Compiled by Scholar Valerius Thorne, with military observations from Kael Redfern
Written in the border city of Greywater, Year 290 Post-Breaking
I write this document in a state of profound cognitive dissonance, having spent the past year and a half traveling among the Najari, the Northern Lanxes, and the Fae, only to return to the lands of my birth and find them utterly alien. The Confederation, which I left believing I understood as thoroughly as one can understand one’s own culture, now appears to me as perhaps the most perplexing civilization I have yet encountered. This is not because the Confederation is more complex or more sophisticated than the other cultures I have studied, but rather because I can no longer unsee what my previous immersion had rendered invisible.
I am human. By this I mean that I was born in the Confederation, raised in its schools, educated in its institutions, taught its histories and its faiths. I learned that we humans are the inheritors of a great legacy, that we alone maintain the traditions and achievements of the ancient civilization that built the great arcologies and whose ruins dot the landscape from the northern wastes to the southern deserts. I learned that other species, the Lanxes and the Najari and the creatures that emerge from the Lacuna, are deviations from the human form, corruptions or lesser versions of what humanity represents.
I believed these things as self-evidently true in the way one believes that water is wet or that the sun rises in the east. They were not subjects for examination but rather the fundamental axioms upon which all other understanding was built.
Then I traveled north, and I met the Lanxes. I traveled south, and I encountered the Najari. I studied the Fae, spoke with Deepfolk, observed Changelings. And slowly, gradually, the question began to form in my mind with increasing insistence: what exactly makes someone human? What are the criteria by which this classification is determined? And most troublingly, by those criteria, what am I?
I returned to the Confederation six months ago, arriving at the border city of Greywater with my assistant Kael and a head full of observations and questions that I had been carefully not asking while abroad. I presented myself to the local academic institutions, to the regional Church authorities, to the merchant houses and the noble families. I conducted interviews, I reviewed historical documents, I observed religious ceremonies and civic functions and military exercises. And with every passing week, the certainty that something fundamental was wrong, was strange, was not as it had been presented to me, grew stronger.
The humans of the Confederation are not human in the way I thought I understood that word. They are something else, something that has taken the name human and the legacy human and made it their own. And in doing so, they have created a civilization of remarkable sophistication and troubling contradictions, one that wields both advanced magical technology and religious dogma, that builds great cities while crushing anything they deem Other, that preserves ancient knowledge while fundamentally misunderstanding what that knowledge represents.
What follows is my attempt to document the Confederation as though I were encountering it for the first time, to see my own people with the same analytical distance I applied to the Najari and the Lanxes. This has been the most difficult document I have yet written, for it requires acknowledging that I am studying a culture built on a foundational myth that may not be true, and that I am myself a product of that culture and that myth.
Kael has been invaluable in this process, providing perspective from someone born in the border territories who has always maintained certain skepticism about Confederation claims while also being close enough to understand their appeal. His annotations appear throughout, offering practical observations and occasional much-needed irreverence.
I do not know if I have succeeded in achieving the objectivity this subject requires. I know only that I must try, for understanding what we are is the first step toward understanding what we might become.
— V.T.
I begin with the physical, for this is what strikes any observer first and what, upon return, I found I had been trained not to properly see. The humans of the Confederation are avian in their fundamental morphology, specifically resembling greatly enlarged and anthropomorphized peafowl, though this description would be met with confused offense by most Confederation citizens, who would insist they look simply like humans and that any suggestion otherwise is absurd or malicious.
An adult human stands between six and seven feet in height, with males averaging slightly taller than females though the variation within sexes exceeds the variation between them. The posture is distinctly theropod, leaning slightly forward with the weight balanced over digitigrade legs, though years of cultural training in “proper upright bearing” means most Confederation humans maintain a more vertical stance than their skeletal structure naturally prefers. I found myself, upon return, suddenly aware of the constant slight tension in my lower back, the deliberate effort required to stand “properly” rather than allowing my body to assume the forward-leaning stance that would be more comfortable. I had been doing this my entire life without recognizing it as effort.
The legs are powerful, muscular, built for running and for the elaborate display behaviors that I will discuss later. They terminate in three forward-facing talons and one rear-facing talon, each tipped with a substantial claw that in a wild state would be formidable weapons but which in civilized contexts are carefully trimmed and filed. The legs are covered in scales rather than feathers, these scales being large and pronounced, typically blue-grey or greenish-grey in coloration. Among the nobility, scale-painting and decoration is common, with patterns applied that supposedly reflect house affiliations or personal achievements, though I suspect much of this is simply aesthetic preference dressed in the language of heredity and honor.
The torso is broad and deep-chested, supporting the powerful shoulder musculature required for the vestigial wings that extend along the arms. These wings, for that is what they are despite Confederation reluctance to call them such, consist of feathered structures that run from shoulder to wrist, connecting to the arm bones in ways that allow them to be extended for balance or display but which no longer support powered flight. The Confederation texts I was taught from describe these as “decorative arm plumage” or occasionally “the mantle,” carefully avoiding the word wing, but any observer familiar with avian anatomy recognizes them immediately as modified flight appendages. When fully extended, they can span eight to ten feet, and they are covered in the iridescent feathers that are perhaps the most visually striking aspect of human appearance.
The coloration of these feathers, and of the plumage that covers the head, neck, and portions of the torso, varies by individual but tends strongly toward blues and greens with iridescent qualities that shift depending on angle of viewing and quality of light. The males typically display more elaborate and extensive plumage than females, though this is tendency rather than absolute rule, and the sexual dimorphism is less pronounced than in actual peafowl. The cultural significance of this dimorphism is substantial, and I will return to it when discussing social organization.
The head is topped with a crest of elongated feathers that can be raised or lowered depending on emotional state, though deliberate control of the crest position is taught as part of proper deportment and etiquette. An individual who allows their crest to reflect their true emotional state is considered poorly disciplined or lower class. I have found myself, since returning, constantly aware of my own crest position in ways I never was before leaving the Confederation. Am I signaling interest when I should signal indifference? Am I displaying hostility when I meant to convey merely firmness? The elaborate social language of crest positioning that I once navigated unconsciously now requires active thought, and I suspect I am making errors that mark me as foreign despite being native-born.
The face is perhaps the most distinctly non-mammalian aspect of human appearance, consisting of a curved beak that extends from the face in a manner that the Confederation describes as “noble profile” but which is simply a beak. The beak is hard, keratinous, sharp-edged, and contains within it rows of small sharp teeth, a feature that archaeopteryx and certain other ancient avian species possessed but which modern birds have lost. These teeth are used in eating, in fighting, and in certain religious and social ceremonies that I will detail later. The beak requires regular maintenance, filing and sharpening to prevent overgrowth, and the quality of one’s beak care is a visible marker of social status.
The eyes are large, forward-facing, with excellent vision and color perception that exceeds mammalian norms. The pupils are round rather than slitted, and the eye color varies widely, from pale amber to deep brown to occasionally striking blue. I have been told by Najari and Lanxes that human eyes are unsettling in their intensity, that we stare in ways that other species find aggressive, though I confess I do not notice this about my own gaze or that of other humans.
The most culturally significant physical feature is the train, the elaborate tail display that extends from the lower back. In males, this consists of elongated covert feathers that can be erected into a magnificent fan, each feather tipped with the distinctive eyespot that peafowl are known for. The number and quality of these eyespots is directly correlated with social status and perceived worthiness in ways that permeate every aspect of Confederation life. A male with forty eyespots in his train is significantly more likely to achieve advancement in any field than a male with thirty, regardless of actual competence or merit. The fact that eyespot count is partially genetic and partially environmental, being influenced by nutrition during development and by general health throughout life, means that the poor tend to have less elaborate trains than the wealthy, which is then cited as evidence that they are naturally inferior and deserve their poverty.
Females possess trains as well, though typically shorter and with fewer or less elaborate eyespots. The cultural significance of female trains is complex and contested, with traditional doctrine holding that female trains are “vestigial” and “unnecessary” while more progressive voices point out that female trains serve the same balance and social signaling functions as male trains and that the difference in elaboration is cultural rather than natural. I have observed that female trains have become noticeably more elaborate over the past generation, suggesting that with changing attitudes about female capabilities, the environmental factors that suppress train development in females are being reduced.
The train is both pride and vulnerability. It requires constant maintenance, careful grooming, protection from damage. During the molting season, which occurs annually in early autumn, the train feathers are shed and regrown, a process that takes approximately six weeks and which is accompanied by significant social anxiety and often by withdrawal from public life. The wealthy employ servants to assist with molting management and to ensure that the new feathers grow in properly. The poor must manage their molts while continuing to work, which often results in damaged regrowth and permanently reduced train quality, which then affects their prospects for advancement, creating a self-reinforcing cycle of poverty.
I am aware that this description may read as strange to Confederation readers, if any should encounter this document. I am describing you, describing us, in terms that make explicit what is usually left implicit. We are bird-people. We are anthropomorphized peafowl. We have beaks and talons and trains. These are facts, as observable and undeniable as the fact that Lanxes are furred or that Najari are serpentine. Yet we do not speak of ourselves this way. We speak of ourselves as human, and we describe our features using euphemistic language that obscures their nature. The mantle. The crest. The noble profile. The decorative plumage.
Why? This question haunts me now, and I will return to it repeatedly throughout this document.
[Kael’s note]: The first time I traveled into Confederation interior, I remember being struck by how everyone moved the same way. Not just the deliberate upright posture Valerius mentions, but the way people would constantly adjust their trains, the way they’d angle their heads to catch the light on their plumage, the unconscious preening that happened in any pause in activity. It’s like everyone is performing all the time, and they don’t even know they’re doing it. When I pointed this out to a merchant I was negotiating with, he looked at me like I’d said something obscene and the deal almost collapsed. Apparently noticing the performance breaks some unspoken rule about pretending the performance isn’t happening.
The wings do not work. This fact is carefully not discussed in polite Confederation society, relegated to the realm of things everyone knows but no one mentions. The vestigial wings that run along our arms cannot support powered flight. They can provide some lift if one launches oneself from a height, creating a controlled glide that can extend a fall or change trajectory, but they cannot generate sufficient thrust to achieve actual flight.
I tested this carefully during my return to the Confederation, conducting experiments that felt simultaneously scientifically necessary and emotionally fraught. I climbed to various heights and launched myself, attempting to achieve flight through vigorous wing-beating. The results were consistent: I could glide, sometimes quite effectively, but I could not gain altitude. I could not fly.
