The Pedermann

The Pedermann, born Jorann Pedermann (1237-1319), was the Great Interpreter of Ninhavé, and is a central Apostle of Ninhavism. While Ninhavé was concerned with outlining the Grand Struggle between Order and Chaos and bringing salvation from the void, The Pedermann set out the rules for life which would make attaining Paradise easier. His interpretation of Ninhavé, known as the 12 Rules for Living, form the basis for Ninhavan morality and ideology.

Biography
Jorann Pedermann was born to Jorann Hermann Jastik (1199-1237) and Melissi Calanda Swartovsky (1219-1258), in the village of Castance, Rakovia. Jorann Jastik was a landless noble working in the service of Yakob Pedermann, duke of Chalisky, during the Franish-Rakovian Wars. Stationed as captain of the guard, Jorann developed a relationship with Melissi, who was the innkeeper's daughter, and twenty years his junior. They never lived together, but Jorann would often invite Melissi to visit him in his quarters at night, and would pay visits to the tavern whenever he could. Jorann was said to be in talks with Melissi's father Ohjeb for her hand in marriage when he was called to the western front, to combat a new offense by the Franish Coalition. There is no confirmation as to when he died, but historians have made reasonable guesses that he perished either during the Battle of Littengeld, or immediately after, when the Rakovian forces were routed.

Seven months after Jorann was sent off to war, Melissi gave birth to a son. She named him Jorann after his father, but did not assign to him a surname, as only married couples could bequeath a surname unto a son. The duke Pedermann, who was close to Jorann, took pity on Melissi and her new son and invited them into his household. During that time, Yakob gave Jorann his care and attention and as he was childless and without an heir, adopted the bastard and handed down his surname. He did not marry the boy's mother, out of respect for the father, but kept her in his household until she passed from consumption when Jorann was 21.

Due to his upbringing within the Duke's house, as well is his status as heir to the Duke's title, Jorann enjoyed an education in keeping with the best that 13th century Rakovia had to offer. He was tutored extensively by Bishop Katlin Žižeca, who taught him reading, writing, arithmetic, as well as theology. Jorann began an extensive study of the Ninhavan faith, including interdenominational studies of order and chaos, and began publishing critiques of ancient and contemporary Ninhavan theology. Compared to the day-to-day affairs which most of its followers were concerned with, Ninhavan theology focused primarily on abstract legal interpretations of Ninhavé, which seemingly existed so that absolution could be handed down for any disorderly or evil action after the fact. He found these interpretations of Ninhavé arcane and struggled to apply these doctrines to his own life as a young lord's heir. Jorann would attempt to explain these complex philosophical ideas to lower members of the duke's household and found an enormous amount of education was required to even understand the basic premises of their arguments, let alone their application.

Jorann's dissatisfaction with theoretical theology was paralleled by the degradation of his own mother's health and the increasingly unstable state of Rakovia, which remained engulfed in a state of war. Despite all the nations of Orosilas claiming to be Ninhavan, they regularly committed vile and chaotic acts, justifying them by use of this convoluted theology. Following the death of his mother, Jorann enrolled into the Duke's army, much like his father before, in order to see the state of his realm as he would inherit it. He was appointed as a Commandant, responsible for gathering supplies and organizing ordinances for the Duke's army. During his four years of service, Jorann participated in his role as a logistics officer in the Battles of Kunningen, Blastok, Zacula, and Remmiger. He also coordinated offenses against the Franish during the summers of 1261 and 1263. During the campaign of 1263 he was appointed the Arbiter of Camps after his predecessor, Janus Kiralyiuk, died from infection following a minor skirmish. This role empowered Jorann to maintain law and order within the camp, as well as punish malcontent and poor discipline.

The Pedermann as the Doctor
Upon appointment to Arbiter, Jorann was confronted with a number of unpleasant realities regarding camp life. As was common before the birth of modern medicine, most men in his division died not from battle, but from infection and disease. Out of a cohort of 10,000 men, almost a third would face serious infection or illness, and about half of those men would die. In light of this, Jorann conducted a survey of his camp in order to look for possible vectors for disease. Because Jorann was not trained as a doctor but a theologian he was not aware of medieval ideas regarding health and infection, which at the time focused around pollution by bad odours and imbalanced bodily humours. Instead, Jorann focused on theological ideas of order and purity, which were considered to bring not only health to the soul but also to the body. To wit, he noticed that most camps were in extreme states of disorder, with tents randomly arranged next to latrines, which were situated near wells. To Jorann this represented a mingling of Areas of Utility, which were defined as areas where a task was completed. These Areas were then classified by function in relation to the body; the latrine was an area associated with the bowel, whereas kitchens were associated with the mouth, weapons with the hands, and so on. He also defined the byproducts of those activities as having their own special garbage areas; food scraps were a byproduct of the mouth and thus kept separate from sewage, which was a byproduct of the bowel, which also had to be so many meters away from the intake of water, etc. Pedermann also believed that dirt or more specifically, the earth, was a polluting substance in the human body and ought to be purged from all areas where humans frequented. Conversely, he believed that water was the ultimate cleanser of the human body, as men were constantly compelled to drink it, and were never compelled to eat dirt. Thus he ordered that wash basins be placed, whenever possible, so that men may cleanse themselves of dirt, which was the cause of all ailments. He also ordered anything that man touched was to be washed regularly, to prevent contamination by dirt.

