White Coumada

The White Coumada was the event that triggered the Himalayan Wars, catalyzing violence between the Akashic Brotherhood and various Indian death cults.

Overview
The Akashics moved into India circa 950 BCE, and encountered a number of different thanatoic Awakened cults there. While the cults were largely similar in their philosophies, they were not yet united into a single Tradition. Tensions gradually rose between the newcomers and the natives over their approaches to Fate. To the Akashics, the cults were too quick to interfere in the order of the world, and at worst used "fate" as an excuse for bloodthirsty destruction. To most of the cults, the Akashics were too removed from the world, content to stand idly by while history unspooled around them.

In 900 BCE a plague erupted in what is now Bhutan, and the Akashics collaborated with the Dacoits to contain it. Two mages, an Akashic Brother named Smoke Tiger and a Dacoit named Ranjit, were going village to village to treat the sick. At one point, Smoke Tiger realized the Ranjit was killing some of his patients; Ranjit claimed he was simply giving the good death to those too weak to survive treatment, freeing them from this life so they could get on with the next, but the enraged Smoke Tiger killed him anyway.

The Dacoits captured Smoke Tiger, but rather than punishing him themselves, they returned him to the Brotherhood. To their anger, the Brotherhood immediately freed him, and accused the cults collectively of a conspiracy to undermine the Akashics by murdering those who would otherwise be fated to help them. Attempts were made at negotiation, but within a year of the White Coumada Akashic forces commanded by Chang Ng began attacking thanatoic cults all over India.

Version Differences
The portrayal of the White Coumada in the Second Edition is of a genuine misunderstanding that grew out of control. In the Revised tradition books, however, it is suggested that there was a conspiracy at work, although not the one the Akashics suspected. In, it is claimed that the cults had decided to let the plague run its course in order to shock the Akashics out of their serene distance from worldly matters. Rather than the confused youth described in the Second Edition, describes Ranjit as a smug manipulator who makes little attempt to persuade Smoke Tiger that he is acting out a mission of mercy (though as this scene is written from Smoke Tiger's point of view, its objectivity is debatable).