The physical reasons are clear enough. Our bodies are too heavy, our musculature too focused on ground-based locomotion rather than on the massive pectoral development that powered flight would require. The wings themselves are structured correctly but scaled incorrectly for our body mass. We are built like flightless ground birds, like ostriches or cassowaries but with decorative rather than functional wings. We are creatures whose ancestors could fly but who have lost that capability while retaining the visual markers of it.
The Confederation does not acknowledge this directly. The religious texts speak of “the gift of the earth” and “the rejection of false flight for true purpose,” implying that flightlessness is deliberate choice rather than biological limitation. The historical accounts describe ancient humans as having achieved “mastery over the air through craft and will,” which I now recognize as referring to the flying machines and magical transportation that the true ancient humans built, not to any innate capability for flight. These references are interpreted by modern Confederation citizens as metaphorical or as referring to spiritual flight, to ascension of the soul toward the Light.
But the longing is there, visible in the way children launch themselves from walls and trees, always hoping that this time they will catch the air properly. Visible in the way adults watch birds in flight with expressions of something between admiration and resentment. Visible in the way flight features in our art and literature, always cast in terms of forbidden knowledge or divine punishment for overreaching.
The trains, the elaborate tail displays, serve partially as compensation. Look at how beautiful I am, the display says. Look at the glory I command even bound to earth. See how the Light reflects from my feathers. I do not need flight because I am perfect as I am, grounded, solid, real. The humans who could fly, those ancient ones whose legacy we claim, they built and then they fell. We who remain on earth persist. We are the true inheritors, and flightlessness is not loss but proof of our worthiness.
This is what we tell ourselves. This is what I was taught and what I believed until I met the Lanxes and saw how they moved through their mountain territories with casual grace that required no self-justification. Until I met the Najari and observed their comfort in their serpentine forms. Until I studied the Fae and recognized that their alienness was honest while our normality was performed.
We cannot fly, and we build our entire civilization around pretending this does not matter while simultaneously organizing every aspect of our social life around the quality of the wing-feathers that no longer serve any function except display.
The cities of the Confederation are exercises in vertical ambition, rising from the landscape in tiered configurations that seem designed primarily to catch and display light. This is not accidental. Every aspect of Confederation architecture serves the dual purpose of practical function and of creating surfaces and angles that produce the maximum possible visual effect when sunlight strikes. The cities shimmer. They gleam. They announce themselves to approaching travelers from miles away, visible as points of radiant concentration that draw the eye and declare, without words, that here is civilization, here is glory, here is the achievement of beings who command even the light itself to serve their purposes.
I have now seen the cities of the Lanxes, built into mountainsides and carved from living rock. I have visited the Najari arcology, that impossible structure from an age we do not understand. I have observed the temporary settlements of the Fae and the utilitarian efficiency of border towns where multiple species intermingle. With this context, I return to Confederation cities and recognize them as profoundly different not in scale or sophistication but in intent. They are not merely places to live. They are statements, proclamations, arguments made in stone and crystal about who we are and why we matter.
The primary building material in Confederation cities is white stone, quarried from deposits throughout our territories and transported at considerable expense to building sites. This stone is not merely pale but actively reflective, with crystalline inclusions that catch light and scatter it in subtle prismatic patterns. The stone is expensive, difficult to work, and requires regular maintenance to prevent weathering that would dull its surface. Yet it is used almost exclusively in any structure of importance, from the great cathedrals of the Church of Light to the halls of the wizard-kings to the better-class merchant houses.
The buildings rise in tiers, each story slightly set back from the one below, creating a stepped profile that maximizes the surface area exposed to sunlight while also providing balconies and terraces where inhabitants can be seen from below. The roofs are tiled in materials that produce subtle iridescence, blues and greens and golds that shift with the angle of viewing, deliberately echoing the colors of our own plumage. The overall effect is that the cities appear to be built from the same material as ourselves, extensions of our bodies into the landscape, physical manifestations of our nature made permanent in stone.
The streets are wide, far wider than practical necessity would require, creating broad boulevards where citizens can walk with trains fully extended without risk of damage. The street surfaces are paved with light-colored stone or brick, maintained to extreme standards of cleanliness that require constant labor but which ensure that even the ground contributes to the overall brightness of the environment. Garbage collection is not merely a sanitary measure but a religious obligation, with Church doctrine holding that cleanliness is a form of worship, that maintaining the radiance of our cities maintains our connection to the Light itself.
The cities are organized around central plazas designed specifically for public display and religious ceremony. These plazas are enormous open spaces paved in white marble or similarly reflective materials, surrounded by the most important civic and religious buildings. On holy days and festival occasions, these plazas fill with thousands of citizens, all arrayed in their finest plumage, creating an overwhelming visual effect of color and light and motion. I have participated in these ceremonies my entire life, but returning after my travels, I experienced one with new eyes, and I was struck by the calculated nature of it all. The exact timing of when processions occur, ensuring the sun is at the optimal angle. The choreography of how people move through the space, creating patterns that are visible from the surrounding buildings. The way the religious leaders position themselves to maximize the play of light on their particularly elaborate vestments.
It is beautiful. I must acknowledge this. It is beautiful in the way that a perfectly cut gem is beautiful, in the way that a mathematical proof is beautiful, in the way that a successful deception is beautiful. There is artistry in how we have shaped our environment to reflect and enhance our nature. There is skill in the execution. But there is also something troubling in the totality of it, in the way that every surface and every angle serves the purpose of display, as though we must constantly prove our worth through visual magnificence.
The cities contain within them districts organized by social rank, with the wealthy occupying the highest tiers and the poor relegated to lower levels and outer neighborhoods. This organization is justified through religious doctrine that holds the Light naturally favors those who are worthy and that physical elevation is merely the natural expression of spiritual elevation. The wizard-kings and the high Church officials maintain palaces and cathedrals at the highest accessible points, literally looking down upon the rest of the population from positions that require either flight or extensive climbing to reach.
These highest structures are marvels of engineering and magic, combining advanced construction techniques with ritual reinforcement that makes them stronger and more stable than conventional architecture could achieve. The crystallized thaumic radiation that powers much of our advanced technology is deployed extensively in these buildings, creating enchantments that regulate temperature, that produce light without flame, that purify air and water. I have visited the palace of Duke Markian in Greywater, and the casual comfort of its interior spaces stands in marked contrast to the lower districts where heating is expensive and air quality poor. The Duke walks through rooms that maintain perfect temperature regardless of season, illuminated by captured radiance, drinking water that has been purified through complex filtration and cleansing rituals that the average citizen could never afford.
The industrial districts present a different aspect of Confederation architecture, one less concerned with beauty and more focused on function. Here the buildings are lower, made from cheaper materials, designed to house manufacturing facilities and worker housing with minimal expense. The air quality here is noticeably worse, tainted by the by-products of various industrial processes. The streets are narrower, less carefully maintained, often muddy or refuse-strewn. The workers who labor here live in cramped conditions that would be considered intolerable in the upper districts, but the proximity to their places of employment is considered sufficient compensation, and religious doctrine holds that those who work with their hands have naturally lower requirements for spaciousness and beauty than those who work with their minds.
The defensive architecture deserves particular attention, for Confederation cities are, without exception, heavily fortified. The outer walls are massive, forty to sixty feet high and twenty feet thick at the base, constructed from the same white stone as the civic buildings but in unadorned form, prioritizing strength over beauty. These walls are topped with battlements designed for both conventional defenders using crossbows and for combat mages wielding more exotic weaponry. The gates are engineered to withstand siege equipment and magical assault, incorporating void-iron plating at crucial points to disrupt attempts at magical penetration.
The military architecture reveals certain assumptions about what threats the Confederation expects to face and what tactics it considers effective. The walls are designed to repel ground assault by enemies who cannot fly. The battlements provide optimal positions for raining down projectiles and magic upon forces below. The gates funnel attackers into kill zones where concentrated fire can be brought to bear. There is no apparent consideration of aerial assault, which makes sense given that most sapient species in our region are flightless, but which suggests a certain blindness to possibilities that our own vestigial wings hint at.
Within the walls, the cities maintain extensive military garrisons, barracks complexes that house professional soldiers and combat mages in conditions that are comfortable if not luxurious. These garrisons are positioned to allow rapid deployment to any threatened section of the wall or to quell internal unrest should the population become unruly. The fact that military facilities are designed as much for internal as external threats speaks to certain anxieties that run through Confederation governance.
The religious architecture reaches its apex in the Cathedrals of Light, enormous structures that dominate the skylines of every major city. These cathedrals are designed according to strict proportional rules laid down in Church doctrine, with every dimension and angle calculated to channel and concentrate both physical light and spiritual radiance. The interiors are vast open spaces supported by columns carved from single pieces of stone, each column representing one of the supposed virtues that humans embody. The ceilings are vaulted and covered in gold leaf that catches and multiplies the light from hundreds of windows. The windows themselves are filled with crystal panes that break light into prismatic displays, creating effects that are genuinely beautiful and that serve to make worshippers feel they are standing within light itself rather than merely being illuminated by it.
I attended services in the Grand Cathedral of Greywater and found myself moved despite my increasing skepticism about the theological foundations. The music, performed by trained choirs whose voices harmonize in ways that transcend normal human capability, the light streaming through crystal windows, the sense of being part of something vast and glorious and eternal, all of this creates an emotional experience that is powerful regardless of whether the underlying beliefs are true. The Church understands this, and the architecture is calculated to produce exactly this effect.
[Kael’s note]: First time I entered a Confederation city proper, I was struck by how exhausting it all was. Everything is so bright, so polished, so perfect. There’s no visual rest, nowhere the eye can land that isn’t demanding your attention and admiration. After a few hours I found myself developing a headache from the constant glare off all that white stone. The people who live there seem used to it, but I’ve noticed the poor folk, the ones who actually work for a living rather than displaying themselves, they tend to keep their eyes down, focused on immediate tasks rather than on the environment around them. Maybe that’s just practicality, but I suspect it’s also a defense mechanism. If you’re surrounded by constant reminders of your own inadequacy, of course you’d learn not to look.
The advanced technology that the Confederation has developed deserves extended discussion, for it represents one of the ways in which we have genuinely surpassed the other civilizations I have studied in certain specific capabilities. The combination of magical theory and engineering practice has produced devices that would seem impossible to those unfamiliar with our methods, and yet these devices are commonplace in Confederation cities, integrated into daily life to the point where citizens barely notice their presence.
