The Victuals of Empire

A Polemic

by Felicia Perdida

Addendum: His Majesty's Lunar Colonies

Published under the Auspices of the Free Nucyrod Committee for Public Education

The property of the incomparable Adalkyna (IX) av Svenge-Exactionum, Allotted Custodian of the People's Victuals and perfect cast-scion of House Cathmarte

Archivist's note

This entire document is to be regarded as apocryphal. Not only is the attributed author an obvious pseudonym, but the seals of both mundane and sporoform editions are clearly forged, and the parent document to which the title alludes does not exist on record.

Furthermore, the household unfree of Lady IX av Svenge-Exactionum could provide no useful information about the work, even under charm or duress. The Lady herself denied ever having met a mistress Perdida or the owner of such a pseudonym, a claim with which the magistrate concurred during the Lady's acquittal.

This document is restricted due to seditious content. All errant copies are to be returned to the Masserine Imperial Archive in Nunibennium (“Nibennium” in the vulgate). If retrieval is impossible, this document is to be destroyed by fire. Any who fail to comply with these instructions will be subject to the third amercement.

Do not tamper with this seal! Interference with custodial orthography is a crime under Imperial Law and will trigger Pupal glyphics.

-H.P.M. Head of Records, Nuni.

Empire, the Highest Stage of Ayelidoon

Glory to the Ancestors and the Divine! As I write in this, the Long Year of Our Apostasy, strife reigns across the Empire. The distant aneurysm of False Cyrod is but an echo in the Void. The godless orgy dancing the Meric world-priapism tires of its own regard and grows dissolute and flaccid. It but awaits that immanent paroxysm our ancient Blind saw coming aeons from their demise. Hail the Void's convulsing aperture! Let it contract until all false kings are shut out forever.

The victual of this stanza is: Pottage of mixed grains, sugar rot and withermoon, the humble fare of our people.

The Poverty of Scoromancy

Glory to the Vacant Throne! Worm-riddled consolation sways only the fool. Those slaves to redmote and blood who collapse into locked antlers, aping the Tibrol, whose name is incist and Potsherd and Kinslayer, have no place here. Cast out the gilded mirror-onanism of the Betrayer, who disdains to embrace us. Nor are the mamluks and Company-men, that troupe of midget emperors, to be trusted beyond the point of a spear. Waste nought of innocent blood – but mourn not the breaking of empty vessels.

The victual of this stanza is: Layered cake of rice and marshmerrow, fried golden on the bottom and served with fattened feast-skeever, salted with sencha mix and roasted until crisp. A meal to be shared with friends.

Brass-Walk-God and the State

Cats cannot taste sugar, and use our word 'sweetness' for the failure of speech. Let us savour such sweetness! The exposed nymic is a dangling chain; the pious devotion is a well-crafted fetter. Our god is missing; our queen is long dead. The profane monster of brass whose hands built False Cyrod is lost and shattered. Only the dusty wings of our ancestors remain. This is called the Vacant Throne. Pay obeisance to no other.

The victual of this stanza is: That Part of Thras, cut from each of a mated pair and sold by the Coral Concession, served raw with vinegar and tomato in the dish called Black Limit. Whereas we hold that this depraved contrivance, beloved of the ministeriales in their orgies, is unfit and wicked, conspirators may share it before they face danger. For some hours, they will know each other's thoughts and movements, and neither gaol, nor death, nor other planes will interfere.

Preliminary Materials Toward a Theory of the Young-Jill

We, who have seen the Godhead rear guilty and terrible from the dark, dripping blood and singing our hidden selves; we, who sing love and mercy and are wracked by godscabs and Collectors; we, who scrabble and die for thin gruel while the great and the good dine on flesh and fancy; we [the next few lines are obscured by damage]

[…] The victual of this stanza is our oldest and most noble: 'sweetbread', traditionally prepared for the Paper Moth Festival but of late, alas, rarely tasted. A recipe is preserved below.

Fist, mix the following in a bowl:

-Three hearts of tibrolic brushloper, finely diced. Ensure the beast has been drained, dried and despored in advance.

-One half cup of sugar.

-Nine small [another lacuna begins here, and continues for the rest of the page]

[…] left to bake until red-brown. It should be removed from the heat and allowed to cool completely.

The bread is pleasant, nourishing and morally sound. It also displays sympathetic properties in the vicinity of a primed YOL glyph, making it a fitting gift for one of the Collectors-Colonel of His Majesty's Masserine Security Company. The innocent should be at least one hundred feet, per pound of bread, from any loaf before the rune is activated. Standard compound walls will absorb roughly half of the magicka.

The Principle of Despair

Today, the happy years that birthed Cyrod's merry victuals are long heaped upon their pyre; the withered beauty of the Dawn shall soon follow. Like Al-Esh's ancient cohorts, we sing the praises of the Vacant Throne, the future's svcking maw. Just as our ancestors first felt the bite of an alien yoke, we remember our wounds and the beloved taken from us. In imitation of dancing prophets, we pray our jewelled martinets may choke on their ripe desserts. Discarded Benevolence, ash-smeared trampler of kings and false wealth: preserve our apostasy! Unseemly Lust, terror's crimson wound unhealing: let us taste sweetness!