Kingdom of God: A Quest of Holy Revolution

All is Washed Away

The end of Yoshrei is the end of miracles. The divine light so near to Earth with the new year and the holiday month is obscured by storm and lightning, for Kestvan is the flood. The gentle drizzle of Yoshrei has become the torrent, as sheets and sheets of rain come and do not stop, even as country roads are drowned and levees strained. This is the water that nourishes and the water that kills, which the faithful of Usral calls Gongoros, the god-cloud, the God that gives and the God that takes. The Hadit swells, grotesquely fat, and the highland forests flush an unnatural green. In the north, the first snows fall on Uraran as mouflons rush to save the last forest forage to store for winter. In the south, it is the monsoon, and Vadashta is bathed in a perpetual fog, the arafein, from where it is whispered that monsters hide, ready to snatch rebellious children.

There are no holy days for this is the season of the flood and the season of God's judgment. 1,645 years ago, 823 years before Amalgast's ascension, God sent the greatest of all flood to wash away Babarak. These rains are thus the Bambisnan Vashti's Tears, the symbol of her enduring love for the people below and the echo of her final wrath for the people above.

This is the weeping world. On the edge of the Ischak Plateau, a baba screams and a minyan weeps as Jurors vested with the august power of their Circle destoy their village and their way of life, the pyres of their memories rising up to the cold blue sky. On the streets of Barabanan, an oblate serf begs for mercy as he is lashed and lashed again as his holy torturer applies the marks of redemption to his bloodied body that dared escape, the better to save his pure immortal soul. In Atabaran, a widow and her three girls are thrown onto the street for lack of rent, and to survive she sells, shaking, the medal of sacral valor they awarded to her husband for dying well in the midst of war.

This is the waking world. In Yomri, a Baba passes orders by written slips to mouflon sewing girls determined to fight for the sanctity of time, as they plot a holy strike to break the tyranny of the false temple of cloth and twine. In the teahouses of Eykshir, they brew lightning, as men and women shout and debate with one another on the possibility of a general and universal sacred freedom, and make plans for its just execution. And in the sacral axis of Gospodar, a renegade low priest marches up and delivers his opinion with a hammer and a nail up against the door of the Synod: enclosed are 77 Theses, each outlining the righteous cause of Seven Ravs and Seven Freedoms and a Sevenfold redemption of the world into a single faith.

Father of Freedom

All rotates around Nachivan. Nachivan is the mountain, the Sanhedron its white and shining peak. The Patriarch's declaration has sent the honorable delegates, the wise elders, into frenzied madness. Some claim blasphemy, others freeedom. Some call the Patriarch's demands too little, others far too much. Some cheer on a jubilee, others vow they will oppose it to the end.

But outside, the Patriarch's declaration is the beacon of the masses. All who thought the Sanhedron likely to mean nothing snap and turn their heads. While in the radical circles many grumble that it is not enough, for the majority this is more than they could have ever hoped for. A Patriarch that fights, by God, a Patriarch that promises. It is the popular prayer bulletin God's Own that sums up the feelings of the people: a woodcut cartoon depicting Santsarran as a giant figure with a sanctified paddleboard, ready to whip against the bent-over rumps of both a Juror and a High Priest, their buttocks already red with past slaps, labelled 'debt jubilee'. Below the cartoon, a crowd of Mouflons and Low Priests shout: Hit 'em again, San!

Even Bronkar Kenturah, the Patriarch's paramour, is now put into a better light. Bloom of Ziva, a women's daily, publishes its own cartoon of the holy wife of Amalgast, Esther, carrying on her back thirty-nine Patriarchs, utterly exhausted, even the square halo around her head drooping. Next to her, Kenturah, portrayed flatteringly, effortlessly carries a strong and handsome Santsarran. Against his chest he cradles two tablets, labeled 'debt jubilee' and 'free silver'. Kenturah says to Esther in a speech bubble: 'holy sister, I can handle this one!'

It is the broad forces of the moderate Orthodox and the heterodox but not radical that drives the excitement, as the lifting of restrictions on political sects drives an explosion of entirely new sects and a resurrection of the gold. It is not the radical sects and schismatics that benefit at first, but moribund or fledgling moderate sects that formed the radical fringe under Patriarch Petrifor, the prior Amalgast, when his expulsions of the true radicals left a severe vacuum.

