By Sirus de Saggio, Chronicler and Articulator of the Tizzonian Council of Emperor Alessandro IX

One can see among the long history of the Inquisitors of Ascadia a general tendency to loathe the processes of nature that sire youth, an apathy for the condition of his fellow Ascad, or so one would assume. The Inquisitors of this empire, renowned for their cosmopolitan nature and enforcement of laws amongst the states have taken a general likeness for the public denouncement of childrearing, proposing an urgency to pivot to what they call “orphancy”, wherein a family takes up the young of another rather than siring their own. In the words of one of the first proponents of Orphancy, Vicetto Intaglio, an old Lord Inquisitor from a far-gone time.

“One looks to the world and sees only misery, sadness, displacement by war, it feels unduly cruel to sire at these times, when the streets are lined with the parentless youth and the knightly tenements stack beds atop beds to cope with them all. Who are we, so selfish as to fill our homes with fresh blood while such flows readily in the streets, saturating the soil with their suffering?”

Unpopular and controversial at the time, spoken during the uneventful reign of Emperor Giovo II, who took the throne young as his distraught father abdicated with the conclusion of a civil war against the freemen who vied across the state for larger allotments of untaxed retainers, decrying the limits set upon them as tyrannical suppression of the “productive sharecroppers”. These sharecroppers, at the time, were under-reporting their retainer numbers and over-reporting their crop harvests through organized systems of robbery along the major rural roads in the areas they set out of, allowing them to pay their “familial share” of the civil tax, which was already a fraction of what the average peasant farmer provided as tax to the local Knights Parliament, which today is represented by the Knightly Guilds after their consolidation. These free-men, known as Vincolati, often relied on the surges of orphaned youth that come from the frequent small conflicts amongst the countryside, where many of them were groomed into professional militancy as mercenaries or retainer-soldiers of wealthy Vincolati. During this time, the Inquisition especially bore much of the responsibility in suppressing the Vincolati Revolts, wherein many an Inquisitor directly faced semi-professional armies forces of soft-faced youth, grizzled by their bitterness to the state and their poverty before being taken in by the Vincolati and provided shelter, something which the Empire failed to provide at large. The most decorated of the Inquisition, many of whom held high regard once a conclusion was reached between the Inquisition and the broad society of “Esteemed Houses”, as they wished to be regarded. Many nobles viewed the resolution as favorable to the empire, owing such to the exceptional martial skills of the Inquisition in spite of a fractured and under-performing knightly class backing them up, which itself provided the spark for the Tizzonian Knightly Reforms that came sometime after.

The widely influential nature of the post-Vincolati Revolt “Orphancy Movement” saw a massive shift in the familial tendencies of the Inquisition at large, with many Inquisitors becoming voluntarily celibate and adopting orphaned youth rather than pursuing a progeny of their own. This internal movement saw direct advocacy being made to the emperor’s cabinet and the council they advised, seeing the passing of what is now called the “Principal of Shed Blood”, a resolution which demanded the Inquisition open and maintain a number of youth tenement houses across the Ascadian League, one of the first Imperial Resolutions to apply to the League at large, rather than the Empire itself. This principal deemed that any child harmed by way of Inquisition actions must be housed by the Inquisition, at the Inquisitions expense, leading to a long line of “marked sons” who often self-inflicted facial wounds or begged Inquisitors to inflict them to escape poverty, a practice which often manifested in public duels between Inquisitors and youths who belligerently provoked this conflict, despite a mutual interest in the same thing. From the Principal of Shed Blood came a period of so-called Imperial Chauvinism. During this period the Inquisition took a firm hand in improving relations between the League and the Empire by utilizing these tenements as embassies. Through these embassies the Inquisition took a paternal role in the co-development of the League tributaries, funneling various internal resources towards towards civil infrastructure within the League at large. This behavior saw a large upset in the imperial capital, where many of the emperor’s council decried this outpour of wealth, with the emperor himself affirming the Inquisitions behavior as “representative of the Ascadian Way”. From here came a large inflow of orphans, with many of the ambassadors to the tributaries returning after their service with particularly large families of local youth who showed particular pomise in their ways. This was the beginning of what was called “Preferential Inheritance”, where a vast majority of hereditary Inquisition seats were being passed on merit to favored adopted sons, who themselves carried this same favoritism towards found family, rather than family born of long term “bondage”.

Broadly, many Inquisitors often belonged to damned families after this practice came into play, legally incapable of sustaining their house through blood progeny, but continuing to spread their titles through adoption, generation after generation to the point that some families have themselves dissolved beyond the orphaned youth who, come adulthood, continue this practice. Many Inquisitors, far more than is often seen amongst the common folk partake in like-love, finding comfort amongst their fellows rather than among a more fruitful partner. A fondness for this practice was taken during the formation of the Tizzonian Fleet, the first and only cannon-bearing fleet in Ascadia, and the only cannon-bearing fleet known in the world to feature a ship with broadside guns below-deck. This entire fleet was modeled after the “Style of Inquisition”, a perception of the Inquisition as an organization comprised mostly of paired bachelors. Each ship was comprised of a crew of male partners, like-bodied and same-aged as to share duties effectively, men who often partook in adoption due to their general lack of fruitful companionship.