In the western two peninsulas of the Claw - what is called the West and the “second finger” – civilization comprises four estates. In increasing status, these are the peasants, the clergy, the nobility, and the king. The class divide is drawn sharply between the peasants and the other three estates.
On the eastern fringes of the Claw, the Wrandt turn never came. The Low Gods are sometimes still worshipped, often in ways that never were in the West. The three lower classes – royalty excluded – mingle here in ways that are, to the Western mind, bizarre. Certainly in Rithaign one would never find a princess of the Diamond Goddess washing feet for coppers in the Summit square!
Where the four estates are distinct, in by far the greater part of civilization, they are central to the culture. The closest alliance is between the priests and the nobles. Kings are crowned by priests, archbishops
are appointed by kings, and each institution lends to the other power and legitimacy. There are constant tensions over where canon law ends and where king- dom law starts, but for the most part the nobility and the church are fast allies. The launch of a Deic Fleet to Jakatta, for example, rumored to be on the horizon, could never happen without the cooperation of both estates.
Nor could it occur without the blessing of the king. The power of a king in the kingdom is not to be underestimated. Ancient Lucius in Hessek has ruled for six centuries, and he exemplifies the power of the monarchy. Kings become their demesnes even more than other nobles. The true depth of a king’s power is not known, though it has been plumbed often.
The fourth estate lives a life vastly different from the other three. For the peasants, bread and ale (and sometimes laundry water) replace cakes and wine; 20’x30’x6’ tenement flats shared with twenty other wretches replace palace apartments shared with twenty servants; and the reek and roar of cities replac- es the fragrance and harpsichord of the rose garden.
Most different for the peasants, however, is the constant surveillance. The lower classes are forbid- den magic. The nobility employs numerous agents to enforce this. The ubiquitous agents called kingsmen (though many work for dukes, earls, and lesser nobili- ty) are a primary means of enforcement. The kingsmen do not wear uniforms, and a baker may live next to a butcher all his life, only to wake up and find that the butcher is a trained warrior, come with three others to seize the baker’s wife in the middle of the night thanks to her name appearing on a list of suspected magi. A kingsman revealing himself in public always causes silence, even in a crowd of a hundred, and ice in the veins of the onlookers. Kingsmen can seize, beat, and torture members of the lower class with almost com- plete impunity in most regions. A painter who inspires too much joy with his paintings; two lovers in a pub whose laughter and sighs are too soft and too sincere; a free druid making a sacrifice in a by-way sewer atelier; anyone could be taken without warning by a kingsman. Other methods of surveillance are detailed
in the Kingdom descriptions that follow.
For their part, many of the nobles do take their responsibilities seriously. They could be callous, rude, and completely contemptuous of the lower class, but many do see it as a duty, even a noble duty, to safe- guard the peasants and shepherd them through this world to the next. Although they enjoy the privileges of rank – magic, love, overwhelming passion, ven- geance, lust – these dutiful nobles police their domain out of a sense of righteousness. The case of Darmid and Lesa is a famous example. Lesa, a princess, loved Darmid, a farm boy. Though it brought tears to her eyes, and she never married, she had Darmid’s hands nailed to his knees and tossed into the city’s cesspool to drown. She had to do it: he loved her back. (This was in Thyre, and there are many who say that Darmid lost his love for Lesa as she threw him away to die. There are others who say that somehow he survived, and he haunts the city still.)
Religion
Until roughly three hundred years ago, men divided the heavens into two categories: the High God and the Low Gods.
The High God was the lord of all. He was king to other gods, and he commanded the worship on Earth of paupers, princes, and priests. He showed his compassion by placing his hand on the Earth to form the Claw and give his people a home. He showed his terribleness by doing it violently, making a Claw-slash instead of a handprint. He had to do it violently be- cause bringing order out of chaos and magic hurt him. In stained glass windows, mosaics, and baldachins, he is often shown with a disfigured hand, watchful eyes, and the raiment of a king. In the old days, only kings and nobles could worship the High God directly. Peasants paid priest-tax for the priests to intercede. The priests prepared Scripts and organized ceremo- nies to guide the nobles, who would read the peasants’ prayers and conduct the High God’s ceremony.
In those days, Low Gods were for the peasants.
There were many, and they were everywhere. Gods of waterfalls, stars, birth, avarice, a town, a book. A Low God could live around any corner. There are many old stories of people encountering Low Gods, of Low Gods working great magics, and of Low Gods warring amongst themselves, often using cults of mortals as proxies.
Then the priest Arvind Wrandt changed ev- erything. He began a movement in 271, ripping the anachronistic cartonnage off the dead Archibishop of Hessek as he lay in state. The cartonnage and its recall of an earlier Age offended Wrandt, and prompted him to return to his cell and script a manifesto. He shortly returned to where the Archbishop lay, placed the mani- festo parchment on the man’s forehead, and nailed it into the skull with an iron nail and his Book as a ham- mer.
Wrandt’s Turn, as the manifesto and the move- ment came to be called, was easily summarized: the Low Gods were not Gods, only blasphemers or devils or wizards. The High God was the only God, and he heard everyone: peasant, priest, and king.
The theosophy was more complicated, but it carried the day. The peasants could now speak directly to the High God. They could avoid the priest-tax. And the priests did not need the kings to conduct the cer- emonies that they prepared. Wrandt’s turn went from shock to heresy to doctrine in the span of a few de- cades, though not before Wrandt became St. Wrandt, one of the first to die on the pyres of Dynn (though some say that the fires still burn so strongly there be- cause the Dynni are trying to purge their history of this sin by burning all blasphemers they can find).