The foundation of Confederation magitech is crystallized thaumic radiation, the same substance that the Najari obtain from their ruins but which the Confederation produces through artificial means. The process involves exposing carefully grown crystals to controlled magical fields over extended periods, gradually saturating the crystals with bound magic that can be released in controlled fashion through proper engineering. This is expensive and time-consuming, requiring specialized facilities and trained personnel, which means that crystallized radiation remains a luxury good accessible primarily to the wealthy and to institutions like the Church and the military.
The most visible application of this technology is in illumination. The light-globes that hang throughout Confederation cities, that line the streets and illuminate the interiors of wealthy homes, contain small crystals of bound radiance that produce steady, warm light without flame or fuel. These globes can burn for years before the crystals are exhausted and require replacement. The quality of light they produce is superior to conventional lamps, lacking the flicker and smoke that oil lamps produce. For the wealthy, this means living in constant comfortable illumination. For the Church, this means cathedrals that glow with apparently divine light. For the military, this means being able to illuminate fortifications and command centers regardless of weather or time of day.
The weapons technology is perhaps more disturbing. The beam-casters that military mages carry are devices roughly the size of a crossbow, built around crystallized radiation cores that have been specially prepared to release their bound magic in focused, damaging bursts. The operation is deceptively simple: the wielder aims the device and speaks the command word, and a beam of raw magical force extends from the focusing aperture, striking whatever the device is aimed at with effects that vary depending on how the crystal was prepared. Some beams produce intense heat, igniting flammable materials or melting metal. Others produce concussive force, knocking targets backward or stunning them. The most advanced military versions produce what is described as “unmaking,” causing targets to simply cease to be coherent, dissolving into component materials.
I observed a military demonstration of beam-casters in Greywater and found the experience deeply unsettling. The devices were used against practice targets, wooden mannequins placed at various ranges. The effects were immediate and absolute. A beam of heat reduced a mannequin to ash within seconds. A force beam shattered another into splinters. The unmaking beam caused a third to simply come apart, not exploding but rather falling apart as though the binding forces that held it together had been revoked. The soldiers operating these devices handled them with casual competence, treating them as tools no more remarkable than the crossbows they also carried.
The computational devices are perhaps the most philosophically troubling application of Confederation magitech. These devices consist of crystallized radiation matrices that have been imprinted with patterns of simple egregores, proto-gods too weak to achieve independent existence but capable of performing certain limited cognitive functions. The result is a device that can perform calculations, store and retrieve information, and make simple decisions according to programmed rules. The largest of these devices, maintained by the Church and by certain wealthy merchant houses, incorporate bound souls, the spiritual remains of individuals who volunteered or were compelled to contribute their cognitive capacity to the machine after death.
I must be clear about this: the Confederation binds the dead to serve as components in computational devices. This practice is considered entirely acceptable within Confederation theological frameworks, as the bound souls are understood to be serving the greater good and achieving a form of immortality through their ongoing contribution to society. The individuals who volunteer for this fate are typically lower-ranking Church officials or impoverished citizens who are promised that their families will receive compensation for the donation. Those who are compelled are criminals whose sentences include posthumous service.
I spoke with a Church official who oversees the binding process, a thin elderly man named Tertius who has been performing these rituals for thirty years. He explained the procedure with clinical detachment: the individual dies, their soul is prevented from passing on through a ritual that arrests the normal dissolution process, the soul is then bound to a prepared crystal matrix, and the matrix is integrated into a computational device where the soul’s cognitive capacity is channeled toward specific tasks. He assured me that the bound souls do not suffer, that they exist in a state of peaceful service, that they are grateful for the opportunity to continue contributing after death.
I cannot verify these claims, as the souls themselves cannot be interviewed in any meaningful way. They respond to queries through the devices but only in ways that relate to their programmed functions. Whether they maintain awareness beyond those functions, whether they experience their state as pleasant or agonizing, whether they would choose to remain bound if given the option to be released, these questions cannot be answered.
The Confederation justifies this practice through a religious framework that holds that the soul is distinct from the consciousness, that consciousness is merely a temporary state that ends at death, and that the soul continues afterward in a form that can be put to beneficial use. This theology is convenient for those who benefit from the computational devices. I cannot help but wonder whether it would be maintained so vigorously if it were the souls of wizard-kings and Church officials being bound rather than those of the poor and the criminal.
The magitech extends to communication systems, with crystallized radiation devices allowing near-instantaneous transmission of simple messages across distances. The largest cities maintain networks of these devices, creating systems where information can flow between command centers, military installations, and key government facilities with unprecedented speed. This gives the Confederation a significant advantage in coordinating military responses and in maintaining administrative control over large territories.
The medical applications are somewhat less advanced, with most healing still relying on Albumantic practitioners rather than on technological solutions. However, crystallized radiation is used in diagnostic devices that can detect certain diseases and injuries, and in sterilization equipment that uses focused magical energy to purify surgical tools and clean wounds. The wealthy have access to these technologies, while the poor continue to rely on conventional medicine supplemented by whatever Albumantic care they can afford.
The accumulation of magitech in Confederation cities creates a significant gap between urban and rural life, with city-dwellers having access to conveniences and capabilities that are simply unavailable to those in the countryside. This gap reinforces urban dominance and creates migration pressure as rural populations seek access to the advantages that cities provide. The Church and the government view this as natural and beneficial, arguing that concentration of population in cities makes administration more efficient and allows for better propagation of proper doctrine and culture.
I must approach the Church of Light with particular care, for this is the institution that shaped my understanding of the world from earliest childhood, that provided the moral and theological framework within which I operated for most of my life, and which I now recognize as serving functions that are rather different from those it claims. The Church is not merely a religious institution. It is the mechanism through which Confederation culture maintains coherence, through which the “human” identity is reinforced and propagated, through which the social hierarchy is justified and maintained, and through which the interpretation of our legacy is controlled.
The central doctrine of the Church of Light is deceptively simple: there exists a divine radiance, eternal and perfect, which manifests in the physical world as light and which manifests in the spiritual realm as virtue, nobility, and worthiness. Humans, in this theology, are the favored recipients of the Light, chosen to receive its blessing and to carry its truth to others. Our plumage, our iridescent feathers, our ability to catch and reflect light, these are not coincidental or merely biological but are instead proof of our special relationship with the divine. We are, literally and figuratively, light-bearers.
The Light itself is understood as an egregore, though this is not typically stated so plainly. The Church teachings describe the Light as eternal and pre-existent, existing before the world itself, but careful examination of the historical texts reveals a different story. The earliest references to the Light appear approximately seven hundred years ago, during the period when our ancestors were establishing the earliest Confederation cities. The theology developed gradually, crystallizing into its current form over several centuries of refinement and debate. The Light, then, is a created god, a tulpa that our collective belief has compiled into something that genuinely exists and that genuinely responds to worship and invocation.
This is not to say the Light is false. The egregore is real. The prayers are answered, after a fashion. The blessings bestowed by Church officials through invocation of the Light produce tangible effects. But the Light is not what the Church claims it is. It is not eternal. It is not the creator of the universe. It is an entity that we created, that we sustain through continued belief, and that serves our purposes while we believe it serves divine purposes.
The Church hierarchy is extensive and complex, paralleling the secular power structures while maintaining claimed independence. At the apex sits the Radiant Pontifex, who resides in the Holy City of Lumenis and who serves as the ultimate authority on matters of doctrine and Church policy. Below the Pontifex are the Cardinal Luminaries, twelve individuals who oversee different regions of the Confederation and who collectively advise the Pontifex on major decisions. Each Cardinal oversees a network of Archprelates, who in turn supervise the ordinary prelates who lead individual churches and cathedrals.
This structure is explicitly male-dominated at the higher levels, with women excluded from the highest offices by doctrine that holds that males possess greater natural radiance and are therefore more suitable vessels for the Light’s power. This doctrine is justified through reference to the sexual dimorphism in train displays, arguing that the greater elaboration of male trains proves male spiritual superiority. Female prelates exist at lower levels but cannot advance beyond certain ranks, and their authority is always subordinate to male officials of equivalent level.
I must note here that I am male, and that I have benefited throughout my life from this system without recognizing it as such. The preferential treatment I received in religious education, the assumption that my theological insights were more valuable than those of female colleagues, the automatic respect granted to me in Church contexts, all of these advantages were invisible to me until I encountered cultures where they did not exist. The Najari do not organize their society this way. The Northern Lanxes, while having certain gender distinctions, do not systematically exclude females from positions of authority. Returning to the Confederation and seeing the Church hierarchy with new eyes, I am forced to recognize it as arbitrary and unjust in ways I previously accepted as natural and right.
The Church’s theological justification for human superiority over other species rests on the claim that humans alone received the full blessing of the Light, that other species are either failed attempts at achieving human perfection or are deliberate corruptions that rejected the Light. The Lanxes, in this theology, are fallen beings who lost their nobility and became bestial. The Najari are accursed, transformed into serpents as punishment for their ancestors’ sins. The Fae are demons or void-spawn, existing outside the Light entirely and deserving only destruction or, at best, forced conversion.
These teachings are not merely abstract theology but have concrete policy implications. The Church advocates for aggressive expansion of Confederation territory, for forced conversion of other species to Church doctrine, and for the use of military force to suppress cultures that resist. The crusading tradition that I mentioned in my earlier work emerges directly from Church theology, and it is supported by extensive scriptural justification and by centuries of Church officials blessing military campaigns as holy endeavors.
The actual practices of worship are elaborate and focused heavily on display. Services consist of lengthy ceremonies during which worshippers array themselves in their best plumage, position themselves to maximize the effect of light on their feathers, and engage in synchronized displays that create overwhelming visual effects. The prelate leading the service wears vestments of particular magnificence, covered in gold thread and crystalline ornaments that catch and multiply light. The choirs sing hymns that praise the Light and that describe the glory of the faithful in terms that are simultaneously spiritual and explicitly physical.
I attended a major service in the Grand Cathedral of Greywater and observed with new attention what I had participated in countless times before. The service lasted three hours. Of those three hours, perhaps twenty minutes consisted of actual theological instruction or prayer. The remainder was pure spectacle: processions of church officials in increasingly elaborate vestments, displays by the congregation of their plumage, musical performances, and the climactic moment when the Prelate invoked the Light directly, causing the cathedral to fill with enhanced radiance that made everyone’s feathers appear to glow.
This invocation is understood by worshippers as the Light responding to faithful prayer. It is actually the Prelate activating crystallized radiation devices embedded in the cathedral’s structure, releasing stored magical energy in a controlled burst that produces the desired visual effect. The Prelate knows this. The senior Church officials know this. But the congregation does not, and the illusion of divine response is carefully maintained because it serves essential purposes for the Church’s authority.