The Melechaim, a previously banned, exceedingly feared sect that formed a popular support base for High Confession, is refounded and reconsecrate their temple in Nachivan, opening their first ceremony by issuing a new and strict calendar to follow for its membership. Yam Soph, a philosophical movement centered around an intellectual, soul-centered and commerce-oriented Iconoclasm, expands from its founding temple in Kedarkan to a satellite holding lectures on the possibility of free-flowing wealth and rivers of silver.

And finally, quietly, the young elder low priest Massima Rachel, only twenty-nine, becomes a founding member of the Nesran transplant Kadesh. A non-schismatic and novel sect, it draws equally from all corners and calling for the elevation of a wise and learned mass of souls to the leadership of the faithful, for the faithful, to create the Moral Kingdom. Owing to the preponderance of its inner sect to having come from the town of Zekher in Nesra, however, most have come to calling them Zekheris.

It is these sects, all with their temples as close to the Sanhedron as they can manage, and not the radical schismatics, who have come to gain the most from this new groundswell. Either blandly or fiercely loyal to the Patriarch, centered on the drama of the Sanhedron itself, and with deep pockets or existing networks to draw on, it is they who benefit from a surge of support and newly founded sect masses. This is especially from the wealthier and middling souls of Nachivan and the surrounding cities who are, many of them, entering into the realm of popular theology for the first time in years.

But it is not these sects that concern us, but you, on the far fringe, who despite all efforts and arguments about whether or not you should present yourselves less or more popularly, cannot erase what you were, and are: Poor, desperate rebels, who fought and bled for freedom, and if they come to clap you all in chains, will be the first to bleed again. And although many have come to support and cheer the Patriarch, you know and pray their support is not the fawning and near-idolatrous worship of Infallibility's peak but a love that can turn to hate should he soon enough show them he is indeed a creature of his chamber, trapped within his position as both first among the High Priests and prophet of God. When the time comes, they will find their way to you.

The Great Debate

The only way to describe the debate that Dvorah prompts by her lecture on the history and present conditions of the Amalgastene Creed is organized chaos. Sect disciples randomly and apparently spontaneously order themselves into factions, such as 'hyperpugilists' or 'pugilist-confessors'. Dvorah's confusion as to the sudden declaration of loyalty with the truth-seeking schism is among the least bizarre incidents of the argument. Zeb threatens to get into multiple fights and does get into two. Shevah bounces so hard in the midst of an argument she almost trips on another disciple.

Abgar Ben Hadam makes a lonely fight against the idea of personalism and the inequality of souls in relation to God, but is drowned out by the majority insistence that the Patriarch is simultaneously an impotent creature of his chamber, an immortal resurrecting soul-piece of the original Amalgast that has transmigrated for hundreds of years, possessing Patriarchs, and also not separated in kind from other prophets. Dvorah despairs and even Wendam is left scratching his head. Rector Qanam is delighted, as apparently this exactly aligns with his own views, which disturbs the other sages. Several disciples performatively declare their exhaustion with the debate: one yawns extremely loudly over and over to try and stop the debate until she is asked to stop. Another sect disciple suggests it might be wiser to adopt free silver as a compromise, to which other sect members ask how that is a compromise, and they shrug and mutter something about the fatted cow of silver and the starving calf of gold.

But beyond the amusing and confusing and bizarre, there is an underlying tension in the sect between those fundamentally skeptical of the absolute totalizing authority offered by High Confession and those who wish to grasp it for themselves, but in a more equal and less patriarch-centered form. These ultraradicals within the sect define themselves as Pugilist-Confessors, but in fact represent a long-standing tendency within Pugilism towards a universal and total vision of the cosmos to be reordered in the world to come. Against them are the Low Disavowers, who attack the idea of a centrally-oriented and top-down vision of an altered reality, arguing that only from bottom-up and consensual action can redemption come.

Results: New Doctrines added, and new tab created for 'Fundaments' - more central and core ideas of the sect that are also more loosely defined.

