Concent of Saunt Edhar

The Concent of Saunt Edhar is the walled setting of a mathic community built around the towering Mynster and its great clock. It stands at a river bend beneath rocky bluffs and coordinates daily life and public openings under long‑standing rules within the broader concent system.

First Appearance and Context

The concent is presented as the home ground of Decenarian avout during routine observances and as a focal point during Apert. As the opening nears its end, tables are raised for the communal Tenth Night meal beneath a vast canopy whose newmatter struts date to the founding and give off a soft, even light at dusk. After the close‑of‑Apert service, gateworks are actuated: chains move, water‑valves open, a silver thread runs along the aqueduct, and the Decade Gate grinds closed while a few spectators watch from outside; the canopy is then struck and tables folded away.

Roles/Actions and Affiliations

• Houses multiple maths and offices within its walls, including the Decenarian, the neighboring Centenarian, and the crag‑top Millenarian communities.
• Regulates contact with extramuros. Visitors—when permitted—enter by the Day Gate to observe rites and festivals; at a formal moment, the highest secular official present hands newcomers over to mathic jurisdiction by spoken oaths and the ringing of a bell.
• Maintains and couples major mechanisms: the great clock, auxiliary loads, and water‑powered works that open distant gates at Apert. The Ita tend under‑floor systems and practical arrangements. Access to the rooftop is scheduled so that only one math uses the high stair at a time.
• Discipline and penance: The Warden Regulant oversees inward‑facing order from high windows and keeps cells along an inner walkway above the chancel; sentences can confine an avout there to copy and recite prescribed texts in seclusion until examined and released.
• Starhenge access control: During a period of heightened scrutiny associated with visiting members of the Inquisition, portcullises leading to the rooftop were observed closed by day and access to the starhenge sealed; avout described this as unusual and debated its cause.
• Evocation (Voco): When the aut of Voco rings, all avout assemble for a solemn summoning and farewell. In one such instance, a Centenarian was called and, afterward, an aerocraft landed on the plaza before the Day Gate to carry away the Evoked alongside visiting Inquisitors.

Relationships

• The maths share space by long‑standing arrangement of naves and corners in the central hall, and each cohort’s routines are coordinated so that they can observe without interfering with one another.
• Outside the walls, a burgers’ town stands near the Day Gate causeway; during openings, observers gather extramuros and a controlled trickle of visitors is received intramuros.

Descriptions/Characteristics

• Site and walls: The concent nestles in the crook of a river below the terminus of a long range. Fortifications span both banks: most buildings lie inside the river bend, while a strip on the far bank carries walls and bastions.
• Gates and waterworks: Three bastions on the far bank hold the Unarian, Decenarian, and Centenarian gates. Upstream of a cataract, a pool and aqueduct feed a high‑placed pond outside the Day Gate; monumental valves can route water to systems that, at Apert, power the long‑cycle gates. A causeway crosses the pond from the burgers’ square to the Day Gate, flanked by paired fountains.
• Bridge and driveshaft: A stone‑arch bridge spans the river where a round tower on the near bank houses a cistern and water‑wheel. From there, a shaft runs across the bridge into a bastion, where gearing couples directly to the gate hinge‑pins.
• Upperworks and access: The central tower, the Praesidium, supports a rooftop starhenge—a ring of megaliths with telescopes and workrooms. A fixed all‑sky lens records meteor tracks and a quartz prism at the Pinnacle admits noon light into the hall when skies are clear. Stair access through the high towers is controlled so that only one math has the roof at a time, as scheduled by the hierarchs.

Current Status/Location

Following the closing of Apert, the gates are shut and inward routines resume. Starhenge access has been kept sealed under the eyes of hierarchs, and visiting Inquisitors have departed by aerocraft after a Voco aut.