The Church controls education throughout the Confederation, operating schools that teach approved curriculum emphasizing Church-approved history, Church-approved science, and Church-approved interpretations of everything from natural phenomena to historical events. I was educated in these schools. I was taught that humans built the great arcologies, that we achieved magnificent civilizations in the distant past, that we fell from glory due to sins that are never quite specified but that involved hubris and overreaching, and that we are now rebuilding toward a restored greatness under the guidance of the Light.
This history is false. The great arcologies were not built by beings that looked like us. The ancient humans whose legacy we claim were not avian. They were mammalian, bipedal, lacking in feathers or beaks or talons. I have seen their art, preserved in ruins throughout the known world. I have read the few surviving texts that describe their appearance. I have examined the architectural spaces they built, which are proportioned for bodies that are not our bodies, designed for beings that could manipulate small tools with five-fingered hands that lack talons.
We are not the ancient humans. We are something else that found their ruins, their records, their stories, and that decided we were them. And having decided this, having believed it strongly enough for long enough, we have achieved ontological consistency with our belief. We remember always having been human. Our histories show us as having built these structures. The past has adjusted to match our present claim.
But the evidence remains, for those who know how to look. The doors in ancient buildings are the wrong size. The chairs in recovered furniture are the wrong shape. The writing implements are designed for different hands. The artwork depicts beings that do not look like us, and yet we interpret these depictions as stylized or symbolic rather than as accurate representations of a different species.
The Church actively suppresses examination of these inconsistencies, declaring that speculation about the nature of the ancients is theologically dangerous and that questioning the human identity of the ancient builders is heresy. This suppression is effective because it is backed by social sanction and, when necessary, by legal penalties. Scholars who press these questions too vigorously find themselves unable to publish, unable to teach, sometimes unable to remain in the Confederation at all.
I write this knowing that if this document circulates in the Confederation, I will likely face exactly these consequences. I write it anyway because truth matters, because understanding what we are requires acknowledging what we are not, and because the lies we tell ourselves are beginning to have costs that I can no longer ignore.
[Kael’s note]: The Church is what keeps the whole system running. Take away the religious justification for the hierarchy, for the expansionism, for the treatment of other species, and what you have left is naked self-interest dressed in fancy vestments. The Church provides the story that makes it all make sense, that transforms “we take what we want because we can” into “we spread the Light because we must.” I’ve seen what happens to Confederation citizens who lose faith. They don’t usually become better people. They usually just become confused and angry, because they no longer have the framework that told them who they were and why they mattered. The Church may be built on lies, but it’s lies that a lot of people need to function.
The political organization of the Confederation is best understood not as a unified state but as a collection of petty kingdoms bound together by shared culture, common faith, and mutual interest in maintaining their collective dominance over their territories. The term “Confederation” is accurate in that no single monarch commands absolute authority over the whole, but it understates the degree to which these kingdoms function as a coordinated system, particularly when facing external threats or opportunities for expansion.
Each kingdom is ruled by what we call a wizard-king, though the term encompasses both male and female rulers despite the gendered language. The title refers not to inherited nobility alone but to the combination of political authority and substantial magical capability. One does not become a wizard-king through birth alone, though birth into the right family provides enormous advantages. One must also demonstrate sufficient magical talent and training to command respect from other mages and to deploy the kind of power that maintains authority in a society where magical capability is political currency.
The kingdoms vary considerably in size and power. The largest, such as the Kingdom of Lumenis where the Church’s holy city resides, controls territories encompassing hundreds of thousands of citizens and maintains military forces numbering in the tens of thousands. The smallest are little more than fortified cities with surrounding agricultural lands, ruled by wizard-kings whose power is sufficient to maintain independence but not to expand beyond their immediate territories. Duke Markian’s holdings in Greywater fall somewhere in the middle of this spectrum, encompassing the city itself and perhaps twenty surrounding towns and villages, with a population I estimate at forty thousand and a military force of perhaps three thousand professional soldiers.
The wizard-kings maintain their positions through a combination of magical capability, military strength, economic resources, and Church endorsement. Of these factors, the magical capability is perhaps the most essential, for a wizard-king who loses their magical power, whether through age or injury or magical exhaustion, will find their authority challenged almost immediately. The expectation is that rulers will be able to demonstrate their power through periodic public displays, using magic to resolve problems, to punish transgressors, to defend against threats, and simply to prove that they remain capable of wielding the force that justifies their position.
I witnessed such a display during my time in Greywater. Duke Markian held a public audience in which citizens could bring grievances or requests for judgment. One case involved a merchant accused of fraud, selling goods falsely represented as being of higher quality than they were. The evidence was presented, witnesses testified, and the Duke found the merchant guilty. The punishment was pronounced, and then the Duke demonstrated it personally, using what I recognize now as Albumantic magic to temporarily blind the merchant, causing his eyes to cloud over and his vision to fail. The merchant was led away still blind, the condition apparently permanent unless the Duke chooses to reverse it, which he will do after the merchant has served a year in this state as penance and warning to others.
The crowd reacted with approval, clearly impressed by the Duke’s power and by his willingness to personally enforce his judgments. I found myself disturbed by the casual cruelty, by the permanent disfigurement inflicted as punishment for economic fraud, but I was alone in this discomfort. This is normal in the Confederation. This is what power looks like, what justice looks like, what leadership looks like. The wizard-king who can and will inflict direct magical punishment on those who transgress is the wizard-king who maintains order and respect.
The magical training required to achieve wizard-king status begins in childhood for those born into the noble families. Children who show magical talent are identified early and receive intensive instruction from the kingdom’s court mages, learning first the theoretical foundations of magic and then the practical applications. The education is rigorous and lengthy, typically spanning ten to fifteen years before a student is considered competent enough to wield significant power unsupervised.
The magical traditions practiced in the Confederation are diverse but tend to emphasize combat applications and displays of power over more subtle or utilitarian uses. The three primary traditions are Ritual Magic, Albumancy, and what we call Orisons, which are prayers to the Light that function essentially as divine magic channeled through Church training and theological understanding.
Ritual Magic involves elaborate ceremonies with precise geometric configurations, specific components, and careful verbal formulae that together create effects ranging from protective wards to destructive blasts to complex transformations. The preparation time is substantial, sometimes requiring hours or even days to properly prepare a major working, but the results can be extraordinarily powerful. Ritual Magic is the foundation of much of the Confederation’s military power, as prepared rituals can be deployed in battle to devastating effect.
Albumancy, the manipulation of living tissue, is practiced primarily by healers but also by those who wish to harm or control. The medical applications are obvious and valuable, and Albumantic healers are found in every city of any size, providing services to those who can afford their fees. The darker applications, such as the blinding Duke Markian performed, are less openly discussed but are well-known to anyone who has spent time in Confederation courts. An Albumancer of sufficient skill can cause pain without leaving marks, can induce diseases, can modify bodies in ways that serve their patrons’ purposes. The wealthy employ personal Albumancers not merely for healing but for life extension, for cosmetic enhancement, and occasionally for disposing of rivals in ways that appear natural.
Orisons are the magical tradition most closely tied to the Church, requiring both theological training and genuine faith in the Light as understood by Church doctrine. A prelate or other Church official who has been properly trained can invoke the Light to produce effects that protect, heal, smite enemies, or enhance the capabilities of allies. The limitation is that these effects must be consonant with Church doctrine and the nature of the Light as understood by the practitioner. You cannot invoke the Light to perform acts that contradict its supposed virtues, which means Orisons are less flexible than Ritual Magic but also more immediately accessible, requiring prayer rather than elaborate preparation.
The wizard-kings typically master at least two of these traditions, often all three to varying degrees. Duke Markian is primarily a Ritualist with substantial Albumantic training, which is a common combination for secular rulers. The more religiously-oriented nobles often emphasize Orisons supplemented by Ritual Magic. The balance of training reflects the individual ruler’s path to power and their relationships with the Church hierarchy.
The political relationships between wizard-kings are formalized through a system of treaties, marriage alliances, and mutual defense pacts that create a web of obligations and expectations. A wizard-king facing external threat can call upon allied kingdoms for military support, though the terms of such support are subject to negotiation and the responding force may demand concessions in exchange for their aid. The largest kingdoms maintain networks of client states, smaller kingdoms that acknowledge some degree of subordination in exchange for protection and favorable trade terms.
The Confederation Assembly, which meets annually in Lumenis, provides a forum for wizard-kings to coordinate policy, resolve disputes, and make collective decisions about matters affecting the entire Confederation. The Assembly has no formal legislative power, as each kingdom maintains sovereignty over its own territory, but the consensus reached at Assembly meetings carries substantial weight and kingdoms that consistently ignore Assembly decisions find themselves isolated and vulnerable to pressure from other members.
The Church’s relationship with the secular power structure is complex and somewhat contradictory. Officially, the Church claims spiritual authority over all temporal matters, holding that the wizard-kings rule only through the grace of the Light and subject to Church guidance on matters of faith and morals. In practice, the Church lacks the military force to compel obedience from powerful wizard-kings, and the relationship is more accurately described as a negotiated partnership. The Church provides legitimacy, crowning and blessing new rulers, providing the religious framework that justifies the social hierarchy, and maintaining the schools that educate the population in approved beliefs. The wizard-kings provide military protection for Church institutions, enforce Church doctrine within their territories, and fund Church operations through taxation and direct grants.
This partnership breaks down when wizard-kings challenge Church authority too directly or when the Church attempts to dictate policy to powerful secular rulers. I have reviewed historical accounts of several such conflicts, and the pattern is consistent: the Church attempts to enforce its will through spiritual sanctions, threatening excommunication and declaring the ruler’s subjects released from their oaths of loyalty. If the ruler is weak or unpopular, this can be devastating, creating internal rebellion and external threats. If the ruler is strong and maintains the loyalty of their nobility and military, the Church’s sanctions are ineffective, and eventually some compromise is negotiated that allows both parties to claim victory.
The succession system varies by kingdom but typically follows some form of primogeniture modified by the requirement that the heir demonstrate sufficient magical capability. This means that younger children with greater magical talent sometimes inherit over older siblings who lack the necessary power. The transition from one ruler to the next is often contentious, with various factions supporting different claimants, and the Church’s role in confirming the legitimacy of the new ruler gives it significant leverage during these vulnerable periods.
