The Cult of the Burning Leaf

Never ceasing, Phaerah Kiam kept fighting to prove herself and satisfy her endless arrogance. She was strong, but often mocked for her lack of grace and artful murder. She knew what she had to do to achieve a prominent place in the Cult of Strife. Never were her skills noted worthy of even a Hekatrix, but she never forgot her pride, dignity, and "claims" she had to be a succubus.

One day, she found something she never had heard of before. Dance.

The Moss was a club famed for their dancers, especially their talented "Silver-eye" Novi. He and Phaerah met, and while Novi was introducing his brand new dance he had named "the Leaf", the arrogant succubus-wannabe fell in love... to the dance.

She realized how easily it could be perfected for combat use, so she started taking lessons from the Silver-eyed dancer. The dance was one where you floated and drifted, and your movements were as surprising as the sudden gusts of wind.

After a decade of learning, Phaerah Kiam had already left from the life of the standard wych, and she spent her days learning this dance. Novi had always been interested in more than just teaching Phaerah the dance, but one day she told him that she had mastered and perfected the dance, and that they would separate.

"Dont worry, I will spread our love... with fire", were the last words Phaerah said before she burned the Moss club to the ground, slayed every dancer who new "the Leaf", and ran off.

Soon she emerged with a handful of youngsters, trained and manipulated for her own purposes. She had become very rich through her raids on Realspace, shows (where her favourite move is to create a web of burning leaves up in the air), private clubs and, oddly enough, inventing a new trend, leaf amulets. She had robbed many gardens on her raids, and planted trees to the ruins of the Moss. The odd material fascinated nobles, but the market on them died soon when they realized that the leaves died quickly in the Dark City of Comorragh.

Now, she raids, kills, slays and dances her way through the steps of renown, gaining more and more followers, who are initiated through the painful process of burning a scar of a leaf on their backs. Every Syren and Hekatrix has their own tree grown up, and they are nurtured with the twisted regeneration of the Haemonculi design to keep them ever-green. Each tree has its own leafs, and if the owner of the tree dies, deserts, or is suspected to plot against the cult, the tree is burned, along with the body of the wych, living or not.

Yet still, the leaf dance is mastered only by the growing legend, Phaerah Kiam.

One day, Phareah saw how her cult needed to expand.
The alliance with the kabal of Lost Honour had been profitable, but she knew that she could be more, something much more.
So she spent a whole cycle following the brutal reaver-shows of the arenas, learning more and more about these magnificent vehicles.
And she wanted them. Wanted a lot of them.
She made a relatively good deal with a coven, providing her with artfully made jetbikes and trained riders. Phareah had first thought about training wyches herself, but after the first session had taken away seven lives and three bikes in multiple explosions, she decided professionals would do better. She could always win the riders to her side, after all...

The cult of the Burning Leaf was already halfway in severing the pact between them and the kabal of Lost Honour, when Phareah finally saw her mistake.
All the riders had been personally chosen by Rifelior, and the best of the reavers, an arena champion, was actually the archon's son.
The coven of the Hollowed had pulled a trick on her, forcing the cult to remain in alliance with the kabal.

But later Phareah considered that it may not have been such a bad thing after all. The Reavers had been very successful on their raids, and she had managed to "convince" all of them to pay her a part of their profits from their shows at the arenas, whenever she allowed them to participate.