Rhetors

First Appearance and Context

Rhetors are named within outsider stories and in avout reviews of Iconography, where they serve as a stock figure for how the mathic world is imagined from the Sæculum. During an Apert-day conversation about the legends surrounding the Incanter, a glib popular account paired the two, and it was noted that such myths were shaped in the period leading up to the Third Sack.

Roles/Actions and Affiliations

In popular portrayals, Rhetors are cast as the adversaries of the Incanter. One oft-repeated, fictionalized explanation claims that Rhetors “change the past,” in contrast to Incanters who “change the future.” Within iconographic summaries used for avout training, outsiders describe Rhetors as masters of persuasion who allegedly use Unarian maths to recruit and groom minions, placing them into civic roles as Burgers in the Sæculum. These are studied as outsider caricatures, not endorsed as fact.

Relationships

• Commonly positioned as the counterpart to the Incanter in stories and entertainments.
• In outsider narratives, sometimes linked to Procians; avout caution that such associations blur distinctions among orders and should be treated as part of the iconography rather than established fact.

Descriptions/Characteristics

• Attributed (by outsiders) with subtle influence, word‑twisting, recruitment, and infiltration rather than open force.
• Discussed by avout as an iconographic construct—useful to recognize when engaging with the Sæculum—rather than as a recognized order with known members or rites.

Current Status/Location

No concrete organization, offices, or membership are known from reliable sources. Rhetors are treated within the narrative so far as a legend or iconography label applied in popular accounts, not as a confirmed community operating in the present.