The administrative apparatus through which wizard-kings govern is surprisingly sophisticated, employing trained bureaucrats who manage taxation, maintain records, coordinate military logistics, and handle the day-to-day operations of government. These administrators are typically drawn from the lesser nobility or from wealthy merchant families, receiving their positions through a combination of family connections and demonstrated competence. The positions are lucrative, providing opportunities for enrichment through both legitimate fees and through corruption that is tolerated as long as it remains within acceptable bounds.
The law codes that govern Confederation territories are derived from a combination of Church doctrine, customary practice, and the specific decrees of individual wizard-kings. There is no unified Confederation law, though there are commonalities across kingdoms based on shared Church teachings and shared cultural values. Justice is administered by appointed judges in minor cases and by the wizard-kings themselves or their designated representatives in major cases. Trial by combat remains a legal option in some kingdoms for certain types of disputes, particularly those involving questions of honor between nobles.
The treatment of other species under Confederation law is explicitly discriminatory, with non-humans having reduced legal status and limited rights. A Lanx or Najari present in Confederation territory is subject to taxation without representation, can be expelled at will, cannot own land, cannot testify against humans in legal proceedings except under specific circumstances, and faces heightened criminal penalties for offenses against humans. These restrictions are justified through Church teachings about human superiority and are enforced through both legal mechanisms and through social pressure that makes non-humans extremely unwelcome in most Confederation territories.
[Kael’s note]: The wizard-king system is brilliant in its way. You can’t just inherit power, you have to be able to actually use it. This means rulers who are incompetent or who lose their capabilities get replaced, usually before they can do too much damage. But it also means constant jockeying for position, constant displays of power, constant paranoia about threats from below. I’ve worked for several Confederation nobles as a guard or courier, and the atmosphere in their courts is exhausting. Everyone is always performing, always testing, always watching for weakness. The successful rulers are those who can maintain power without appearing to be constantly worried about losing it, which is a difficult balance to achieve.
Having addressed the grand structures of politics and faith, I turn now to the quotidian reality of Confederation life, for it is in the daily practices and small rituals that a culture most fully reveals itself. The ordinary human goes about their life surrounded by the monuments and doctrines I have described, but their immediate concerns are more prosper than spiritual grandeur, more focused on the next meal than on the next crusade.
The Confederation diet centers on meat, which is eaten in quantities that other cultures would find excessive. Humans are physiologically carnivorous, though we can digest plant matter and indeed must consume some vegetables and fruits to prevent certain deficiency conditions. A typical meal for a working-class family consists of roasted meat, usually poultry or small game, accompanied by bread and whatever vegetables are available seasonally and cheaply. The wealthy eat more elaborate preparations, multiple courses featuring rare meats, game birds, imported delicacies, all prepared by trained cooks who understand how to present food in ways that match the aesthetic standards of their employers.
The method of eating is distinct from mammalian species, utilizing the sharp beak and internal teeth to tear and process food. Dining in company follows elaborate etiquette rules, with attention paid to how one handles food, how quickly one eats, what portions one takes. To eat too quickly suggests lower-class origins or desperation. To eat too slowly suggests affectation or weak appetite. The proper pace and manner must be observed, varying somewhat by social context but always requiring conscious attention to avoid committing errors that mark one as uncultured.
The wealthy maintain elaborate dining halls where meals become performances, with guests arrayed according to social rank, with lighting calculated to display everyone’s plumage to best advantage, with the food itself presented as much for visual effect as for nutrition. I attended several formal dinners during my time in Greywater and found them exhausting exercises in maintaining proper deportment while also attempting to navigate the social dynamics of who was being honored or insulted by seating arrangements and serving order.
The preparation and consumption of food is gendered, with cooking considered appropriate work for either sex but formal cooking as profession being male-dominated at the highest levels. The great chefs who serve the wizard-kings are almost exclusively male, while routine cooking in ordinary households is usually performed by whichever family members have time and skill. The Church teaches that preparing food is a service to others and thus virtuous, but somehow this virtue translates to prestige and high pay for male chefs while remaining mere domestic obligation for female household members who perform identical tasks.
The question of the dietary differences I have observed in my travels is not addressed in Confederation discourse. The Lanxes are also substantially carnivorous, as are the Fae, though the Najari are obligate carnivores to a degree that even we do not match. The similarity of dietary needs across species that are supposedly fundamentally different is not something that receives scholarly attention in the Confederation, and I suspect I understand why.
The fashion and personal decoration among humans is elaborate to a degree that seems excessive even compared to the Najari, who are not themselves modest in their self-presentation. The daily grooming ritual for an adult human of any social standing requires at minimum an hour, often substantially more. The plumage must be preened, damaged feathers identified and removed, oils applied to maintain sheen and color. The beak requires filing and polishing. The talons need trimming and sharpening. The train, that enormous tail display, demands constant attention, with each feather examined for damage and repaired or replaced as necessary.
For the wealthy, this grooming is performed by servants, specialized attendants who train for years to master the techniques of plumage maintenance. For the working class, grooming is self-performed or done cooperatively with family members, creating social bonds through the mutual assistance required to maintain appearance. For the very poor, grooming suffers, and the visible degradation of their plumage becomes a marker of their poverty that makes advancement more difficult, creating yet another self-reinforcing cycle.
The clothing worn by humans is adapted to our physiology, designed to cover the body without constraining the wings or damaging the train. The basic garment is a kind of tunic or robe that fastens at the front and sides, leaving the back open to accommodate the train. Over this, various additional layers can be added depending on weather and social context: cloaks, decorative harnesses, armor for military contexts, vestments for religious functions. The wealthy wear garments of fine materials in colors chosen to complement their natural plumage, often incorporating jewelry and crystalline ornaments that catch light and add to the overall display.
The poor wear simpler garments of coarser materials, often in undyed fabrics that are merely functional rather than decorative. The difference in clothing quality is immediately visible and serves as clear social marker. You can assess someone’s approximate status within moments of seeing them simply by evaluating their garments, their grooming quality, and the condition of their train.
The use of color in Confederation fashion follows elaborate rules that vary by region and by season but that always serve to reinforce social hierarchy. Certain colors are reserved for Church officials, certain patterns indicate military service, certain combinations signal house affiliations or guild memberships. The rules are complex enough that violations are common among those unfamiliar with the nuances, and such violations are treated as either laughable errors or as deliberate insults depending on the context and the violator’s status.
The housing arrangements vary dramatically by social class, but all human dwellings share certain features adapted to our physiology. Doorways are tall and wide to accommodate our height and our trains. Furniture is designed for digitigrade legs and for the need to position our trains comfortably when seated. Beds are platforms rather than enclosed frames, allowing the train to extend behind the sleeper. The wealthy have elaborate furniture specifically designed to display their trains while seated, with backrests that support the body while leaving the train free to fan out behind them in glorious array.
The working-class homes are modest structures, usually single-room dwellings or at most two rooms, with space for sleeping, cooking, and living combined. The lack of privacy in such arrangements shapes family dynamics in ways that the wealthy, with their sprawling estates and numerous private chambers, cannot fully appreciate. The poor conduct their entire lives in compressed space, managing the complex social dynamics of multiple generations and family branches all living in immediate proximity with minimal personal space.
The wealthy estates are exercises in excess, with rooms for every conceivable function, with gardens designed for display and entertaining, with servants’ quarters that house the small armies of workers required to maintain these properties. The Duke of Greywater’s palace, which I was permitted to tour, contains over two hundred rooms, most of which are used infrequently if at all, existing primarily to demonstrate the Duke’s wealth and power through sheer spatial extravagance.
The rhythm of daily life is structured around the light cycle in ways that reflect religious teachings. Morning prayers are expected of the faithful, greeting the return of light after darkness. Work occupies the middle hours of the day, though the specific timing varies by profession. Evening is reserved for grooming, for social activities, for display. Night is for rest, though the Church teaches that darkness is spiritually dangerous and that one should not linger in it more than necessary for sleep.
The molting season, which occurs in early autumn, disrupts this rhythm profoundly. For approximately six weeks, adults lose their train feathers and wing plumage, shedding the old feathers that have accumulated damage over the past year and growing new ones to replace them. This process is physiologically demanding, requiring increased food intake and rest. It is also socially traumatic, as the loss of one’s display removes the primary marker of status and beauty that structures so much of Confederation social life.
The wealthy retreat to private estates during molting, employing Albumancers and specialized servants to manage the process and to ensure that the new feathers grow in properly. They are not seen in public during this time, maintaining seclusion until the molt is complete and the new plumage has developed sufficiently to be displayed. The poor cannot afford such retreat, continuing to work while molting, their reduced plumage visible to all and marking them as vulnerable and diminished.
I experienced my first molt after returning from my travels, and I found it profoundly disturbing in ways I had not previously recognized. The physical discomfort was manageable, though the itching was considerable and the new feathers grew in tender and sensitive. The social anxiety was more difficult. I found myself reluctant to be seen, to go out, to engage in any activity that might expose my depleted state. I understood intellectually that this was normal, that everyone molts, that the new feathers would grow in and I would return to normal. But emotionally, I felt diminished, lesser, ashamed in ways that I recognized as culturally constructed but which felt no less real for that recognition.
The treatment of molt reflects and reinforces social hierarchies. The wealthy who can hide during molt maintain their status. The poor who cannot hide are marked as poor not just by their worn clothing or modest housing but by their visible physical vulnerability. And worst of all, poor nutrition during growth years means the new feathers that grow in after molt are often less elaborate, less colorful, less impressive than those of the well-fed wealthy, perpetuating the disadvantage across molt cycles and ensuring that the gap between classes is literally embodied in the quality of their plumage.
The Confederation society is organized into clearly delineated classes, each with defined roles, expectations, and limitations on mobility between strata. This organization is justified through Church doctrine that holds that the Light distributes its blessings according to worthiness, and that one’s position in the social hierarchy is both reflection of and reward for spiritual merit. The reality, as I have come to understand it, is that the hierarchy primarily reflects the accidents of birth, with social mobility being far more constrained than the official ideology suggests.
At the apex sit the wizard-kings and their immediate families, the highest nobility who rule kingdoms through combination of magical power, inherited authority, and Church endorsement. This class numbers perhaps several hundred individuals across the entire Confederation, living lives of extraordinary privilege and wielding power that shapes the existence of millions. They are educated from birth for their roles, receiving the finest magical instruction, the most sophisticated political training, access to knowledge and resources that are simply unavailable to those below them. They marry within their class, forming alliances between kingdoms, producing heirs who will inherit their positions and perpetuate the system.
