These knights can really groove. These knights can get down like a magic kiss.
The Bass Knights are a knightly order of atheistic warrior-scholar-musicians who believe that music is the fundamental force of universal harmony in the universe.
* * *
Beginning as a folk religion centered around an unrecorded Forge Monastery (several forges make plausible but unverifiable claims to inception) and eventually evolving into a feudal coalition of disks, habs, and ships, the Bass Knights are one of the few examples of atheism within Wheelbreaker. This is not to say that they deny the existence of what other groups call gods, but rather they deny that these beings possess any form of "true divinity." To them divinity emanates from knowledge and more specifically from learning and proliferation of knowledge. The Knights consider themselves masters of their domains but to them mastery should not imply domination, rather they seek to cultivate in what they have mastered a creative wisdom by which others may be compelled to seek mastery. Their music is viewed as being the most important tool of illumination and motivation that they possess and is considered to be their greatest pillar. To them mastery is a byproduct of approaching material enlightenment rather than a byproduct of violence over another.
The Bass knights are a collection of religiously affiliated knight houses. Loyalties, obligation, trade agreements, and whatever organization a knight house uses internally shape the interactions between the various houses but the Knights do not have an overall formal organization or governing body. They have their beginnings during the Golden Age of Navigation, starting as a folk religion centered around the veneration of a local forge and eventually morphing over time into a rejection of divinity and a veneration of knowledge and music as the ultimate expression of knowledge.
During The Final Void War the Bass Knights waged an unprovoked crusade against The Cult of Eternal Iron, conquering several of their disks and habs and crippling many of their ships in an attempt to exterminate the Cult. Additionally this war, known as the Iron-Knight War massively expand the territories of the Knight houses. This attempted extermination was unsuccessful however, the Cult continues on in the modern era, and the expansion of territory, while successful, came at the cost of a majority of the Knights' new worlds being largely unsuitable for life. The Cult in the time of the Final Void War were very industrial and held a general disregard for the environments of their disks. The Cult used rad weapons against the knights, an almost unthinkable weapon to deploy in atmosphere, in a lst ditch effrot to defend their worlds from conquest. As a result many of these disks are irradiated or heavily polluted. In the narrative present the Knights still have not fully corrected these issues on their former Cult worlds and a unique culture has developed on these worlds as a result. These cultures are an unusual blend of the cult of eternal iron's emphasis on machines and their disregard for the human cost of progress mixed with the sort of perfect harmony of the Knights. The people on these planets don't really understand either group's philosophy, they just know the land and the water are poisoned and they carry that poison with them in their bones. Whatever heaven their lords are seeking is too far away for someone with only half a life to ever see.
Among these peoples, there are the Half-lives who are so poisoned by the radiation of their worlds that they are destined to die young. They don't actually live half as long as an unaffected person, but they are aware that "half-life" is a phrase associated with radiation, and they misapply it to their condition. For people who are not Half-lives life is frankly not dissimilar from other low-tech worlds save for regular conflict over scavenged technology and resources left over from the Iron-Knight war. Medicant knights wander between settlements, imitating the knightly demeanor of the Bass Knights and selling their skills to those with the need and the coin to catch their attention. The conflict over recovered technology and scarce resources frequently displaces people and while many become refugees in nearby settlements some become Ferals, so called because the trauma of the resource wars compels them to wander the sour places of the world alone. The arrival of a feral is considered an ill omen by many as it means some disturbance to the sour places has driven them from their isolation.
For their part, the Knights are deeply ashamed of these worlds. They represent a massive moral failing of their entire way of life, an attempted genocide leading to the sustained suffering of countless people that they are powerless to really help in any long term way stands in stark contrast to the teachings and professed beliefs of their order. What good is talk of perfect harmony and of attaining true knowledge when the people on your worlds live hard and short lives because of you? When once the Knights believed their words to be true and absolute, they now grapple with these words as aspirations that they have already failed to achieve.
The Knights are on relatively friendly terms with the CPS, who they view as rough but generally noble in their aspirations and who view them as honorable in their dealings. They are not close allies but each enjoys their dealings with the other. The Azi are more of an enigma to the Knights. Ostensibly the Azi are living by the ideals of the Knights, they help all who will accept it and fight for those who cannot fight for themselves, but the Knights lie to the about the state of their worlds because they would be ashamed if the Azi knew how bad things were. They know the Azi would freely offer aid and the earnestness of that offer is too much for them. Instead they lie and keep their distance and tell themselves that this distance is out of a confusion towards Azi culture and not out of shame and pride.
* * *
The religion of the Bass Knights is one of the few atheistic religions to have any widespread following. What others view as gods are viewed by the Knights as Archons who exist in the world as forces of great utility but ultimately as impediments to true understanding. Most notable to outsiders, the Knights are compelled to preform several obligatory rights every day, or every 30 standard hours if they are somewhere that does not emulate a natural day/night cycle. These rights, called "keys" by the Knights themselves, are:
| Reflection 3 times a day. Many houses have specific times they traditionally reserve for reflection but no specific times are required. |
| Performance of Good Works, often in the form of musical performances or teaching, but can encompass any assistance or charity acts. |
| Reception of Good Works, the inverse of performance. Often this takes the form of listening to music or learning from a teacher, but also encompasses receiving help from others of any sort. |
| Fasting, between the conclusion of Performance or Reception and the onset of evening no food is eaten to allow for all to finish with their days work so that all may break their fast together at the end of the day as a mirror to breakfast at the beginning of the day. It is meant to allow time for reflection on the day's good works and to promote a sense of community among the house. |
These rights form some of the core "chords" of the religion and can be observed in various permutations in almost every Knight house.