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The
Revenants
The Court of the Night holds most
of the reigns of power in New London, and so it comes
as no surprise that the Salariat are in a majority.
How many of them actually believe in the Court, want
to play in its games of politics and power, enjoy
the charade of its near-human socializing and take
the Court’s word as absolute law is deeply questionable.
The simple fact is that playing along with the Court
gives one, by and large, a far easier unlife than
trying to forge one’s own way in the world.
As well as offering a comforting mirror of the mortal
society and of the society of the Deadlands that is
so familiar to most revenants, it also offers a certain
security and protection. By and large, so long as
you play by its rules, it will be there for you when
you need it. Providing, of course, you can convince
those that matter at Court that you actually do
need it, and so it is that those who at first only
want to keep from drawing any unwanted attention find
themselves drawn further into the power games and
politics, and find themselves one day as the very
people that they once looked down on with such derision.
That is not to say, of course, that
there are no Renunciates in New London. The high transient
population brings many undead with it, travelling
for their own personal reasons or simply for a good
time. So long as they do not disturb the peace of
the city they are left well enough to themselves.
There is the occasional spot of trouble, as must be
expected, but the Court is used to handling and cleaning
up after such things. There are only a few Renunciates
that make New London their permanent home, distinguished
by their open rejection of the Court of the Night.
They are mainly wealthy business owners, criminal
leaders or practitioners of some of the many ‘old
religions’ New London has taken into its melting
pot. The Court, most assume, have allowed these people
to get on with their unlives more or less unmolested
as it would simply be too troublesome to remove them
and they are, by and large, mostly harmless. And it
is true that most hold very little temporal political
power, and the economic society of New London is so
entwined with the machinations of the Court that those
with economic power can always, if necessary, be brought
to heal.
As with all revenant society, Ankou
are always a problem and a very real threat. By their
nature fanatics, the most reliable tactic is to send
them back to the death that they seem to love so much.
What makes that so much the harder is when the mere
mention of their name is enough to make most revenants
think twice. When an Ankou has been positively identified
and confirmed by the Court, it will normally issue
a bounty payable upon proof the unfortunate individual
has suffered the True Death (or the Good Death, as
some like to call it). Predictably, of course, there
is a high price to be paid for crying wolf.
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