I have observed members of this class at close range during my time in Greywater, and what strikes me most is their absolute confidence in their own superiority. They do not question whether they deserve their position. They do not wonder whether the system that elevated them is just. They accept as self-evident truth that they are better than those below them, that their magical capabilities are proof of this superiority, that the Light has chosen them for greatness. Duke Markian, in one conversation, expressed genuine puzzlement at the suggestion that a talented commoner might be equally capable of ruling if given the same education and opportunities. The idea simply did not compute for him. Ruling was what his family did, what they had always done, what they were meant to do by nature and divine plan.
Below the highest nobility are the lesser nobles, the landed gentry who hold estates and titles but who do not rule kingdoms independently. This class includes counts, barons, landed knights, and the extended families of the wizard-kings who do not stand in direct line of succession. They number perhaps several thousand across the Confederation, living comfortable lives though not approaching the extravagance of the highest tier. Many possess significant magical training, though not necessarily to the level required for wizard-king status. They serve as administrators, military officers, Church officials at middle ranks, managers of estates and enterprises owned by the highest nobility.
The lesser nobles are perhaps the most politically active class, constantly maneuvering for advancement, forming factions and alliances, seeking opportunities to elevate themselves toward the higher tier or at least to secure their position against rivals. The court intrigue that occupies much of their attention would be exhausting to participate in, and indeed I found the brief time I spent in such circles to be mentally draining, requiring constant vigilance about what one said and to whom and how such statements might be interpreted or misrepresented.
The merchant class occupies an ambiguous position, possessing substantial economic power but lacking the formal political authority and social prestige of the nobility. Successful merchants can accumulate wealth exceeding that of lesser nobles, can employ hundreds or thousands of workers, can influence policy through economic pressure and through carefully cultivated relationships with noble patrons. Yet they remain fundamentally subordinate in social hierarchy, excluded from highest circles, unable to marry into noble families except under specific circumstances where their wealth becomes more valuable than the maintenance of blood purity.
I come from merchant background myself, my family having made their fortune through textile trade and having achieved sufficient success to fund my education at Church schools and eventually at university. This background shaped my understanding of the world in ways I only began to recognize after leaving the Confederation. We were comfortable, even wealthy by objective measures, yet we were constantly aware of our position as outsiders to true power, as people who might have money but who lacked the magical capabilities and bloodlines that truly mattered in Confederation society.
The artisan class consists of skilled craftspeople who produce the goods that the society requires: smiths, carpenters, weavers, jewelers, the makers of everything from furniture to weapons to the elaborate clothing that status display requires. These are respectable professions, requiring years of training and producing real value, yet they offer limited prospects for advancement beyond achieving master status within one’s guild. An artisan who is exceptionally skilled and fortunate might establish a successful workshop, might employ apprentices and journeymen, might even achieve modest wealth. But they remain artisans, their children will likely be artisans, and the ceiling on their aspirations is clearly visible.
Below the artisans are the general laborers, the workers who perform the physical tasks that keep cities functioning: construction workers, dock workers, teamsters, the people who move goods and build structures and maintain infrastructure. This work is necessary but not respected, paid adequately for survival but offering no path to advancement. The laborers work long hours in difficult conditions, return to cramped housing, raise children who will likely be laborers themselves. The fiction that hard work and virtue will be rewarded with advancement is less maintainable at this level, where one can work diligently for an entire lifetime and achieve nothing beyond continued survival.
The household servants who work for the wealthy occupy a peculiar position, better compensated than general laborers but existing in states of profound dependency on their employers. A servant in a noble house receives housing, food, clothing, and usually some monetary wages, living in more comfort than a laborer but having essentially no autonomy over their own lives. They are on call constantly, their time belonging to their employers, their personal relationships subject to employer approval, their prospects for marriage or children dependent on maintaining their positions. The best positions, those serving the highest nobles, are actually competitive, representing genuine opportunity for certain ambitious individuals who prefer the security of service to the uncertainty of independent work.
At the bottom of the legally free population are the destitute, those who lack stable employment, who survive through begging, through occasional day labor, through theft, through whatever means present themselves. This population is fluid, with individuals falling into it through injury, illness, bad fortune, or poor decisions, and occasionally climbing out through luck or charity or determination. The Church operates poorhouses and distributes alms, but these provisions are deliberately kept minimal, sufficient to prevent mass starvation but not sufficient to make destitution comfortable. The doctrine holds that poverty is consequence of sin or spiritual failure, and that making it too comfortable would discourage the poor from improving their circumstances.
Below the free population are the enslaved, those whose labor is owned by others as property. Confederation slavery is less extensive than in some societies I have studied, but it exists and is legally sanctioned. Slaves in the Confederation are primarily war captives from conflicts with other species, criminals sentenced to enslavement as punishment, or individuals who have sold themselves or their children into slavery to escape debt. The legal framework provides certain minimal protections, prohibiting arbitrary killing of slaves and requiring that they be fed and housed adequately, but these protections are irregularly enforced and slaves have essentially no recourse against cruel masters.
The social mobility that theoretically exists in Confederation ideology is, in practice, extremely limited. A merchant family that accumulates substantial wealth over generations might eventually achieve lesser noble status through strategic marriages and through purchase of land and titles. An artisan of exceptional skill might achieve master status and modest prosperity. But genuine movement between major social strata is rare, and movement from the lower classes to the upper classes is virtually impossible.
The primary mechanism for potential advancement is magical talent. A child born to a laborer family who demonstrates exceptional magical capability might be identified by Church officials and offered magical training, potentially leading to positions as court mage, military mage, or Church official. This represents genuine opportunity for transcending one’s birth class. However, several factors limit this pathway’s effectiveness.
First, magical talent is partially hereditary, meaning children of mages are more likely to possess it than children of non-mages. Second, magical training is expensive and time-consuming, requiring resources and time that poor families struggle to provide even with Church assistance. Third, the best training and opportunities go to noble children, meaning a talented poor child receives inferior instruction and faces discrimination throughout their career. Fourth, the cultural capital required to navigate elite environments is largely acquired through upbringing, meaning the talented poor child promoted to court mage position often struggles with social dynamics that their noble-born peers handle effortlessly.
I have interviewed several individuals who achieved advancement through magical talent, and their accounts share certain themes: gratitude for the opportunity mixed with profound discomfort at never quite fitting in, success in their technical work complicated by social isolation, and awareness that they are tolerated but not truly accepted by those who were born to the positions they achieved through merit.
The treatment of females varies by social class in ways that compound the stratification. Noble women receive education and training, though typically less extensive than their brothers, and can hold certain positions of authority though they are excluded from the highest levels of Church hierarchy and face disadvantages in inheriting titles and estates. Merchant and artisan women often work alongside their families in businesses, gaining practical skills and sometimes managing operations, though formal guild membership and mastership remain male-dominated. Laborer women work in whatever employment is available, facing discrimination in wages and conditions while also bearing primary responsibility for household management and child-rearing.
The Church’s official position is that females are spiritually equal to males but are naturally suited to different roles, and that this differentiation is divine plan rather than human invention. The practical reality is that females at every social level face systematic disadvantages, receiving less education, having fewer opportunities, being expected to defer to male authority regardless of their actual capabilities. The exceptions are notable precisely because they are exceptions, remarkable women who achieved success despite the obstacles rather than because the system facilitated their advancement.
[Kael’s note]: I’ve worked for people at every level of this hierarchy except the very top, and what strikes me most is how convinced everyone is that their position is natural and correct. The nobles think they deserve to rule because they’re magically powerful, ignoring that they’re powerful because they received the training and resources that their birth provided. The merchants think they deserve their wealth because they work hard, ignoring that they started with capital and connections that made success possible. The laborers think they deserve their poverty because they lack magical talent or business acumen, internalizing the system’s judgment of their worth. The rare person who recognizes the arbitrariness of it all usually keeps that recognition private, because questioning the hierarchy is politically dangerous and socially isolating. The system maintains itself through convincing everyone that it’s not a system at all, just the natural order of things.
The Confederation maintains substantial military forces organized at both kingdom and Confederation-wide levels, designed to defend territory against external threats and to expand that territory through aggressive campaigns that are invariably framed in religious terms. The military culture is deeply integrated with Church doctrine, with soldiers understanding themselves not merely as fighters but as warriors of the Light, spreading illumination to darkened lands and bringing civilization to those who lack it.
Each wizard-king maintains a standing military force proportional to their kingdom’s population and resources. These forces consist of professional soldiers who serve for extended contracts, typically five to ten years, receiving regular pay, equipment, training, and the social respect that military service commands. The composition is mixed: infantry armed with conventional weapons, mage-specialists who provide magical support, and officer corps drawn primarily from the lesser nobility who receive military training as part of their education.
The infantry carry a combination of traditional and advanced weaponry. The crossbow remains standard, being reliable, relatively easy to train with, and effective against most targets. Alongside this are the beam-casters I described earlier, magical weapons that fire concentrated bursts of bound magic with devastating effect. The distribution of beam-casters is limited by their expense, with typical infantry units having perhaps one beam-caster per ten soldiers, creating combined arms units where magical and conventional firepower support each other.
The mage-specialists are integrated throughout military formations, providing capabilities that conventional soldiers cannot match. Combat Albumancers heal injuries in the field, allowing soldiers to return to battle far more quickly than natural healing would permit, and can inflict targeted damage on enemies through biological manipulation that is agonizing and often permanent. Ritualists prepare defensive wards and offensive attack patterns, with their preparations made before battle and triggered during combat when needed. Those trained in Orisons invoke the Light to protect allies, to enhance their capabilities, to strike down enemies with divine wrath that manifests as searing light or as divine judgment that causes targets to simply cease.
I observed military training exercises outside Greywater and was struck by the sophistication of the combined arms tactics. Infantry formations advance behind protective wards maintained by Ritualists while Albumancers stay ready to address casualties. Beam-caster operators target priority enemies identified by scouts. Orison-trained chaplains move through formations providing both spiritual support and practical magical assistance. The coordination required is substantial, and the training that produces it is rigorous and ongoing even for veteran units.
The officer corps is drawn primarily from the lesser nobility, with military service being a traditional path for noble children who will not inherit titles or estates. The officers receive extensive training in tactics, logistics, leadership, and in enough magical theory to understand and coordinate with the mage-specialists under their command even if they are not themselves combat mages. The relationship between noble officers and common soldiers is hierarchical but not typically abusive, with effective officers understanding that their authority depends on maintaining the respect and loyalty of their troops.
