The Silver Torch is an extremist ideology within the Church of the Silver Flame that grew in prominence during the Last War. A human supremacist organization, members believe the current Church of the Silver Flame has lost its way by allowing nonhuman membership. Their goals vary, but the key feature of the group is its ability to appeal to thranes who feel disempowered in the post-war world.
Lower-ranking members are varyingly tolerated, defending their views as permissible under the Code of Galifar. Some members are more quiet about their views, showing up for the pitchfork mob but otherwise not elaborating on their beliefs. Others are proud members of the Silver Torch, openly seeking to persuade others via "debate". Higher ranking members shroud themselves in secrecy so as to avoid being held to account for their more direct calls for revolution.
While it may seem absurd for any member of the Church to reject nonhumans, given that three of the five founding members were nonhumans, the truth is these conspiracies are a manifestation of Bel Shalor's whispers. His suggestions are intended to drive a wedge between the longer-lived gnomes, dwarves, and elves members of the church and the much more numerous humans, breaking the institutional memory that has kept the Church such a potent force against evil the last seven centuries.
Source: Politics of Thrane
As one of the most fervent religious and political sects in the nation, the Silver Torch represents the very beliefs many outsiders fear when they think of Thrane. Born as a secret society at the start of the Last War, the Silver Torch presently includes several outspoken individuals who proudly claim embership. Only its “inner circle” of leaders maintains absolute secrecy.
The Silver Torch believes in the Silver Flame and seeks to turn, punish, or eliminate unbelievers. Its members (called Torchbearers) have no faith in the modern government, which they believe has strayed from the path of ideological purity by compromising with other nations and organizations that have little or no faith in the Silver Flame. Sect fanatics ostracize anyone who is not human. The state does not exile a citizen for voicing such opinions, but those who openly profess loyalty to the sect are watched closely in case they should choose to act on their bigoted or dangerous beliefs.
When the Silver Torch is outraged, one can expect a mob armed with torches and pitchforks in the streets shortly thereafter. On several occasions, the theocracy’s defenders have raided Torch meetings, but eliminating this one sect would call into question the very existence of many others. The theocrats routinely disavow any connection to the Silver Torch, even as they accept its existence.
Torchbearers use propaganda to gather new members. They prey on Thranes who have suffered unduly during the war as well as disenfranchised youth looking for trouble in all the wrong places. They claim that the Treaty of Thronehold should not apply to Thrane, since it does not swear fealty to the Galifar line. Others maintain even more ridiculous beliefs, such as the notion that the faithful should retake and purify the Mournland.
Moderate Thranes have little patience for the Silver Torch but hold them up as an example of the perils of zealotry and proof that the nation’s theocracy is not as rabid or hostile as its enemies would make it seem.
Source: Five Nations
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