The Synthesist Conspiracy

Ten years ago, with the expansion of airship technology, serious consideration was given to making the church of Esther a partner in the Artifeast festivities. While Esther had always had a strong showing, their reluctance to share sacred airship design techniques and blessings in the information exchange with less scrupulous gods had kept them from joining the alliance between Imaunte and Harosh. Hoping to shame the church of Esther into seeing the advantage of the exchange, High Priest Tytherious Rex of Phol-Phoram proclaimed that if the church of Esther could fairly beat the best effort of either Harosh or Imaunte for the Grand Invention Prize they could partner with the festival without making their techniques public.

Foremost Haruspex of Esther went into seclusion for six months. At the six month mark she accepted the challenge on behalf of Esther. Three months after that she contacted Lightpeak promising a miracle, a way to heal the crippled soldiers fighting in the crumbling wastes. She requested Lightpeak send her soldiers too maimed to fight but eager to return to battle regardless of injury. She received paladins with missing limbs, wasting curses, and ruined eyes.

When the next Artifeast came around, Foremost Haruspex of Esther returned flanked by a score of completely healed paladins of Phol-Phoram. Not only were limbs, muscles, and eyes regrown, the paladins demonstrated superior strength, immunities to cold, fire, acid, and electricity, skin as strong as armor, the ability to sense hidden opponents even when cloaked in magic, and a body whose limbs could be wielded like weapons. Haruspex took the Grand Invention Prize for Esther that year and gained partnership with the festival along with additional orders for the secretive Synthesist process.

The Synthesist paladins joined ranks with the defenders of Lightpeak, and over a period of weeks the defense against the crumbling wastes suffered a series of defeats except in areas where Synthesists were present. If not for a personal investigation by Tytherious Rex, Lightpeak would have never discovered an insidious plot to cripple paladins, increase the demand for Synthesists, and conquer Lightpeak from the inside out.

The raid on Haruspex's observatory revealed that Haruspex had been dead for nearly a year. Most of the research had been destroyed  but several incoherent journals revealed that the Synthesist process involved killing the host and implanting a 'passenger'.

Consequences
The church of Esther withdrew immediately from partnership with Artifeast out of respect for the paladins who fell not only during the experiments but in the sabotage in the wastes and the pitched battle to take Haruspex's observatory. While Esther continues to maintain a minimum presence at Artifeast, petitions for partnership have never been sought since and neither have they been extended.

While Esther's best academic conjecture infers they were victims of a plot by servants of Illarath, no hard evidence has ever been found linking the true architect of the Synthesist conspiracy to any political group, cult, or entity. It is widely understood that the church of Esther was the victim of a conspiracy and that whoever engineered this process was not the real Foremost Haruspex. The debacle still severely disgraced the reputation of Esther on Emden. As a result, advances in airship technology have stagnated.

The church of Esther is not forbidden from Lightpeak, but they are not made welcome either. Despite exposing some of the most protected prototypes and designs of both Harosh and Imaunte to an unknown mastermind, members of the church of Phol-Phoram in Lightpeak hold the most obstinate grudge against the church of Esther. Many of the Phol-Phoram faithful that guard it's walls lost friends, companions, mentors, and offspring to what they call Esther's Folly and troop numbers have only recently recovered to the level that they once were.

Standing Reward
While the conspiracy was broken, it is a poorly kept secret that not all of the bodies of the Phol-Phoram paladins were accounted for in the aftermath and that certain areas of Haruspex's observatory indicate documents were taken rather than destroyed. Little is known about Synthesists, other than an agreement that they possessed the knowledge of the host, they could mimic manerisms and habits, and suspicions that they can change physical appearance. A standing reward for any information that leads to the capture, destruction, or whereabouts of Synthesists or Synthesist collaborators has been passed not only through Emden but to other continents. Aside from uncorroborated accounts, no one has detected any Synthesist activity since.