The Murmurs' Prayer: Difference between revisions

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{&w/You, least among the digits at the end of Oudin's mighty arm, servants most faithless and failing.}
{&wYou, least among the digits at the end of Oudin's mighty arm, servants most faithless and failing.}


{&wTonight you are no Sons and Daughters, but only humanity's dying Murmurs.}
{&wTonight you are no Sons and Daughters, but only humanity's dying Murmurs.}

Revision as of 20:13, 3 January 2022

The Murmurs' Prayer
The murmurs prayer.png
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The Murmurs' Prayer

This large-print volume is made of hand-pulped and pressed brinestalk paper. Its cover preserved with resin.

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Contents

[ The Murmurs' Prayer ]

Editor's note: The following is an excerpt from the travel diary of Kaylenn Sand-Shell, who generously donated her leather-bound volumes to the Monastery of the Illustrious Heart of Chrome. May they remain forever preserved.

In the outposts of the Putus Templar, the order's core values remain immutable as anywhere else: dedication to a family tree as tall and unbranching as Qud's Spindle, complete subjugation of those they consider lesser, and the total eradication of mutant sapience. Less immutable in those border colonies are the cultural trappings around that core belief, as so often is the case with occupied territories. During my travels, I noted a recurring mythology in the ruins of Oudin's abandoned outposts North of the Sunderlies. Cut off from contact with their home in a similar manner to the Temple of the Rock, these settlements established a new holy day of merriment and punishment to keep the flock pliant.

The least favored of an outpost's squires, so it is said, would be subdued the evening before the Festival, forced upon the morning into a costume meant to be a mockery of the imagined mutant threat, and bade to entertain their might-determined betters. Upon the festival's conclusion, the crowd's most hated Murmurs would be 'paid' with public humiliation, beatings, and possibly torture, if we believe every account.

The ritual describes a kind of uniform: trash cape, bone helm, and musical instrument. Though persistent across the scant records of the practice, I found few details and most carvings of the Murmurs were crude and varied a great deal.

My frustrations found themselves alleviated earlier than expected, however, when I happened at last upon the legible remains of a festival diptych. The wood of the monument itself, never built for longevity, had long since fallen apart; however, clay runoff from the roof's poor insulation baked under the salt sun, providing me with a relief of the text and some insight into the real life costumes worn at the Murmurs' Festival.

[diptych rubbing on the following page]


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You, least among the digits at the end of Oudin's mighty arm, servants most faithless and failing.

Tonight you are no Sons and Daughters, but only humanity's dying Murmurs.

Doff your tabards, now, and carry instead the detritus of the unreclaimed over your back!

Spare us the shameful sight of your faces, now, cover them with bone and horn of prey!

Take up an instrument, now, and play us a tune!

If you Murmurs do not please, you will be paid most painfully.

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