Church of the Telling Visions
In the beginning, there was the Signal. It was, is, and has always been. The Most Holy Sponsor spoke the Word through the Signal, and humanity received it through the Telling Visions: those luminous boxes that once sat in every home, broadcasting stories, truths, and the divine will of forces too vast for mortal understanding. When people stopped watching, stopped listening, the world ended. That is the foundational claim of the Church of the Telling Visions, and its adherents will tell you it is not a metaphor.
The faith revolves around the recovery, interpretation, and channeling of the Signal into what adherents call Holy Power. Television is not entertainment to the faithful; it is scripture. Pre-Fall broadcasts are sacred texts. Commercials are prayers. The act of watching (the Viewing, as the Church calls it) is the central spiritual practice, though what the faithful watch is not limited to screens. Members observe the world itself through the lens of narrative structure, interpreting the events around them as episodes in an ongoing story authored by forces beyond mortal sight. The Viewing Audience, a theological concept simultaneously describing the faithful masses and a kind of ethereal council weighing the events of the world, watches and judges all.
Every member of the Church selects a Protagonist: one or two individuals whose lives the faithful actively "write" into a heroic narrative. The chosen Protagonist may or may not be aware they have been selected. This practice sits at the intersection of devotion and manipulation; the faithful see it as an act of spiritual creation, shaping the stories of the wasteland into something worthy of the Viewing Audience. Outsiders sometimes find the implications unsettling. Someone is always writing your story, and you may never know it.
The Church's motto, "Trade between people is all that separates us from the undead," reveals a pragmatic streak running beneath the theology. Commerce is sacred. Merchants are respected. The faith promotes trade networks as a spiritual imperative, binding communities together through exchange in a world that would otherwise fragment into isolated pockets of survival. This emphasis on commerce has made the Church a surprisingly stabilizing force across the wasteland, even as its stranger practices unsettle those who encounter them for the first time.
At its best, the Church preserves pre-Fall cultural memory, creates heroes through active intervention, and binds communities through trade and shared narrative. At its worst, it surveils without consent, enforces orthodoxy through silent violence, and cancels entire settlements that fail to meet its standards. The moral relativism at the faith's core means that neither good nor evil defines the Church. Only the story matters, and stories, as any Showrunner will tell you, require both heroes and villains to hold the attention of the Viewing Audience.
The faith revolves around the recovery, interpretation, and channeling of the Signal into what adherents call Holy Power. Television is not entertainment to the faithful; it is scripture. Pre-Fall broadcasts are sacred texts. Commercials are prayers. The act of watching (the Viewing, as the Church calls it) is the central spiritual practice, though what the faithful watch is not limited to screens. Members observe the world itself through the lens of narrative structure, interpreting the events around them as episodes in an ongoing story authored by forces beyond mortal sight. The Viewing Audience, a theological concept simultaneously describing the faithful masses and a kind of ethereal council weighing the events of the world, watches and judges all.
Every member of the Church selects a Protagonist: one or two individuals whose lives the faithful actively "write" into a heroic narrative. The chosen Protagonist may or may not be aware they have been selected. This practice sits at the intersection of devotion and manipulation; the faithful see it as an act of spiritual creation, shaping the stories of the wasteland into something worthy of the Viewing Audience. Outsiders sometimes find the implications unsettling. Someone is always writing your story, and you may never know it.
The Church's motto, "Trade between people is all that separates us from the undead," reveals a pragmatic streak running beneath the theology. Commerce is sacred. Merchants are respected. The faith promotes trade networks as a spiritual imperative, binding communities together through exchange in a world that would otherwise fragment into isolated pockets of survival. This emphasis on commerce has made the Church a surprisingly stabilizing force across the wasteland, even as its stranger practices unsettle those who encounter them for the first time.
At its best, the Church preserves pre-Fall cultural memory, creates heroes through active intervention, and binds communities through trade and shared narrative. At its worst, it surveils without consent, enforces orthodoxy through silent violence, and cancels entire settlements that fail to meet its standards. The moral relativism at the faith's core means that neither good nor evil defines the Church. Only the story matters, and stories, as any Showrunner will tell you, require both heroes and villains to hold the attention of the Viewing Audience.
History
The Nemesis Scriptbook Tradition
The Nemesis sub-sect operates through a system of "scripts," each one a horror narrative adapted from pre-fall Telling Visions broadcasts. A script defines the villain's premise, their signature behaviors, the type of hero who defeats them, and the moral lesson the audience should learn. Scripts originate from multiple media forms: traditional TV broadcasts, Arcadian games, Delver tabletop sessions, Broadcaster radio dramas, Book and Comic sources, and Musical performances.