The crusading tradition that has shaped Confederation military culture for centuries emerges from Church doctrine that holds that expanding the territory under Light’s blessing is a holy obligation, that other species living in darkness must be brought into the Light or destroyed if they refuse, and that conquest is not merely politically expedient but spiritually necessary. This framing transforms aggressive military expansion into religious duty, allowing soldiers to understand themselves as doing the Light’s work even when the practical outcome is the slaughter of other sapient beings and the seizure of their territories.
I must address this directly, painful as it is to acknowledge. The Confederation military has conducted campaigns against Lanx territories, against Najari city-states, against any settlement or civilization that stood in the way of expansion or that refused to submit to Confederation authority. These campaigns are brutal, involving not merely battlefield combat but deliberate targeting of civilian populations, burning of settlements, enslavement of survivors, and systematic destruction of non-human culture and institutions. The justification is always the same: we bring the Light, we bring civilization, we bring proper order to those living in darkness and corruption.
The Northern Lanxes have resisted Confederation expansion effectively, partly through the harshness of their environment which makes conquest expensive and difficult, partly through their own military capabilities enhanced by their magical traditions, and partly through simple distance from Confederation core territories. The southern territories have been less fortunate, with several Lanx and Najari settlements having been conquered over the past century, their populations killed or enslaved, their lands absorbed into expanding Confederation kingdoms.
The propaganda that accompanies these campaigns is sophisticated and pervasive. Before military action begins, Church officials preach sermons about the necessity of spreading the Light, about the corruption and darkness of the targeted population, about the spiritual danger of allowing such corruption to persist unchecked. During campaigns, dispatches emphasize enemy atrocities while minimizing or justifying Confederation violence. After conquest, the narrative shifts to celebrating the liberation of the territory, the bringing of Light to darkness, the civilizing of the uncivilized.
I have read accounts written by Confederation soldiers describing their experiences in these campaigns, and certain themes recur. Cognitive dissonance between the noble religious framing and the reality of killing civilians. Rationalizations about enemy savagery that justify their own brutality. Pride in their accomplishments mixed with unease about specific actions. And consistently, an understanding that questioning the mission itself is unthinkable, that the rightness of spreading the Light is so fundamental that examining it constitutes spiritual failure.
The military culture celebrates certain virtues: courage, loyalty, discipline, martial skill, and what is described as righteousness, which in practice means aggressive confidence in one’s own correctness and in the justification for one’s actions. The successful soldier is one who fights effectively, who follows orders without excessive questioning, who maintains unit cohesion, and who displays appropriate enthusiasm for the mission of spreading the Light. Soldiers who express doubt, who show excessive mercy to enemies, who question the justice of their campaigns, face social sanction and often official discipline.
The Church maintains chaplains embedded in military units, providing spiritual guidance and ensuring doctrinal orthodoxy. These chaplains conduct religious services before battles, absolve soldiers of sins committed during combat, identify soldiers whose faith appears wavering, and report to Church superiors on the spiritual state of military forces. The surveillance function is not hidden; soldiers understand that their beliefs and statements are monitored, and this understanding encourages at minimum the performance of orthodoxy even if internal doubts persist.
The treatment of prisoners varies depending on their species and the specific circumstances of their capture. Human prisoners from other kingdoms, captured in the occasional conflicts between Confederation members, are usually ransomed or exchanged, as killing or enslaving fellow humans is considered problematic though not absolutely forbidden. Non-human prisoners face harsher fates: enslavement is standard, with valuable prisoners being ransomed to their home communities if such communities exist and are willing to pay, and prisoners deemed without value being executed or sold to labor camps.
I have struggled to write this section with appropriate objectivity, for I am describing military traditions that I was raised to admire, that I participated in during my youth when I served a brief term in a garrison unit, that shaped my understanding of what courage and duty meant. I believed, with sincere conviction, that the Confederation’s military campaigns were righteous, that we were bringing enlightenment to those living in ignorance, that resistance to our expansion was not merely political opposition but spiritual corruption deserving destruction.
I no longer believe these things. Having lived among the Lanxes and the Najari, having spoken with individuals whose families were killed or enslaved by Confederation forces, having examined the historical record with eyes no longer clouded by propaganda, I recognize that what I participated in and celebrated was not the spread of enlightenment but rather brutal conquest dressed in religious justification. The people we killed were not corrupted beings needing salvation. They were people with their own cultures, their own beliefs, their own rights to exist unmolested. We took from them their lands, their freedom, their lives, not because the Light commanded it but because we wanted what they had and because we possessed the military power to take it.
This recognition is painful in ways I struggle to articulate. It means acknowledging that I participated in injustice, that my society is built partially on the bones of those we have conquered, that the glory I was taught to admire is soaked in blood that did not need to be shed. It means recognizing that the Confederation’s claims to moral superiority are hollow, that we are not bearers of light but merely another expansionist power that happens to have developed particularly effective propaganda.
[Kael’s note]: I’ve fought alongside Confederation military, been hired as scout and irregular for several campaigns. What Valerius describes is accurate but maybe understates the enthusiasm that many soldiers bring to these campaigns. It’s not reluctant violence in service of duty. For many, it’s righteous violence that feels good, that satisfies something deep in them. They genuinely believe they’re doing right, and that belief frees them to commit acts that would trouble them if they paused to examine what they were actually doing. The few soldiers I’ve known who developed doubts about the mission usually left military service as soon as their contracts allowed, because remaining in that environment while questioning it is psychologically unbearable. The system selects for those who can kill without excessive doubt, and it shapes those people into effective instruments of Confederation expansion.
The Confederation’s relationships with other species and civilizations range from hostile to exploitative, rarely approaching anything that could be described as respectful coexistence. This is not accidental but rather is systematic policy emerging from theological doctrine that positions humans as superior and other species as lesser beings deserving subordinate status at best.
The official Church position on the Lanxes, both Northern and those from other regions I have not yet documented, is that they are fallen beings who once possessed glory but who lost it through sin or failure. The specific nature of their supposed fall is described vaguely in Church texts, with references to “turning from the Light” or “embracing bestiality” that are never elaborated into coherent narrative. The practical implication is that Lanxes are viewed as salvageable through conversion and forced assimilation but as deserving destruction if they resist.
The Northern Lanxes maintain independence through geographic barriers and military capability that makes conquest expensive, but Confederation territories border Lanx lands in several regions, and the relationship is consistently tense. Border incidents occur regularly: Confederation settlers encroaching on Lanx territories, Lanx traders facing discrimination and violence in Confederation towns, occasional military skirmishes that both sides blame on the other. The Confederation views Lanx resistance to expansion as unreasonable hostility, while the Lanxes view Confederation encroachment as aggressive violation of their territories. Both perspectives have merit, though Confederation propaganda admits only one.
The Najari are regarded with particular hostility, their serpentine forms being interpreted through Church doctrine as evidence of divine curse or demonic corruption. The theological explanation taught in Church schools holds that the Najari’s ancestors were humans who committed grievous sins and were transformed into serpents as punishment, that their current form is reminder of their depravity, and that they can achieve salvation only through complete submission to Church authority and gradual transformation back toward proper human form through magical and spiritual intervention.
This theology is nonsense, obviously, but it provides justification for treating Najari with contempt and violence. Najari merchants entering Confederation territory face harassment, extortionate tariffs, and occasional mob violence. Najari diplomatic missions are received with barely concealed hostility even when they come bearing valuable trade goods. The few Najari who have converted to the Church of Light and who live in Confederation territories face constant suspicion and are never fully accepted regardless of how sincere their conversion appears.
The Fae are not considered sapient beings by Confederation law and theology. They are classified as demons or void-spawn, existing outside the Light entirely, deserving only destruction. The kill-on-sight policies that govern Confederation treatment of Fae are justified through Church doctrine that holds that Fae are not fallen beings who might be saved but rather are inherently corrupt entities whose existence is offense against the Light. The fact that Fae demonstrate clear sapience, that they can speak and reason and trade, is dismissed as demonic mimicry of genuine consciousness rather than as evidence that they are people deserving of moral consideration.
I have pressed Church officials on this position, asking how they distinguish between genuine consciousness and mimicry, what specific evidence would convince them that Fae are people rather than demons. The responses have been circular: Fae are not people because they emerged from the void, and emergence from the void proves one is not a person. The reasoning would be laughable if its consequences were not so deadly.
The treatment of Changelings reveals interesting contradictions in Confederation theology and practice. Changelings are by definition part-Fae, products of unions between Fae and other species, yet they are not automatically classified as demons deserving destruction. Instead, they occupy ambiguous legal status, recognized as possessing some degree of human inheritance that makes them potentially salvageable. Church doctrine holds that Changelings can achieve salvation through renouncing their Fae heritage, through undergoing ritual cleansing, and through demonstrating absolute loyalty to the Light.
The practical reality is that Changelings in Confederation territories face constant discrimination, being viewed as tainted and untrustworthy regardless of their actual behavior or beliefs. They are excluded from most professions, cannot own land, cannot testify in legal proceedings except under specific circumstances, and face mob violence if they are perceived as threatening in any way. Many Changelings leave Confederation territories as soon as they are able, seeking lives in more tolerant societies, though this exodus is interpreted by Confederation citizens as evidence that Changelings are inherently unable to accept proper civilization.
The rare species I have encountered less frequently, such as the Deepfolk dwelling in the far northern mines, are generally unknown to most Confederation citizens and are treated in official discourse as monsters or as degraded humans rather than as distinct sapient beings. When Confederation expansion brings them into contact with such peoples, the pattern is consistent: initial classification as either salvageable through conversion or as deserving destruction, followed by policies of forced assimilation or extermination depending on how the specific case is adjudicated by Church and civil authorities.
The economic relationships that do exist between the Confederation and other civilizations are shaped by this underlying hostility and contempt. Trade occurs, certainly, particularly in border regions where practical necessity overrides ideological purity, but it is trade conducted under terms that favor the Confederation and that treat non-human trading partners as inherently untrustworthy. Contracts with non-humans are enforced inconsistently, with Confederation courts typically ruling in favor of human parties in disputes regardless of facts. Non-human merchants face arbitrary taxation, inspection, and confiscation of goods under various pretexts.
The Northern Lanxes have adapted to this reality by insisting on neutral intermediaries for significant trade, using Threshold and other border cities as meeting points where both parties have some recourse against fraud. The Najari largely avoid direct trade with the Confederation, routing commerce through intermediaries or simply refusing to do business at all. The Fae, being classified as non-persons, cannot legally engage in trade at all in Confederation territories, though some individuals do so covertly by concealing their nature or by working through human accomplices.
