Sæcular Power

First Appearance and Context

Avout refer to the Sæcular Power when contrasting life within the walls to the outside world. In a witnessed aut at the Concent of Saunt Edhar, distinctive bell changes announced Voco — the rite by which the Sæcular Power calls avout into its service. During that assembly a sealed note was opened and six names were read, and sirens and engines were heard outside the Day Gate as those named departed.

Roles and Actions

• External authority outside the Discipline of the Avout; its remit is over the Sæcular world and its institutions.
• Issues formal calls through Voco, by which a fraa or suur is Evoked from a math to perform praxic work.
• Voco may proceed with or without officials of the Inquisition present; in the observed six‑name service, no Inquisitors appeared.
• Some avout infer that it discourages mathic investigation of a certain object in the sky; within the concent this is presented as opinion linked to disciplinary action against a fraa, not as established fact.

Relationships and Interfaces

• With the Sæcular: It is the authority under which Sæcular people live; its symbols and sirens are noted extramuros at the gates.
• With concents: Interacts with mathic communities chiefly via formal rites in the Mynster, notably Voco at the Concent of Saunt Edhar.
• With hierarchs: Communications arrive in sealed form and are read during auts; the community treats the naming as a solemn, effectively final departure for those Evoked.

Descriptions and Characteristics

• Usage and tone: Avout speak of it as a changing, outside authority whose “organs” or bureaus act in the world beyond the walls.
• Signals and presence: Bell patterns in the Mynster herald its calls; on notable occasions outside vehicles and sirens are audible beyond the Day Gate.

Current Status

Active and engaged with the maths through established rites. Most recently observed at Saunt Edhar in a service where six avout were named in a single Voco and departed immediately thereafter.