Nemesis practitioners select a script and embody its villain, teaching lessons through fear and confrontation. The tradition has strict community standards: scripts must be coordinated with local Showrunners and Directors, must align with local programming, and must respect the consent of viewers. A murder-free script stays murder-free. The Great Wasteland Revival, a community-compiled scriptbook, documents dozens of these scripts ranging from lethal slashers to theatrical tropes, each catalogued with its origin type, lethality rating, and guidance for both the Nemesis performer and the community responding to them.
As one faithful from Luxury stated: "The Signal is the alpha and oh-mega, not demographics." Anyone can be the hero of a script regardless of strain, faith, or background. The Nemesis tradition functions as both religious practice and community theater, with the horror genre serving as the vessel for moral instruction.
Tenets of Faith
The Church of the Telling Visions organizes its belief around seven tenets, each carrying the cadence of broadcast liturgy and the weight of theological law.
The first tenet establishes the Signal's primacy: "There is the Alpha and the Ohm-mega. The Signal is the beginning and the end." This is not poetry. The faithful hold the Signal as a cosmological constant, the carrier of the Sponsor's will from before the Fall and beyond the present day.
The second commands the faithful to collect the lost relics of the Telling Visions and to always quest to find the Signal. Pre-Fall televisions, broadcasting equipment, recordings, and anything connected to the transmission of images and sound are holy artifacts. Their recovery is an act of devotion.
The third tenet demands respect for merchants and obedience to the words of their Sponsors. Commerce and faith intertwine here; trade is not merely practical but sacramental. The Sponsors (a term layered with theological resonance beyond its commercial origins) speak through the exchange of goods, and the faithful are expected to listen.
The fourth instructs adherents to watch and follow the stories of the Telling Visions, learning from their enigmatic ways. The act of interpretation is the core discipline. Debating the meaning of recovered broadcasts, arguing over narrative arcs, and applying the lessons of pre-Fall stories to wasteland survival are not idle pastimes but spiritual exercises.
The fifth tenet is perhaps the most distinctive: "Do not allow others to witness your prayers without having them pay-to-view." The sacred is not given freely. Access to the mysteries of the Signal carries a cost, and that cost reinforces both the faith's economic philosophy and its hierarchical control over spiritual knowledge.
The sixth demands destruction of those who would impede the great Signal. The faithful are not pacifists. Threats to the Signal, whether physical, ideological, or spiritual, are met with force.
The seventh requires every member to carry a piece of Holy Wood upon them as a sign of faith. The term resonates on multiple levels: a fragment of the mythical island, a splinter of devotion worn close to the body, and a constant reminder that the faithful walk the path toward the Signal's restoration.
The first tenet establishes the Signal's primacy: "There is the Alpha and the Ohm-mega. The Signal is the beginning and the end." This is not poetry. The faithful hold the Signal as a cosmological constant, the carrier of the Sponsor's will from before the Fall and beyond the present day.
The second commands the faithful to collect the lost relics of the Telling Visions and to always quest to find the Signal. Pre-Fall televisions, broadcasting equipment, recordings, and anything connected to the transmission of images and sound are holy artifacts. Their recovery is an act of devotion.
The third tenet demands respect for merchants and obedience to the words of their Sponsors. Commerce and faith intertwine here; trade is not merely practical but sacramental. The Sponsors (a term layered with theological resonance beyond its commercial origins) speak through the exchange of goods, and the faithful are expected to listen.
The fourth instructs adherents to watch and follow the stories of the Telling Visions, learning from their enigmatic ways. The act of interpretation is the core discipline. Debating the meaning of recovered broadcasts, arguing over narrative arcs, and applying the lessons of pre-Fall stories to wasteland survival are not idle pastimes but spiritual exercises.
The fifth tenet is perhaps the most distinctive: "Do not allow others to witness your prayers without having them pay-to-view." The sacred is not given freely. Access to the mysteries of the Signal carries a cost, and that cost reinforces both the faith's economic philosophy and its hierarchical control over spiritual knowledge.
The sixth demands destruction of those who would impede the great Signal. The faithful are not pacifists. Threats to the Signal, whether physical, ideological, or spiritual, are met with force.
The seventh requires every member to carry a piece of Holy Wood upon them as a sign of faith. The term resonates on multiple levels: a fragment of the mythical island, a splinter of devotion worn close to the body, and a constant reminder that the faithful walk the path toward the Signal's restoration.
Sects
The Church of the Telling Visions expresses its theology through five internal divisions, each embodying a distinct interpretation of the Signal's purpose.
