Priests of Sound
Sub-sect of Kings and Queens Court
The Priests of Sound are the quiet guardians of a loud faith. While the rest of the Kings and Queens Court performs, creates, and celebrates, the Priests work behind the scenes to ensure the infrastructure of resonance never fails again. They view the collapse of pre-Fall communication and music technology as a catastrophe that must never be repeated, and they have dedicated themselves to preserving the knowledge and relics that once carried the Saints' songs to the masses.
Their commitment is literally skin-deep. Members tattoo schematics onto their bodies: blueprints for radio towers, sound equipment, wax recording devices, and signal transmitters. These tattooed archives ensure that even if every tool is destroyed, the knowledge to rebuild them survives as long as one Priest does. The process of creating radio receivers, transmitters, and recording media is memorized by every member and transcribed over and over for others to learn.
The Priests hoard pre-Fall sound technology with reverent care; record players, amplifiers, radios, most of them pre-1990s hardware reconstructed through the Mortis Amaranthine via the Infection. These artifacts are treated as sacred vessels of the Saints' resonance, each one a surviving fragment of the world that was. The Priests operate discreetly, avoiding the spotlight, believing their work is most effective when conducted out of sight. Their presence is rarely felt, but their absence would be catastrophic.
Nowhere are the Priests of Sound given more room than in the Holy City of Vestige. Threaded through the Hall of the First Chord and the wider Empyrean, the Aysea branch works at a scale few other settlements could sustain, serving as archivists, recordists, restorers, and arbiters of what the city remembers with precision rather than guesswork. In their workshops, ring-and-spring microphones hang over the performance floors and recording needles cut shellac resin packed with cotton filler, while the artifact galleries pass relics of the Fall's last generations through their hands for restoration and ritual use. That labor gives them genuine political weight alongside the spiritual, because their judgment helps decide what enters Vestige's sacred inheritance. Stack City prizes them, Harbormarch respects them, and Vestige leans on them most of all. Their senior figure in the city is Mickey McClean.
Their commitment is literally skin-deep. Members tattoo schematics onto their bodies: blueprints for radio towers, sound equipment, wax recording devices, and signal transmitters. These tattooed archives ensure that even if every tool is destroyed, the knowledge to rebuild them survives as long as one Priest does. The process of creating radio receivers, transmitters, and recording media is memorized by every member and transcribed over and over for others to learn.
The Priests hoard pre-Fall sound technology with reverent care; record players, amplifiers, radios, most of them pre-1990s hardware reconstructed through the Mortis Amaranthine via the Infection. These artifacts are treated as sacred vessels of the Saints' resonance, each one a surviving fragment of the world that was. The Priests operate discreetly, avoiding the spotlight, believing their work is most effective when conducted out of sight. Their presence is rarely felt, but their absence would be catastrophic.
Nowhere are the Priests of Sound given more room than in the Holy City of Vestige. Threaded through the Hall of the First Chord and the wider Empyrean, the Aysea branch works at a scale few other settlements could sustain, serving as archivists, recordists, restorers, and arbiters of what the city remembers with precision rather than guesswork. In their workshops, ring-and-spring microphones hang over the performance floors and recording needles cut shellac resin packed with cotton filler, while the artifact galleries pass relics of the Fall's last generations through their hands for restoration and ritual use. That labor gives them genuine political weight alongside the spiritual, because their judgment helps decide what enters Vestige's sacred inheritance. Stack City prizes them, Harbormarch respects them, and Vestige leans on them most of all. Their senior figure in the city is Mickey McClean.
Public Agenda
Ensure the resonance of the Saints never fades by preserving the knowledge and relics of pre-Fall sound technology. Members serve as living archives, tattooing schematics onto their skin and hoarding sacred artifacts to guarantee that the means to carry music across the wasteland can always be rebuilt.
History
The Priests of Sound emerged within the Kings and Queens Court from members who viewed the loss of pre-Fall communication and music infrastructure as a tragedy that must never be repeated. They formed a secretive subsect dedicated to collecting, restoring, and understanding the technological means by which the Saints' songs once reached the world. Their practice of tattooing critical schematics onto their bodies transformed them into living archives, a safeguard against the permanent loss of the knowledge needed to preserve the faith's resonance.
The earliest records describe the Priests of Sound as a monastic priesthood originating from a place known as the First Temple of Sound in Old York. They were an order of combat-focused religious leaders for the Kings' Court who traveled the wastes to collect artifacts of music and broadcast. Tattooed on the skin of each Priest of Sound were instructions for communities to build radio relay stations as well as radio receivers. These tattoos were called the Sigils of Creation.
Each Priest traveled until their radio no longer heard the broadcasts of the surrounding towers. When a Priest found a dead spot, they searched for the closest suitable refuge for a new tower. Once established in a settlement, the Priest got to work building a new shrine and preaching the passions and sonnets of the Kings and Queens to the locals. After a temple had been established, the Sigils of Creation were tattooed on a newly chosen Priest of Sound, who was then sent into the wastes to build a new home.
Corebook Era
The earliest records describe the Priests of Sound as a monastic priesthood originating from a place known as the First Temple of Sound in Old York. They were an order of combat-focused religious leaders for the Kings' Court who traveled the wastes to collect artifacts of music and broadcast. Tattooed on the skin of each Priest of Sound were instructions for communities to build radio relay stations as well as radio receivers. These tattoos were called the Sigils of Creation.
Each Priest traveled until their radio no longer heard the broadcasts of the surrounding towers. When a Priest found a dead spot, they searched for the closest suitable refuge for a new tower. Once established in a settlement, the Priest got to work building a new shrine and preaching the passions and sonnets of the Kings and Queens to the locals. After a temple had been established, the Sigils of Creation were tattooed on a newly chosen Priest of Sound, who was then sent into the wastes to build a new home.
Secretive guardians of pre-Fall sound technology within the Kings and Queens Court, serving as living archives of the Saints' legacy.
