“Helixers”

The religious text responsible for the Helixers and Helixism is the Elikomicon, written by an unknown author approximately 1000 years ago. The Elikomicon claims that humankind should look to the humble snail as a model: slow, deliberate, unhurried, and yet always prepared to passively resist outside pressure.

Helixers, especially priests, are known for their slow, and deliberate movements, honed through hours of exercises, as well as their use of extremely strong (if plain) armor. Lay Helixers may use simple boiled leather armor, but higher echelons regularly wear chainmail or even full plate. Other than spiral or helical motifs, as well as the occasional engraved or gilded snail, this armor is completely unadorned.

Settlements built by Helixers also follow a spiral plan, with the highest and most fortified part of the settlement being at the center of the spiral. They also tend to be strongly fortified. Despite this, Helixers are strictly nonviolent, and refuse to engage in hostile action. If provoked, they will form a tetsudo formation with heavily armored, shieldbearing priests on the outside and vulnerable children and elders at the center.

Helixers are seen by many in the Barrier as seditious, as they gladly sell their armor in exchange for resources regardless of the purchaser. They are also known to employ mercenaries to guard their settlements, and in fact recruit many of them over time. But the presence of armored cultists and their armed guards still alarms many, and Helixers settlements are frequent targets of attacks fro, various quarters.

Strangely, no copies of the Elikomicon are currently known to exist. Though the book was in wide circulation at one time, it was written in a complex code that was never fully broken. It is believed that all current Helixers high priests commit the book to memory from recitations by elders.

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