The Virtues of Losssans
In general, Lossans regard three elements as constituent of the world, and three virtues : the Earth, which is honour, the Fire, which is courage and the Water, which is Wisdom. Finally, the Air is Faith, the Lost Virtue erased of History by the Church.
The way the Lossans see the world is as varied as the peoples and individuals and is nonetheless rather far away from that of the everyday Earthlings of the 21st century. Some standards are still easy to understand, and as the Three Virtues make on the great cornerstones of the Lossan mentality, we will briefly summarize them below.
Honour
The Earth is stability, righteousness, assurance, the source of birth and of home. It is Honour : the fact of acting primarily in accordance with one’s convictions, in connection with the principles shared in one’s group, one’s people, and the believers of one’s faith. Honour is a code of conduct which is shared by the collectivity : it is gained through deeds that are admired by the collectivity, it is lost and one undergoes shame through humiliations that are condemned by one’s peers. Among the three virtues, Honour is the most visible one.
Without honour, a man has no word. He cannot be regarded as reliable or trustworthy: he is an infamous, a vile being. He will be reviled, despised and rejected by his peers, to the point of ostracism.
Courage
The Fire is the energy, the alertness, the strength and rebirth. It is Courage. Courage is the fact of surpassing one’s fears to act in the face of danger. This is why we do not speak about audaciousness or temerity, which are dictated by desire, envy, pride, or a lack of survival instinct. Courage is not easily sensed in an individual. It takes a situation of great danger and the need to surpass fear so see courage appear.
Courage is a virtue the Lossans respect a lot. It is honourable for them to face danger, even when it is deadly, when it is necessary. Cowardice is a sign of an unforgivable weakness to them.
Wisdom
The Water is the calm, the uncontrollable movement that goes around all the obstacles, the mirror which reflects the self, the serenity of its flow, the force that takes its time to bring down the strongest foundations. It is Wisdom. Wisdom is the fact of complying with the ethics that is often shared by one’s community. It links the consciousness of the self and of the other ones with temperance, deliberate caution, sincerity and judgement. The wise man becomes respected and listened for the light he can provide to the other ones on their problems and their fears of the unknown.
A man without Wisdom is impulsive, sanguine and hot-tempered. He is thoughtless and he will have to face, more than anybody else, the consequences of his unwise decisions. The Lossans will have no mercy and call him a fool. They wil give him no credit.
The Lost Virtue
The Air is immaterial, the realm of intangible. It is not seen but it is felt. It cannot be touched, but it touches all the beings. It is Faith ; Faith is the very concept of trust in what has no real existence to the senses, the experience or the material proof. For the Lossans, this notion is linked to Honour. It is honourable to trust. But for who knows Faith, it is totally different: the Air is the absolute and blind trust. It is sacrifice and devotion, and finally, it highlights the very essence of spirituality and selflessness. It is unconditional love.
It is an incomprehensible Virtue for most of the Lossans. Sacrifice for Honour and through Courage is accessible to them, affection and love is natural to them. But the fact that trust, sacrifice, love can become devotion and absolute selflessness is an alien concept to them. It is even heretical if that Faith goes to immaterial deities or concepts.