The Fruits of our Labour

Unresolved here, it will surely become an issue again. But too small to implement either bottom-up or top-down ideas, the sect instead turns to the fact that by virtue of the hard work of its members, its deeply illegal but surely holy smuggling activities, Belman's prize money and the flow of dues from both the inner sect and the mass of new Juror members, the sect has enough money to expand some aspect of its activities. Four areas stand out in particular.

First is sect defense: Many of the sisters of the convent of the eucharist report being followed on their way home from work by suspicious men watching from a distance, and young Yoni, who serves as a messenger and scout, reports a man wearing a theater mask and a cane followed him for five blocks while he was running messages to Akov. These disciples believe that the only way to protect themselves is by arming with concealed weapons that defy the laws around firearms ownership. Many radical sects ignore these laws, and in any case Santsarran has slashed the budget of the Holy Arsenal's control arm to zero to 'assist in stabilizing finances', an outrage to the Jury of Nachivan and the Great Synod.

Second is sect piety: The HaKhofshim Mekdash is a butcher's floor with some wooden seats and a sad-looking area with a plain and sad carpet for prayer. It is a pathetic expression of devotion for Pugilists especially, who adore iconographic and colorful imagery and well-maintained and clean dojos for performance of the angelforms. The unpleasant conditions make the sect appear worse, lower the morale of the membership and prevent you from implementing the full range of programs expected of a Temple, such as regular lectures and martial arts classes. Akov is especially eager for this as he has no place for the members of his mass to practice.

Third is sect outreach: Qanam advocates very strongly that the sect must establish a working covenant with a printer's workshop of the Order of the Black Sheep. With censorship lifted, and the printers anyway one of the most radical low priest artisan orders, they can surely find a printer willing to help them publish their articles, pamphlets, prayers, and bulletins. It is, Qanam argues, the single most effective way to multiply the voices of the sect, and to allow your ideas and thoughts to enter into a literate and popular discourse across the Kingdom.

Fourth is sect charity: Dvorah sadly notes how far the sect has fallen in taking care of its less capable membership. Whereas before exile the sect could support its oldest and infirm and even had a school for its children, now you barely have the funds to fund a daycare for the youngest, leaving many young mothers exhausted and overwhelmed with the combination of work and childcare and the old exhausted from their long hours. It is, she complains, a grave shame upon the sect, when As Hahahiyyim has a fully salaried coreand Ohr has founded a small women's academy in Wisdom's Heart.

But, the sages admit and the disciples as well, it is simply a matter of that accursed beast of money, that demands so much so and gives so little satisfaction. The sect must determine from all these essential choices, what it will do now, for you cannot afford to implement them all.

The sect only has enough funds to fully support one option at this point and make it efficacious. So what major investment does the Sect place its limited resources into, in order to improve its long-term standing? Wendam will be organizing this.

[] A stockpile of concealed firearms, to protect disciples from danger whilst they do their holy work [Institution added: Six-Shin Shooters, armed sect disciples ready for a Nachivan street fight].
[] A refurbished and beautified Temple, to sanctify the Mekdash and elevate the souls of its congregants [Institution added: Mekdash HaKhofshim, which greatly strengthens discipline by reinforcing the traditions of the sect].
[] A Printing Press Covenant, to spread the word of God far and wide beyond the boundaries of the temple [Institution Added: Black Sheep Covenant, which will allow far more rapid spread and outreach of the sect].
[] Elder support and daycare, to support the young and old of the sect and pave a way for the world to come [Institution Added: Home of Mitzvat, which will increase fervor by reinforcing the sect's commitment to its past and future].

A Call for Submissions

They called Amalgast the 39th Petrifor the Dream-Eater. His tenure was the doom of radicals, for in his ten purifying campaigns and his five cleansing bulls, encouraged by the High Priesthood, he shuttered hundreds of temples, made penitents of tens of thousands, and issued excommunications for heresy that led to dozens of high-profile executions. Great minds of their generation were snuffed out, as the freedom of thought and open debate that had prevailed under Patriarch Maravan the 38th suddenly came to an end. This ultraorthodox reaction destroyed the lively and scholarly radical network that Dvorah herself was once a part of and led to the shuttering of your own sect.

