
The quincy accepted long ago that they would never be able to match the hollows in terms of raw physical strength, and so they have developed weapons to aid themselves in combat; while there is no special term given to the name of use with these weapons, the quincy's skill with the bow is the most visible application of their Weapons stat, allowing them to fire their arrows more quickly and to control their arrows to assure accuracy, though they also possess numerous other weapons, such as the Silver Tubes, which combine their control of reiatsu with their weaponry to produce multiple effects, similar to the shinigami kidou. The quincy are known, after their bow-mastery, for their use of reiatsu in combat, which largely consist of their skill with barriers and healing.
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History
Early Christianisation
The quincy have their origins in pagan Norse beliefs, Viking priests (goþi) who fashioned small relics - which would later evolve into artefacts - to wear around the wrist or the neck. Like many religions, these relics held a shape appropriate to their beliefs; the most popular of these being Thor's hammer, Mjolnir.
As Christianity swept north from Rome, so the hammers became crosses of the saivour Jesus Christ, and the goþi became ordinated as Christian priests. Using their God-given gifts of sight and purification to assist them in their roles, the priests protected their flock both from the evils of the mind and demons that threatened their mortal lives, their heavenly aura and powers centering on the crucifixes they wore. Through the veins and arteries of the Roman Church the practises and codes were kept alive and spread through the decades.
The Order of Quincy
By the time the Second Crusade had began, the sect of priests, now called the Order of Quincy and stationed in France, had a better understanding of their power. Through their crosses they could make bows of light, and with those the meek-bodied priests gave battle to the demons that no others could see. Like the Knights Templar, they accompanied the pilgrims of the Crusades to the Holy Land, protecting them from evil, whether it be mortal or supernatural.
Over the decades, as the Crusade ended and more began, the quincy began to spread throughout Europe, building Abbeys on the roads to the Holy Land where they offered shelter to pilgrims, and a base of operation for local monks to keep the locales free of demons that, in some circles, had earned the name 'hollow' for their lack of a human heart or spirit.
For the next hundred years, the quincy kept on in their ways, no longer participating fully in the Crusades, nor travelling alongside pilgrims to protect them. Instead they focused their resources into the creation of more Abbeys, and the search for men who could see the dead. These apprentices, most of them barely even boys, were indoctrinated into the Church, and trained to fight the hollow beings, it was they that would bear the brunt of the years to come.
The Great Schism
The climate of the 1300s, with the rise of heretic orders and the introduction of canon law, largely alienated the quincy from the Church. Accused of heresy for their dabbling in 'arts of the devil', they denounced Christianity. Riots and a great schism in the order occurred, leading to the destruction of many temples as the bulk of the order, now uninhibited by a duty to protect pilgrims, drifted east. Settling in China and Japan, it is mainly here that the order has stayed.
Betrayed by the church that they had been aligned with for so many centuries, the quincy became a secretive sect, no longer openly seeking new members, they depended on the bloodlines of their members to rejuvenate their numbers. Some missionaries travelled to the Americas and established abbeys there, of course, but the order stayed largely introverted, focusing on the training of their own, and the perfection of their art. From the shadows of society they protected mankind from the threats of hollows straying from consuming the dead to preying on the living.
Modern Day
In August 2009, one of the order's largest abbies, Okumichi's Pfiel Abbey, was destroyed in a firebombing raid, killing all but a few of the quincy that lived within. Official reports identify Kenta Daichi, Urashima Jin and Marco Blackburg as the culprits, all of them quincy or former quincy.
The Quincy Pride
'The Quincy Pride' is a series of rules understood by all quincy. Breaking these rules could endanger not only the order, but the status quo of those without the ability to see the dead (which the order refers to as 'blind), as such, failure to keep to the pride results in exile from the order.
- The first rule, is that you are not seen by those without the sight. If faced with a hollow in view of the blind, lure it to a suitable, secluded, spot.
- The second rule, is that you must maintain secrecy at all times. You are not to disclose any information pertaining to or regarding the Quincy, in any way, shape or form, for whatever reason, at any time.
- The third rule, is that if safeguarding the human race from the Hollow results in the loss of your own life, then so be it. You are to kill, or be killed.
- The fourth rule is that you never take actions that directly, or indirectly, lead to the endangerment of the blind, as they are our wards.
- The fifth rule is to obey the Elders, as they have been elected for their mastery and wisdom in all matters.
- The final rule is never to cause harm to another of your brethren. This is punishable by death.