The Nemesis embraces the dark side of narrative. Where the main body of the Church cultivates heroes, the Nemesis devotes itself to villains, horror, and the stories that make audiences look away. Its adherents are evangelists of fear, and they operate under strict internal rules that prevent them from actually hunting members of the Vision. A Protagonist claimed by the Nemesis is considered cursed by the rest of the faith. The sect functions as both a theological counterweight and a controlled release valve for the darker impulses the Church acknowledges but does not wish to see running unchecked.
The Nielsens are the faith's secret internal affairs division: approximately one hundred agents who never announce themselves. They infiltrate congregations, observe settlements, and assess whether communities are living up to the Signal's standards. If a settlement "tests poorly" in their assessment, it may be eliminated entirely. The word "cancelled" carries a very specific and very final meaning within the Church, and the Nielsens are the ones who deliver the verdict. Their existence is the faith's most potent enforcement mechanism, precisely because no one knows who among the faithful might be watching.
Standards and Practices occupies the most unsettling space within the Church's hierarchy. Heralded by jet-black ravens, its members wear black jumpsuits and faceless black masks. They move collectively. They never speak. When Standards and Practices arrives, orthodoxy has already been violated and judgment has already been rendered. The enforcement is brutal, methodical, and impersonal. Whether this arm operates under the direction of the Station Heads or answers to some deeper authority within the faith is a question most members of the Church have learned not to ask.
The Arcadian Heresy maintains that pre-Fall civilization learned to bend images on screen and manipulate the Signal directly. Adherents take a hands-on approach with their Protagonists, keeping detailed spreadsheet "stats" on their chosen subjects and tracking their development with an obsessive precision that the mainstream Church finds both fascinating and doctrinally suspect. Whether the Arcadians are visionaries who understand the Signal's deeper mechanics or heretics who have confused the message with the medium is a debate that has not been settled.
The Spotlight rejects passive observation entirely. Where most of the Church watches from the sidelines, shaping narratives through subtle intervention and theological interpretation, the Spotlight eschews watching in favor of personal heroism. Its members believe that the finest story is one you live rather than one you write for someone else. They create heroes through direct action, and their willingness to step into the narrative rather than orchestrate it from outside makes them both admired and distrusted by other sects.
The Nemesis embraces the dark side of narrative. Where the main body of the Church cultivates heroes, the Nemesis devotes itself to villains, horror, and the stories that make audiences look away. Its adherents are evangelists of fear, and they operate under strict internal rules that prevent them from actually hunting members of the Vision. A Protagonist claimed by the Nemesis is considered cursed by the rest of the faith. The sect functions as both a theological counterweight and a controlled release valve for the darker impulses the Church acknowledges but does not wish to see running unchecked.
The Nielsens are the faith's secret internal affairs division: approximately one hundred agents who never announce themselves. They infiltrate congregations, observe settlements, and assess whether communities are living up to the Signal's standards. If a settlement "tests poorly" in their assessment, it may be eliminated entirely. The word "cancelled" carries a very specific and very final meaning within the Church, and the Nielsens are the ones who deliver the verdict. Their existence is the faith's most potent enforcement mechanism, precisely because no one knows who among the faithful might be watching.
Standards and Practices occupies the most unsettling space within the Church's hierarchy. Heralded by jet-black ravens, its members wear black jumpsuits and faceless black masks. They move collectively. They never speak. When Standards and Practices arrives, orthodoxy has already been violated and judgment has already been rendered. The enforcement is brutal, methodical, and impersonal. Whether this arm operates under the direction of the Station Heads or answers to some deeper authority within the faith is a question most members of the Church have learned not to ask.
The Arcadian Heresy maintains that pre-Fall civilization learned to bend images on screen and manipulate the Signal directly. Adherents take a hands-on approach with their Protagonists, keeping detailed spreadsheet "stats" on their chosen subjects and tracking their development with an obsessive precision that the mainstream Church finds both fascinating and doctrinally suspect. Whether the Arcadians are visionaries who understand the Signal's deeper mechanics or heretics who have confused the message with the medium is a debate that has not been settled.
The Spotlight rejects passive observation entirely. Where most of the Church watches from the sidelines, shaping narratives through subtle intervention and theological interpretation, the Spotlight eschews watching in favor of personal heroism. Its members believe that the finest story is one you live rather than one you write for someone else. They create heroes through direct action, and their willingness to step into the narrative rather than orchestrate it from outside makes them both admired and distrusted by other sects.
Trade between people is all that separates us from the undead
A post-apocalyptic faith built on pre-Fall television as scripture, the broadcast Signal as divine voice, and the belief that when humanity stopped watching, the world ended.