But these bulls have been revoked, and the excommunications removed, and Santsarran himself has declared an open war upon the iniquity of silence. Himself not really comprehending of the full scope of the censorship that he has lifted, the Patriarch has by his own actions accidentally unleashed the single greatest explosion of public discourse in Vasparak history. Every single day, new printed bulletins are founded across the Patriarchate, most of them either extolling the Patriarch or demanding he go farther. Sects are being founded so fast that authorities maintaining registers have stopped keeping up. It seems that every other bar in Nachivan has become an unofficial temple, just with better food and far more wine.

But outside the heterodox and the radical and even the ultraradical, there exists a fringe of the fringe, those unspeakable writers and thinkers and priests whose ideas were not just dangerous but seen as anathema to the social order. Exiled not just from their home-circles but out of Vaspukaran entirely, the lifting of restrictions opens a window by which these 'creatures of the most immoral nature' can return. Three arrivals in Kestvan in particular shake the foundations of the radical movement, for they are legends spoken of mostly in hushed silence.

The first two true exiles are Hadat Sutri and Hadat Bhadan. Bhadan was a renegade missionary whose preaching to the heathens turned heretical, and Sutri a foreigner from Asharei who he married abroad and who herself was arrested several times in her home country. Their twin works, The World-Totem and Abolition of the Heathen are nothing less than attacks on the very idea of doctrine as practiced by the Patriarchate: they accuse those who worship Amalgast as deniers of the truth of the Spiral that encompasses the whole world, and they even deny his primacy as prophet.

A challenge to the very foundations of the Kingdom of God, which they advocate be replaced with a world ecumene of all faiths, their arrival in Nachivan on the 4th of Kestvan is a sensation, for their works are so illegal that mere possession could previously lead to penitence. Dvorah, who went out to meet them at the harbor, is unsure of what to think: Sutri is a charming middle-aged woman who sings in accented Vasparak and plays a string accordion as she steps off the steamer, and Bhadan a skinny ascetic who hands out printed love poems to baffled radicals. The two immediately are offered to be hosted at the Temple of Mirrors, and take the offer happily. Three days later, they send a bouquet of flowers to the sect, the first the HaKhofshim have been formally acknowledged.

The third exile is Esterkezy Oshana, who Dvorah knows personally. A radical among radicals, Oshana's refusal to marry under any circumstances led to her public humiliation on the streets of Henoch made famous by sympathetic women's dailies. She fell out of favor with the more moderate women's writers, however, when she published An Inquiry into the Patriarchate and its False Gods, a dramatic and total repudiation of every major institution in the Kingdom of God, accusing the upper three chambers of being hoarders of sacrament who vampirically suck the faith of God away from the anemic and soul-weakened mouflons. Oshana, Dvorah explains to the sect, is somewhat acerbic and aggressive, but she has a good heart, and has lived an awful life, having been chased, humiliated, repudiated and even declared an exile on pain of death.

Returning from the Grand Mare's new holding of Kandi, Oshana wears her hair short and without covering and unlike the Hadats is received with less fanfare and more suspicion: some accuse her of being a spy and she almost starts a fight at the dock. Dvorah offers her a place to stay, but Oshana instead settles into a small all-women's Iconoclastic sect, which Dvorah admits seems a better fit for her views. She asks the sect to pray for her, and although there is some hesitation, especially for Akov, you do.

Even as the exiles return, another major shakeup transforms the possibilities for the radicals. Ghadan Nasir, the charismatic true confessor priest, cantor of Ohr and professor of moral economy has finally seized control of the prayer bulletin Ain Sof. The single largest radical bulletin in the country with the largest readership, Ain Sof was under the tyrannical control of the curmudgeonly High Confessor Yelim Maluk who had categorically refused to allow competing views into the paper. But Maluk passed away of a chill at the beginning of Kestvan, and the rest of the editorial sanctum have elected Nasir to be head of the board in his place, all apparently just as exhausted as Nasir by Maluk's intransigence.