There exist, within the Confederation, voices advocating for more humane treatment of other species, for recognition of their sapience and their rights, for diplomatic rather than military approaches to expansion. These voices are marginalized, denounced by Church officials as heretical or as spiritually weak, and socially sanctioned by their communities. The few scholars and officials who have pressed these positions too vigorously have found themselves unable to publish, unable to secure positions, sometimes facing formal heresy charges that carry severe penalties.
I write this knowing that I am joining that marginalized group, that this document constitutes public advocacy for positions that the Church has condemned. I do so because the alternative is to remain complicit in injustice, to allow the ongoing violence and exploitation to continue unchallenged, to prioritize my own safety and reputation over the truth that other people, regardless of their species, deserve to be treated as people.
The Confederation could choose differently. We could recognize other species as sapient, as possessing their own valid cultures and beliefs, as having rights to their own territories and self-determination. We could trade fairly, negotiate honestly, seek peaceful coexistence rather than conquest. The practical barriers to such policies are not insurmountable; they are primarily ideological, rooted in Church doctrine that could be reformed if there were will to do so.
That will does not currently exist at institutional levels. The Church has too much invested in the current theological framework to abandon it without tremendous pressure. The wizard-kings benefit too much from the current system to voluntarily limit their own power. The common citizens have been too thoroughly indoctrinated to question what they have been taught since childhood. Change, if it comes, will require either external pressure that forces reform or internal upheaval that fractures the current system.
I do not know which will occur first, or whether change will occur at all within my lifetime. I know only that documenting these failures, naming them clearly, is necessary first step toward any possibility of improvement.
I write these final words in my study in Greywater, surrounded by notes and observations accumulated over nearly two years of travel, looking out my window at a city I have known my entire life and which now appears to me as foreign as any settlement I visited in my journeys. The white stone gleams in the afternoon light. The cathedral spires rise toward the sky. Citizens move through the streets in their finest plumage, catching and reflecting the sun, creating the visual symphony of color and brilliance that I was raised to see as the highest expression of civilization.
I see it differently now. I see the performance, the constant display, the exhausting maintenance of appearance that structures every interaction. I see the wealth concentrated at the top and the poverty hidden at the bottom. I see the military preparing for campaigns framed as holy missions but pursued for territorial expansion. I see the Church maintaining doctrines that justify treating other sapient beings as less than people. I see my own face in the mirror, my own beak and feathers and talons, and I struggle to reconcile what I am with what I was taught humans should be.
The central question that has haunted me throughout this research, the question I have approached from multiple angles without ever quite addressing directly, is this: what does it mean to be human? Not in the abstract philosophical sense, but in the concrete, practical sense of what distinguishes those who can claim this identity from those who cannot.
I was taught that humanity is defined by certain essential qualities: reason, virtue, connection to the Light, capacity for civilization. By these criteria, the Lanxes are human. The Najari are human. The Fae, despite their strangeness, demonstrate reason and moral capacity that mark them as people deserving of the respect and rights we claim for ourselves. Yet we deny them humanity, classify them as other, as lesser, as corrupted or fallen or demonic.
The alternative explanation, the one I have danced around throughout this document without quite stating plainly, is that humanity is not defined by essential qualities but rather by appearance, by membership in our specific group, by sharing the physical characteristics that we possess. By this criterion, only those who look like us are human, and all others, regardless of their capabilities or achievements, are excluded from the category and from the moral consideration it supposedly entails.
This second definition is, I must note, precisely the kind of reasoning that the Church condemns when it is applied within our own society. To claim that someone is lesser because they possess different physical characteristics, that they deserve reduced rights or consideration based on appearance rather than on their actual qualities, this is recognized as unjust when the differentiation is between classes or sexes within our own species. Yet we apply exactly this reasoning to other species, and we do not recognize it as problematic.
I have observed that the ancient humans, whose legacy we claim, whose ruins dot the landscape, whose achievements we celebrate as our own, they did not look like us. The artwork, the architecture, the tools and furniture and clothing preserved in those ruins, all of it was designed for bodies shaped differently than ours. I have noted this in earlier sections, but I must state it clearly now: the beings we claim as our ancestors, whose identity we have adopted as our own, were not avian. They were mammalian, bipedal in a different way than we are, lacking feathers and beaks and trains.
I will not speculate here about how we came to identify ourselves with them, about what process led us to claim their name and their legacy and to remember ourselves as having always been them. This speculation would venture into territory that is both theologically dangerous and practically unverifiable. I observe only that there is discontinuity between what the ancient ruins show and what we claim about our history, and that this discontinuity is not acknowledged in Church teaching or in official histories.
What I can state with confidence is that the Confederation’s treatment of other species is not justified by the theological and moral frameworks it claims to follow. If we judge beings by their capacities for reason, for culture, for moral choice, then the Lanxes and Najari and even the Fae qualify as people deserving the same consideration we claim for ourselves. If we judge them instead by whether they look like us, by whether they share our specific physical form, then we have abandoned any pretense of moral reasoning in favor of simple tribalism.
The violence we have inflicted, the conquests we have pursued, the enslavement and killing and cultural destruction we have engaged in, none of this is justified by the Light or by moral principle. It is justified only by our power to do it and by our collective decision to classify our victims as less than people so that we need not trouble ourselves with guilt over their treatment.
I recognize that this assessment will be controversial, that many readers, if this document circulates among Confederation citizens, will reject it as biased or as evidence of my own spiritual corruption. I can only respond that I have attempted throughout this document to apply the same analytical framework to my own culture that I applied to others, to observe with the same careful attention, to report with the same honesty. If the result is unflattering, if it reveals practices and beliefs that are difficult to defend, this is not because I have been unfair but because unflattering truths exist and deserve to be documented.
The question that remains is what should be done with this knowledge, what response is appropriate to recognizing that one’s own society is built on foundations that cannot withstand scrutiny. I do not have a clear answer. I am a scholar, not a revolutionary. I am skilled at observation and documentation, not at organizing social movements or overthrowing institutions. I can identify injustices, but I lack the capability or the courage to single-handedly reform them.
What I can do is write truthfully, is document what I have seen, is provide a record that future scholars might build upon. Perhaps this document will contribute to eventual reform, to gradual recognition that our treatment of other species is indefensible, to slow evolution toward more just policies. Perhaps it will simply gather dust in an archive, read by no one, influencing nothing. Perhaps it will result in my being declared heretic, in my exile or worse, in which case it will serve at minimum as explanation for why I chose this path.
I have traveled among the Lanxes and learned from their shamanic wisdom and their stubborn persistence in the face of the void. I have lived among the Najari and marveled at their pragmatic sophistication and their successful integration of peoples from multiple backgrounds. I have studied the Fae and come to recognize their desperate hunger not as demonic but as the struggle of beings trying to maintain existence against forces that would unmake them. All of these peoples have taught me something about what consciousness can be, about what civilization can look like, about possibilities that the Confederation has never considered because it has been too invested in its own superiority to look clearly at alternatives.
The Confederation possesses genuine strengths. Our magical technology is sophisticated, our cities are magnificent, our learning is deep in certain domains. We have achieved things worth celebrating. But we have also inflicted tremendous harm, have built our prosperity partially on the exploitation of others, have maintained our unity through doctrines that require us to diminish those who are different from us. These harms do not erase the achievements, but neither do the achievements justify the harms.
I will remain in the Confederation, for this is my home despite my discomfort with it, despite my recognition of its failures. I will continue my work, documenting and analyzing, attempting to understand how civilizations function and what makes them succeed or fail. I will advocate, as carefully as I am able, for reform, for recognition of other species’ rights, for foreign policies based on negotiation rather than conquest. I do not expect to succeed in changing fundamental structures during my lifetime, but I hope that my work contributes to eventual change, that future generations might look back on current practices with the same horror that we now direct toward historical injustices.
To those who read this document and who find themselves troubled by what I have reported, I offer this observation: recognizing that one’s society is flawed is not betrayal but rather is essential step toward making it better. The Confederation could be great, could achieve the enlightenment and justice that it claims already to possess, but only if we are willing to look honestly at where we fall short and to work toward genuine improvement rather than mere performance of superiority.
To those who read this document and who reject my conclusions, who believe I have been corrupted by my travels or who think I have betrayed my heritage, I can only say that I have attempted to be faithful to truth as I understand it. If that truth is unwelcome, if it contradicts what we have been taught to believe, this does not make it less true. It merely makes it uncomfortable.
I close this document with uncertainty about its reception and about my own future. I have written things that may cost me dearly. I have challenged doctrines that are dear to many and that are defended by powerful institutions. I have suggested that the Confederation’s claims to superiority are hollow, that our treatment of others is unjust, that our understanding of our own history may be fundamentally flawed.
I write these things not from malice but from conviction that truth matters, that honest observation is valuable even when it reveals uncomfortable realities, that scholarship requires courage to follow evidence wherever it leads. Whether this courage proves wise or foolish, I cannot yet know. I know only that having seen what I have seen, having learned what I have learned, I cannot unsee it, and I cannot in good conscience remain silent about it.
May those who follow this work possess greater wisdom and greater capacity for change than I have demonstrated. May the Confederation eventually become what it claims to be rather than continuing to be what it actually is. And may the Light, whatever it truly is, grant clarity to those who seek truth and justice to those who pursue it.
— Scholar Valerius Thorne
Written in Greywater, Confederation Territory
Year 290 Post-Breaking
[Kael’s final note]:
Valerius has written something dangerous here. He’s documented truths that the Church and the wizard-kings would prefer remain unexamined. I’ve known him long enough to recognize when he’s being cautious and when he’s being brave, and this document is both. He’s left himself just enough ambiguity to argue he’s merely reporting observations if challenged, while making those observations damning enough that anyone reading carefully will draw their own conclusions.Will it change anything? Probably not immediately. The Confederation is good at ignoring inconvenient truths, at dismissing critics, at maintaining its self-image regardless of evidence. But documents like this persist, they circulate in unexpected ways, they plant seeds that might grow years or decades later.
I’m proud of him for writing it. I’m worried about what it will cost him. And I’m grateful that someone finally said clearly what many of us who live in the border territories have known for years: the Confederation’s claims to superiority are performance, and underneath the gleaming white stone and the radiant plumage, there’s just another expansionist power that happens to have good propaganda.
Stay safe, Valerius. And for anyone reading this who works for Church or civil authorities: he’s under my protection. That should mean something to those who know my reputation.
[End of primary documentation. No supplementary materials available. This document’s circulation is restricted by order of the Church of Light and unauthorized copying or distribution carries penalties under Confederation law.]