Upon implementation of this camp design, Pedermann saw infection and sickness decrease rapidly. Over the course of a single season, the rate of cholera was reduced by 90%, and death by infection fell by 75%. The successfulness of these procedures were recognized almost immediately by other leaders in the Rakovian armies and implemented across all camps during the Franian-Rakovian war. By cutting attritional losses post battle, Rakovia was able to sue for a white peace with Frania in the summer of 1265, despite being grossly outclassed in terms of manpower and military technology. Despite having never participated in a leadership role, Jorann was held up by the common folk of Rakovia as one of the true heroes of the war and his influence with the lower classes afforded him the opportunity to travel throughout the country unhindered, teaching the peasants about his dualistic and body focused approach to hygiene. Due to the mindset of peoples during the 13th and 14th century, this practice became ever more entangled with Jorann's theological critiques of Ninhavism as a whole.

The Pedermann as the Preacher
From the end of the Franian-Rakovian War (also known as the War of the Franian Coalition) in 1265, Pedermann's role as a Doctor was praised by the lower classes as an instrumental part in bringing the war to an end. However, for the more martially based nobility, Jorann Pedermann was an outsider who was claiming undue credit and glory despite never having achieved a single victory himself. There was also a sense of shame in the armed nobility that was brought on by the not unreasonable belief that the Rakovian army was weak, and rather than winning the war against the Franians, the Franians had instead given up after beating the Rakovian army over and over again. If statistics from the war are examined, this assessment bears some fruit: out of a survey of 45 battles in the conflict featuring over 10,000 combatants, the Franians won 36 of them. In terms of destruction, very little of the war was fought in lands claimed by Frania before the start of the war, most of the villages sacked were Rakovian, or in the borderlands of the neighbouring Zaborkan boyars. Nevertheless, the supply chains for the Franians were never properly maintained, and the strategies of commanders such as Grundeweg, Karslav, and Giese, which focused on small flexible bands attacking supply wagons and burning crops ahead of advancing armies, proved to be an appropriate response when dealing with a superior force travelling far from home. Assessments such as these are made post-facto nevertheless, and the prevailing feeling amongst the Rakovian nobility was that men such as Pedermann were a reminder of their own weakness in times of struggle, and thus an example of their vulnerability. These factors almost certainly influenced the University of Prada to bar Pedermann from preaching on their campus, and later extending the ban to rest of the city of Prada, despite widespread acceptance of Pedermann's medical expertise.

Pedermann interpreted this slight in a different way however. As a member of the Medical College, Pedermann's collegial circle was comprised of mostly learned men. Educated men in this period would have included not only doctors, but also lawyers and theologians. Because Pedermann was not trained as a doctor he did not explain his ideas in reference to the prominent theory of the Five Elemental Masters (an epistemological approach which saw the healthy body as being balanced between Five Master Organs which produced elemental fluids) but in terms of theology.

He formulated health as a dualistic approach that saw only two substances being necessary to healthy living: water and soil. Water was the cleansing agent the body used to purify itself in order to continue living. This aspect inevitably tied itself to Aiou, the creator and nurturing force in the universe. Soil, which is derived from the earth, can not be eaten by itself but instead must be purified through different creatures. Plants draw up dirt but cleanse it by also drawing up water, turning it into soil. But a man can not survive solely on plants, Pedermann postulated. Instead, man survives most succinctly off meat. Cows and goats, herbivores, eat plants and then drink more water, purifying the soil even further. He appealed to common beliefs about husbandry, that the wealth of men was long known to be associated with cattle, and that the nobility, who consumed the most meat, were also the healthiest and longest lived members of society. Dirt also served as a dumping ground for the refuse of nature, over time both human and animal waste crumbled into good soil, and contributed to greater and greater crops. Thus, all things made from the soil, or nourished by it, must inevitably return to it so as to continue to nourish other beings which may prosper by their degradation. The bones of old cows are mashed and ground and spread onto the soil, and the crops is better for it, so too must humans accept their time and be ground down into dust so that the rest of humanity might be better for it. Abominations such as necromancers, wizards, and the undead, stated the Pedermann, are abominations primarily because their bones do not return to the earth, but by perverting Aiou's laws, remain intact for centuries, preventing the newest crop of humanity from springing forth.