To inaugurate this new age of freedom, Nasir has called for submissions from all the radical schismatic sects in the city, including, as an afterthought, you. Dvorah cannot believe your luck and wants to immediately begin work on a column for the next special issue, but then realizes she shouldn't simply choose what she wants to write about, but open the floor to the sect, for this will be the first time you will be able to distinguish yourself within radical circles.

What should the sect publish in the confessor bulletin Ain Sof? This will be your first foray into radical discourse in Vaspukaran. Choose one article to write, which will also help advance and flesh out your position on a doctrine. Dvorah will be writing this.

[] On the Sanhedron as a light among the nations [Advance Doctrine to Tier II].
[] On Extinguishment, and the Potentiality of Juror Liberation [Advance Doctrine to Tier II].
[] The Threefold Tithe, and its outrageous demands on the people [Advance Doctrine to Tier II].
[] On the Rites of Women, and our state of bondage [Create new Tier I doctrine].
[] On that Creature of his Chamber, Santsarran [Advance Doctrine to Tier II].

Souls of the Sanhedron

For all the hopes that have been pinned to it, the Sanhedron has been structurally unable to immediately deliver. The Patriarch's declaration has sent shockwaves and a panic through the elders. The finances of the country were thought to have been in stable shape, a delusion supported by the fact that Patriarch Petrifor apparently put many of the debts of the Patriarchate into his personal ledger, to disguise it from the publicly available and published heavenly ledger. After the initial chaos ends, there is broad agreement that there must be reform, but absolutely no agreement as to how and from where.

Attacks on the Threefold Tithe are reserved, with more interest placed in reforming land taxation and especially the taxation of both High Priests and Jurors, whose massive exemptions both grant them competitive advantage in business ventures but also mean a far greater burden falls on the lower two orders. The massive sweep of sumptuary taxes on any kind of luxury, and sometimes even on essential staples such as salt and bread were more acceptable in the period of temple industrialization when rising wages and reforms by Patriarch Maravan meant that the weight of these taxes fell less heavily. Now, they have risen, and the threefold tithe with it, and collectively they create a grossly disproportionate burden on those least able to pay it.

The debts of the Patriarchate itself are also a grave point of contention as they constitute a massive source of income for many Jurors and High Priests. By profiting from the interest paid into the massive debts incurred, it is revealed by Santsarran, in both the War with the Mare and the railroad expansions, Jurors and High Priests can live extravagant and effortless lifestyles simply by enjoying a transfer of wealth from the taxed population to themselves.

The greatest partisans of conformism is the High Ataman of Ramayan, Buman Burs, and the Archdeacon Gendelgar Dabami of Sufgar Circle. Together they form what the merchant and famous satirist mouflon elder Verata Maya memorably calls the 'de-no-mination', who effectively shout down every single proposal for reform. Pontiff-Prelate Samangan identifies them, and the delegates from Hamayan, collectively as the 'infertile crescent'. But the strength of their words and the laughs and jeers they get cannot break the fact that too many members of the Sanhedron are hesitant to act, either out of fear or simply seeing it as folly, against the forces of ultraorthodoxy. The result is a deadlock: every single chamber is incapable of forming majorities in favor of a specific reform plan.

With the initial week and a half of the Grand Sahnedron's first session a failure, many of the reformist elders instead hit the streets, trying to organize support from among the people of Nachivan. This is also an opportunity for you, as the reformist elders are hosting practically free events with food and drink on the rest day, financed either from their personal accounts or donations given to them by eager supporters. In particular, four elders, one from each of the chambers, have distinguished themselves.

And frankly, you need a break, and a day of fun, which each of the elders offer in order to gain support from the people of Nachivan, and to put pressure on their peers.

So where does the sect go, to both better understand the demeanor of the reformist elders and to take a break from the exhausting work of God? Akov has been offered charge of this to expand his horizons as an organizer.

[] The Serenaphim Exhibit. At Yatoni Temple, ONE DAY ONLY, COME and SEE the most spectacular fossilized remnants of the lizardly TYRANT ANGELS of yesteryear, found with the greatest advances in natural theology and fieldwork, with special words by Elder Kardon Hadi of the Low Priest Chamber! THESE ARE THE BONES HIDDEN BY GOD!

[] The Carnival of Pillars. At the Park of the Pillars, BOTH PARENTS AND CHILDREN WELCOME, a delightful carnival to RAISE THE SPIRIT and EASE THE SOUL hosted by the Elder Tessel Tori High Priestess and Abbess Superior of the Order Marina. FOOD AND GAMES FOR ALL, PUPPET SHOWS and a MENAGERIE OF BEASTS! Admission free for all souls!

[] Comedy Night. At Ulyanan Theater, the show that THE PATRIARCH DOESN'T WANT YOU TO SEE, Musi Musi the MULE OF HEAVEN returns for the most censor-free and UTTERLY SACRILEGIOUS performance of his career, with opener by the fine comic and the FUNNIEST elder, VERATA MAYA. THOSE WHO MISS THIS WILL BE PUNISHED IN THE WORLD TO COME!

[] Grand Parade. At Karogen Academy, observe the most HOLY parade of the White-Gold and Pale Horse Standard, hosted by the DASHING Elder and Komandir Akabar Morsi! HUSBANDS BEWARE! MARCHING BAND, POLO, and THE MOST GRAND CANNON-BLASTS IN ALL OF VASPUKARAN! Come and be deafened, or save your ears and lose your SOUL!

The Great Synod

And then all is interrupted.

The House of Creation, not far from the Temple of the Free, houses the 77 members of the Great Synod. It is the single most important legal authority in the country, and the de facto ruler of Vaspukaran for the past seventy-five years. It is the top of a sanctified hierarchy that descends to the lowest of low priests. All 62 Synodic Circles send one archdeacon to the Great Synod. Five Great Circles (Karmazan, Nesra, Yizkadal, Uran & Gushanaram) are accorded one additional archdeacon by virtue of their history, wealth, and power, adding 5. Five Founding Circles (Sufgar, Ischak, Sarvadar, Raditakan, and Warabad) are accorded two additional archdeacons each, adding 10, totalling to the holy 77. This is the formula of heaven. Both a legislator and an adjudicator, the Great Synod creates laws by virtue of self-prompted reference hearings heard by the entire Synod, and rules on laws appealed from the circles and heard in smaller councils of 17 or 7.

These men, and they are all men, represent the tip of the path of the sage, a multi-step process by which the wise can rise from mouflon to Archdeacon. By passing a series of exams, first to enter the low priesthood, then to become a rector, then to become a proctor of a village or a temple, then to become a prelate of a town or city, then to become a deacon of a deaconate with a small region under your supervision, then to become an archdeacon of an entire synod, you may then be raised by election of your peers into the Great Synod. These exams, encompassing both religious law and knowledge of the classics, are exacting, serious, and almost impossible to pass. It is by this path that the greatest and most brilliant of all in Vaspukaran justly become archdeacons of the Synod.

Or, so it is supposed to go. In point of fact, nearly every single member of the Great Synod is the son of a priestly lineage. Generations of tradition and respect and legacy admission allow wealthy heirs to priesthood to skip steps, to know exam questions in advance, and simply to have the internal familial, inherited knowledge necessary to know exactly what is needed. The oral and legal defense portions of exams are rife with corruption whereby many of the testers are relatives of the students who will pass. Those fools who think the system functions as it says will perish in poverty, penury, obscurity, as the escalating fees of examination entrance and study materials destroy their livelihoods.

The Despoiling of the Ischak

The composition of the Great Synod is almost uniformly ultraorthodox. Having taken functional control of the Patriarchate in the wake of the Temple Coup, backed by the stalwart support of the Jury of Nachivan, the Great Synod presents itself in absolute opposition to any and all reform, even against the beliefs of other High Priests who have been alienated by its radical obscurantism. It despises radicals and used Petrifor's campaigns to massively undermine the rites of mouflons protecting them against prosecution. Its ability to both pass and adjudicate laws means it is able to effortlessly declare its own laws legal, and block those of the Patriarch, manipulating legal precedents centuries old.

And now, in response to Santsarran's play to use the Sanhedron as a way to bypass the Synod, it has responded with the most dramatic force. The Circle of Ischak, a rural but ancient Synod, has requested the Great Synod allow it to revoke the advances of the First Grand Sanhedron, and lift the laws of Folk Rite promoted by the Pugilists. With the rites lifted, the synod can participate in the mass clearances of the Ischak Plateau that would enrich the High Priesthood and its vast landowning estates in the circle. Initially expected to demur, the Great Synod has shocked all by declaring that not only can the Circle of Ischak revoke folk rite, but that any law passed by the Grand Sanhedron must first be approved by the Great Synod, as the senior and permanent body, and heart of the High Priesthood, whose authority on the law is absolute. By comparison, their decision argues, the Grand Sanhedron is a 'diluted body', filled with 'less wise souls', who may 'lead astray the people from the faith'.

By asserting its own supremacy, the Great Synod has challenged not only the Patriarch, but an institution all though sacred and legendary. And the Ischak Plateau, it is agreed with despair, is already doomed, and the mobilization of multiple Juror standards in the Circle to start the clearances has begun. By the end of month, it is expected, hundreds of villages may be destroyed and their minyanim dissolved by order of the Circle. Long seen as a haven for escaped penitents and other criminals, for the ultraorthodox bulletins this is nothing more than a 'victory over the unholy rascals'. It is hard to see how this can be opposed, for although there are rumors of organizing on the plateau to fight this, it can surely not succeed against multiple standards descending with harsh and brutal force.

A Bitter Stew

But the Synod, accustomed to operating in positions where it does not answer to public opinion, has inspired one of the most aggressive and explosive series of protests that Vaspukaran has ever seen. Across the country, hundreds of thousands of urban laborers, mouflons, priests, and radicals have started to organize spontaneous protests against this attack against one of the country's greatest and oldest institutions. God's Own depicts the Synod as a vast and disturbing demon that devours the people of Ischak for an appetizer and is preparing for the people of Vaspukaran as the main meal. In Warabad, the archdeacon's residence is set on fire. In Uraran, where tension between Amalists and followers of the vernacular Hospodari rite is already high, the ruling causes riots.

The Jury of Nachivan has been put on the immediate back-foot, as even the Exarchates are overwhelmed with marches. In your own neighborhood, an archdeacon on his way to his tailor is cornered, and nearly beat to death. In response, the Jury of Nachivan tries to hunt down and shoot the perpetrators, but Varhan Sarbadgar, elder of the Sanhedron, komandir of the Pale Horse Standard, and one of the most famed military figures in the country personally hosts them in his apartment, and dares the Komandir of the Jury of Nachivan to arrest him, given the immunity elders.

For now, the Jury has backed down, but Komandir Reganan has warned in a public declaration that those who oppose liberty will be destroyed. In response, several effigies of Reganan have been burned, and two hanged. The Jury is beginning to lose control of the streets, especially in the See, where its authority is weaker. Of particular surprise is that even orthodox elders such as the Ataman Burs have issued their opposition to the ruling, stating that the Sanhedron is an instrument of God and should not be so easily dismissed.

For all of the Sanhedron's flaws and at the moment incapability of actually passing anything, the alternative offered by the synod is surrender to oblivion. There is no question that you must oppose this. But there is an open question of how. Pugilist sects such as the all-male Ma'On and the sports-oriented Ghadim are organizing their own marches specifically in support of folk rite and to protect the people of Ischak from what will likely be a total decimation of land rites for mouflons in the circle.

Schismatics, led by Ghadin Nasir, are forming their own march from across Mushad Bridge to the House of Creation to directly harass and harangue the Great Synod as a 'false body'. And there are massive popular marches starting everywhere in the city, with a broad composition ranging from reformist high priests to even vagrants who have joined in attacks on the Synod that would deny them "the Patriarch's bread", as there are rumors in Nachivan that the Patriarch will fix the suddenly rising price of bread, which has been identified in the bulletins with high priests in the Synodic Circles hoarding good harvests rather than selling them to punish the people.

What march should the sect join, to protest the Great Synod's vile ruling?

[] Join the Popular marches, and be among the broad sweep of the people.
[] Join the Pugilist marches, and march in religious unity with your own schism.
[] Join the Schismatic marches, and show solidarity with other radicals.